WanderingStu Freefall

Erik yearns

2007-12-16T19:38:00.000+02:00

So, friends, what DID I mean when I said "I'm the Nazz"? And should that question mark be inside the quotation marks?

Because I'm the Nazz

2007-12-13T21:02:00.001+02:00

Shimstu is breaking out, friends. Check me out on this cool site. And stay tuned for an update on my new role in a 3-city tour of The Man of La Mancha! (I think i've been cast as the mule, but they haven't told us yet...)

Also, say a little prayer that I get the job for which I am interviewing on Tuesday. Amen.

Here's two pics of Lisa, who took the groundbreaking photo. She's the cutest! And clicky HERE for her site.

PS- if there is no picture of me at the top of this post, please let me know. For some reason, blogger killed my photo a day after i posted. I reset the photo, but still wonder if it will happen again

God Bless America

2007-12-05T14:38:00.000+02:00

and a Happy Chanukah to all

(photo sent to me by Mrs. Jenny B. of Athens, GA.)

Chanukoran

2007-12-05T14:31:00.000+02:00

We had a chanukah party today at ulpan. Across all the levels, there must be almost 200 students in the program. We all gathered in a little auditorium, where a guy in a Crocodile Dundee hat played a white baby grand piano, accompanied by shrill, cheezy Middle Eastern synthesizer rhythms. A few Arab guys were dancing in a goofy manner, trying to incite the rest of the crowd to join in. Two of the teachers and a small group of Americans were likewise dancing and inciting (or trying to incite). The rest of us sat and watched, maybe clapping. I was standing in the back, smiling at the odd spectacle of it all. Behind me, dozens of oily donuts waited patiently on the table.

The guy started playing the Chabad Mashiach song (a religious song combining Maimondes' 1000-year old proclamation of faith in the coming of the Messiah with the Chabadnik's tune celebrating the crazed notion that the Rebbe (may he rest in peace) IS the Messiah). I looked around at the crowd, 70% of which is young Arabs, and asked the Principal of the Ulpan if Muslims even have a Messiah concept. She understood my subtext. "They don't mind these songs," she said. "They just focus on the music."

I was somewhat skeptical. It must be weird for these Arab kids to be the majority in a program that focuses heavily on Israeli culture. After a few more songs, the principal got on the mic, and started explaining the story of Chanukah. I looked around at this room full of Palestinian youth, and realized that at the Purim party and the Passover party they also get to hear a revered legend of the Jews wiping out their enemy.

I leaned over to the guy next to me. "Having fun?"
"Absolutely."

Hamdul'lah.

Good Morning

2007-12-02T03:33:00.000+02:00

I don't know that I felt jet-lagged over the past 2 days since I arrived back in Israel, but I spent most of that time in bed, awake or asleep. Tomorrow I begin ulpan (adult hebrew-language instruction, as they say), and so i need to get back on a normal schedule. i got into bed around midnight.

About 40 minutes ago I gave up on trying to fall asleep, flicked on the lights, the music and sat down here. It's now 3:40am. Alarm is slate for 7. Ach.

What else? What the hell else? People want posts. Updates. Their dose of this wanderingstu thing. And yet.

I went to a comedy show tonite at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem. It was called the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour. The 2 Israelis were Americans, and one of the Palestinians was Egyptian. The other was American too. It was funny enough, but not hilarious. Yisrael Campbell, with whom I'm sort of buddies, was awesome. He's got some amazing bits.

I toy with the idea of trying to do some standup. Assembling material is rough. I wish I could just summon an audience at those moments once every few weeks when my spontanaeity and good humor are simultaneously awakened.

But I guess that defeats the purpose. I had a cute bit about being a settler and seeing that the airplane toilet was Occupied, but one of the guys used it tonite, and I started to wonder if I had even made it up in the first place.

I have another bit about terrorists throwing martinis instead of molotov cocktails, but I'm not sure if it's funny.

Tomorrow I begin the next phase of my life. Someone send me a friggin balloon.

