The Idea of Blogging at Key West

Besides for being a basatardization of a great American poem (I'm tired of hyperbole - it's not the greatest, or even one of the greatest American poems - although there as a time when I'd have called it that), and a great idea (I really would love to be blogging in Key West right now, instead of in this frigid city), I thought it would be a nice idea to think about the idea of blogging.

I mostly started actually posting on this blog to give myself another chance to talk about myself. I mean, now, when the subject comes to the Internet, or when people talk about blogs, or when there's a lull in the conversation in general, I can say "oh I have a blog" "I talked about that on my blog" or "did you know I have a blog?" And then I can make a humorous comment about how even though the blog is called bezalela, it should be pronounced bezalel a, being my first name, bezalel, and my middle name, a, and I am not confused about my gender. Then we (meaning me and those I am talking to) lapse back into awkward silence.

But then I was thinking about it. I started writing on the blog because I thought it would make me write more in general. Besides for the year and a half burst when I was writing and revising my novel, and ocassional spurts of poetry, fiction, and criticism, I haven't been able to write consistently for very long about a single thing. I thought maybe if I forced myself to write a blog that would be half serious but mostly humorous, rhetorical, or pop-philosophical (how can something be half something but mostly something else? Figure that out...) then I would be able to sit down and write other things daily as well.

But, as I soon realized, writing the blog daily wasn't going to happen either. Writing the blog became similar to the way I write in general (except I don't edit the blog; I like the stream of consciousness effect of it, and I like laughing at the stupid spelling and gramatical mistakes I made when I read it over - which I do every couple of days). By that, I mean I write my blog sometimes once a week, sometimes more than once, sometimes less. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And while I like to think the writing I spend more time on (i.e. not this) is better than this, that might not be the case. I see me in both, which is weird. How can you see yourself in writing, anyway? It's just a bunch of letters. Script, that means nothing. Except you put it together, and it means something. It's a mystery, I guess.

This isn't, as I'm sure my 3 readers (who are astute and intelligent people, which is why they read this blog) have guessed, a goodbye to blogging. I'm not going to say, the experiment failed, so now I'll give it up. The experiment did fail, but I realized that I don't really care. While I like getting paid for my writing, and I like writing fiction and poetry that I hope one day I'll get paid for, I realized writing this blog that I also like spewing my thoughts, knowing (hoping, damnit, I'll be honest and say hoping) that anyone in the world can read them and then maybe they'll understand a little kernel of the world a little better, or at least think about something, or at least smile. It isn't fiction (well, most of it isn't), and I'm not getting paid for it. But it's still fun.

Street Fairs

I think a fun thing to blog about would be street fairs. In NY, in the fall, there is a street fair pretty much every weekend (Sat. and Sunday). These street fairs include about 5 of the same thing, about thirty times. They usually go on for about 15 blocks, closing traffic to all non-pedestrians (happy for me; sad for busses and cars), and you have to walk through the whole thing, to see if you're not missing anything.

You're not. This is what is at the NY street fair: Vegetarian Falafel Stand - this is always, for some reason, the first thing I see. There are 3 of these, always. Other things in the way of food are the disgusting mozarella type sandwich thing - there are 2 or 3 of those; The sad asian smoothy place that never seems to have any customers; The Thai food for $1 place; and the huge hunks of unidentifiable meat places.

Then you have the crappy jewelery places: these are about 75% of the street fair.

Then there's the weird random things. The huge paintings that are so hideous no one would buy them. The Victorian plush psychiatrists couch. The weird metallic statue that looks like it belongs in an Adams Family movie.

Then there's the star: the diamond in the rough. This is why you search. For the one thing - it's always one thing, and it isn't always even around. It's the good store. We found it (gf and I), today. Today it was a jewelery botique, but it wasn't crappy jewelery. It was jewelery made by an Eastern European (vaguely Russian?) (maybe Ukranian?) girl and her mother. The father was there too, but his position was unclear. The daughter seemed to be in charge. When I asked for a business card (their stuff was good enough to ask for a card), the father searched around among some random boxes for about 10 minutes, while I fidgeted uncomfortably, until he decided that he would make me my very own personal business card by tearing off a piece of paper, and writing his number on it - (or his wife's; or his daughter's; I wasn't really clear on this part). Then I scurried away, throwing the paper in the next trashcan I came to. Truth is, I had only asked for the business card in the first place to be nice.

