Emma Shapplin crashes and burns in Haifa
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Music, Pop Culture
Usually, when touring musical acts make their way to Israel, they rise to the occasion and put on a stellar show. Just look at Paul McCartney, Faith No More, Leonard Cohen – despite the lofty price tags, they delivered with consumately professional concerts that left audiences thrilled.
But there’s another kind of concert thrill – the train wreck. Even more surprising is the train conductor in this case – French pop soprano Emma Shapplin, who launched a world tour last week with two shows, in Haifa and Tel Aviv.
Now we’re not talking about someone who you’d expect to be erratic, like grungy Pete Doherty. Shapplin has a distinguished track record of dazzling performances featuring spine-tingling vocals. Her 2003 show in Caesarea was so outstanding that she released it as a live album and DVD.
However, she’s had a few years between albums, and when I talked to her a few weeks ago, she seemed somewhat hesitant about rushing out to perform her new album Macadam Flower ahead of time.
“When we received the offer to do these two shows, I thought, ‘well, it’s a bit premature. The album isn’t finished yet, we haven’t started rehearsing,’” she said.
It turns out that Shapplin’s apprehensions were well justified. According to a review in The Jerusalem Post of the first night’s show by my colleague, Amanda Borschel-Dan, Shappelin was like a deer in the headlights.
Aside from obvious technical difficulties with microphones, etc., Shapplin was confused, forgetting words and musical phrases, once to the point of restarting a number twice and waving away the accompanist who was playing “a different arrangement… why did Shapplin decide to perform a series of classical soprano arias when she was obviously under-prepared?
While the concert-goers were justifiably unsatisfied with the performance, I found myself thinking that it was refreshing to see someone screw up in public. We’re so conditioned to perfection that any blemishes are considered to be horrible miscues and an affront to art. On the contrary, false starts, flubbed cues, and unreached notes are performance art at its most riveting.
Shapplin may have had an off night, or maybe she’s fallen off of her pedestal and is just showing her humanity. Rather than booing her, audiences should be embracing her flaws as well as her talent.
Israel touts its own little mermaid
Filed under: A New Reality, Environment, General, Life, Travel
I’ve found lots of things in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Israel over the years: a school of tomatoes floating ashore that had been dumped off a ship, assorted discarded rubbish, an abundance of jelly fish, and I even found a pair of my own sunglasses I had lost an hour before stuck in the sand (definitely a case of finding a needle in a liquid haystack).
But I’ve never spotted a mermaid – that mythical sea creature who I always envision to be a cross between Ariel in Little Mermaid and Daryl Hannah in Splash. And it’s a shame, because evidently I could be $1 million richer.
Whether it’s summer boredom or indeed there’s something out there, there have apparently been a number of mermaid sightings off the coast of Kiryat Haim, near Haifa. The town council is taking the rumors so seriously – or is taking the possibilities of becoming a major tourist attraction so seriously – that they’re offering the million to anyone who can provide proof as to the mermaid’s existence.
The mermaid, who is visible only at sunset, has already drawn lots of locals with cameras hoping to capture the friendly fishwoman in actions.
“Many people are telling us they are sure they’ve seen a mermaid and they are all independent of each other,” council spokesman Natti Zilberman told Sky News. “People say it is half girl, half fish, jumping like a dolphin. It does all kinds of tricks, then disappears,” Zilberman said.
The council denied its offer of a reward was a publicity stunt, but said it hoped to nurture the mermaid as something which could bring in more tourists.
Asked if the council can afford the payout, Zilberman said, “I believe, if there really is a mermaid, then so many people and tourists will come to Kiryat Yam, a lot more money will be made than $1 million.”
Whether there really is a mermaid out there, or it’s all just a fish story, it’s just another good excuse to head out to the sea on these hot August nights. Me, I’m hoping to spot Tom Hanks.
Israel Celebrates “Earth Day” Today Only Tomorrow, With Lights Out, Beach Cleaning, Concerts and Green Awards
(Photographer Yuval Chen spent almost two years snapping shots of hedgehogs in Tel Aviv’s urban landscape. For more see ISRAELITY).
