Home & away.
February 13th, 2006 by elie
My homes… from sea to shining sea…
Israel New York
Archive for February, 2006
Roooar.
February 13th, 2006 by elie
So this is a tuition well-spent (Note: I’m not spending any).
Being back in New York is also - surprise! - making me realize something else: how much this conflict management course has changed the way I’m open, relating, speaking… it’s probably a mix of that and living in Israel in general… that I just say things that I’m thinking now, I don’t hold back as much for fear of un-pc-ness or hurting the silly undue periphery feelings (the ones that only cause drama and don’t necessarily mean anything significant). Really, because they only hold back truth and action. If people really want to be able to solve their issues, they need to release all the stupid little things eating them up and be open to a more major change, a real one, not a superficial one.
What I am saying is, I can just say all that now, fearlessly.
Desserts before dinner?!
February 13th, 2006 by elie
Courtesy of… God.
I keep wondering what I did to deserve for all of the events of the last year and a half to come so relatively easy to me, but it keeps ammounting that I haven’t done anything prior to deserve it.
So I feel I’m supposed to be a good person from now on because God gave me an advance on my paycheck.
Change for a dollar?
February 12th, 2006 by elie
I should have seen it coming, and I guess I was mislead by coming back here in the summer and everything seemingly the same in New York.
It seems, though, that nothing escapes it - change for a dollar. Or, change for The Dollar.
Maybe it’s them that are different: working hard, working too hard to enjoy themselves. Live to work, work to make money to move up and work some more. All that hippie crap you hear about it and sneer.
I am not necessarily a hippie though.
Maybe I’m different. I moved away, after all. Maybe I revolutionized or maybe I was never really here, waiting to change for a dollar. Is it weird, then, that I won’t pay my vacation days for more work to get ahead? Is it odd that I’m just so relaxed about my financial state and state of mind in general, actually? Am I the freak that knows how to chill out (relatively speaking)?
What came first - my attitude or my move? It’s both, probably like the chicken/egg story. They needed each other to grow even more confident in their positions, that I need to be in Israel because of - and for - my attitude.
Maybe the people I’ve known so long haven’t changed for a dollar. Maybe I’ve just changed away from it.
Etgar Keret in the NY Times.
February 12th, 2006 by elie
February 12, 2006
Lives
Suddenly, the Same Thing
“I just hate terrorist attacks,” the thin nurse says to the older one. “Want some gum?”
The older one takes a piece and nods. “What can you do?” she says. “I hate emergencies, too.”
“It’s not the emergencies,” the thin one insists. “I have no problem with accidents and things. It’s the terrorist attacks, I’m telling you. They put a damper on everything.”
Sitting on the bench outside the maternity ward, I think to myself, She has a point. I just got here an hour ago, all excited, with my wife and a neat-freak taxi driver who, when my wife’s water broke, was afraid it would ruin his upholstery. And now I’m sitting in the hallway feeling glum, waiting for the staff to come back from the E.R. Everyone but the two nurses has gone to help treat the people injured in the attack. My wife’s contractions have slowed down, too. Probably even the baby feels this whole getting-born thing isn’t that urgent anymore. A few of the injured roll past me on squeaking gurneys. In the taxi on the way to the hospital, my wife screamed like a madwoman, but these people are all quiet.
“Are you Etgar Keret?” a guy wearing a checked shirt asks me. “The writer?” I nod reluctantly. “Well, what do you know?” he says, pulling a tiny tape recorder out of his bag. “Where were you when it happened?” he asks. When I hesitate for a second, he says in a show of empathy: “Take your time. Don’t feel pressured. You’ve been through a trauma.”
“I wasn’t in the attack.” I explain. “I just happen to be here today. My wife’s giving birth.”
“Oh,” he says, not trying to hide his disappointment, and presses the stop button on his tape recorder. “Mazel tov.” Now he sits down next to me and lights himself a cigarette.
“Maybe you should try talking to someone else,” I suggest in an attempt to get the Lucky Strike smoke out of my face. “A minute ago, I saw them take two people into neurology.”
“Russians,” he says with a sigh, “don’t know a word of Hebrew. Besides, they don’t let you into neurology anyway. This is my seventh attack in this hospital, and I know all their shtick by now.” We sit there for a minute without talking. He’s about 10 years younger than I am but starting to go bald. When he catches me looking at him, he smiles and says: “Too bad you weren’t there. A reaction from a writer would’ve been good for my article. Someone original, someone with a little vision. After every attack, I always get the same reactions: ‘Suddenly, I heard a boom’; ‘I don’t know what happened’; ‘Everything was covered in blood.’ How much of that can you take?”