Teeth Cleaning - Redux

I don't know about you, but I sure love not being able to feel the side of my face. As I write these words, I have absolutely no feeling in the left side of my face. I bite on my inner cheek (something the dentist told me not to do) and feel nothing. Nothing at all. It's pretty great.

Here is how this happened:

I went back across the street to the dentist in order to get a "cavity filled". (The dentist is across the street from my apartment. How convenient. And scary.) Now, I don't exactly now what getting a cavity filled means, but I do know that it involves, at first, injecting a lot of novacaine into the left side of my face.

Only problem is, the novacaine, or whatever it was, didn't really do anything. And so, when the dentist asked me if I could feel my tongue when I bit it, I said yes.

"Are you sure?" she said.
"Pretty sure," I said, feeling a searing pain flash through my mouth.
"Well," the dentist said, "I think I'm just going to go ahead with the procedure anyway"

So it was, that I got to have my cavity taken out, or put in, or whatever they do with cavities these days, without the benefits of novacaine. Needless to say, it wasn't the most pleasant experience.

On the plus side, the dentist who was doing the job was very sympathetic. "I'm really sorry," she kept saying, as I screamed through the sounds of the drilling of my enamel (or whatever it is they put on teeth these days).

Then, when the procedure was over, and my cavity was magically healed, I got up. Suddenly, I realized I couldn't feel the left side of my face.

"You might feel a little numb later", the dentist said.
"I'm way ahead of you," I replied.

And so, I, now, get to bite really hard down onto my tongue and not feel a thing. Is that blood, I wonder? Gotta run...

Studio 60

Is good tonight. Really good. That is all.

Nicole Krauss

Maybe if I say Nicole Krauss a couple of times she will google herself and come to this site and I'll be able to talk to her in some sort of strange, post-modern, internety way. Nicole Krauss Nicole Krauss Nicole Krauss penis (that last one was to bring in all the people looking for gay porn sites).

Anyway, I'm going to assume I'm speaking to Nicole Krauss now, so I'll just address the rest of this post to you, Nicole.

I just recently finished your book "The History of Love". I know I'm a little late, and I'm sorry. But I really enjoyed it. Your writing, as I'm sure you've heard too many times, is wonderful. And while it can be a little cutsie at times (you know which chapters I'm thinking about), in general, it is incredibly moving.

But you know that. That's not why I'm writing to you. This is: You didn't let the book end. I hardly ever say this, ever, as I'm an impatient reader, generally, but your book was 100 pages too short. Why did it stop? I mean, I understood why it stopped, because it was cute and you had developed a neat idea and it would be hard to take it past the ending (a page for the kid, a page for the old man, these damn books don't have enough pages to add in a third character), but, come on, Nicole Krauss, you know as well as I do that you left us all hanging.

Now don't go saying that it's part of the "art". That it's the style of the book, that it's post-modern, that it's meant to leave an aura of wonder, as to what happens to, I don't know, all of the characters, after the final scene closes. You know, as well as I do, that that's a load of crap. You found a cutsie ending - an ending that worked (and the ending does work) - and you used it. Except by using it you more or less destroyed a novel that was bordering on perfection.

As someone who just recently (read: today) completed a book which also contains the word "History" in its title, I empathize with you. It took me approximately as long to write the last, thirty page chapter of my book as it took me to write the first two hundred and forty odd pages of it. Books are hard to end. Books are hard, even, to continue. God knows that I know that. But that doesn't mean we don't try. I read somewhere that you, Nicole Krauss, said that you stopped writing poetry because you were tired of trying to make the perfect poem, because, I think I'm quoting you sort of right (although I'm probably wrong), that perfection is unattainable. Well, Nicole Krauss, you had the perfect story there, almost. And then you let it hang. That was sad, for me.

In other news, if you'd like to read my book, leave me a post and I'll be happy to send it to you. Good talking to you, Nicole Krauss. I hope you are having a great night.

