The Way of The World

Hall of Names, Yad Vashem

I have figured out the ways of the world: a few people (good or bad) do or try to do things (good or bad) which are either supported or opposed by a few people (good or bad). The rest of the people, as the phrase goes, look on. 

And "few" is a matter of scale. Good few or bad few, few can be as simple as a handful of individuals, or as simple as a handful of nations made up of millions of individuals. As for those who look on, that too, is simple. That is, all those who remain inert, be they a couple looking on or a couple billion looking on.

I learned this over the past two days while visiting Vad Yashem, Israel's memorial to the Holocaust. 

Yad Vashem is an excellent complex of museums, research centers, and architectural and fine art sculptures. Its focal point is the The Holocaust Museum. The museum consists of a single, straight, triangular hall of poured concrete, whose base is broad, walls pitch, and peak high, from which eight galleries radiate. Made of glass, the hall's apex allows for its natural lighting. 

Running the hall's length, zig-zags connect the museum's eight galleries, with each beveled zig or zag creating an unbridgeable gully of several feet in the concrete floor. You can look past them, even see the museums triangular glass exit, but you cannot cross over them. Instead, containing mini-exhibits of their own, each serves as an introduction to the the gallery you are about to enter.

The path to the museum's end is direct, but not straight. You can not get to any gallery without walking through the gallery preceding it. In order to move forward, you must follow the path. Yet, within each gallery, you find that there are no clear signs conveying you along. Each gallery moves you obliquely through acute angles and around hair-pin turns. Sometimes you arrive at a spot you've already visited. You may become disoriented by the maze, but you follow the flow of human traffic, when, eventually you see some of the light from the hallway spilling in and you follow it out.

Zig-zags within a zig-zag. Nothing is straight. The history of the holocaust was not straight. Each gallery its own chapter, the museum tells a story, a crooked story (The Galleries). 

It's a very detailed story, told through curator's paragraphs; photographs; hand written family letters and typed bureaucrats' letters; physical artifacts as small a tiny charm made by a ghetto boy for his mother and as large as a cattle car for the deportation; video recordings, sound recordings, posters, street signs, trolly rails, cobblestones, streetlamps, and anything else which either informs or authenticates. To read every word, to pore over every photo or artifact, to watch every video, to listen to every audio, would take many days. The documentation is overwhelming. 

All of which kept me occupied for 9 hours yesterday and 3 today (because I only got half-way through the sixth gallery yesterday before getting tossed at closing time, and so I returned to finish today).    

The ways of the world became most clear to me in the fifth gallery, Mass Murder. In it, I learned of the Einsatzgruppen. The Einsatzgruppen were German units that followed the advances of the regular German army as it tore eastward toward Russia (after Hitler broke his treaty with Stalin). Their sole mission was to flush out the Jews in whatever community they came across and shoot them. Often, they would have the Jewish men dig a big pit first, then have them stand on the edge and shoot them, so that the corpses would topple into the pit. Occasionally they toppled as not-yet corpses. Then the Einsatzgruppen would gather the women and children and shoot them as well, in the same manner, at the edge of the pit. 

Sometimes, however, the Einsatzgruppen skipped the pit and just shot. And sometimes they would allow eager local Jew-haters to do the shooting for them. There were lots of willing trigger fingers when the Einsatzgruppen pulled into town.

Here, though, is how I learned the ways of the world. As you can imagine, many tour groups visit Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Museum, in-tow to a free-lance museum guide. If you move slowly enough through any gallery, as I did, several of these groups will pass you. And if their guides speak in a language you understand, you can pirate the lectures, as I did with those who spoke English. Hence, several times, when the tour guides spoke of the Einsatzgruppen, and the pits, and the shootings, the consistent refrain was, "And the townspeople just stood by and watched," or, "The townspeople simply looked on."

I detected something barbed in these statements about the townspeople, though I am not sure of the source. I couldn't tell if the guides intended to convey that there was complicity among the townspeople, that their onlooking was a form of voting with their eyes, that inaction indicated implicit approval. Or, it could have been more that the guides were alleging mass moral collapse among the townspeople, that in the face of atrocities they watched and did nothing. Wholesale cowardice.

I began to wonder about these townspeople, these onlookers, and the judgments of the museum guides toward them. 

For the sake of humanity, I hope that the majority of townspeople didn't look on and do nothing because they approved of what was being done. 

If, then, people looked on because they didn't know what to do, or were too afraid in the face of men with guns to do what they knew they should, I wonder what, we, history's jurors, really might have expected of them. Not to diminish the enormity of the mass murders, nor to condone moral inertia, we have seen -- and likely participated -- in onlooking elsewhere. From the lynching ropes in the U.S. south, to the machetes in Rwanda, people, in general, acquiesce in the presence of brutality, not because people are bad, or even weak, but rather because we are uneducated. We have never been taught or trained to act on our principles and moral values, or even to articulate for ourselves what they are. 

It is always assumed that we will, or at least that we should, stand-up, do the right thing, when virtue calls, but when the decisive moment arrives, what can we point to in our past as having readied us for that moment? If anything, in the absence of any positive preparation to act as moral beings, we are, gradually, conditioned not to act. I don't know about you, but -- and obviously I am not proud to admit it -- I suspect that had I been in the wrong place at the wrong time, I, too, would have been one of those townspeople who looked on. 

It's the way of the world, isn't it? And the evil of the world know it. Nothing breeds evil, feeds evil, as the way of the world.

State Security

"The People of Israel Live"

After 24 hours here, Tel Aviv feels more European to me than Middle-Eastern. And in spots more American than European. Last night I had a beer in a joint called "Mike's Place", facing the Mediterranean. (Mike's Place made the news in 2003 when a suicide bomber blew himself up at its entrance. Three people plus the suicide bomber were killed; 50 were wounded.) 


Inside Mike's Place, American music blared; the bartender, speaking perfect English, spoke above the blare to an American customer who worked for Intel and drank German beer. All the waitstaff spoke English to their customers, who also spoke English, and to each other, who also spoke Hebrew. And from what I could tell, every plate that came out of the kitchen was piled high with French fries. I began to wonder who precisely was the bomber's target.

