The Amália Lesson

Sometimes we get lucky. A dear friend working in the diplomatic community invited me and my girl to the grand opening of the Portuguese film festival in Tel Aviv. We didn’t even know what movie was to be screened, but enjoyed the port served in small glasses and the company of dignitaries wearing neckties. Israeli society is extremely informal and the attire common at events of the international community make one feel pleasantly “abroad.” Then we stepped into the theatre, the lights were dimmed and suddenly we were back home.

The film was named “Amália,” and told the story of Fado legend Amália Rodrigues. Its first scene showed a 1974 concert Rodrigues gave in Lisbon, only a few days after the Carnation Revolution was completed and the totalitarian Nova Estado regime toppled. As the singer joins her musicians onstage, the crowd erupts in protest. Someone yells: “Fascist!” another: “Your beloved Salazar is gone! What will you do now?”

Rodrigues, portrayed by the talented Sandra Barata, began singing, and I began thinking of the West Bank settlement of Ariel. In recent weeks the arts scene here gushed over the opening of the first center for the performing arts across the Green Line. Major Israeli theatres, among them the national theatre “Habima,” are scheduled to send their productions there in the coming year.

About 50 members of the Israeli theatre scene signed a letter stating that they would refuse to perform in the occupied territories. This won them plenty of disdain from the Israeli public and reprimands from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture. Quickly, this exceedingly rare act of protest by Israeli performing artists began to fall apart. Several of the signatories demanded that their names be removed from the letter, citing a “misunderstanding.”

Who's misunderstanding what? Amália Rodrigues misunderstood history. She refused to be the people’s voice against a corrupt and violent regieme. Historians now tell us that she did support dissidents in secret, and in the film she is shown bribing an official in order to free a poet friend who was taken a political prisoner. Still, in public she never said a word against Salazar and his murderous PIDE policing force. She drank chapmagne with him while others were tortured by his thugs. She could not see past the present moment to a future in which Salazar would be seen worldwide as Portugal’s greatest historical enemy. Her reputation survived (with a voice like hers, how could it not?), but it suffered as well.

The artists who agree to perform in Ariel, and those who fear voicing an opinion against the use of Israeli culture in reinforcing the occupation, see only the present and only the narrow local perspective. Around here, the occupation is taken with a shrug. Most Israelis accept Ariel as being “Israel proper” depite the fact it’s built in the very heart of the West Bank, designed so as to render direct transportation between Ramallah and Nablus impossible. We’ve been taught not to care that its sewage is polluting the water of nearby Palestinian town Salfit, or that it was built largely on land stolen from local farmers, or that its existence forces hundreds of thousands to go through humiliating checkpoints, or that its very existence is a huge obstacle on the way to the peace we all say we want.

The artists who accept such notions and embrace the settlements may one day find themselves facing a hostile audience (as they already would – abroad). Times change, regimes fall, occupations end. I would advise every Israeli artist to think about Amália Rodrigues, then think about singers who took the cause of human rights and liberty even when those were unpopular or unsanctioned: Mercedes Sosa in Argentina, Victor Jarra and Violetta Parra in Chile, Vladimir Vysotsky in the Soviet Union, Fela Kuti in Nigeria and more, and more. Think about all of them, dear artists, and ask yourselves who would you rather be.

(this post also appears on +972, the new joint initiative of English-blogging Israelis.)

How Shall we Sing the Lord's Song in a Strange Land?

If there's anywhere that scares Israelis, it's Ramallah.

We have several good reasons not to go to Ramallah, even if we put aside the incident of the year 2000, in which two soldiers who lost their way and wound up here were killed by a mob. That event took place in the height of hostilities, immediately following the death of Mohamed A-Dura in Gaza. Still, it's a precedent, and many people here hate our guts.

So there's one good reason not to visit Ramallah. especially at night. Ramallah is not the capital of streetlights.

