Foto Friday – Tal Menkes’ Dreadful Delights

January 13, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Art, Blogging, design, Entertainment, Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Picture of the Week, Pop Culture, Profiles 

Tal Menkes is a copywriter at advertising agency Mccann Erickson, Tel-Aviv, Israel. In addition to his day job of penning award-winning ads, Menkes’ fevered brain works overtime several times a week to create Mutzar Ayom, a photoblog of seemingly useful yet cheerfully useless objects.

The name takes the hackneyed shopping channel phrase mutzar ha-yom, “product of the day”, and replaces it with the word ayom, meaning “horrible”. And indeed, many of the products are in fact, delightfully dreadful examples of visual wordplay.

Some of the ideas are universal in nature — others are unmistakably Israeli, for example, this toy soldier armed with mother’s cooking…

Water concentrate, as opposed to the ubiquitous sugary red mitz petel, so ingrained in the Israeli child’s psyche — and the Israeli child’s teeth!

A reversed three-fer electric adaptor…

A floor squeegee that actually gets into corners…

And my personal favorite, the real and original dubon coat.

Menkes also runs a Mutzar Ayom Facebook page in which followers are invited to comment on recent postings and share their own imaginary product ideas. Who knows, some might even make it into production — after all, if the Crembox can be an actual product fulfilling an actual need, then anything’s possible.

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Foto Friday – LunchBox cooking up a photo project

January 6, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, Blogging, design, Food, Foto Friday, General, Israeliness, Travel 

Publishing house LunchBox specializes in creating beautifully designed cookbooks that are as fun to read as they are to use. The Tel Aviv-based company is the brainchild of Ofer Vardi, established journalist and foodie, who last year published the first Israeli cookbook app for iPhone and iPad.

Israel To Go is the name of a new cookbook slated for release in the coming months. The book, says Vardi, will present kosher Israeli cuisine with recipes and artwork solicited via crowdsourcing, which is an open call conducted mainly via online social networks, such as Facebook.

Photo: Untitled - Sasha Abramowitz

Contributing artists include Tali and Jonathan Korman, graphic designers with a sideline in fashion. Their T-shirt company, Bubulu Design, features images inspired by life in Tel Aviv — like this one, Hallo Artik, which pays homage to the humble beachfront popsicle vendor.

Photo: Hallo Artik – Bubulu Design

“We are looking for photos, artwork, drawings and graphic works documenting the Israeli culinary experience wherever it is. For example, a family dinner, people cooking, children playing with food, unique dishes, a special angle or places and situations that make your mouth water. Every artist has their own take on things, and their own taste.”

Photo: Israeli Breakfast – Orit Kovatz

“Israel To Go will be published in A6 (postcard) format – small, sweet and sassy. This size allows tourist to carry the book easily in their bag or pocket and take it home as a souvenir — a delicious gift for friends and family.”

Photo: Jerusalem – Benny Sharoni

Lunchbox is still soliciting artwork submissions and while the project does not pay it does offer exposure and, of course, copies of the book. In addition, Vardi says, “We also hope to organize an exhibition with the launch of Israel To Go in bookstores.”

Photo: Dining Room – Adi Kfir

Interested artists and photographers are invited to submit according to the following specifications: 1. Files in jpeg or eps in full color (CMYK) and print quality (dpi300); 2. Vertical work size: width: 11 cm, height: 16 cm, lateral work size: width: 22 cm, height: 16 cm. 3. Contact details: First Name (English only), Last Name (English only), email address and website (if any). Works should be sent to israeltogo1@gmail.com. Deadline is January 15th.

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Nostalgia Sunday – A look way back

January 1, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, education, Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, News, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics, Pop Culture 

It’s the first day of 2012. A good day to check what was happening in Israel a decade ago, courtesy of the wonderful Wayback Machine, an online historical archive of preserved web pages going back to 1996. The Wayback Machine crawls the Internet, taking “snapshots” of websites which are added to the archive. Visitors to the Wayback Machine can then type in a URL, select a date range, and view the archived versions.