I had a conversation with the guy from Intel. His name is Paul. He told me that he's been coming to Israel for years to do Intel installations for customers. He told me the Intel office in Tel Aviv has a bomb shelter for employees. Imagine hearing that as one of the company perks: "We offer a great 401-K plan, full-medical benefits, and -- we have our own bomb shelter." 


Paul has a friend who works some kind of U.S. intelligence, and who gives him a scouting report of the place he's heading toward before he actually heads toward it. Paul said one time he was scheduled to go to the Mediteranean port city of Ashdod, about twenty miles south of Tel Aviv, and about 20 miles north of the Gaza strip. Paul's intelligence friend made some calls and told him to steer clear of Ashdod, that he heard through channels things were going to happen there. Trusting his friend, Paul convinced his supervisor to let him work in Tel Aviv instead, and he agreed. Paul then told me that Ashdod was rocketed 400 times or something like that during the period he was originally scheduled to be there. He chuckled as he recounted all this.

***

People who explode bombs have to get very close to be affective; no one would lift a finger against suicide bombers who walk into the desert and push the plunger. To deny bombers access to crowded places, guards and gates abound in Tel Aviv, and, I suspect, throughout Israel. In order to access the bus station yesterday, I had to permit the guard to stick his nicotine-stained hand inside my backpack and fish around for anything that might have felt like a bomb. He then did the wand thing. This to get on a city bus.


To gain access to Tel Aviv University's campus from where I began writing this, I had to pass a checkpoint where the guard looked in my laptop case. Earlier today, I saw a busload of seniors waiting to board, being guided in part by a young guy in a green t-shirt with a semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder. Not the driver; he was riding shotgun. 


And then there are the soldiers, who walk the streets, get on buses, sit in cafes, with this weapon that looks to be a cross between Rambo and paintball. The soldiers aren't menacing or the slightest bit Stallonish. They're mostly scrawny kids, seemingly carrying their weapon barely aware of its potential. 


With all this security, I wonder if Israelis feel more safe, or less safe. In other words, the omnipresence of security indicates the omnipresence of threat. Which prevails in the psyche of the average Israeli?

***

Late yesterday afternoon I had a beer with a woman named Liv. A mutual friend put us in contact with each other, so that we could have a discussion about Israel. I wanted to know things only an Israeli could tell me.

Liv has a PhD in Argumentation and works with a research group out of Tel Aviv University. Her current project analyzes the de-legitimization of Israel in the French media (her focus is websites). She was born and raised in Paris, and speaks with an Israeli-French blend.

I asked her how long she's been living in Israel, and she told me moved here at 24, which I guessed to be about 24 years ago. I asked her why she moved here, and I thought she said "sciencism," something to do with her research, but in fact she said "scionism", that is, Zionism. We had a good chuckle once we got that sorted out. 


Liv came here, to Israel, as a young Zionist. She moved here from Paris because she believed in the state of Israel, and wanted to contribute to its building and future. She sighed when she told me that Zionism today isn't what it was when she came here at 24. I didn't need to ask why. As I write this, the answer is being provided, among other ways, by the crusading Zionist settlers on the West Bank. And then there's Netanyahu.


Liv has two kids, a daughter and a son. Her daughter is just now finishing up her military service. Every Israeli citizen is required to fulfill military service (two years for girls; three years for boys). Liv told me that when her daughter expressed to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) no interest in combat duty and no interest in officer-training -- meaning committing to more than the minimum two-year period -- she was given a hum-drum assignment. Liv was fine with that. 


Liv's son is only 16, and he has already expressed interest in volunteering for combat duty once he enters the army. This worries her. There are many flashpoints in and around Israel. When I asked her about the likelihood of danger she gave me to believe that it wouldn't be unusual at all for her son to engage in some fighting. The risks for her are too real. Liv wished that in this respect, her son had been more like her daughter.


Liv, like most people, would like to live a peaceful life. Would like not to see her son go into combat, or see Israel under such constant military lockdown. But she is also a realist. When I asked her if Israel hasn't swung too far militarily, and hasn't hurt its image abroad, she struggled for an answer. "Well of course it's not good. Am I happy about it? Obviously, no. But people want to kill us. Hamas fires rockets at us? What are we to do?"

***

Earlier tonight just before sundown I went for my first ever swim in the Mediterranean. The beach around Tel Aviv slopes very gradually, almost imperceptibly. You can walk out from shore a good ways before the water gets even waste high.


The sand is soft, but packed very hard. The slight waves above doesn't stir it. 


The water is surprisingly clear, and very salty. 

With the sun about a two feet off of the horizon, I toweled off and sat down to watch the sun set in a beach chair outside the Banana Cafe. A guy who'd been standing close to the water and just gazing out turned around and approached. It so happened that he was my waiter. Perhaps not the most attentive waiter, ever, but a very nice fellow. He asked what would I like, and smiled.


I requested my beer choices and settled on a Tuborg. He asked where I was from, and when I told him New York, he smiled broadly and slapped my hand. "Very cool! Right on." He then went to get my beer.

When he returned, he told me that he had just gotten back from New York two weeks ago, somewhere in Brooklyn, and that he returned to Tel Aviv to attend his cousin's wedding. He'd only been in New York a couple of weeks, but he'd like to go back. Before New York he'd been in Ecuador. And before that Hawaii. And Brazil. He said that whenever he made some money, he'd go travel with it. In all, he'd been traveling three years.

"So, now that you're back in Tel Aviv, are you going to stay here a while?"


"Me?! No way, man. I'm going to make a little more money and go away someplace."


"Why, you don't like it here?"

"No. Too much stress."


He works sunsets on the Mediterranean: stress?


"Look," he said, pointing over the water. Two helicopters were buzzing south. I'd seen others like them off and on throughout the afternoon. "Army helicopters. All day. Every day. It never ends. No. Too much stress here. It's not for me."