A second good reason not to visit Ramallah is that coming here is a criminal offence by Israeli law. No one checks us on the way in but we risk arrest, interrogation and then imprisonment or a heavy fine if caught on the way out. Palestinian police who find us must hand us over to the Istraelis. So that's another good reason not to visit Ramallah, especially if you have a nice Jewish face like mine.

But observe the photo above and you'll find one good reason to visit Ramallah. When was the last time you got served your coke bottle with a straw in it? that is so 1982!

Ramallah retains in it the charm of decades gone by. which is why we just had to come here and attend a Boney M concert. Boney M? You've got to be kidding me! what won't I give to stand with the Palestinian people who've known so much hardship, and sing with them that eternal anthem of oppressed nations:

By the rivers of Ba-ha-bylon (dark tears of Babylon)
Where we sat do-hown (You've got to sing a song)
Yeah-hey we we-hept (sing a song of love)
When we remembered Zi-ha-yon (yeah yeah yeah yeah).

facing all the arguments for not coming was the one decisive argument for coming: Disco!

Boney M were to appear at the open air theatre right outside the Ramallah Cultural Palace.

There were less hijabs to be seen here then on the streets, both because there's something deeply un-Islamic about lines such as "Rasputin, Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine" and because at least 30% of those present were internationals. I did find a few, though, dyed here by a glam boa scarf that someone waved over my lense.

And boy did we ever wave these glam boa scarves. Today's Boney M features only a single member of the original ensemble, the unbelievably energetic and lovely Maizie Williams. she totally justifies using the famous brand and the rest of her team was terrific as well. They strutted their hits: "Daddy Cool", "Sunny", the very applicable "Belfast"...

As well as Boney M's famous cover version of Marley's "No Woman no Cry".

Then suddenly the lights went out.

It was towards the end of "No Woman no Cry." The microphones died too and the band fell silent, but the audience kept singing: Everything's gonna be alright! Everything's gonna be alright!

It took Williams a second to understand that she was faced with the true spirit of Ramallah. If there's any city in the world that's used to the lights going out and knows that everything's gonna be alright, it's here. She returned to the front of the stage and swayed to the chanting.

When the lights returned. Everyone was in full form. and the rest of the evening simply rocked. We had only one major disappointment: Babylon was not sung. I can only assume that the festival organizers banned it for fear that the word "Zion" (as in "Zionism") would offend the audience. Sometimes deeper meanings are lost on people. The crown chanted "Babylon" harder than it chanted "everything's gonna be alright" but to no avail. A token identification with the local struggle was the best we got.

So we went away with dear Palestinian friends we bumped into, looking for somewhere to sit and weep. The best party in Ramallah these days is a house party. Grandma Aniseh died, and her offspring turned her old home into a popping bar: "Aniseh's House".

No one killed us.

No one arrested us.

It was only paying for our Taybeh beers in Sheqels that reminded us the occupation even exists. We pocketed the change and focused on the extraordinary hospitality of our neighbors, easing the shift between the glittery clothes we saw on stage and the uniforms we would meet at the checkpoint later.

Pushing "Stop"

At last I can afford to buy tickets to shows of visiting music stars. This is because they are sure to be canceled and the money is sure to be refunded. The cultural embargo on Israel has begun, and boy is it shaking us up.

I enjoy these little dramas the same way as I do the current World Cup matches - from afar. I read that the Pixies are coming. I read that a ticket to the Pixies show will cost over 400 sheqels. I read that the Pixies canceled their show. I read that the public is in an uproar.

Last night I read that Denvedra Banhart also canceled his show, appearently because eager Zionists were making him out to be "the Israel lover" for choosing to come after all, and he wasn't too pleased with being politicized (This is implied in his apology to his Israeli audience. A recent tel-Aviv concert by British indie band "Placebo" is said to have been turned into a nationalist rally, complete with flags and chants). Israeli fans find it hard to internalize that choosing to perform here is just as political an act as choosing not to. We have a lot to learn and local media will teach us none of it.