On December 16th, 2001, when Wayback Machine visited The Jerusalem Post, the headlines were concerned with an IDF crackdown on the Palestinian Authority in the wake of shelling from Gaza, a falling Cost Price Index and relations with PA Chairman Yasser Arafat. JDate was the dating site of choice for Jpost readers.

The lead story on Ynet on December 17th, 2001, (only available in Hebrew at that time), was about victims of a shooting attack. Other stories included the opening of a second McDonald’s franchise in Jerusalem and the Bank of Israel’s fight against forged checks while online messaging pioneer ICQ offered up its ultimate tip guide and Ynet ruminated over who would be its choice for Person of the Year. Cupid.co.il was the premier dating site for Hebrew-speaking Israelis at that time.

That same day, December 17th, 2001, Haaretz also ran the story about the West Bank attack victims. US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said the US had no plans to invade Iraq and Arafat called for an end to violence against Israel. (It must have been true ’cause it was in the papers!) And JCupid, the English-language version of Cupid.co.il, was offering an end to lonely singledom.

Wayback didn’t crawl Globes around January 2002. It visited Globes on November 8, 2001, at which time the financial news headlines were concerned with, among other things, the acquisition of cement block maker Ytong, the public sector workers strike and the short-lived reopening of troubled Phoenicia Glass Works. There were no dating ads; the one advertiser was a bank.

Israelity didn’t get started until 2005. When it did, it looked like this:

And what of our own Israel21c? Unfortunately, due to its archive structure, the Wayback Machine isn’t able to reconstruct its “snapshot” — good thing I made a screenshot some time ago for another posting!

The Wayback Machine is operated by the Internet Archive, which collaborates with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. It’s great fun to go in and crawl around.

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Famous folks in the land

December 11, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Blogging, Entertainment, Food, General, Israeliness, Life, Movies, News, Pop Culture, Travel, tv 

That's Mary Lynn in the center, gray sweater and oxfords

Heard a rumor the other day that Mary Lynn Rajskub, best known for her portrayal as Chloe on “24″, was just here. I first heard about it from a couple I know who claimed to ‘see’ her at Nalaga’at, the deaf-blind acting ensemble in Jaffa where one can also first dine in the dark, mimicking the experience of a blind person. Tongue in cheek, I asked how they knew they’d seen her if it was dark? But it turns out they had seen her in the lobby, and Midnight Biking Through Jerusalem recently hosted Rajskub, as well as Greg Grunberg (Felicity), Austin Nichols (One Tree Hill), Shuan Sipos (Melrose Place) and Justin Chatwin (Shameless).

Bike-riding in the Arab shuk

They’re all here with America’s Voices in Israel, and while they’re covering a fairly standard itinerary, they’ve hit some great spots, including Bayit Bagalil, rugelach in the shuk, and good eats all over the place. And they’ve all been tweeting, although Rajskub’s are the most interesting, including her comments on “epic falafel” in Sderot, washing her sins away in Tzfat, a great Shabbat dinner and, unfortunately incorrectly, drinking coffee at “Starbucks in Jerusalem.” But, of course, there is no Starbucks in Israel, as it couldn’t make it here.

And in front of Bayit Bagalil

Nevertheless, wishing them a great rest of trip and more sightings for the rest of us.

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Claire Danes tells America about Tel Aviv

December 5, 2011 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: A New Reality, Blogging, Entertainment, Israeliness, Life, Pop Culture, Travel, tv 

Sometimes the best ‘hasbara’ about Israel can be totally spontaneous and come from the most unexpected sources.

YouTube Preview Image

Actress Claire Danes appeared on the Conan O’Brien show this week to plug the pilot for her psychological thriller Showtime series, “Homeland”, which is based on the Israeli series Hatufim.

When Conan said that he had heard that some of the film was shot in Israel, Danes went off on a monologue about how great Tel Aviv is, and described it as ‘the most intense party town’ she had ever been in.

A YouTube clip – free. Dane’s comments – priceless.

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