Ironical

2007-11-26T23:46:00.000+02:00

The previous post asks commenters to sign their comments. The last comment on the previous post is anonymous. And YOU-- YOU want me to post??? Well here it is. But golly, that ain't fair...

I am in Florida. I decided to come home to surprise my mom for her birthday and Thanksgiving. Valerie helped me with the conspiracy. I thought she was going to die when I walked in the door. Literally die. I was afraid. Here's the shot:

I thought it would be good for the whole family if I came. We needed to talk and spend some mellow time together. Plus I wanted to tell them face-to-face that I quit Yeshiva and moved to Jerusalem and don't know if, when or how I might become a Rabbi after all....

Yeah.

Here's a shot from 1997 or so. It was taken on film, and I just found it and shot a digital picture of the printed photo. That's how it feels when I'm in Florida. Sort of.

here's your new post

2007-11-07T08:23:00.000+02:00

thanks for the attention, anonymous commenter.
if i had one guess, i would guess that you were not my mother.

as i've always requested, please sign your comments, so i know from whence cometh the love. that way, i can post just for you, with a personalized touch of wanderingstu magic. if i don't know who you are, i tend to stop caring.

plus, in my needy state, i would like a face to associate with the expression of appreciation.

and send bacon salt. please. my grapefruit is getting boring

Get yo' ass into My neighborhood

2007-10-12T14:45:00.000+02:00

I've never posted video before, but this stuff is too good. First of all, watch Uncle Fred breakdance:

Now. It's a sad sad statement about our mentality in this day and age, after stumbling our way through the confusing Eighties and the confused Nineties, that you can't watch Mr. Rogers without thinking that he's maybe a little perverse. Creepy. You don't want him to touch that poor little boy. It's a total klipah (as we say here in Israel)- an unhealthy and distorted way of looking at the world. Any time an adult male gives gentle attention to children, our pedophile alarm goes off.

Mr. Rogers was perhaps the only guy who ever just damn CARED. Watch this:

He's sweet, humble, gentle, encouraging, trusting. Did I mention humble? He thanks US over and over again for all the things that HE gave us. And more than that, he's a national hero. Watch this hard-ass Senator absolutely melt:

Taking a look at Mr. Rogers again is a great opportunity for us to explore just how much the past 30 years have hosted the perversion and exploitation of every realm of human existence, and just how jaded we've become because of it.

Sigh.

Then again, some bored academics have something else to say about livin' in the 'Hood (go back and click "bored academics"). They say that Mr. Rogers made us all narcissistic wimps.

And, of course, there is evidence that Mr. Rogers was in league with one of the Masters of Evil:

I'm for real now

2007-10-08T09:04:00.000+02:00

My writing on the Torah portion "Noah" (i.e. my drash on parshas Noach) appears on the environmental website Canfei Nesharim. I was the ghost writer of the previous piece as well, which is by the Chief Rabbi of the UK. I wrote several of the pieces for this series, which will come out weekly over the next year, and I edited several others.

There you have it.

Don't call the Paramedics yet

2007-09-25T21:29:00.000+02:00

My mood is slightly improved. I think it all sucks, but my mood is slightly improved. I made some nice beans today, and am about to watch the 4th Harry Potter movie (and finish the 5th book).

AND- I found God, fell in love and lost 20 pounds.

ha.

Three stages of Yom Kippur

2007-09-22T18:25:00.000+02:00

1) Last night I went to davvening ("services"), prayed heartily, and stayed over an hour afterwards to chat with a friend and learn some stuff about the Yom Kippur ritual in the Temple back in the olden days.

2) This morning I was in the Beit Midrash at 6:30am for the beginning of davvening, and did all the introductory stuff. Somewhere early in the official service, I began to get frustrated, feel distanced from all the hundreds of pages of words laid out before me. This feeling was exacerbated by some comment I read in the prayer book about righteous people knowing they have the truth, some overbearing notion that being aligned with God's Will brings with it an acceptable cockiness towards those who don't (heaven forfend).