You should have seen my Facebook page last night, it's even more full of freak-folk-freaks than of people appreciating the ingenuity of Elvis Costello. "Devendra Benhart, You broke my heart" one writes. I hastened to comment: "It's Ehud Barak who broke your heart, honey. Keep your eyes on the money."

Israeli fans of those foreign stars, many of them educated urbanites, have a huge power to promote change in this country. an embargo by, say, the Coca Cola company, which caters to all, may produce public unrest that could promote reactionary forces in Israel's politics (as if those need any more promotion) but the artist embargo touches on the lives of dormant liberals, those who could make a difference but are too busy DJing.

That The cancellations shake them up, that's evident, Will they eventually take their anger to the streets of Sheikh Jarrakh and cause something to actually change? It's worth a shot. My impression is that the Tel-Avivian hipsters can no longer pretend that everything is just fine, and that's an important thing.

It's now important to help them focus their anger on the government rather than on the artists. That shouldn't be too hard. They love these artists, these artists break their hearts. Folks, mend this country and your hearts will be mended. You've got to fight the occupation for your right to party.

If you live here and side with me on this, make sure you make your voices heard. Open up the eyes of upset music lovers to their call to action. Soon we may be dancing again.

Massada Maritima

Note on June 2nd: following many debates, I decided to accept one point of my critics and soften the terminology of this post. I do not want to be anything like the Israeli government and media that carelessly throw around hard words like "lynch". this is not a propaganda piece, these words are meant to provoke thought.

Tonight at 7:00 PM, Jews, Arabs and foreigners will gather in front of the Ministery of Defence in Tel-Aviv to protest the killing of activists in international waters.

Even if there were weapons on the boats, The IDF should have prepared for such scenario and made plans to avoid a bloodbath. When a group of people tries to break through a border (and this isn't even our border, remember? We no longer "occupy" Gaza) it is the police that usually arrests them. In this case Israel sent commando units, trained to be trigger happy.

The result is so painful and dangerous that the Israeli public and media are desperately seeking ways to avoid looking them in the eye: "It was an honest mistake", "they were terrorists who wanted to lynch our soldiers". The word "lynch" is everywhere in the Hebrew media. In the name of anyone ever hung from a tree in South Carolina due to his or her skin color, I'm outraged.

Though certainly outraged enough to go out and protest (hell, I'm outraged enough to give up my citizenship right here and now), I won't be at the demonstration tonight. Duty calls: I am sent as a journalist to review the grandest and what may prove to be the tackiest cultural event in this country's history: Verdi's Nabucco, produced at the foot of Massada.

Up until this morning I didn't pay much mind to the cheesy, nationalistic aspects of staging an opera about enslaved Jews at Massada. I was even interviewed on television and said there's no harm in taking opera to the desert and throwing a couple of fireworks around. Now, however, I feel distraught, sick to my stomach. I tried to escape the assignment and failed. I'm doomed to this four-act masterpiece.

Massada, the mythical stronghold, the place Roman soldiers beseiged and then broke into by force, thus completing their assault against the Judean liberation brigades. What an exciting place to be tonight! Siege of course is a contemporary concept. This morning the Israeli air force bombed and demolished what was left of Gaza's small airport already defunct for nearly a decade. No one will leave the strip in the foreseeable future. As for braking in by force... hell, we make good Romans, don't we? Had the legion of Titus possessed helicopters, the two actions would have been nearly identical.

And opera, O opera! I love it so, but is this really a good time for the conductor to raise his baton? The Jewish Midrash Describes God as showing anger at the Israelites after they crossed the Red Sea. The Egyptians were drowned by the waves and the Hebrews sang songs of praise. "My creations are destroyed at sea, and you are singing?" he asked.

Several creations of the good lord were destroyed at sea this morning, and the soloists of the Opera will sing nonetheless. The bad timing is none of their fault, the tragedy belongs to all of us.