“It’s not their fault,” I say. “It’s just that the attacks are always the same. What kind of original thing can you say about an explosion and senseless death?”
“Beats me,” he says with a shrug. “You’re the writer.”
Some people in white jackets are starting to come back from the E.R. on their way to the maternity ward. “You’re from Tel Aviv,” the reporter says to me, “so why’d you come all the way to this dump to give birth?”
“We wanted a natural birth; their department here — ”
“Natural?” he interrupts, sniggering. “What’s natural about a midget with a cable hanging from his bellybutton popping out of your wife’s vagina?” I don’t even try to respond. “I told my wife,” he continues, ” ‘If you ever give birth, only by Caesarean section, like in America. I don’t want some baby stretching you out of shape for me.’ Nowadays, it’s only in primitive countries like this that women give birth like animals. Yallah, I’m going to work.” Starting to get up, he tries one more time. “Maybe you have something to say about the attack anyway?” he asks. “Did it change anything for you? Like what you’re going to name the baby or something, I don’t know.” I smile apologetically. “Never mind,” he says with a wink. “I hope it goes easy, man.”
Six hours later, a midget with a cable hanging from his bellybutton comes popping out of my wife’s vagina and immediately starts to cry. I try to calm him down, to convince him that there’s nothing to worry about. That by the time he grows up, everything here in the Middle East will be settled: peace will come, there won’t be any more terrorist attacks and even if once in a blue moon there is one, there will always be someone original, someone with a little vision around to describe it perfectly. He quiets down for a minute and then considers his next move. He’s supposed to be naïve — seeing as how he’s a newborn — but even he doesn’t buy it, and after a second’s hesitation and a small hiccup, he goes back to crying.
Etgar Keret, an author and filmmaker, lives in Tel Aviv. An English translation of “The Nimrod Flipout,” his latest collection of short stories, will be published in April by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. This essay was translated by Sondra Silverston from the Hebrew.
Neo-Zionism.
February 12th, 2006 by elie
Brought to you by Kumah.org:
I have comments, but I’ll keep them to myself. Kumah to me is complex. I know people involved heavily, and at the same time, I know people involved heavily. I know what they are thinking. I get the message.
Although, I do have to say: using Keanu Reeves as an example? Blech.
The Big N-Y-C… again.
February 11th, 2006 by elie
Oh, New York City.
I didn’t realize just how much I missed it before I left. Or at least, that it’s relative. In Israel, before I left, I was itching for a vacation anyway, and more than that, to be back in NYC for even just these two weeks.
And then the day after I landed I went to work in Manhattan at the NY office, and damn. It hit me like the cold air slapped me when I left the airport: I love NY. I miss it when I’m not here. And similarly, I miss Israel when I’m not there. Even moreso. It’s a bit of culture shock. I’m a bit different I think, but that could also be because of my degree, making me forthright and assertive in order to see results. That transformation is interesting to watch here more than Israel.
Well for now, I’m shopping to make up for alll the not-shopping I did for the last 6 months, enjoying skyscrapers and ridiculous silly politics (yes, more silly than Israeli, I daresay). Oh, and the NY Times. And driving. And red meat. And speaking Shaolin English. And I could go on and on…
Tipping point.
February 7th, 2006 by elie
So I’m leaving Israel for New York on a two week trip. Really, I got the ticket for a low low price and I’m allowed to work from home to save vacation days, so it was just a convenient way to visit my parents. After getting engaged, I needed a trip home to see my family and closest friends anyway.
And this time is different than last June, drastically: Now, my entire life is here in Jerusalem. The scales are totally tipped to Israel. I couldn’t spend much more time in NYC anyway because there isn’t much for me there anymore. All I can do is visit and - kind of be a tourist… Weird.
It just makes me feel more committed to where I am right now - in location, in career, in life. All that is good and whole is in Israel right now, except for parts of my family. It’s a new perspective to be opened up to now. Israel is now my home - political and religious connotation aside.
Bus #5
February 6th, 2006 by elie
Somehow, I have this sick obsession with bus systems intracity. I yearn to discover new routes and learn by heart the secrets of the ones I take regularly.
…maybe it’s a way to feel like I’m backpacking again without spending more than 6 shekel on the trip…
Anyways, the Jerusalem Egged system has come out with a new route - and it’s about time - the 5! It goes from the Central Bus Station to the Malkha Train Station. Very necessary.