Aliyah

WAITING
In 1972 my father sent my then much younger older sisters to Israel for a few months to live and work on a kibbutz. I don't recall why I didn't go along. Perhaps it was because I was still in high school. More likely, I didn't go for the simple reason that my father wanted me to go. In any event, they went, and I didn't.

Now, nearly forty years later, I am in Budapest's Liszt Ferenc airport waiting to board Hungarian Airlines flight 210 to Tel Aviv.


Four months ago when I alighted in Hungary and passed through this airport for the first time to begin my Fulbright I had no thought of traveling to Israel. Now, four months later, having been to Budapest, Berlin, Krakow; having visited the synagogues emptied by the Nazis and Arrow Cross; having read the travails of the Hungarian Jewish survivors George Konrad and Imre Kertesz; deeply regretting the loss of the superb Hungarian novelist Antal Szerb, who was beaten to death in a concentration camp at age 43, a career ended at three titles; I have an interest in Israel I never had before and never would have anticipated.

For the record: I have not kept a close watch on Israeli politics during my lifetime. For the record: That which I have paid attention to has distressed me.

From my perspective way across the Atlantic, Israel has too often been governed by muscle-bound hawks, Zionist zealots who have engaged in oppression and babarity unconscionable for a people who have suffered oppression and barbarity so intensely themselves. I read with shame about General Ariel Sharon's Lebanese concentration camps in the 80s, no less despicable in their way than were Hitler's in the 40s and Stalin's in the 50s. He should have been tried rather than elected Prime Minister. 


First with Sharon, then with Netanyahu, and now again with Netanyahu, if Israel had a moral compass, it has lost it; if Israel had moral authority, it has ceded it. I hope in time Israel can find them again. Being Jewish, acting on behalf of, or in defense of, the Jewish state excuses nothing. If anything it should carry greater responsibility.

What's more, Israeli politics regarding its Arab neighbor states is suicidal. For how long can Israel keep the Palestinians under "control"? For how long can it continue to support the vast military apparatus it (and the U.S.) has built in the name of defense, when, in the end, such defense will only lead to increased tension and inevitable war? 

***

I am naive. And I am self-righteous. I have not been to Israel. I have never lived there, never seen it from the inside looking out. I don't know if a week's time there will give me a better perspective, but I hope so. 
_________________________________________________
SEAT 5A
I am now cruising at 41,000 feet, somewhere above the clouds and Bulgaria. An inflight video boosting Hungary just showed some of the country's inventors and inventions: Leo Szilard; soft-contact lenses; light-emitting concrete; color TV; Excel; phonograph recording; something to do with virtual reality; and more. Pretty impressive, actually.

It's hard not to think about what, perhaps, will not be invented, or invented later rather than sooner, owing to the holocaust. Some of it we probably wouldn't have wanted. But who knows what future goods were undone when the children were marched to the gas chambers? What might Antal Szerb have lived to write had he even reached my age?

Such questions can be asked of all deaths, everywhere and for all times. Still, the genocide of Europe's Jews is different, a half-million of whom were Hungarian. Whole generations of a people never to be born.

But I follow the nose of this plane; I look ahead to Israel. Imperfect as it is, I will try to understand it, try to love it. Born of so much hate, I must try to love it.

Christiania

I first came to Copenhagen in 2004. It was then that I learned of Christiania (kris-tain-ya). I learned of its laid-back counter-culture and its dogged resistance to conformity. I learned of its compound, outpost mentality, and how for decades it has had to fend off all sorts of barbarians at its gates, from real estate developers to biker gangs to police enforcers to right wing politicians. For forty years Christiania has fought off all who sought to own it or control it.

Having returned to Copenhagen earlier this week to give a lecture, I also returned to Christiania. I find it immensley interesting.


Christiania, or Freetown Christiania as it's formally known, occupies approximately 85 acres on an isthmus between two of Copenhagen's canals. It is an accidental-turned-intentional community of squatters and others who annexed buildings and barracks left empty there by the closing of the Danish Army base on Christianhavn in 1971. 


In 1971, amidst a housing crisis in Copenhagen, in which the army base squarely sat, hippies, other cultural misfits, and those simply needing shelter, moved into the leafy abandoned area abutting the pristine Stradgraven canal. Many have been here since, still clinging to their hippie and culturally misfit ways. 

Christiania, highlighted in dark green

And since then, Christiania and Christianites have gone through lots and lots of growing pains. Aiming to structure a culture of inclusion and tolerance, Christiania has taken a public stand to remain open to those at society's margins. As a community, whose residents now number around 900, but whose commuter population and yearly visitors number 500 or 600 times that residential number, Christiania seeks not to judge nor to impose. It is a society and a state with few creeds, and fewer strictures.

This becomes apparent physically while walking its windy, narrow, overgrown gravel roads, and looking at the houses close-by on either side. In many instances, they appear designed by Rube Goldberg. To put it bluntly, Christiania's architectural and structural chaos would send any municipal building inspector into fits. There is no code. People simply do what they want, and what they can, regardless of whether they have the requisite trade skill or eye to do it "right." Which is not to say the homes are ugly (though some are) or unsafe (though some seem shaky) but only to say that for the most part, they are consciously unconventional and occasionally appear a little spontaneous and sudden, or perhaps simply tentative.

***

If the houses display an uncertain, informal architecture or design, that is how one might see the politics of Christiania as well. There is no complex structure to its deliberative process -- no hierarchy of governance or procedure. Instead, Christiania operates as a direct, completely horizontal democracy, with each community member holding no more nor no less power than their fellow community members. Each participates to the extent that he or she can, or cares to. 


Proposals for community consideration are presented en masse, in general meetings open to all Christianites. Decisions, however, can be carried by the simplest of majorities. As there is no time limit for pressing one's case, nor no time limit for opposing that case; and as in Christiania, no proposal goes forward in the face of any opposition (even with overwhelming support), stiff standoffs can lead to marathon meetings. For it is not until all opposition has either been persuaded or simply left the meeting room that a proposal carries. A single advocate or opponent willing to stick it out to the bitter end to be the last man or woman standing will win the day (or day turned into night turned into day). It is a democratic process built not on brute force or power blocs but on sheer conviction and stamina. With victory comes the responsibility to turn off the lights and close the door behind you.

