Buried in coal in Tel Aviv
Supermodel Bar Rafaeli buried in coal in photo protest
The thought of Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli covered up is enough to make many an Israeli – not to mention on and off boyfriend Leonardo DiCaprio – cry. But covered up in coal?
That’s the idea behind a new art exhibit opening next week at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. Sponsored by Greenpeace, it’s called “Buried in Coal,” and features stark black and white photographs of celebrities up to their necks in what appear to be blackened briquettes.
The exhibit is intended “to illustrate the terrible danger of producing energy through burning coal,” says Greenpeace.
Coal is the secret polluter in much of the developed world. While most people think of the fumes discharged from cars and trucks, the coal plants that power the electricity grid are an equally noxious scourge. Israel relies on coal.
The Greenpeace show is in part a protest against a plan to build a new coal mill in Israel’s south. Greenpeace again: “The exhibit is meant to call on the prime minister to prevent the building of another mill in Israel, and promote clean energy alternatives.”
So he’s laying in the coal? In additon to Rafaeli, you can find Eurovision performers Mira Awad and Ahinoam Nini (known as Noa abroad), former education minister Yossi Sarid in a ghostly, chalky white pose, and Israel National Basketball Team coach Oded Katash.
The Jerusalem Post has more on the story along with a picture gallery.
All bets off for Eurovision
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Israeliness, Life, Music, Pop Culture
Eurovision time is almost upon us again, and as usual, Israeli hopes are running high. The on-line betting sites are listing our entry into the massively popular but unbearably kitschy song contest – Harel Skaat’s “Milim” as one one of the favorites to win the competition taking place on Saturday night in Oslo.
The boyishly good-looking 29-year-old Skaat was the runner-up of the second season of Israel’s version of American Idol, Kohav Nolad (A Star is Born) in 2004. A native of Kfar Sava, Skaat emerged from the competition with a built-in fan base which has helped his two albums, a self-titled 2006 debut and last year’s Figures, released and sold exclusively through the Aroma coffee shop chain, go gold (in Israel, that means, more than 20,000 copies sold).
While most entries in Eurovision – which launched the career of Abba back in the 1970s – are full of buffoon-like dancing, outlandish costumes, and garish music, Skaat’s approach is sophisticated and subdued. Featuring just a piano player and two background singers, he told interviewers in Oslo he wanted the song to be focus of his performance.
“This song touches me deeply. My grandfather died just days before the selections in Israel, and this gives me a very deep feeling, I feel that I’m really singing this song for him. He wanted me to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest for five years, and then he got to hear that I was going to take part in the national selection before he passed away,” Skaat said, referring to the televised contest in March in which Skaat was chosen by Israeli TV viewers.
Whatever way the results turn out, just like last year’s pairing of Ahinoam Nini and Miri Awad, Israel’s entry to Eurovision is a class act.
Get your Israeli ‘mojo’ working
Filed under: General, Music, Pop Culture, Profiles
Asaf Avidan, right, and the Mojos - comin' at ya.
All that could change with the signing this week by Sony Columbia of Asaf Avidan and the Mojos. Called by one critic ‘the lost love child of Dylan & Joplin,’ Avidan’s high-pitched, impassioned vocals, poetic lyrics, and raw blues and folk-based English-language rock & roll have made waves in the last couple years locally.
According to a press release issued by the band, Sony Columbia – the home of Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen, among others – will distribute and promote the band’s records, including re-releasing their second album, 2008’s highly acclaimed The Reckoning.
Avidan, who was a successful animator in Tel Aviv after graudating from the Bezalel School of Design, is apparently aware that the label is a good fit for his indiosyncratic style
“Sony-Columbia’s legendary logo, which decorates albums by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and countless other music icons, will now accompany our music as well,” said Avidan in the release.
”This is a dream come true for five kids from Jerusalem who grew up with great faith and love for music, and it’s almost impossible to comprehend this honor. It’s so fulfilling to see that the hard work by the band and those around it has made the impact we we’re hoping for.
”It is important to emphasize that this is but another stepping-stone in the band’s ever-building path, we have a long way to go.”
Avidan spent four years as a child in Jamaica, where his parents, both Foreign Ministry officials, were stationed, a move which he told me last year had a profound impact.
“I heard reggae all around me. I can’t say that I was influenced by it or liked it at the time. But now if you asked me my top five artists now, Bob Marley would be one of them, but not because of reggae,” he said. “It was something I realized later. What I like about art in general, it doesn’t matter the medium or the genre, is feeling that honesty, that it’s something that coming from the depths of someone’s soul. It needs to be out there – for him, not for anybody else.”
Currently in Germany, Avidan and the Mojos have spent much of the last year building up a following throughout Europe with their English language high-energy amalgam of folk, blues and rock. Their next album is slated for release in the fall, and if things go according to plan, you’ll hear about it, even if you aren’t in Israel.