I began pacing in and out of the room, spending time in a little side room that is being used as a storage closet a few families, and reading a book called Seeing God, hoping to rediscover an understanding of Deity that isn't focused on sneering at other people, obeying commands or obsequiously praising without end. I also read a bit in Kosher Sex.

I made sure to take care of all my gabbai duties, like assigning people to open the ark at specific moments, and running the Torah service section, calling people up for honors and giving them blessings. That's the core of my job, and because I have that role, I had to be in the vicinity of the prayers, although I felt more and more distant from them as the hours rolled by.

3) At around 1:30, having dispensed of all my clerical obligations, I abandoned the davvening for good. I had been there for 7 hours, and was not getting anywhere. I spent the rest of the time (the past 5 hours) in my bed, alternatively reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and sleeping. It has now passed the 12-hour mark, and they are just getting to the end of the day's prayers down there. Not bad, considering the place has a record of sometimes going on until after 9pm

_____________

This was definitely one of the lamest Yom Kippur experiences I've had. This used to be one of my favorite days of the year, even way back, before I had any real connection with Judaism. In 1996, quite memorably, Craig and I fasted while camping in the Badlands on Yom Kippur.

Today, I hardly felt connected with any of the elements of the day- repentance, purification, holiness, unity of the People, or spiritual/emotional realignment. I have been cultivating mundane fantasies of being a substitute teacher in Broward County. I have three weeks of wide-open vacation in front of me, and no idea what I should do.

Happy New Year.

Someone tell Lady Luck that I'm stuck here-

2007-09-19T17:29:00.000+02:00

I've been avoiding returning to the Beit Midrash (the Study Hall) to resume my learning. There is only tomorrow left before Yom Kippur, and a three week break. At this moment, I am in the midst of another notorious fit of indolence, confusion and apathy, and have no desire to go learn Torah.

But it's not really apathy. I still care about the stuff I cared about when I was 12. When I went to eat lunch, my friend David started singing "Somewhere That's Green" from Little Shop of Horrors. I promptly and enthusiastically joined in. I came back to my room and started looking for Horror clips on YouTube. After watching a few, out of order, and went back and watched the clip of "Skid Row." The ghetto striving and the deep, deep emotion of the voices, especially the black singers, brought me to tears.

You tell me what that means..

I'm back, and yet...

2007-09-18T17:37:00.000+02:00

I got back from Uman, Ukraine this morning about 11 hours ago, after 17 hours of driving, 14 hours of training, 12 hours of Budapesting and 5 hours of planing. I've been in bed ever since. But not sleeping as much as I would like.

If you want to kinda see what the scene is at the grave of Rebbe Nachman, here's a few YouTube videos from previous years. I don't know that any of them really capture the energy. Of course 2 days of Rosh Hashanah and Shabbat don't get filmed. I am surprised that this year's footage hasn't made it online yet. Give it a few days..

eventually i will get some photos of our trip from Rav Natan's sons.

After 10 days in Eastern Europe, I am, once again, all confused about, well, everything. I dunno what the heck is going on, or what I should be doing or where to go to investigate the millions of questions that spin through my mind all the time. I feel shattered. I spent about 3 hours in the Turkish baths in Budapest, the same place I went with Craig in '95. I just lay there, soaking in the water, feeling totally free, feeling that... that thing that comes up when I travel, that kernel of life that I can just about grasp. And then-

Yom Kippur is in three days. We'll see how that irons things out a bit...

Stu got the Look

2007-09-06T21:00:00.000+03:00

Before and After

Why?
I was pulling out every damn hair obsessively, staring at it, admiring the texture, analyzing the split ends. Once I got started, usually towards the late afternoon, I couldn't stop. I had to shave it. I couldn't bear the added stress of such an annoying fetish.