***

Christiania does not have its own police force though it does have its own "laws, as you can see from the poster above. Hardly draconian, even if a little baffling: what's the story behind no bullet-proof vests? I do know the history of the ban on hard drugs and biker colors. 


From the beginning, as the Copenhagen and Danish authorities in general have maintained a grudging hands-off policy toward Christiania, Christiania developed an open drug culture. Buying pot, selling pot, and smoking pot were activities carried out in the light of day, no differently than going to the market or sipping a can of beer (legal on the streets of Copenhagen). The cops, under orders, tolerated Christiania from outside its borders. They rarely entered the former military base, but if they did, they observed but did not touch. Obviously, having their hands tied in the face of laws being broken right in front of them did not leave the cops pleased with the arrangement.

Others more scheming were. In time, hard drug peddlers took advantage of Christiania's legal refuge to test whether the sale of hard drugs could be carried out with such impunity, and for a while they were. But, as as hard drug dealers began to infiltrate so too did the problems associated with hard drugs. Heroin use lead to addictions and several overdoses resulting in death. After a failed collaboration with the police to rid Christiania of the hard drug pushers, Christianites took it upon themselves to exile the pushers and offer rehab for their victims. They succeeded, and have banned hard drugs since. 


In the 80's a Danish biker gang called Bullshit invaded to muscle in on the pot market. Their intimidating presence rankled the live and let live Christianites, and the biker gang was tossed out. The effectiveness of their conviction was apparently bolstered by the Hell's Angels, who got into a "war" with Bullshit. The Hell's Angels won. Since the expulsion of Bullshit, Christiania has imposed a no bike colors rule.


Christiania is reputed to be Copenhagen's second largest tourist destination, though it is not the kind of place which would be on the itinerary of most bus tours. Instead, it seems, that people go to Christiania for two reasons: to gawk, stealthily and a bit frightfully, as if in a wild animal preserve with the windows partially open, at its freaky-deaky circa 70s culture; and to smoke weed. 

Pusher Street

Because of Christiania's avowed tolerance, the enclave has become an internationally visited haven for pot smokers and pot dealers. On the main thoroughfare known as Pusher Street -- I will have to check if this was the Danish Army's name for it, perhaps named after some famous general, Pusher --, either side will be lined with dealers having set up makeshift stands or booths selling a various types of weed and chunks of hash. 

Buyers participate in the process like connoisseurs, sniffing, fingering, looking for tell-tale signs of this or that. With lots of people selling the same product -- assuming that it doesn't all come from a single source dressed up as choice -- likely there are distinctive characteristics to choose from. In between these stands or stalls, seated on benches with their backs against a building, customers or hangers-around puff away, some clearly having puffed their way into another dimension. 


From what I could tell on my recent visit, all the dealers were male, and seemed to have a coterie of other males hanging around, perhaps for protection, perhaps for crumbs. They didn't strike me as the kind of people who'd live in Christiania. Most of the guys tried to look hard, thuggish, as much of a gangsta as you can be selling pot to a bunch of high school kids and middle-aged, middle-class people who might have swung by Pusher Street during their lunch break or for a quick blast at the end of a long day. Still, the dealers and their crews have watched the movies; they've taken their cues. Despite the fact that they fly against much of what Christiania stands for. 

***

Nemoland

If Pusher Street is the artery of Christiania, Nemoland is its heart. Nemoland is made up of an indoor cafe, outdoor Thai food stand, semi-outdoor bar, and several acres of gravel and path hemmed all around by a natural boundary of berms, trees, and rock outcrops. Scattered in the midst of Nemoland, underneath Denmark's fickle skies, sit fifty or so blue and red painted picnic tables at which, throughout the day and night, people will park themselves in ones, twos, threes, and fours, prepare a spleet, and light up. Some all-weather tables have tent-like awnings. Beyond the tables stands the pretty professional looking Nemoland concert stage, where Cafe Nemoland frequently puts on free shows.


I didn't track anyone, but I suppose that purchases on Pusher Street get consumed in Nemoland. Nemoland, like most of Christiania, is entirely hands-off. As long as one doesn't engage in violence or the use or selling of hard-drugs, no one is going to play the heavy.


In nice weather, Nemoland fills up. The day I was there was warm, but windy. The wind made lighting up a challenge, though all seemed to rise to it. As I don't smoke pot, I stood drinking a Tuborg draft by the open-sided bar and watched those who did (My second beer was a bottle of Christiania, special brewed, vitamin fortified). 


As I panned Nemoland, everyone was, or was in the process of getting, stoned, but I only saw one guy who became unreachable. The rest were generally chatty and happy, even if a little pot-eyed. Most only came for a short while, and then got back to their non-Christiania lives out and about greater Copenhagen. Others with more time checked out backgammon boards from the bartenders, or shot pool inside Cafe Nemoland on the brand new pool table. Music thumped loud and clear and continuously. There was a festive air to Nemoland.


I chatted with the two bartenders who both spoke English pretty well and were quite willing to engage me. Neither was a resident of Christiania but both were long-time affiliates and spoke both knowledgeably and proudly of Christiania. In between pouring beers, selling rolling papers and pink plastic lighters, and taking frequent breaks to come out from behind the bar to enjoy a few tokes of their own, they told me how Christiania is undergoing major change.


Apparently, Denmark's government has had it with Christiania and has essentially made them the ultimatum to give up the land or purchase it. After a general meeting, which purportedly included those who wanted not to recognize the ultimatum, the option of buying the land prevailed. Christiania is now waiting to see what price the government will set, and in the end, whether Chrisitianites will be able to meet that price. As the bartenders told me, there are some very rich people on Christiania, but most are not. It remains to be seen whether the community will pool its resources -- each according their ability -- or whether the disparity in wealth and ability to purchase their homes and land individually will create schisms.