Celebrated since 1970, Israel is for the first time celebrating Earth Day nationally. They didn’t put their lights out for an hour a few weeks ago to mark Earth Hour (there was a big football game after all), but plan to mark Earth Day, today, with full respect. Take note that other Middle Eastern countries like Jordan did mark Earth Hour.
With most Earth Day events held in Israel tomorrow, on April 23, reports Haaretz, lights out will be the central event, where cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem will turn their lights out from 8 to 9 pm in a bid to raise awareness about energy conservation.
A concert at Rabin Square featuring the Balkan Beat Box and more will celebrate Earth Day, and rumor has it the event will be powered by human cyclists and biodeisel, in a similar style to last year’s Earth Event as Karen reported.
Israel joins other cities around the world who will turn their lights off for the green cause. The United Nations has ruled that the event be marked worldwide. Read more
On the road again in Israel
Filed under: General, Holidays, Israeliness, Life
Here we are in ‘hol hamoed’ – the intermediate days of Pessah – when most of the country is on vacation and competiting for the plethora of recreational activities and events available for such a small country.
We weren’t sure what to do this year – with a number of options open to us. Last year, we had a great time going to the Hermon Field School near Kiryat Shmona in the North with a big group of families. They’re going back for a few days beginning on Sunday. And even though the price is reasonable for the accomodations and food, an Israelity salary just doesn’t go that far anymore so we regretfully had to decline a return trip.
Another group of families is going camping at Dugit Beach along the eastern shore of the Kinneret. We joined them a couple years ago and had a great time, despite the trance party that took place one night beginning at midnight on the adjacent beach which gathered steam until about 6 am.
We considered that, but something that we hope will be even more fun came along. Friends of ours from Jerusalem are doing a house swap with a family from Zichron Yaakov, the delightful coastal town a bit south of Haifa. The house is evidently huge, large enough for two families, so they invited us to join them.
Zichron is a perfect location – close to the beach, a multitude of great hikes, the artist colony of Ein Harod, and Haifa itself, which is a great city to explore. But in reality, you never even have to leave Zichron – full of quaint shops, cafes and wineries, it’s one of Israel’s jewels.
Nothing like leaning back in a lounge chair in the patio of our palatial mansion with a good book, and cracking open a beer… oops, scratch that, forgot that it’s Pessah.
See you on the road with the rest of Am Yisrael.
Human body parts invade Haifa
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Medical Breakthroughs, Technology
Wherever it’s been exhibited since it debuted in 1995, Body Worlds by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens has generated loads of controversy. So why should Israel be any different?
For the uninitiated, Body Worlds is a traveling exhibit of plastinated human specimens created by German anatomist Gunther von Hagens. Plastination, a technique patented by von Hagens in the late 1970s, creates durable, life-like anatomical specimens by replacing the fat and water in human body parts with plastic. Over 26 million people have seen the exhibit around the world, and now it’s having its Israeli debut on April 6th at the Madatek Science Museum in Haifa.
According to a museum spokesman, the exhibit is scientific and educational – designed to educate laymen about the human body, which will leadi to better health awareness.
The problem is that the bodies in the exhibit contain actual human body parts – donated by individuals before their deaths – which has raised the rackles of religious groups wherever it’s been displayed.
There’s pretty clear-cut laws about dead bodies in Judaism – they have be buried as quickly as possible out of respect to the dead – and displaying parts of them in a museum is definitely a no-no.
Haifa’s Chief Rabbi Shear Yeshuv Cohen said he’s not going to initiate any formal protests, but he’s urging a boycott of the exhibit. And knowing when they have a cause to fight about, it’s likely the local haredi population (in Haifa, it’s pretty small – maybe that’s why they chose the northern city to host the exhibit) will come out to protest the opening.