What will they be singing? an opera about imprisonment and tyranny, written only seemingly about Jews and Babylonians, it in fact meant to protest Austria's reign in Lombardy and other Italian regions. I'll take it as that and concentrate on Verdi's courage and genius. In the year 2010, Nabucco is an opera about Palestinians. Let its music ring out and be another voice of protest.

La Ville S'endormait

I am sitting in an empty Jerusalem "sherut" van at 1:00 AM, waiting for it to fill up and take me to Tel-Aviv. It doesn't fill up, not even partially. I am the only one there, the last man in the city. The driver is smoking outside when I decide to leave on foot. Naturally, he begins yelling at me.

"Cities at night, I feel, contain men who cry in their sleep and then say nothing, it's nothing, just sad dreams, or something like that... Swing low in your weep ship, with your tear scans and your sob probes, and you would mark them." I've quoted these words of Martin Amis once before, blogging from an internet cafe in West Berlin. I'm crazy about daylight, make no mistake, but there's something about being stranded too late at night in a moody city with nowhere to sleep. You get a free, precious lesson in the blues, and what could be more precious?

Jerusalem by night. The "Bass" is closed. The "Uganda" is melancholic. The green neon lights of a mosque over Silwan distinguish a finger pointing to God from the darkness about it. At dawn the song will rise from its tip to mix with others in the brightening sky, but dawn is far.

Someone lets me into the old Ron Hotel, today the "Jerusalem Hostel". The staircase over reception is still stately and lavishly carpeted as in the glory days. Reception itself is closed. In the lobby sits a silvery-bearded American, clearly a religious eccentric, across from an attractive girl in her early twenties. She's his daughter. They couldn't get a bed and decided to sit the night out.

I remember doing the same at the Genoa railway station, talking to a crazy Canadian neurologist in a bright red nylon rainproof jacket about some scary research he was conducting. What was scary about it? Can't remember, but the old unease follows me outside to the silent roadwork barriers on Jaffa road.

This is only the beginning. The ghosts of other nocturnal towns will haunt me as I walk. Where was I? climbing up the silent hallway of Bulgakov's Moscow home with Vola, whom I had just met at a club, her pointing out the passages inscribed on them by his fans: a black painted cat, a love letter... Scaling the walls of the Foro Romano at 3:00 AM and bumping into two slum rascals who did the same, a drunken boy and girl. We wandered into a garden where huge roses grew. I picked one and presented it to the girl. She laughed and warned me not to approach a certain fallen pillar. "This is a cursed place" she said, "people who go by it later die in strange accidents."

And there was the cold night in Frankfurt, watching television through a shop window on the Zeil and shivering. I could not afford a hotel, having spent my last pfenning on airfare, but at sunrise the airplane was to take me Utah, where the most dramatic love story of my life was to begin in earnest.

This is how it works. The loneliest, awful wee hours sometimes remind us how rich life is, and if they don't, dawn would, and if dawn won't, maybe the morning's first coffee, in my friend Keren's kitchen, with Glenn Gould playing on the old boom box.

Bipolar

Tuesday night I was here, wearing a suit at the Tel-Aviv opera house, applauding the cast of Jacques Halevy's operaic masterpiece "La Juive".

Wednesday morning, a mere ten hours later, I was here, documenting the Tel-Aviv sewage system for an article and applauding its special emergency task force.

I later went down into the raw sewage myself and took this gentleman's place, removing clumps of hygenic pads, moist wipes and tampons which clog the pipes. All the while I was thinking back to the opera. The profound vocal combinations at the end of the second act haven't left me even when I was in shit up to my navel.

These ten hours are a good metaphor for life in this country. We keep moving between the truly wonderful and the perfectly sinister. An even greater contrast lurks ahead. Monday is Israel's memorial day, observed as an annual day of national mourning. Tuesday is independence day. The switch between the two occasions occures Monday evening at sundown, when suddenly the flags are brought back up from half mast and fireworks begin to shoot into the air.

