Nostalgia Sunday

July 13, 2008 - 11:02 PM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: General 

I’ve been thinking a lot about The Blaumilch Canal lately. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s summer ennui, or maybe it’s simply because they showed this classic Israeli film on cable a few weeks ago. I dunno, everything lately seems a bit Blaumilchy and it keeps flashing through my mind.
Blaumilch Canal
In the movie, written and directed by the late and very great Ephraim Kishon, a escapee from a lunatic asylum bcomes enamored of a jackhammer and, one bright day, starts digging up Allenby Street. By mid-morning, there’s a big pile of dirt jamming traffic and bothering the neighbors whose complaints spur the municipality into misguided, malicious action. Unwilling to admit they know nothing about the project, two warring city offiicals begin assisting the unplanned project in an ever-escalating show of one-upsmanship, sending in more workers, earth movers and police guards.

Meanwhile, the crazy man with the jackhammer continues steadily onwards toward the beach. When he finally reaches the Mediterranean, the floodgates open, water rushes up Allenby and Tel Aviv is declared “The Venice of the Middle East” at a grand ceremony presided over by a myopic mayor and his self-serving flunkies – who of course take all credit for having planned, overseen and executed the thing. Little do they know that in the meantime, jackhammering has commenced over at Kikar Malchei Yisrael (today’s Rabin Square).

Wikipedia has a nice summary of the movie. It’s also fun to watch because of the mod fashion, groovy soundtrack and arty editing. Check out the opening scenes on YouTube (or watch the full version):

Of course, like all works of satire, Blaumilch is intended as a parable, in this case about bureaucracy and politics. The frightening part is that, even though the movie is almost 40 years old, it still rings true today. And not just in Israel. The film’s international title was “The Big Dig”. As I’m from Boston – home of the 20 year long project of the same name which was supposed to take half that time – I can only shake my head in amazement.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sheffield Sends Coexistence

July 11, 2008 - 10:57 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Music 

Joe Cocker!As previously discussed on these pages, the summer of 2008 is shaping up as a respectable time for Israelis to see international rock shows. Acts like Dinosaur Jr. and Cypress Hill have already wowed us. Bjork and Leonard Cohen might have canceled their planned Israel concerts, but The Breeders, Macy Gray, Low, Air and even Snoop are reportedly on their way.

While many A-list names are certainly being increasingly associated with concerts here, the biggest trend seems to be for nostalgia acts – classic rock brand names that play small auditoriums and rock clubs in Europe or the US but come here and succeed in selling out amphitheaters full of Baby Boomer sabras. Hence Ra’anana gigs last week from Air Supply as well as Blondie. Deep Purple and Blood, Sweat and Tears have also recently announced that they’re headed this way in the coming weeks.

And now wall-of-white-man’s-soul pioneer Joe Cocker has entered the ring as well. The Woodstock-bred performer has just two non-North American shows booked for this summer: an environmentalism-themed festival in Germany and a coexistence-themed festival in Gilboa, set to take place on August 26 through 28.

The appropriately titled Gilboa Coexistence Festival’s program consists mostly of outdoor nature activities, seminars and Jewish and Muslim folk music performances. A Bible-Koran quiz and the two-day “Gilboa Women’s Jeep Challenge” are also on the program. According to The Jerusalem Post,

“This will be one of the biggest events ever put on in Israel promoting coexistence,” says Daniel Atar, head of the Gilboa Regional Council, “In the Gilboa, coexistence is our reality and proves that a way of life of brotherhood and equality forms a solid foundation for cooperation, understanding and mutual recognition that we believe can be established in all of Israel and beyond.”

Cocker’s last performance in Israel, at Jerusalem’s Sultan’s Pool in the fall of 1994, was certainly fun. Even if we’re talking about someone who hasn’t broken new ground since the early Seventies, how can one not enjoy mildly enthusiastic (alright – somewhat spastic in the Belushi tradition), real-time renditions of classics like “Summer in the City” and “With a Little Help from My Friends”?