To add more tabloid elements to the mix, the macabre former king of pop Michael Jackson, has evidently approached von Hagens about getting plastinated at the end of his days. And no story would be complete without a Holocaust angle. German magazine Der Spiegel, revealed a couple years ago that von Hagen’s father was in the SS during WWII.
All in all, a perfect story to take our minds off of Gilad Schalit, and the endless coalition talks.
Victims donating to victims
Filed under: A New Reality, Israeliness, Life, Politics, War, coexistence
Throughout the recent Gaza war and its ongoing aftermath, Israelis and Palestinians have been trying to paint themselves as “the real victims” and the other side as “the real perpetrators.” But if we’re all victims, then how can we possibly take responsibility for war spearheaded by our leaders? And if we’re all perpetrators, then why would we care?
The fact is, Operation Cast Lead has meant horrible levels of destruction for the infrastructure and people of the Gaza Strip, destruction which could have been avoided if Hamas hadn’t hidden behind the human shield of one of the most densely populated areas in the world. And as we’ve seen on ISRAELITY before, just because Israelis support our government’s recent war against a terrorist regime that’s been shooting rockets at us for years doesn’t mean that we’re numb to the damage done.
Two grassroots activists are trying to organize Israeli sympathy into material support for Gazan families whose lives and homes were recently under severe fire by the region’s military superpower. 27-year-old peacenik Lee Ziv and Sapir Academic College 25-year-old student Hadas Balas (pictured, doubling as a not-so-shabby singer-songwriter) decided to collect clothing, bedding, nourishment and other essentials from donors to bring them in to Gaza.
Ziv spoke with the Jerusalem Post this week:
“There is no connection to politics,” said Ziv. “We don’t represent a side, we just see an immediate need for blankets for people who have nothing to cover them at night and milk for infants who have nothing to eat.”
Since a short radio interview on Sunday morning, Ziv said her phone had been ringing off the hook. “Within two minutes of the interview, I had 40 voice messages. The response has been overwhelming. Schools have called asking how they can help. A father called who had three sons serving in the IDF in Gaza. A woman called who had a mortar fall on her house.”
The duo thought they’d be bringing one or two truckloads of supplies in today, but thanks to the viral snowball of their email campaign, media interest like the radio interview last week, and the bandwagoning on their efforts by some key human rights organizations, the donations have been so numerous that they’re spearheading a fleet of 10 full trucks.
According to coverage in Haaretz, the duo has accomplished this feat thanks to key help from organizations like Hashomer Hatzair in Jerusalem, Beit Hachesed in Haifa and Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the Qassam-battered community which has offered up its warehouses as a depot for the donations.
More information on donating to the operation can be found here.
Googling for Flu
Fewer Americans may get the flu this year – thanks to technology developed in Israel. Notice I didn’t say “medicine” or “vaccine,” but technology – in the form of Google Flu Trends (http://www.google.org/flutrends/), developed at the Google research and development center in Tel Aviv.
Google Trends lets you see how often a search term is entered into the Google “omnibox” across various regions of the world, and in various languages. The idea behind Flu Trends is to give people in specific regions a heads up on whether their area is set to be invaded by flu bugs. An uptick in searches for flu-related information, like symptoms and medications, would indicate that the disease is beginning to take hold in a particular area, according to Google’s blog (http://tinyurl.com/5lxh9v).
“Our team found that certain aggregated search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. We compared these aggregated queries against data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we found that there’s a very close relationship between the frequency of these search queries and the number of people who are experiencing flu-like symptoms each week. As a result, if we tally each day’s flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness,” the blog says.
While most people don’t even realize that Google has a presence in Israel, the fact is the company has two development centers here – one of the few countries in the world to be graced with such an honor, and an indication of how highly Google values Israeli researchers and engineers. Yoelle Mark, heado of Google’s Haifa R&D center (the other one is in Tel Aviv), who spoke at a recent Google conference here. Trends was largely developed in Haifa.