Dynamic duo Ahinoam Nini and Mira Awad
Filed under: coexistence, General, Israeliness, Music, Pop Culture
Mira Awad
Ahinoam Nini
Perhaps that’s why the Israel Broadcasting Authority committee which choses Israel’s performer to represent the country at the annual pop schlock fest Eurovision Song Contest, has selected a Yemenite Jew and a Christian Arab – Ahinoam Nini and Mira Awad - to perform at the May 16th show in Moscow.
Although purported to have no political influences, the much derided song contest has always blown hot and cold with Israel – depending on whether we were the good little children of the Oslo era or the big bad guys who invaded Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, take your pick…
So what better antidote to the anti-Israel blues than to package a beautiful liberal singer with a beyond Israel’s borders reputation like Nini (known in the rest of the world as Noa) and a well regarded Israeli Arab singer and actress like Awad.
At least the two are highly regarded professionals, and a few notches above the Israel Idol caliber of our recent reps.
The two have collaborated previously on a Middle-Easternized version of the The Beatles’ “We Can Work it Out”. Whatever song they end up choosing, the coexistence message that Nini and Awad will likely offer is bound to captivate the spangle and glitter polyanna crowd at Eurovision and the millions of bored Europeans and Asians who gather around the continent to view and vote.
Count this bored boy in.
Talking heads
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, General, Politics, Pop Culture, War
Roseanne Barr - knows a Nazi when she sees one
Case one is comic Roseanne Barr, who on her personal blog, denounced Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, labeling Israel a “Nazi state.”
Stating that “The Jewish Soul is being tortured in Israel,” Barr likened Hamas to “street gangs” in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts, saying that Israel’s military campaign is the “equivalent to Los Angeles attacking and launching war on the people of Watts to kill ‘the Bloods’ and ‘the Crips.’”
Annie Lennox - Some of my best friends and ex-husbands are Israeli.
I have made my position very clear. I do not believe that there is a military solution to the situation in Gaza. I support peaceful conflict resolution, and dialogue, which HAS to take place inevitably in order to resolve the situation in any case. I do not believe that the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians will solve anything. It will only make things worse for everyone, on BOTH sides. I am posting a video from the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, who is saying EXACTLY what I have said consistently.
There has to be an absolute cease fire as soon as possible. The reason why I spoke out when I did was because at that point in time there was a tiny window of opportunity to prevent a blood bath on both sides BEFORE the ground troops went in. I have NEVER condoned suicide bombings, or the firing of missiles into Israel. I repeat…The slaughter of innocent lives on BOTH sides is abhorrent.
I am not “anti Israeli”, nor have I EVER been, and for anyone to say that I am is profoundly offensive and completely wrong.
Noa's weapon - smother them with understanding
Since that fateful day in 1994 when Rabin was murdered a few feet from me, since that awful moment, I have dedicated much of my public life to singing and speaking for peace.
I have seen the peace process rise and fall and rise like the breast of a woman breathing in the night. I have seen opportunities missed, so many missed, so many chances, so much ignorance and stubbornness and bullheadedness, so much beauty trampled under the heavy boot of pride…
And today, today I say this; we have one joint enemy, one awful joint enemy and we must all work together to eradicate it! That enemy is fanaticism my friends. That enemy is extremism in all its ugly reincarnations and manifestations.
That enemy is all men who put “god” above life, who claim “god” as their sword and shield, who claim “god” is on THEIR side. Jews, Muslims, Christians, all share this black streak. All have fallen to this destructive, horrible fanaticism at some point in their histories and the results have been devastating.
I know you are SICK of being held hostage by this demon, this ugly beast, not in Gaza, not in Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan, not anywhere!!! You are a people destined to flourish in peace! Your majestic history is overflowing with creativity, literature science and music, endless contributions to humanity, not crippling, torturing fanaticism, yelling Jihad and Shahid!
I see you sometimes, out in the streets, demonstrating with the monsters, yelling ‘death to the Jews, death to Israel!! But I don’t believe you! I know where your heart is! It is just where mine is, with my children, with the earth, with the heavens, with music, with HOPE!! You want nothing of this but you have no choice! I see through your veil of fear my brothers, through your burka! I embrace your hopes for they are mine!
And if we didn’t already have enough trouble on our hands, the Associated Press reported that 15-minute-of-famer Joe the Plumber is headed our way “to let average Joes tell their story’ about fight against Hamas.”
Joe the Plumber is taking on a new job. The Ohio man, who became famous during the US presidential campaign after asking Barack Obama about his tax plan, is heading to Israel as a war correspondent for a conservative Web site called pjtv.com.
Dubbed “Joe the Plumber” by McCain’s campaign, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher was held up as an example of an American worker who would be hurt economically by Obama’s election.
Wurzelbacher says he’ll spend 10 days covering the fighting and explaining why Israeli forces are mounting attacks against Hamas.He tells WNWO-TV in Toledo that he wants “go over there and let their ‘Average Joes’ share their story.”
Wurzelbacher later joined Republican John McCain on the campaign trail. At one stop, Wurzelbacher agreed with a McCain supporter who asked if he believed a vote for Obama was a vote for the death of Israel.
I won’t even get into the smarmy, infantile segment that Jon Stewart ran on the Daily Show about Israel, proving that you can be a satirical genius, but still be a complete idiot.
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