Decisions

I like trains. Trains are fun. For some reason, I feel so free on a train - it's like the feeling I get when I'm on a highway, driving out, just starting. But when I'm driving, the feeling usually goes away after thirty minutes or so, because I have to pay attention to the driving.

Trains aren't like that. In a train, the newness and the excitement of newness never goes away. On the train last night, I was so happy. I'm so happy when I'm travelling. It's like endless possibilities, you can stop anywhere, you can go anywhere. And even though it's not true, and even though I know it's not true, and I know that I'm going to be in New York in an hour, and that, moreover, the track only goes in one direction: south, and the train only goes to one place: the city where I'll soon be, but it doesn't matter. It's the feeling that matters.

Good Magazine - Part Two (The Upstairs)

Just when you all had given up hope of ever reading about me and RPP's further adventures at the good magazine party, I come and satisfy your thirst for all the lurid details. See, that's my style. I get you excited about something. And then I withhold. And withhold. And then you forget about it. And then I bring it up again. It's called good writing.

So, when we last left our heroes, the seductively intrepid RPP and the casually handsome BAS, we had finally crossed the barrier between good and awesome, represented in this case by the steps from the second to the third floors of the party.

The third floor was like something out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - and by that I mean the good Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, you know, the one we grew up with, not the crappy Johnny Depp one, where he overacts to compensate for the fact that he has no idea how to act, and where it's just spooky and weird, as opposed to the first one, where it's only slightly spooky, and highly weird, and all around great. Man, those little people (munchkins? doodads? what're they called) from the first one totally kick the butt's of the one little guy in the remake. But, I digress.

The third floor was a wonderland. Their were all these really cool looking people. BTW - RPP pointed this out to me afterwards - everyone there was hot. I mean really, really hot. RPP and I were by far the shortest people there - and I am pretty average, height-wise - 5'9" (which is actually exactly average). Everyone was really thin, also (RPP is good at that part). And also really attractive. I cannot emphasize this enough.

Ok, maybe I can.

Anyway, there was this really cool "piece of art" that took up a good chunk of the first corridor we went up to (which was a really wide hall, which led of to a number of side rooms). This is the one cool piece of art I mentioned in Good Magazine - the prequel. It looked like this: Have you ever been to Disneyworld? If I say this, would you know what I'm talking about? "It's the wildest ride in the wilderness!"

Know what I'm talking about?

Know what I'm referring to?

Hmm? Hmm?

Ok, this is it. It was Thunder Mountain Railroad. It was so cool. It was this huge, over-life sized diarama of a mining western canyon, with real tunnels and train tracks and everything. Except smaller. The whole mountain was maybe 12 feet high and probably 12 feet wide. It was so awesome. It was the one good piece of art in all of the building.

Oh wait, there was something else, in the next room, that was pretty awesome too. Ok, there's this photographer, that's trying to take pictures of children in New York. But wait, it's not what you're thinking (at least not what I hope you're not thinking). Here's the cutsie, non-ironic part: She's trying to take pictures of children in New York from every country on earth. Isn't that genius? Isn't that non-ironic fun? I love it. So far she's got over a hundred countries - there are only about forty or fifty, I think, left. And I'm sure they're around. One of them is Seychelles. Where I really want to go, someday.

Ok, the next room was about water. It was lame.

The next room was the "cool room". This is how I found out it was the cool room. Everyone in that room was super hot, and there was a bouncer at the door. This is another way I found out it was the cool room. The bouncer didn't let us in.

That was sad.

Then we went to the water room, so we could peek into the cool room (there was a window between the two), and pretend we didn't care that the bouncer didn't let us in.

Then we went to the party room. The party room was insane. Suddenly there were approximately a million people and crazy music. It was awesome. We left 10 minutes later.

In short, we met some good people, had some good times, and took a picture to be published at goodmagazine.com of me and RPP holding a sign that says: "Daven, like you give a damn"

Also, we got 4 packs of gum. It was a good night.

Busy...

And I promise that this won't just become a link site. But this guy is funny - I went to Brandeis with him, and he also wrote for the Justice...

Trying stuff out...

Technorati Profile

So close...

I want to take this opportunity to ask forgiveness of the three people who read this blog for anything I might have done against them, during this past year, or ever. I am really, truly sorry.

What does the Times have against Lamont?

Interesting that, now that Lieberman is destroying Lamont in the polls with a 10 point lead, the New York Times no longer sees fit to report extensively on the race. Come on, NYT. You're not doing your job! I want to be told again how great Lamont is, and on how evil Lieberman is.

Go Joe!

Regina Spektor

Riding back from Maryland with an old friend on Sunday night I got the chance to listen to a lot of music that I wouldn't normally enjoy. Most of it was good. Regina Spektor was great. I have found a new love. The song Fidelity - the one I heard in the car on Sunday night - is beautiful and moving. I don't know if people who are into music more than me know about her, but you all should. Here's a link to her website. Click on music, and then enjoy. It seems like all her albums are online for free. You won't be disappointed.

Now that you've listened, I can talk about it. She reminds me of a cross between Dido and Alanis Morissette. Her voice is simply beautiful. She goes so high, but she has the effect of whispering that Dido does so well. And the words are great. "The history books forgot about us / and the Bible didn't mention us / the Bible didn't mention us / not even once." That's from Samson.

I want to hear this woman live.

For those of you wondering where Part 2 of Good Magazine is, it'll come

Good (Great?) (Mediocore?) Magazine

So me and a friend (to preserve her anonymity, I will simply call her RPP) went to this party last week for Good Magazine. Good Magazine is a new, twenty-something-ish-type magazine which, miracle of miracles - unlike every other lame hip trendy twenty-something magazine, web-zine, tv show, rant, and blog - does not try to be ironic. God, we are so sick of irony. I am sick of you Heeb Magazine. I am sick of you, McSweeneys. I am so so so so sick of you, Dave Eggers. Go off into a cave and write another Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, because everything since then has pretty much been just Staggering.

Good Magazine is not about irony. It is about really interesting and informative, and, most importantly, non-ironic, issues. It is about being good (tm) (patent pending). It is, in a word, awesome. At least the first issue is. Really. I don't know why I am plugging them so much. They should pay me. But they don't. I'll move on.

Anywho, subscribers (as I and my loyal friend RPP are) were invited to a kick-off party in Chelsea at some super hip, trendy, and (unfortunately) incredibly ironic gallery. I thought it would be sort of casual, twenty-somethingy, so I wore jeans (gap $50) and a button down shirt (gap $50). Everything I own comes from gap and costs $50. I am non-ironic.

RPP was looking hot. But then again, RPP always looks hot.

Anyway, everyone was super over-dressed, and I felt like such an idiot, but then I didn't feel like an idiot, I felt like a guy who was waiting in line for 40 minutes to get into a party. When we finally got in, we got to see some neat weird, incredibly ironic art on the first floor of this coolish loft art gallery space. Most of the art, sucked. To be honest. There was one piece on the third floor that was really cool, though. But I'm not at the 3rd floor yet. We'll get there, in a paragraph or two.

There were a bunch of little galleries on the second floor. In one, which was really weird - one art piece was an open book - I accidentally ran into the artist, a very small probably forty-something Asian woman. After apologizing (she was only slightly bruised) we had an awkward conversation that went something like this:

Me: So, you made this stuff?
Artist: Yes.
Me: Which one's your favorite?
Artist (clearly taken aback): Um, I like that one (pointing to the far side of the room)
Me: How come?
Artist: Because it has a double meaning.
Me: You rock.

Ahh, it has a double meaning. Now I understand. I am one with the world.

Anyway, after waiting on line for about another thirty minutes to go up to the third (read: cool) floor, we finally didn't make it upstairs, because it was at capacity. Instead we found a bar downstairs and drank our sorrows away (non-alcoholically, of course).

Then, when we went back to get up to the third floor, we found it was magically free of people waiting to get up to it. We went up and had great adventures.

What were they, you ask? Well, I will tell you. But not today. At least not now. Our adventures will continue, in Episode 2, which I have cleverly titled (in advance): "Good Magazine: Part 2"

Teeth Cleaning

Has anybody else ever felt that they were drowning while having a routine dental cleaning?