But it turns out that Google has been not only using made in Israel tech – its whole identity could be considered to have been created here, according to this article in Haaretz. Artist Ruth Kedar designed the famous Google logo ten years ago while she was at Stanford in California. According to Kedar, the logo’s simple look is deceptive, hiding its complex layers. “Someone who sees the logo for the first time doesn’t necessarily need to absorb all the layers and considerations behind every decision – it’s better for him to discover something new every time,” the article quotes here as saying.
“It somewhat amuses me to turn on the computer and look at the logo I designed. But it also fills me with pride,” she said. “When you say Google to people today, they immediately see the colorful logo.”
Focusing in on Haifa
Funny what a difference two years makes. In the throes of the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006, the northern Israeli city of Haifa is thriving once again. And the proof in the pudding is the 24th Haifa International Film Festival, which is running during the Succot holiday from October 14-21 at the Haifa Cinematheque.
In addition to featuring over 150 films from all over the world, the festival is hosting guests like Jeanne Moreau, star of Truffaut’s Jules et Jim, director Paul Schrader, British actress Kelly Harrison, and Joseph Fiennes, best known for starring in Shakespeare in Love. Fiennes’ latest movie, Spring 41, was directed by Israeli Uri Barbash and is being screened at the festival. Moreau appears in Amos Gitai’s Plus Tard Tu Comprendras (One Day You’ll Understand), a movie about a woman who has kept her past as a Holocaust survivor a secret from her children, and she’ll receive an award at the festival.
The festival opened on Tuesday with the Israeli premier of Woody Allen’s latest offering Vicky Cristina Barcelona, starring Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem. Original reported stated that the Woodman would be attending the opening, but alas, it was not to be.
Homegrown talent Ayelet Zurer, known internationally for her role in Steven Spielberg’s Munich, will attend screenings of her new movie, Fugitive Pieces, about a child whose family is killed in Nazi-occupied Poland and grows up longing for his lost sister.
And among the seven Israeli feature films being screened is Castles in the Air, Broken Wings’ director Nir Bergman’s look at a family gathering for their parents’ 35th wedding anniversary. Two films focus on the host city of Haifa and the effects the war had on it – Oren Gvili’s Secured Space looks at how that conflict affects a couple trying to hold its wedding, and Tamar Glezerman’s The Other War follows three women during that conflict.
So while it may rain on in most of the country during ‘hol hamoed’, dampening hikes and camping trips, the screening rooms at the Haifa Cinemateque will be dry, warm and full of provocative films. Thanks to The Jerusalem Post’s Hannah Brown for providing the information on the films.
Vote for Sisso
The November presidential elections in the US aren’t the only game in town. Next month will also see municipal and mayoral elections in a number of Israeli cities and towns.
Most of the attention has been on Jerusalem, where incumbent haredi Mayor Uri Lupolianski has been replaced on his party’s ticket by longtime MK Meir Porush. Just a couple weeks ago, former Shas leader Aryeh Deri was barred from competing against Porush because the timeout by law following his 1999 conviction of fraud and bribery hadn’t finished yet.
And of course, the great white hope, secular high tech candidate Nir Barkat is hoping to wrest the mayoralty out of the haredi hands. And on the side, Russian mega-rich businessman/shady character and Betar Jerusalem owner Arkady Gaydamak is also running on a ‘speak English only’ platform.
But lots of other cities and towns are also holding elections for mayors, with equally scintillating scenarios. Take the Haifa ‘burb of Kiryat Yam. The mayor there for the last 15 years has been one Shmuel Sisso. The veteran lawyer and former Israel consul general in New York been considered such a popular – or powerful – mayor that nobody had even bothered to register to run against him. That is, until just recently, Sisso’s younger cousin Alon, threw his hat in the ring.
According to a Ma’ariv report, Alon, who is running on a Likud ticket, was really only interested in gaining a seat on the local council, but national Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu advised the 38-year-old attorney to go for broke. Older cousin Shmuel, who is running under Kadima auspices, is not happy with the clan competition. Whatever the results in the Kiryat Yam mayoral elections, it will be all in the family.
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