Tags: , , , , , ,

The hills are alive

July 10, 2008 - 4:58 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: General, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Music 

Living in Jerusalem, and with more than my fair share of family and friends who are amateur actors, it’s not surprising that I would end up attending a generous smattering of local English language community theater. I’ve smiled through JEST performances of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Prairie Lights; considered Mercaz Hamagshimim Center Stage versions of The Vagina Monologues and Tick Tick Boom!; appreciated local Gilbert and Sullivan productions and clapped for the Hebrew University players and their annual shows.

It’s never Broadway, but then again, even Broadway doesn’t always satisfy. And there’s something to be said for seeing your loved ones on stage, singing their hearts out, acting their lines, performing for the community at large.

sound of music.jpg
But last night, I was truly astounded by a great production of The Sound of Music, produced by Yisra’el Lutnick and directed by Kim Glassman (who, in the small world that is Jerusalem, is the sister of a former camper of mine). It’s hard not to love any version of this old favorite, particularly when you can sing along to every song (“She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee,”) and even know most of the dialogue by heart. Yet this was an example of appropriate staging, fine choreography, good, strong voices and simple but significant sets that helped ‘set’ the stage for Austria, circa 1938, and all by a semi-professional cast and crew, performed at the Jerusalem Theater.

And while the play was written by Americans, set in Austria and performed by American, Canadian, Israeli, British and South African actors, the final test was in the typically Israeli applause, which is in a uniform beat, rather than the more individual clapping that you come across in the States or Europe. When you hear that kind of applause, it’s the sign of an Israeli audience expressing their appreciation for what they’ve just seen and heard. Kudos.

Tags: , , , ,

Nostalgia Sunday

July 6, 2008 - 4:06 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Art, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Profiles 

My mother’s uncle, Zvi Zinkin, was a painter. Not a famous one, except in our family lore. Dod Zvi and Doda Batya, as we knew them, were among the many eccentrics that called Tel Aviv home and made it a city like no other. They were elderly, agoraphobic, hard-of-hearing vegetarians when we met them in the 1970s, making their own watery beet juice and salt-free noodles (this was before veggie food was popular or palatable), composing poetry and melodies for Batya to dance, Isadora Duncan-style, around a living room embellished with wall murals of Zvi shaking hands with Moses, Herzl and Jabotinsky in the heavenly Jerusalem. Zvi’s true loves – Batya and the Land of Israel – were expressed through his paintings, some of which were handed down to my sisters and me.
Zvi Zinkin - Yarkon River 1
Zvi Zinkin - Yarkon River 2
One of Zvi’s recurring themes was the Yarkon River, usually depicting himself and Batya in a rowboat, or sometimes with just a solitary rower. He was also fascinated by the Reading Power Station. In these paintings, Reading’s distinguishing characteristic, the smokestack, has apparently not yet been erected.
Zvi Zinkin - Reading Power Station
Zvi Zinkin - Reading Power Station 2
Both Batya and my mother died aroud the same time, in 1975, and Zvi passed away a few years later. (I imagine the apartment went to people who scraped and plastered over the wall murals – I’ve never had the guts to go and check). My father, sisters and I managed to visit him only once, in 1976 – and it wasn’t easy to arrange. Zvi didn’t have a phone or couldn’t hear the phone – I was never clear on the details – so you had to send a postcard telling him about your plans to visit. Also, our relatives warned us that he’d become even more peculiar since Batya’s death. “He made a life-sized statue out of her old clothes and paper mache, and he talks to it,” they told my dad chillingly. “The girls will be frightened.” Actually, it was both Batya and Theodore Herzl, sitting opposite one another at the folding table, with a tape recorder of Batya playing the piano and singing. Somehow, though, it wasn’t really scary. It just was what it was: art and life, one and the same.

Tags: , , , , ,

Page 2 of 212

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap