Blogging the bloggers
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, Pop Culture
Some of the top American bloggers are currently encamped at the Sammy Ofer School of Communications in Herzliya for a two-day ‘Blogference’. Hobnobbing and trading information with their Israeli colleagues, the bloggers, including Om Malick and Jessica Coen, are also leading workshops at the conference.
Check out the list of visiting superstars here.
Following the conference, the visitors will be travelling around the country with ISRAEL21c (plug intended) for four days of exposure to hip hop, film, high tech, Arab-Jewish coexistence, our ancient heritage, and food… lots of food.
New neighbors
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture
My office in the center of Jerusalem is in a fairly nondescript 14-story building, inhabited mostly by upscale law firms. The plaza outside the building, however, is a mishmash of sleepy hair dressers, shoe repair booths, tailors, and cosmetic service storefronts, giving it a little of the feel of a ‘central bus station’ bargain basement. Not quite seedy, but you wouldn’t mistake it for Rodeo Drive.
The storefront across from the building entrance has been vacant for a while, and in the last few weeks, carpenters and painters have been busily transforming the interior into a pink-colored fiesta for the eyes. Another women’s cosmetics store, I thought, as I passed it a few times a day as it took shape.
This morning, though, I realized I had been mistaken. Behind the glass display cases, were life-sized female mannequins dressed in nighttime apparel that looked like a cross between Victoria’s Secret and Fredrick’s of Hollywood. I shared a comment with the guard in the building about this new negligee store opening up, and he said, “What negligee store? It’s going to be an adult sexual aid store.”
The elevator ride upstairs was abuzz with folks saying there should be a protest against the opening, that it’s cheapening the area, and will attract the wrong element. Another rider wondered aloud if there’d be discounts for building personnel.
Whichever side you fall on, it’s clear that the plaza outside is going to be sleepy no longer.
A rocking summer
The list of American and British rock acts coming to these shores this summer just keeps getting longer. The latest to join Iggy and the Stooges, Evanescence, Sean Paul, and Jethro Tull, are songstress Tori Amos and metal heads Megadeth.
Tori Amos and Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine – never seen on the same stage together.
And that’s without including the ‘almost’ signed, sealed and delivered Rolling Stones, and the even more dubious Britney Spears. I’ve heard people already making their deliberations – ‘if the Stones come, I’m not going to shell out money for someone else too’ – or ‘I’m going to have to choose between Evanescence and Iggy’. But the big news is that there is a choice!
Let’s just hope another untimely summer war doesn’t drive the stars away like it did last year with Depeche Mode, who cancelled a couple days before their sold out stadium show. After all, Mick and Keef are ‘street fighting men.’
I’m on fire
Filed under: General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life
The hills were alive last night with the sounds and sights of … burning, as the nation celebrated Lag Ba’omer.
Now I had never heard of this holiday before moving to Israel. And I still think it’s just an excuse by Israeli adolescents to pilfer anything remotely resembling a wood or wood byproduct, steal shopping carts from supermarkets to transport the woody stuff, and stay all out all night eating too many marshmallows – all with the sole purpose of building the tallest bonfire in history, as close to the neighbor’s home as possible.
Here’s my six-year old son with a friend in front of what looks like a horrible holocaust – and the truth is not far off…
I packed it in about 11pm, but Matan was still going strong at midnight. And if you ‘re outraged that I’d leave a 6-year-old alone at night with match-laden young maniacs, I.. um… well… there were plenty of other parents around watching him.
In fact, my wife and I hung out with the ‘Am’ (the salt of the earth folk) of our neighborhood, barbecuing chicken wings, gossiping about the municipality goings on, and basically being Israeli. In fact, I never feel as Israeli as on Lag Ba’omer… which is I guess, why it must exist.
Put your money down
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Politics, War
In most ‘normal’ countries, people have office pools or friendly bets about NFL Sunday, or the Red Sox-Yankees series. In Israel, there are pools about what date the government will fall.
Monday marks the publication date for the Winograd Committee’s interim report on the how government and military brass behaved before and during the Second Lebanon War last summer.
One gone, two to go? – Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, center, meet with former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz
We already know that the report is going to come out with scathing conclusions about Olmert, and Peretz, and Halutz, and perhaps even the pita guy down the block for not keeping up with the fresh bread demand for those stuck for a month in bomb shelters.
But what’s on everyone’s mind – and in some wallets – is will any heads roll as a result of the report?
Associated of Olmert and Peretz say that no matter how hard the commission comes down on their conduct, they won’t quit -
But there are still plenty of folks willing to give decent odds that their days are numbered, and the good people of Israel will be going to the voting booths around the same time as they had off to the beach this summer.
Just for the sporting sake of it, put in you two cents here free of charge, and let us know not if you think there should be resignations (we don’t really care about your political opinions), but if you think there WILL be any resignations.
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