Regardless of what comes next, neither bartender doubted that Christiania would survive in some form, and with it, the free climate that has defined it for 40 years. The government, they told me, will move cautiously. For although only 900 strong within its gates, many Copenhageners and others around the world support the idea of Christiania and the struggle of the Christianite, and any Danish attempt to shutter the community would be met with formidable, perhaps even violent resistance. Christiania, they assured me, has lots of friends.

***

After a few beers I was feeling pretty good, and who knows, with all the smoke blowing past me perhaps I had a bit of a contact high. So maybe my impressions were a bit chemically enhanced, but it seemed to me that on that day, in the sunshine, Nemoland, and by extension, Christiania, succeeded. It gave people a place to come and get happy and feel at ease, and from what I could tell, they did.


Bevar Christiania!

Hallelujah*

Things have gotten pretty tight since OBL got deep-sixed. Here in Hungary I have received email warnings from the State Department about the need to maintain extra vigilance in the wake of Bin Laden's wake.

True to their own warning, I sensed extra security when I arrived at the U.S. Ambassador's residence last night to honor Renée Flemming, Fulbright student to Germany in 1984 and 2011 recipient of the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Award. I flashed the guards my invitation; Moses parting the Red Sea.

Inside, I was greeted by a crisp embassy assistant who smiled and asked me to sign the guest register. I have to admit that I didn't know why my invitation bore the number 4895351, and I was concerned that 4,895350 people received invitations ahead of me. So I asked. 


The assistant said, "Oh no, no, Dr. Blitefield, it's quite the opposite. The ambassador and her husband use a scale to rank their most desirable guests: 1, being right next to zero, is least desirable, absolutely undesirable. Mohammar Qaddafi undesirable. Such a person might receive an invitation, but only so that the guards can turn them away."

I looked at my invitation again and was suddenly feeling pretty darn good. "How high do the numbers go?" I asked, perhaps pushing it a bit.  

"I'm sorry Dr. Blitefield. I can't tell you. That information is classified. Need to know. For your eyes only. That sort of thing." Then she cupped her hand in front of her mouth and whispered, "But I can tell you this, you are right up there. Can't get much more desirable than 4895351." She winked and then resumed her officious demeanor. 

"How about that," I thought as I swaggered up the staircase to the second floor, regretting only that I wasn't given a name tag, one with my number on it. But then I corrected myself: there are others less fortunate than you; don't rub their noses in it. Being 4895351, I was quickly learning, comes with responsibility.

Speaking of numbers, while I don't know what her desirability number -- let's call it an index, desirability index -- is, though likely not close to my own, age-wise Renée Flemming and I are about the same. I'm plus four, and so maybe when she reaches my age she will also have peaked higher on the desirability index. As for everything else, she and I are kind of on a par. That's why I wouldn't be at all surprised if I get the Fulbright Lifetime Achievement Award within the next year or two. 

And so, as a Fulbrighter who has not yet been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award but who is certainly in the running, and with such an outstanding desirability rating to boot, the Ambassador, Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, and her husband, Markos, obviously thought I should be there to celebrate Renee, perhaps, too, to get a taste of what awaits me. Of what I so richly deserve.

Eleni and Mark -- I like to call them that -- it's so much less stuffy than Madame Ambassador and Mr. Kounalakis -- Eleni and Mark had had me to a previous reception just a few months ago for another Fulbright thing, and I guess I made enough of an impression then that they just had to have me back again (I wonder where I was on the index that night, before and after). I don't mean to boast, but I'm thinking I'm part of the inner circle at casa Tsakopoulos Kounalakis, a sure A-lister. A+. A+ squared. And I am absolutely, definitely certain that if Eleni and Mark knew me, we'd all be on a first name basis.

Anyway, I hadn't had two sips of my scotch before Renée and a whole gaggle of quacking photographers came over. Amidst the rasping of shutters and the soft pop of flashes, Renée and I tried to hold a normal conversation.

"Photographers," she said. "I feel like I'm chained to them, dragging them with me wherever I go."

 clickclickpopop

"Tell me about it," I chimed in.

clickclickpopop

"I heard you were here."

clickclickpopop

"And I heard you were here."

clickclickpopop

"Well, I am the one being honored after all."

clickclickpopop

This time, I said to myself. "Yes, you should be quite pleased. Winning the Lifetime Achievement Award is something special. And only very special people can earn it."

clickclickpopop

She blushed. "Thank you. But you -- you're, an academic, isn't that right?"

"Hang on, Ms. Flemming. Excuse me just a second."

I stepped into all the clicking and popping and held up my hands. "Look, fellas, I know you guys are just doing your job. But me and Ms. Flemming are trying to have a normal conversation, and that's really hard to do with you firing away like that. Don't you have enough shots for now? Can you give us ten minutes to talk like two regular people?"

The photographers looked at each other, nodded with chagrin, and skulked away. Not far away. Just away. To their credit, they did lay off the cameras for the time being.

"Thank you!" she said, "You don't know how many times I've wanted to do that. I never knew it could be so easy. But forgive me. You were saying?" 

"I was saying... uh, oh yes, that's right. I am an academic, a rhetorician. I teach at UMass Dartmouth."

"A rhetorician! So many syllables! I'm sure you can imagine that as an opera singer, I love syllables. And especially with such a mix of vowels."

"Yeah, we rhetoricians, we're a pretty cool bunch."

"And at UMass Dartmouth!"

Now it was my turn to blush. "Please, Ms. Flemming..."

"Do call me Renée..."

"Alright, Renée, you're embarrassing me."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Jerry. May I call you Jerry. Really. It's just that, well, I've never met a rhetorician before. I've met lots of opera stars -- you know, your Pavarottis, your Domingos, your Carrerases yadda yadda yadda, and of course kings and queens and heads of state from all over the world, but you are my first rhetorician."

"Well, if it's any consolation, you're my first diva. So, I guess that makes us even."