I almost died today. I am sure of it. In the dentists chair. The dentist was incredibly nice. She was friendly, and although her English wasn't great I think I knew what she was trying to tell me. But then she stuck this thing in my mouth that shoots water in there. I know of this thing. I have seen it before. I have also feared it. But never before as a mortal enemy. Usually, in the past, I have been instructed, every once in a while, to rinse out the large amounts of water that this thing injects into my throat - keep in mind, I am lying back in the reclining dentist's chair, in a perfectly chokeable position - so, while the water shooting thingy (which, for no other reason than because I feel like it right now, I've decided to call a spigot), so, while the spigot has been a scary thing to my past, it has never been nefarious. But today, oh today was...different. I was never told to rinse. I was never told to spit out. Instead, I just lay there, helpless in the dentist's chair, as the water spigot filled my mouth with more and more water, which mingled with the blood from my teeth and whatever gross stuff was in there and threatened to kill me.

I ended up almost choking on my own blood and the water from the evil water spigot. Instead, I swallowed, closing my mouth as I did so. "What are you doing?" The dentist said, or I think she said. I couldn't really tell, through the choking and all. And then, "are you ok?" Either she said that or she was talking about something else, but I'm pretty sure she asked me if I was ok. "Fine," I said, causing myself to gag on what water remained in my mouth.

Which brings me to my next point: Why would anyone ever want to be a dentist? Anyone, I mean, of course, except for crazy sadistic masochistic freaks. Which my dentist, of course, was not. Especially if she's reading this. If she's reading this, I loved her very much, and look forward to being strangled - er, treated - again.

And I will be. I'm going back in a couple of weeks because, due to no fault of my own (I blame the water spigot) I have somehow developed two small cavities. And so, while my "oral hygeine is good", I "clearly never floss", (those both the words of my beloved dentist)...

Which brings me back to my original - er, second - point. Or maybe third. Why would anyone ever want to be a dentist? It's bad enough to have things stuck inside my mouth. But to have to stick things into other peoples mouths? To have to look at the insides of someone's mouth all day and to play around with metal implements in there and to tolerate onion and garlic breath and to be nice about it? I don't think so.

Bagels, Cream Cheese, Tuna Fish

You may think that two of the above three things are great together - there are some tuna on bagel people, and some cream cheese on bagel people, but there are very very (all too) few of you that would think that the three substances - all tasty delicious alone - would be tasty delicious together.

The vast majority of you, however, would be in the wrong. I have found that - for some reason, especially when I'm incredibly hungry - I desire nothing as much as a nice poppy bagel, topped with cream cheese, and bottomed with tuna (with a little lettuce and tomato to give it some extra oomph). Now, when I order the above delicacy at a bagel place, I am usually given an awkward stare by at least two people (the cashier and the guy waiting to order behind me) and sometimes by more (everyone else in the store, once). But the mix is amazing, I tell you. It is like manna from heaven. Everyone should try it, at least once.

That is all.

David Broza

I went to Jewzapallooza today in Riverside Park for the David Broza concert. I love his music - it's so chill, it makes me feel calm and alive when I hear him. This is the second time I've heard him in concert - he didn't play for so long this time, maybe 45 minutes, but I was right up front, and he sounded awesome. Looked a lot older than last time I saw him, 3 or 4 years ago, but I guess a lot has happened since then.

I didn't know about half of the songs he played, but they were all great. Mitachat La'Shamayim (under the heavens) is probably the most beautiful love song I know, in any language. I remember, every time I hear it, the one play I was in in college, when we played it during a scene where the entire cast was dancing in slow motion. It was Romeo and Juliet, and this was the scene where Romeo and Juliet first meet. We're all dancing, slowly, perfectly, and suddenly, Romeo and Juliet spot each other, from across the room (or in this case, because the play was staged outside, across the field), and move towards each other. We're all dancing, and the music is playing so softly, so slowly, and Romeo and Juliet are moving towards each other, and then they touch, just their hands, like touching a mirror.

I wasn't Romeo (or Juliet) in the play, by the way. I was the Prince. A perfect role for me.