And of course, here's my South Park character from Facebook:

Moving towards some sort of truth telling

2007-09-03T21:52:00.001+03:00

I've been wanting to make this space a confessional for so so so so so long... but, like I said, the timing just ain't right.

I dunno.
Here's a few facts:

- I am going to the Ukraine for Rosh Hashana, to the grave of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Me and 25,000 other dudes

- When I arrived in Israel 2 weeks ago, I began eating vegetarian again. It's the first time since my brief revolt against all forms of human violence that began September 11, 2001, and lasted about a month.

- I eat too much. Vegetarian or not.

- I feel lonely as hell. A lot.

- I am surrounded by good folks, who are my friends, and I have a mentor who believes in me, no matter how bitchy and lame and despairing I get.

- The Hebrew word for vegetarian is tzimchoni which, literally, is more like "plantetarian."

- I have some bad habits that I am trying to break.

- I haven't gotten any damn mail from anyone.

- I am damn cute.

[i had posted a few pictures up here, but they seem to have vanished]

Lick it and put it in the Blue Box

2007-08-22T00:11:00.000+03:00

I want mail.
I don't wanna skype or do email (not that i get much email).
Send a letter-

Shimshon St:u Siegel
Yeshivat Bat Ayin
Gush Ezion 90913
Israel

I'll write back.

when it should it doesn't and when it could it's not

2007-08-19T00:19:00.000+03:00

There have been DOZENS of times in the past few weeks when I wrote huge, sprawling, moping, bitching, ranting blog posts in my head, unleashing the complex of frustration, confusion, anger, loneliness, shortness-of-breath, lust, despair and physical discomfort I've been experiencing so much in the weeks since my job at Brandeis wrapped up.

But whenever I have a moment to actually blog this stuff, it just isn't there.

Right now, mellow. Slight ache in the lower neck. A little shortness-of-breath. It was an amazing sunset. I have to go babysit and type environmental Torahs.

Maybe next time.

Not sleeping in a box

2007-08-14T02:14:00.000+03:00

I've been back in Israel for about 12 hours.
I put myself to bed just after 11pm, tired, weary, drawn-out, a little edgy, lonely, beat-up by the events of today's journey, which involved losing an expensive bottle of liquor, standing on the side of the road for over an hour, breaking into my room with a dirty pick-ax and feeding my emaciated friend Squeakers the Cat two bowls of Friskies.

I really thought I was gonna sleep for a long, long time.

A friend used my room for storage, and so my stuff is all buried under his. I didn't find a proper setting for the bed, and just used the ratty sheet I found on it, and some pillowcases from the community linen closet. For whatever reason, I didn't grab a sheet with which to cover myself, so at 1:10am I woke up, chilly and mosquito-bitten.

In a story in the book I've been reading, swarms of mosquitoes in Alaska actually cover people's limbs. In my trailer in the Judean Hills, one little bastard has his way with me until I leap up and smash him (or her). It's a nightly hunt I had forgotten about.

I am freaked out being here right now. I don't exactly feel like I am at home. My little room, in which I had been very comfortable last year, feels like a box, a closet, a tomb. The exposed lightbulb glares. I am a little freaked out.

It seems to take a week

2007-08-12T09:12:00.001+03:00

I think about posting every day, every night. I challenge myself with ideas of newer, more revealing content. I imagine myself opening up and sharing all of my thoughts, experiences, struggles, my questions, hypocrisies & doubts. I imagine it to be cathartic, shattering, catalyzing.

Then I go to sleep instead.

My plane leaves in about 19 hours. It's coming to a close, this patchwork adventure in American living. This has been my longest period in the States in 2 years, more than double any prior trip. It's been good. It's been hard. It's been rewarding. It's been reaffirming, both towards the Darkness, and the Light. It's been fattening. It's been naughty. But not as naughty as we might have liked.

I am right now at Sarah and Jason's in Brooklyn. Tomorrow we are going to a premier Brooklyn brunch spot, near the Museum. Then I go to Soho to pick up my bags. I might take the Subway to the airport, spend $8 rather than $48. I dragged my stuff here from Boston, so I reckon I can wrangle it, especially if I get a little help on the first descent in Soho.