The contrast doesn't end here. Independence day itself is also the Palestinian day for commemorating the Nakba or "catastrophe" of 1948. This year, Israel passed a law forbidding its citizens from observing the Nakba day as a memorial day. This infringement of our freedom of speech makes many of us want to do exactly that, if only to spite the authorities.

Call us juvenile, but this is a good opportunity for us to learn of what the Palestinians have been through as consequence of the war and to empathize. We'll also be celebrating our liberty to view history in any way we choose, a liberty of which the right-wing government currently seeks to deprive us.

With all due respect for family barbecues and our handsome flag, The only substantial thing we lose by trading independence day for Nakba day (or at least with Nakba-law day) is that sudden bipolar shift we are so used to. Hopefully, we'll survive the deprivation. This land is anyway sure to provide us with some unprovoked contrast which would baffle and confuse us. All we need to do is wait for it with open arms.

(last shot is by chief documenter of local contrasts: Alex Levak)

Talent

From Lili Elstein's apartment Tel Aviv looks good. On one side are business towers, alight with the promise of prosperity.

On the other side, at the foot of similar business towers, is culture. Here is the plaza connecting the Israeli Opera house and the Kameri Theatre. The city's central library and fine art museum are less than 100 yards away.

Inside the apartment, the arts meet. The Ariel String Quaertet is giving a superb rendition of the third movement out of Brahms's third quartet, with a sculpture by Sigalit Landau in the background.

They then move on to an equally stunning bit by Beethoven. Never have I had chamber music be played this close to me.

To be honest, the whole setting is quite foreign to me. This is a gala evening thrown by Mrs. Elstein to benefit the Perlman Music Program, or "PMP". Years ago, Toby perlman dreamed up what turned out to be one of the most succesful programs for gifted young musicians in the States. This May, the program expends abroad, not to Berlin, nor to London, Nor to Tokyo, but to the Jerusalem Music Center.

Perlman explained to the guests that the decision stems from values bequethed to her by her father. If she can ever do anything that supports or promotes Israel or the Jewish people, she will.

Readers of my blog know that I'm hardly a staunch Zionist, but somehow this moved me, and not only Because perlman's personality is instantly captivating and enchanting. Yes, creating a top notch program like this is going to make this place better. Perlman is here to lift our self asteem. We are not the chosen people when it comes to politics, but we do possess some talent as fiddlers. I think it was Isaac Stern who once explained Jewish dominance of the violin by claiming: "They circumcise our fingers too."

One man who can certainly claim such fingers was present, Toby's husband, the legendary Itzhak Perlman.

Both members of the couple were there as musicians. They were playing the music of fundraising to some of Israel's most affluent. As Toby explained, the program is "extremely cost inaffective" placing a small group of young students in the hands of a relatively big staff, including Itzhak himself.

Enchanting Elstein's guests with the Ariel musicians, all of them graduates of the American program, helps even the cost out. When someone asked how the program is financed, Itzhak explained: "We changed the form of the handshake. The typical handshake is like this," and he presented his hand as if to be shaken, "but we changed it to this," and he presented it with the palm facing up, as though begging. Everyone laughed, but this is of course not a joke. In the U.S. the program is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Israel's meanger budgets for culture neccesitate approaching the rich personaly. This country has negelected the arts so badly that they are our only hope.

The rich have regained their traditional role as patrons of the arts, without neccesarily being as knowlegable of the arts or respectful towards them as were the aristocrats of lore. Thankfully, the PMP event was highbrow enough to draw mostly true conoisseurs, such as cleaning detergent mogul Bruno Landsberg, who is Israel's greatest afficionado of second Viennese school composers (Shoenberg, Berg, Webern, et al.)

This made me more comfortable in such posh surroundings (I'm a socialist, for Marx's sake) and I endulged a bit in the elegance of the event. The wonderful carpaccio and sashimi

The fine decoration,

And my own oppurtunity to wear a tie (seen here with Haaretz English Magazine editor Tal Niv and musician, activist and prime media agent Roy Yellin).

The one element of the event I couldn't enjoy was the contribution element, so I'll try and conribute here in a statement of support.

This country is currently going to the dogs at great velocity. If it has anything going for it, it is spirit and talent. Let's put ourselves into this. Lets exhaust the spirit and talent. Let's be inspired and allow others to be inspired with us. Any penny that goes into the arts is sacred, regardless of the many other needs of our society. Any initiative that is meant to bring culture to our doorstep is sacred, regardless of how much we often deserve to be boycotted. If our high society contributes to the arts as a way of redeeming its soul, so be it, its soul is redeemed. On my way home I passed the Mann Auditorium, home of the Israeli philharmonic. People were leaving the building by the thousends. I asked them what they attended and learned that it was a Kabbalah even in which people cried in extacy and were healed and saw the light. Let's make sure tomorrow's program is different.

Least Romantic City?

Itka and I are off to Warsaw tonight, each as correspondant of a different paper (I had to let the organizers know that Israel-Hayom and Maariv are sharing a bedroom). The Poles invited us to attend the openning of the international Chopin year, including recitals by such legends as Kissin, Demidenko and Barenboim, plus a concert conducted by the artful Franz Bruggen.

200 years after his birth, Chopin turns out to be a hard sell. I had to give up on a major magazine article for the weekly supplement and settle for 800 words in the daily culture pages. That's a shame because I had a killer concept. Chopin gets me high. I hear the first notes of "Impromptu Fantasie" and my spirit soars. I could sell Chopin to Indonesian villagers whove heard nothing but Gamelan music their entire lives. I'll use those 800 words to the outmost, do trust.

Warsaw makes me far less ecstatic. I've been there twice so far (all photos are from the latest visit, last year) and each time found it to be Europe's least romantic city. It's none of Warsaw's fault, of course. It was known as the most perfectly demolished city of all those harmed by WWII. It then went under the hammer and sickle for too long. But There's more to this than bad history. I've heard it being described as "the epitomy of all that is not exotic", and found that notion spring to mind with every bite into the bland local sausages.

In other words, Warsaw is a city that demands an effort, it does not offer itself. With five days on our hands, we'll try and discover it. The hypothesis: it's wonderful, it's sexy, it's breathtaking. I'll update you later, as we emerge out of the alleyways of the Praga and the clubs off Marszałkowska. If we're still not into it, you're welcome to take our place in the philharmonic hall when Chopin turns 300.

Twelve Chairs

I'm proud to say it was my idea, a little less proud that it was born out of my lack of success as a musician. "If I can barely fill up a bloody club in Florentine," I told Itka, "why don't I take the opposite approach? I'll play for a forum so small that no matter what happens, people will wind out being stuck outside."

We decided on 12 chairs, in honor of the famous satirical novel by Ilf and Petrov. We also decided to buy a huge bottle of vodka (3 liters) and let people drink as much as they want for the 30 shekels cover charge. Stellina, probably the sweetest person in this city, volunteered her apartment near Rabin square, and filled it up with candles.

It works. I've never had so much fun with my music. There have been four performances so far, each one completely different. The first was photographed by the talented Arnon Tussia Cohen, who produced the image appearing beneath. He's working on a series depicting people while they listen to music. The second show was nearly all conversation. The third feathured a guest star: Texas' own Zach Wheat and his anthem "Fuck You Tel-Aviv".

Last night there was relatively little storytelling and sharing of jokes, and more avant-garde trial and error. the totally corky Yael Birenbaum opened for me with her electric organ singing: "Get on top of me. Get on top of me." I couldn't help but reply with something equally pornographic and launched my own set with "Wintery sex in a Moscow Playground"

The much rootsier Ami Yares, sitting across from me on the couch, pulled out a guitar and played along to most songs, turning each one into an unrehersed duet. I was wearing a feathered bow fit for an Austrian widdow, in honor of Purim, Stellina dressed up as Peter pan. we drank nearly 2 liters of vodka and gradually lost control of the music, which is what music is for.

Granted, there were only 11 of us, and that is the closest I got to 12 so far. But this too is a source of pride for me. When the Mothers of Invention began performing there were often more musicians onstage than in the audience. They made their best music at the time. As a one man show, I can't compete with such feat, but a room full of friends isn't prone to artistically corrupt me.

On this link are the date for the next 12 chair show and Itka's email address. drop her a line and she'll send you the address.

Young Werther

My music is either a bunch of tunes put together to pass the time, or a priceless treasure of western folk, depending on whether you ask me or someone who needs a favor from me. It's now got its own MySpace page. Put together by Itka, and decorated with an oil painting by the inimitabler Beatriz Chachamovits. Israeli cult musician E. B. Dan allowed us into his pad one late night, to record a chiller version of the previously spunky tune "Sabresim" ("Prickly Pears"). Here's the result:

www.myspace.com/yuvalbenami

I owe something to these songs. They kept me alive while I traveled in my early 20s. I used to make my money busking. A nice summer day in a Scandinavian town would make me the equivalent of 150 Euros, enough to travel nicely and return home with a profit. Once in Turin, Italy, I got paid a live duck for my music. Somebody placed it in the case, then left. I stopped mid-song, unsure of what to do. When two girls came and adopted the cute bird, I sang them a serenade.

Many of these songs were written during that period and deal with the experience of travel in Europe. "Sabresim" the first on the myspace page, was written in Sardinia. Here's the little story about how it was born, perfect for reading when it plays in the background.

Upon arriving on the north coast, I stepped off the ferry, felt the heat of the day, saw prickly pear growing around, and realized that while still being far away, I was back at home. I had the number of a Sardinian girl I had met in London a few weeks previously and headed for her city of Sassari to see her.

Little Miss Sassari lived with her parents, and since there was no hostel in the town, I went to the nearby historical port town of Alghero and settled there for the week. Walled, peninsular Alghero is reminicient of Akko, and is peculiar in the Catalan dialect spoken by its people. It offered exotic Cazu Marzu (the revolting Sardinian cheese that contains live larvae) a nice seafront and a frequent bus to Sassari.

With me at the hostel were only three other guests: a sweet Swedish girl, traveling with her Italian boyfriend, and a pale German tourist, about twenty years of age, to whom I quickly came to refer as "Young Werther". Everything troubled him, most things scared him (he didn't try Casu Marzu), and it quickly came to my knowledge that he has fallen in love with the Swede and was feeling deeply tormented.

I soon decided to intervene, hoping to prevent a crisis. My own story with the Sassarian was fading out, nothing was keeping me in Alghero. I offered to Young Werther that we head out of town and explore more of the island. We took a bus to another pretty coastal spot: Bosa, a few score kilometers south, and headed to the local youth hostel to dispose of our gear. Turned out it was shut. Werther was all about going back to Alghero and its nordic charms, but I refused. "We'll sleep on the beach". I decided.

"What if it rains?"

That sense of home I had felt at the ferry port overtook me. "It won't rain," I promised. "This is my part of the world. I know it well enough to know it doesn't rain here in September. Now lts go into town and shop for dinner."

It was a Sunday and all the stores turned out to be shut. Young Werther freaked out. I pointed to the prickly pear growing by the crumbling citadel. "This is my part of the world" I told him, "and back home, when we're out of food, we just pick a stick, knock a few of these off the cactus, and peel them and eat them." In fact I've never previously picked a prickly pear, but oh hell. I was hungry and began enjoying being seen as the knowledgeable savage. We did somehow manage to pick the fruit and even peel it with minimum damage to our person. Inevitably, some thorns did end up on Werther's lips, but I comforted him: "Worry not, this is my part of the world. In two to three weeks you'l be rid of them all." (In reality, ten minutes is more like it).