"I guess so," she said with a smile. We shook on it. "Won't you tell me what you do? As a rhetorician, I mean? It sounds so exciting."

"I will. But not tonight. There isn't enough time to do it justice. And besides, you've got others to see as well. The rest of the crowd here would be pretty upset if you spent the whole
night chatting with me."

She looked around and much as she may have wished to be just a regular person at that moment she accepted the reality of her stardom. "I suppose you're right. But listen, it is my night, so if I want to spend just another minute or two with you, I can. And so I shall. Tell me Jerry, are you a musical rhetorician?"

"Renée, you sounded a tad breathless with that question."

"Did I?" she asked, looking away.

"Well, just a tad. But anyway, to answer your question, yes, I play a little guitar."

"Really! You mean the ukelele?"

"No, I mean, I play guitar. Only a little."

"Ah, got it. So what do you play?"

"I play a lot of Leonard Cohen."

"Leonard Cohen! I love Leonard Cohen. What a voice. So earthy. So husky. Do you have a favorite Leonard Cohen song?"

"Yes. "Hallelujah"."

"Mine, too! "And even though it went all wrong, I'll stand before the lord of song, with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah" -- that's some kind of writing, don't you think?"

'I do."

Renée seemed very pleased with the conversation. "What other Leonard Cohen songs do you know?"

"Well, uh, that's the only one."

"I suppose if you're going to know one Leonard Cohen song, that's a good one to know, right? I mean, I've always wanted to sing "Hallelujah," but, as you can imagine, it doesn't quite fit the operatic repertoire. So, what other songs do you play?"

"I don't. That's it."

"No, I don't just mean Leonard Cohen songs. I mean songs in general."

"So do I. I don't know any other songs. "Hallelujah"'s it."

"You know one song."

"Yes. But it's a good one. You said so yourself."

She reared back, some. "Oh... I see... When you say you only play a little, you're not kidding."

"I'm a rhetorician, Renée. Rhetoricians don't mince words."

No longer able to restrain itself, the crowd was closing in on us. Not to be outdone, the photographers started jockeying for position again. "Your fans are getting restless. You better get to them before there's bloodshed... mine."

"Oh, I suppose you're right. Though I so enjoy talking music with you, even if it is only about one song. But listen, Jerry -- in a short while I've got to perform a little. They want me to sing some dorky Handel aria or something, but I'd much rather sing "Hallelujah" -- with you. You and me. A duet. We can sing way down low, Leonard Cohen style." Here she started to sing way down low, Leonard Cohen style. I didn't have the heart to tell her; it sounded like croaking. Leonard Cohen is just not made for sopranos. Or vice versa. 

"Please, Jerry," she said, laying her hand on my arm. "It would mean a lot to me. Singing "Hallelujah" with you, a rhetorician."   

Her eyes were so pleading I couldn't say no. "Why sure, Renée. I'd love to sing a duet with you."

"Fan-tastic!" she said, doing all she could to keep from hugging me. "Let me go do some glad-handing and so forth and I will come fetch you when it's time. This is going to be great!" she said over her shoulder as the human amoeba instantly englulfed her.

Renée and Me, away from fans and photogs

***

And so there we were, just the two of us, standing in front of the piano in the salon, facing her adoring audience. "Ladies and gentlemen. First, I'd like to thank you all for the kindness with which you have greeted me tonight. I have long believed that going on that Fulbright in1984 was the turning point in my life, and I am deeply honored to have received this award. Second, there will be a slight change in the musical offering tonight."

Puzzled, the crowd looked at each other. 

"Yes, ladies and gentlemen. Instead of same-old-same-old Handel, I will be joined by my new friend, Dr. Jerrold Blitefield, master rhetorician at UMass Dartmouth, for a bit of our own Hallelujah chorus."

My introduction was met with as much gasping as faint applause. "What? No Handel?" "What's his name? Biddlefiddle?"

"Yes," Renée continued above the rustling, "Jerry and I will sing for you that great American "Hallelujah", that of Leonard Cohen."

"Leonard who?"

"Sam," she said, swinging with brio toward the piano player, 
"Play it one time!"

Sam slumped, dumbfounded. "Um, uh, Miss Flemming, I uh, don't know it."

"Oh, of course you do. Jerry, can you tell him the chords?"

I cleared my throat but Sam cut me off. "It's not that, Miss Flemming. Knowing the chords, I mean. See, I'm not really a piano player. I'm working security, undercover, in case some terrorism should break out here." He opened his jacket a little to reveal the butt of what might have been an Ouzi or something.

Renée was as shocked as I. "But who's been playing piano? I did hear piano, did I not?" 

Sam raised his hands from the keyboard. "It's a machine? See? No hands!" he laughed, kind of desperately. 

"Does the machine know "Hallelujah?" "

"Is "Hallelujah" a show tune?"

"No. It most certainly is not a show tune."

"Then the machine doesn't know it. We brought the machine that knows show tunes. Keep things peppy. Besides, terrorists don't like show tunes."

Renée looked at me, panicked. "Jerry: What are we going to do? I have told the audience that we would be singing "Hallelujah" and they're expecting "Hallelujah" and now I find out that we have no piano player to play it."

"Renée, look. I'm just a simple rhetorician. But it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that." If only my Sam was here...


Renée lowered her head and began to cry. "What are we going to do, Jerry."


I looked around at the increasingly restless crowd, and at my pals Eleni and Mark, for whom the night was coming undone. 


I lifted Renée's chin. "I'll tell you what we're going to do, Renée. We're going to give them "Hallelujah." "


"Oh Jerry!"


"Excuse me!" I shouted to the crowd, "Excuse me! Does anyone out there have a guitar?"


"I do," a voice shouted back.


"Jerry! You're not going to play "Hallelujah" on the guitar!"


"It's our only hope Renée. I've got to, or die trying."

There was a commotion deep in the crowd that finally emerged as a tuxedoed man holding a guitar, a little guitar. More like a ukele.


"Does anyone have a real guitar?" I shouted.