I don't feel ready to go back. I can muster, when I pause to do so, a yearning for the streets of Jerusalem, and certain bearded faces, and certain unbearded faces. But I don't feel ready to return to the religious life, to a context of pray-ers and believers and self-abnegation.

I don't know what I feel ready for.
But I guess no one's asking how I feel. Tomorrow is coming.

Left you hanging

2007-08-05T05:54:00.000+03:00

Hi. I am in Rhode Island with Mom and Valerie, visiting cousin Doug and his wife, baby girl, dog Merlin (a Hungarian Kuvasz) and Tonto, the Sun Conyer, a clever bird who, when held over the garbage can and told, "Dookie, Tonto," actually does defecate. I lived with Tonto for a few months in Santa Clara, California, back in 1996. She's mellowed since then, and doesn't squawk all night long. (that isn't a real Tonto photo up there. just a pic of another Sun Conyer.)

In one week, I return to Israel. I am excited, but also feel some trepidation. I was exposed to / reminded of many aspects of life this summer from which I feel very distant when I am in Bat Ayin. As I always say at these moments of mini-transition, I need to establish myself a physically-spiritually-emotionally healthy routine that will provide me with a stable base while giving me opportunities to expand beyond the stultifying lethargy and indolence that the Dark Forces seem hellbent to instill as my primary mode of being.

Beyond that, I just gotta lighten up and love life. Ahem.

And find me a Ms. Shimshi-Wu.

A wise friend told me-

2007-07-19T06:19:00.000+03:00

Just keep on trying, just keep on doing what you're doing, and things will work out for you. Amazing things will happen, you're going to be happy, just keep trying just never give up. I know it will, Stuart, I know you're gonna be happy.

She had asked me how things were, how's my mom, how's my sister. "Same old," I said. Didn't know what else to answer. Then she gave me a loving, inspiring speech, filled with hope for my life. I listened, and felt a bit out of it, and wanted to-

________
I started writing this late last night, but it appears that i must have fallen asleep without posting it. Weird. I don't even remember how the sentence was supposed to end. But the point was that her reassurances actually had the opposite effect, and left me feeling empty and not inspired. And then I felt guilty for not being able to just absorb her love and incorporate it into my own being.

yep.

One of several habits that promote spiritual health

2007-07-15T08:33:00.000+03:00

Hey, look! I found the website for my first true love. She's got a PhD, and a husband with a PhD. I don't have the gumption to post the picture. But you can click. She pretty much looks the same as she did when she was 16. But I bet she doesn't still feel like a confused teenager, unlike some of us.

What did you do tonite?

Anonymous Commenters Get No Croutons.

2007-07-15T05:42:00.000+03:00

Come on, kids, sign yer comments- it helps this sensitive blogger feel the love.

The "Marakia." Marak means Soup. That's why I wrote (souperia). Marakia is the name of a cute little soup place in Jerusalem. They have a nice patio out back, and a piano in the tiny dining room. They serve nothing byt soup. And bread and drinks. One night I saw Bukowski playing piano there.

(the staff dances at the "Camp Dance")

At this very moment, the teens at my summer program are dancing in the Schwartz auditorium. Some of them aren't wearing too too much, but that's how they dress every day. I mean, I know that I made out with a girl and even slept in her room after the camp dance when I was 16, but... I don't think that back then we had so many songs about backing up your your ass or being a ho or, well, screwing.

Here's me, sitting on the side, taking pictures of myself with my laptop:

I'm making eyes at the laptop, not at the teenage humpfest spread out before me. What's amazing about pluralistic Jewish Community-Building (that's what I do here) is that the tall, snobby, pretty girl secular with a bad attitude ran over and grabbed the pasty, nerdy, twitchy orthodox kid the minute he ran into the room. The same kid who fearfully asked me a few hours ago if there would be mixed dancing......