At night we slept on the beach. Werther woke me up in a state of deep distress. "It's raining!" He said.

Rain drops were falling all over us, but I had no choice. "This is my part of the world," I said calmly. "It's September. It isn't raining. Go back to sleep."

And he did, and the rain stopped, and the first verse of the savage's love song to his home region was written the following day:

Not a dime, Mediterranean clime,
Cilia lives in a trailer
by the Sardinian coast
with the sun in a clay pot.
She has a good partner:
A Yellow Cocker Spaniel
She drinks Bacardi
and helps her puppy nurture a potbelly.
Night falls over her
blowing between her earrings
She says: that's fine
Marco's better than a jumper.
Ouch! ouch! prickly pear,
fingers full of thorns.
Here is what I say:
Figs are better anyway.

Interior Desire

Itka is moving in little by little. This means that we overcame a serious barrier: the Nanouchka barrier.

A few weeks ago, when we began talking of sharing a pad, our tastes in interior design clashed so hard we just dropped it. Itka said her favorite interior is that of the Nanouchka bar, near Herzl Street. We were there the other night. She danced madly on the bar (that's what Nanouchka is like past 2:00 AM). I couldn't get myself to dance. perhaps it was the shock of it all: the chandeliers, the heavy, violet, velvet curtains, the photo of Ariel Sharon in one corner and pink neon artwork in another.

"It looks like a whorehouse in Bucharest, 1973" I told her once we left, knowing full well what my apartment looks like: the lunch corner of Ikea employees at a Malmo warehouse, 2009. This place did benefit from a feminine hand in the past: that of Lin, who bought most of the furniture with me. My own life changed since, and the flat has been greatly bachlorified in the past two years. It needs different attention, I agree, but why the Nanouchka? Sure there can be worse Tel-Aviv bar design to admire. I'd never date Miss Mesa, but there's nothing wrong with the Cantina, right?

Nonetheless, we both decided to dare. Today Itka brought some of her stuff over in a duffel bag. From within she produced her fancy, purple belly dancing scarf, featuring three rows of silvery coins and tassels, and draped it over the TV set. Now I've got a belly dancing TV. It doesn't look half bad, to be honest. I'm living with a girl whose aesthetic sense is driven by humor and a sense of adventure, from her huge, vintage Dior glasses, to her choice of showing a no-budget, semi-pornographic vampire film at an upcoming cinema event she's curating. I can't imagine a greater improvement to my living conditions.

I'm sealing today's post with a bit of music. It's been a while since I've posted a good song, so you deserve a fine one. Never mind the bollocks, Here are Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten, the invisible Malcolm Mclaren, Elizabeth II and your parents. Enjoy.

Terry poison

It's only normal, sometimes your living room becomes a dressing room for the world's sexiest electro-pop band.


and your study becomes where they jam pre-show.

Terry Poison, Israel's finest export product, came to perform at la Fleche D'or, a Parisian music club, just down the street from where we're staying. Since Itka used to be their production manager, their guitar player, Anna, became our house guest for two nights, and the little house on rue Florian served as venue for the pre-show toast. From there it was only a few steps to the club.



It's situated in an old railway station on Paris's now defunct Petite Sainture line, and is the kind of place where people play limbo with each-other's legs.

and where a pretzel dry, solidly dressed punk act can draw cries of praise even from the Terry Poison crew. That was the warm up act. We were waiting for the madness to come.

I like clubbing but seldom get to witness the scene behind the scenes.

Did this time,


and went crazy when my lovely friends came on stage to shake the city of Paris. This being our neighborhood haunt, Itka and I have been to the Fleche D'or several times since hitting Paris, we never saw it go wild like this. Our compatriots, our pals, our wild women are the hardest rocking act on both bank of the Seine. I disown Schubert as my favorite musician, it's time to burn the old station down.