"Yes! Here! Take mine!" said a woman in a floor-length green chiffon gown pushing through. "Hallelujah!, Dr. Blitefield," she exulted, handing it to me.


"Oh but Jerry -- that's a nylon-stringed guitar!" Renée observed with distress, "You don't play a nylon-stringed guitar!"


"I do now, Renée. I do now."


Because I'm kind of tone death and better at untuning guitars than at tuning them, I took this one on faith. "Renée, I'm as ready as I'm going to be. Are you ready?"


She looked at me with renewed light shining from her eyes. "Yes, Jerry. I am ready!"


She turned to the mumbling, grumbling crowd. "Ladies and gentlemen! Ladies and gentlemen! If you will just settle down some, we'd like to begin. Please. Settle down."


And they did, anxiously.


"Here we go," I whispered to Renée. 


She nodded.


I strummed a C, and we began:

I heard there was a secret chord, 

that David played and it pleased the lord, 

but you don't even care for music, do you...

***

Renée and I got through all of "Hallelujah", though just barely. I was a little slow in the chord changes -- finding the right spots for your fingers takes time -- and our singing was, frankly, atrocious. I would have been pleased if we sang simply as poorly as Leonard Cohen. Unfortunately, I think we sounded more like Tom Waits at his most guttural.

As we worked our way through the verses the audience jeered and booed, and had there been tomatoes among them I'm sure we would have gotten pelted. I caught Eleni and Mark out of the corner of my eye -- that didn't help my playing, either -- and they looked at me quite severely. I gulped as I saw my desirability index plummeting, falling like a stone. It was pretty clear that the three of us would no longer be on a first-name basis. More, I wondered if this performance would affect my chances for receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Renée, though, was absolutely radiant, exuberant, apparently having the time of her life. She was snapping her fingers out of time, and singing so low it sounded like she was gargling.

By the time we had finished, the crowd was mostly gone, having left in a snit. The woman who had loaned me her guitar came and snatched it back, but not before barking, "You suck!" 

And we were alone. 


I turned to Renée. "Well, that was pretty much of a disaster. I"m sorry."

"Sorry?! I loved it! I thought it was perfect!"

She didn't look crazy. "Huh?"


"Don't you see," she said beaming. "For as long as I can remember, it's been applause on top of applause. Encore after encore. Standing ovation after standing ovation. I am not going to deny that sometimes I'm deserving of such a response -- I really do work hard. But everyone has an off day here and there, and yet the audience response is always the same. It sometimes causes me to wonder whether they're really listening. But tonight! They were sure listening tonight, and what they heard was awful, and they sure gave us what we had coming. I loved it! It was so real! The first time in my life that I'd ever been booed, and it felt great!"

I wished I could say the same.


"Look, Jerry, I want you to think about this before you give me your answer, okay?"


I nodded.


"I have to give a concert Wednesday night at the Opera House, and I would love if you would join me for a reprise of "Hallelujah", just as we did it tonight. I think we'd knock the socks right off of them."

I hated to stick a pin in her elation, but I had to. I had to put a stop to this now, before it got out of hand. "Look, Renée, I don't want you to take it personally, but what happened tonight was a one-time thing. You're a sweet kid, but I'm a rhetorician. Just as you've got your work to do, so do I. For me, it's in front of a classroom, or at academic conferences, not on the stage of the Hungarian Opera House."


A cloud began to pass over her face.


"Besides," I said, "You were born to sing beautifully, not horribly. You have a rare talent that brings joy to many people around the world and you just can't let that talent go to waste, not even for a minute. You have had your boos; now it's time to get back to the cheers. If not for you, then for your audience, your fans, those who love you and want to love you."


The cloud passed, and she took my hands in hers. "You rhetoricians are a pretty wise bunch, aren't you."


"Yes. Yes we are."


"Ms. Flemming, your chauffeur is here," someone said.


She looked to the door. "I must go."


"I know."


"Will I see you again?"


"No. We live in different worlds, Renée. Tonight was just a freak of nature."


She nodded. "But we'll always have Fulbright, won't we, Jerry?"


"Yes, Renée. We'll always have Fulbright."


Renée Flemming kissed me on the cheek and walked out of my life. 


And with that, I looked for Eleni and Mark to say goodnight, but they were nowhere to be found.


*With apologies to Renée Flemming, Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis and Markos Kounalakis, Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Rick and Ilsa, and Garrison Keillor.

Meditating Over The Hands Of An Aged Piano Player

I stopped in the Spinoza Haz Restaurant on Dob u. in  Budapest's Jewish Quarter for two reasons: 1) after having walked up and down Dob u. I couldn't locate the Synagogue Apartments where I was to spend my two-night stay (Nothing remotely like "Synagogue Apartments, enter here (Jerry)"); 2) Spinoza Haz was nearby when I threw in the towel to trying to find the Synagogue Apartments simply with my genetic gps, and Spinoza beckoning with free wifi so that I could check my email confirmation for the exact address.

(Turns out the apartment was right across the street, though set back off the road in a rather deep and famous maze of buildings known as Godzsu Court.)

Once inside the Spinoza and seated, I ordered a hosszú kávé, went online, and listened to the lunchtime chatter circling about. It was about 1 p.m.

Dividing my attention between my laptop and everything else going on around me, I successfully eavesdropped enough to learn that the Spinoza offers nightly piano music (except for Fridays, when it offers klezmer samples of klezmer). I have been kind of starved for live music since having come to Hungary, so this was a gift dropped in my lap. Free wifi and live music. I was growing fond of Spinoza.

And, as the restaurant was owned by an Israeli, and purported to serve "Jewish" food (not sure there is such a thing, but I'll save that for another time), I knew my eating there would tickle my two living sisters and bring approving nods from my countless dead relatives. So I decided the Spinoza was were I would have a Jewish dinner and live music.

The Israeli owner said, "Definitely, absolutely," when someone at a nearby table asked whether she should make reservations in order to get a table during the piano performance. I got the sense he was very business savvy and would have said definitely, absolutely regardless, but given that the restaurant -- more like an old cafe -- wasn't that big to begin with, I decided to play it safe and make a definite, absolute reservation for myself. 