Here's me an coworker Dan Held, two chubby bearded guys sitting like aged dorks with our matching MacBooks whilst the yunguns shake it.

Ooh! They're playing Sir Mix-A-Lot!

Oh yeah, one more note from the H for Humanity

They comes back to haunt you with love

2007-07-11T07:52:00.000+03:00

Phew. This job is intense. IN-TENSE. Like camping. Like the Bedouins. Not as physically exhausting as being an outdoor Camp Counselor, but more deeply, insidiously mind-tweaking.

One of my co-workers was also in Israel last year. When we met 2 weeks ago, we chatted a bit about Jerusalem, and the Marakia (the Souperia), an excellent noshing spot in the city. She is also an HUC DropOut (also transferred to a different Rabbinical program). This bit of chat led to this led to that, and after figuring out that we knew some folks in common, I got a hunch that we had, in fact, been at the Marakia on the same night last summer. Finally, we checked her blog, lucyvincentbeach.blogspot.com (this damn software won't help me put in the real link), and look who's there!!!!!!

Sarah is the one crouching in the middle.

Meanwhile, I just tonite received an email from one of my first Hebrew School students from Coral Springs in 1997, when this whole maddening adventure began (WanderingStu celebrates 10 years of Holy Hysteria). He is back at Camp Coleman in Cleveland, Georgia, where me and Val worked the summer before I left for Israel the first time (the first time in my adult life, that is)-- when i first ended up in Bat Ayin. Here's the scrawl that marked the end of the beginning. Or vice versa.

The gentleman up top is, of course, Klaus Kinski in the role of Aguirre, the Wrath of God. I think he kinda looks like Ariel Elisha. Monkey not included.

Or even better...

2007-06-28T06:40:00.000+03:00

I'm at camp!!!!!!!! Send care packages!!!! Keep the tradition alive!!

Stuart Siegel (or Shimshon)
BIMA and Genesis at Brandeis University
415 South South Street
MS 037
Waltham, MA 02454

Just keep all snacks kosher, please, and don't send anything that won't arrive by July 31.

781)529-8437

2007-06-26T03:40:00.000+03:00

I am not really in the room before 9pm (busy days!!), but I will try to call people back, or email or at least send good vibes...

They're working us hard here at BIMA/Genesis @ Brandeis University. It promises to be an intense and rewarding summer. I've been here since yesterday morning. The kids arrive next Monday, and we are in full-on preparation mode.

I'm not here, I'm not queer, but maybe you should just get used to them

2007-06-21T20:50:00.000+03:00

Gay Pride Wars 5767, Round 2
(5767= 2006-7)

I'm not around this time to smell the burning garbage, but I bet it's fun anyway. For last November's adventures, just Google these three fun terms- dumpster pride Jew- or click the link right there, you lazy.

I'm supposed to be working right now (writing environmental Torahs), but i wanted to toss this fun image at y'all before your day ends in a spiral of ennui and meaninglessness. I didn't design it, but I suggested the caption, which means, "in the image of God," 'cuz that's how ALL HUMANS are made.

BUY IT NOW AS A T-SHIRT!!!
Support the Anti-Dumpster Burners.

What I was thinking about the Sabbath

2007-06-16T01:18:00.000+03:00

In a "secular" life, Friday comes around, and the excitement builds. As sundown approaches, all rules are gone, all structures come apart, time spreads out limitlessly, making no demands, dangling the promise of raucous adventures and indulgence. The goal is dissipation, letting go, forgetting the struggles of life. The whole world becomes a playground.

If you're into Shabbes, the sinking of the Friday sun imposes an inescapable structure on Time. suddenly existence has a framework far more complex than that of the week. The day demands even more focus- focus on God, focus on prayer, focus on what can and can't be done. Friday night is a time of spiritual electricity, the whole world is transformed into a palace of God.