The Broza concert, though, is what I was writing about. That song was great. And then he closed with his most famous song, Yiheyeh Tov (it will be good), which is also beautiful, but overplayed, and has become something of a modern classic Israeli peace song. I always think the narrator of the song - who keeps repeating, loosely translated, in the chorus, "It will be good, it will be good, yes, it will be good of this I swear" - is a lot like the narrator of Keats's Ode to a Grecian Urn, who constently repeats the phrase "oh happy...oh happy, happy". Indicating, of course, that things are not happy. I love that idea, that too much of something means its opposite. It's often true. With the Broza song, as well. Maybe. And I think he understands that. Maybe.

Wallace Stevens

Quick question: Does anybody know of a good biography of Wallace Stevens? I was thinking about Stevens a lot today: about his tormented poetry, about the fact that he was a lawyer and his "real" life was probably so different from the excitement and newness of his poems, and I was wondering, then, how and what his life was like.

Actually, to get into it more, I was sitting in Riverside Park with the gf looking out at the Hudson River, and it was a beautiful day, it was Shabbos (the holy Sabbath), and I looked out and up and through the trees, and suddenly was pierced by the final and beginning images of my favorite (or one of my favorite) Stevens poem - Sunday Morning, about how it's all here and now, the beauty, and we should just appreciate it. I want to quote it. Maybe I will. It's basically about forgetting about the heavenly God or gods and focusing on the here and the beauty of the earth. And I got that picture, and then, almost coterminably, into my mind came the image of a sad, lonely, lawyer Stevens, sitting at his bland, melancholy desk and staring at a brown, unadorned wall. Who knows - maybe it's true or not. I wish I knew. Thus, the Stevens biography. I wish I knew the man. He was probably very crotchety. I love his poems.

Here is the last stanza of Sunday Morning:

She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay."
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

Reckless Rites

This is a book review published today in the Jerusalem Post. With a picture of the book cover here.

That said, I'm going to try to start making this blog more about posting actual messages and words and less about putting up some of the random things that I publish. No, no I won't. I'm not really sure what I'll do.

I saw Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip's premier last night - it was pretty good. I don't think it's going to succeed - which is sad - it's sort of ridiculous that I'm getting sad that something won't succeed when it hasn't even failed yet - in fact, I don't think it's even premeired yet.

But I digress. For some reason (strangely, I think that the gods of NBC believe that you watch the premier for free, without ads, on tvguide.com, you'll watch it again, with ads, on Monday night at 10), as you can probably figure out by that aside, nbc put up the entire pilot on tvguide.com. You should check it out. Bradley Whitford (sp?) and Matthew Perry are great together - I think Sorkin realized this from the couple of episodes he had Perry do on the West Wing - which weren't great, but where the interaction between Whitford and Perry's characters was pretty strong. And having Danny Cancanan back (who the hell cares what his none West Wing name is - for me he'll always be Danny) - and playing a very Dany Cancanan like character (I'll let you see it for yourself) is always a pleasure.

I also love the self-referentiality of it all. The writer and director (both Sorkin, clearly) who both have bad drug habits they can't kick but are clearly the best in the business. Clearly. I use that word too much. The evil studio who needs Sorkin - oh, I'm sorry, who needs the main characters - but hates them just as much. It was genius, also, that Sorkin got in a huge and intense rant about the awfulness of television and could just blame it on a departing character. The show is great. I give it five episodes.

It was also great that while this was clearly meant to be NBC (Studio Sixty = SNL) someone up there who thinks all Americans are as idiotic as him or herself made sure to have a reference to another station named NBC - which the new President of this station - NBS (no similarities there) - was poached from. Wow, now I realize that this can't be NBC! What kind of idiots do they think we are?

And the greatest thing about it is, Sorkin - who probably wrote those lines, with NBC's approval in mind, knows we're not idiots. (And by we I mean the American public). He knows we're going to get it. But he also knows the higher ups at NBC won't think we will. I've missed you, Aaron.

I really like this story

well, it's not a story really. It's an appreciation of one of my favorite (but not my favorite) Agnon Novel, "A Simple Story". I wrote a story with the title a Simple Story a couple of years ago. It was published somewhere. Maybe I'll post it sometime.

The Agnon piece is here.

Poem

here