The waiter was thrilled -- a bit too thrilled -- when I told him I wanted to reserve a table, which signaled to me that few others have, or do. He asked, "Would you like smoking or no-smoking?" I told him no-smoking, but more important, I said, was that I would like to sit somewhere close to the music. "Where is the piano?" I asked. "Here!" he said, pointing right alongside us. 


The rectangular table just inside the door that was host to menus, wine cards, and an assortment of tourist brochures (all of which, I later learned, had carefully dogeared Spinoza adpages; I told you the guy was business savvy) actually abutted the back of an upright piano. A burgundy velvet drape concealed its ribs. "Oh. Okay. Somewhere close by here, then. How about 8 o'clock?"

"Fine, sir. Thank you." He was very polite. Though the fact that he just scribbled down my name in a little red book with no other notes -- not even the time -- caused me some doubt. "I will remember you," he said with an enthusiastic smile.

I returned just before 8 and saw from the curb that the Spinoza wasn't full, but close. Perhaps the owner wasn't exaggerating definitely, absolutely after all.

When I entered, a different waiter than the one I had booked my table with approached, and when I told him that I had a reservation he said, "Very good, sir!" He fetched the red book and I pointed out my name. "Ah! Well, then -- where would you like to sit? We have smoking in the back room."


I was starting to wonder: what does "reservation" mean in Spinozese?


"Nonsmoking, please. Close to the piano."


The waiter and I both looked around the nonsmoking area close to the piano. There was one small table, for four, against the wall and directly across from the piano. It was unseated and had a foglalt sign on it, which I was pretty sure meant "reserved", which I was also pretty sure meant it was my table, saved for me by my prior waiter, he with the good memory.


Apparently my very affable current waiter didn't see it that way. "Would you like to sit upstairs? We have some very nice tables upstairs? Please, follow."


I hadn't known there was an upstairs, but, looking up, indeed there was, kind of a balcony perch from which to scope the piano and dining area (including my foglalt table). 


The waiter had already taken off and was half-way up the stairs.

What the hell, I thought, so it's not front row. I'll live. I looked wistfully at my foglalt table, and headed up the wide staircase.


The table I was offered was right along the simple wrought-iron railing, offering me a clear, almost perpendicular view of the piano and its as yet untinkled keys. Better, actually. I agreed to take it -- though not without a snort of a hurrumph -- and ordered a glass of wine.


The wine arrived at about the same time as the tall, somewhat stooped piano player, whose jacket suggested he better filled it in earlier days. He lowered himself on the piano bench and I coveted his white hair, thick and soft. (As a friend of mine from college who was graying prematurely used to buck up, "Better gray than nay." That goes for white, too.)

He rested his hands on the keyboard, momentarily, long enough for me to look them over. They were long. Their knuckles knobby. Deep ravines separated their metacarpals. Thick, blue veins crisscrossed them. They were old.


And yet, shortly, when he began to play, they were nimble, like marionettes: lively and brisk now, slow and doleful then, hopping here, carefully stepping there. From my crow's nest, they were more than capable; they were surprisingly accomplished, and, I instantly imagined, quite sought after in their day. I had no doubt those hands had played in venues larger, and for audiences more focused, than that of the Spinoza.


And yet here they were. He, the piano man, played them effortlessly through a Gershwin medey, "The Blue Danube Waltz", and for the hometown crowd, the old Jewish chestnuts, "Ha Tikvah" (Israeli national anthem; Enrico Macias scmaltzing up Ha Tikvah) and the theme from the movie, Exodus (original soundtrack, with movie clips).


The restaurant was busy and my waiter not especially good, so my food was slow in coming. But that was fine. I was actually quite happy resting my chin on the railing and watching the piano man below.


About him swirled typical restaurant turbulence, and yet at his piano he was a sea of calm. With his eyes fixed on the keyboard, he was in a world of his own.


I watched with envy, but also with sadness, his hands float back and forth over the keys. I suspected that as he now looked down on his aged hands, as I was looking down on them, he felt some pangs of regret. Of loss. I guessed that as good as they were, still, they were not as good as they were, once. And I supposed that of all people in the world who knew that, he did.

And so, watching him, it struck me as sad: here was a man who spent the last forty, fifty, sixty years in a totally devoted relationship with his hands, a relationship stronger perhaps than any he'd had with a person, a relationship that was visibly, physically renewed on a daily basis: How many hours each day and how many days each week over the decades had he looked down upon those hands, and worked with them, a full collaboration between eye, ear, and digit, in the elusive pursuit of perfection? And does he sometimes look down on them now, surprised at how old they've grown, perhaps with feelings of betrayal; how once they were young and strong, fleet, maybe even tanned, but now, old, frail, grinding, chalky white?

I would have given anything to play like he was playing for me in the Spinoza. I wonder what he might give today to play like he did in his prime. 


I mused, and muse still: Is there an actual moment in life pinpointing the beginning of our decline? Was there a moment twenty, thirty, forty years ago that passed unnoticed when this piano player had slowly and quietly reached his peak, from which he has been slowly, inexorably, descending since? And how long after that flash in time was it when he began to realize his diminishment, that he and his hands were no longer, and never again would be, capable of doing what they did when younger, despite their will to do so. 


Others surely know what this feels like. Athletes. Surgeons. Barbers. Scholars. Writers. Perhaps even religious supplicants. Anyone who has committed themself, devoted themself, to pursuing excellence, personal excellence. There comes a day when you just can't do it like you used to. And you know it.

But then again, looking at this piano man past his prime, yes, he may not be able to do it like he once did, but he was able to do it quite fine for me and the others who listened, clapped, and put some forints in his tip jar. He may have known that he wasn't as excellent as he once was, but we, his audience could only have surmised that. For what we heard, or at least what I heard, was excellent. Period.


I suspect that when their playing was done and they pulled down the piano top for the night, he and his hands were pleased, at peace. At least for one more night.