Yes, the command is to eat amply, and to enjoy and to forget the struggles of the week, but in a way (or at least in the wanderingstu way), you are more aware of Life's challenges. Maybe the workaday is stressful, but sometimes having to face God, armed with nothing but a third helping of cholent can be rather daunting. Or at least intense. (Cholent- a meaty Shabbat stew made in a crock pot. If anyone calls me "Meaty Shabbat Stu," I will frown in their general direction.)

I didn't mean this to be a complaint about Shabbat (does it sound that way?). Not at all. I just wanted to riff on the difference between the significance of Friday evening in the different frameworks of living. Kinda like a secular bachelor party involves hookers, blow and a lot of cussing, while a frum Shabbat Chatan (the religious version of the bachelor party) involves bearded guys, cheap vodka and a lot of blessings.

Shabbat Shalom

Come Friday Sundown

2007-06-16T00:39:00.000+03:00

First of all, why are Shabbat times so late in DC? Candle lighting is 7 minutes later here than in New York, and 12 minutes later than in Boston. I thought the further north, the longer the summer days. My assumption is that the drift east as you go up the coast affects your location within the time zone. The closer to the eastern edge of the time zone, the earlier Shabbat comes in.

Yep, just did a little check, with the help of hebcal.com and mapquest. Bedford, IN, 650 miles due west of Washington DC, takes in Shabbat 38 minutes LATER than DC. They must be at the edge of the time zone.

Well, no. I just checked Washington, IN, 47 miles west of Bedford, and Shabbat there is exactly an hour earlier than Bedford, affected by nothing but the time zone change. Which makes sense, I now realize (chagrined, perhaps by my ill-considered theory above). It's not like the sun is going to set earlier in Washington, IN, than in Bedford, which is east...

Now that last paragraph makes no sense. I was being stupid, and assuming that I been stupid, but I wasn't being stupid, so IGNORE that last paragraph. I was going to erase it, but then thought that an open-source experience of my mind might be entertaining, and generate a few extra comments.

SO---> The whole Washington, Indiana thing is the POINT! Here's a chart, from East to West...

XXX You know what, I've realized that this is all more complex than I need it to be right now, but soon, barring massive reader protest (which means 2 comments), I will some day take you on a virtual journey, from Washington, DC to Leoti, Kansas, from Atlanta to Cincinnati through Bluegrass Country, and we will virtually kindle the Shabbes lights at each stop along the way. It will be virtually entertaining.

And now for the next post-

DC Casual

2007-06-15T00:50:00.000+03:00

I'm sitting here in a cafe/grocery store, a refreshingly bright and pleasant space in this kinda run-down neighborhood. It's called, fittingly, Windows Cafe, and it has free wi-fi, for Windows or OS X. The place is run by Ethiopians, and they only charge $1.50 for a big ol' muffin.

A young gent, tall and skinny in a Snoop Dogg sorta way, just walked in and shouted, "y'all got some lettuce?" The girl behind the counter noticed he was limping and asked what happened. With the same verve with which he asked for lettuce, he smiled and said, "I got shot!"

what are you doing

2007-06-05T17:08:00.000+03:00

It is Tuesday morning in Washington, DC. Yesterday I went to a temp agency and took some aptitude tests. I missed 2 questions on the Microsoft Excel test, otherwise, I got them all right. I test well. Huh. They used to think that would get me somewhere.

I am in DC for a few weeks with Patrick, hopefully doing a little temping to fill the pockets, and working on a few pieces for my yeshiva-mate Jonathan Neril's Environmental Parsha Initiative. I did a nice solid hour of writing while Patrick and his law firm pals played softball on the Mall, between the Reflecting Pool and the Korean War Memorial. An hour of solid work! More than I've done in years.

--- right now i am in Patrick's new apartment, waiting for the various people to come and set up the various things-- gas, satellite TV, AC... The AC repair people just arrived. I heard someone yank on the locked front door, then the doorbell rang twice, urgently. Opening the door, I find two middle-aged chinese men in snazzy short-sleeved button down shirts. One of them is wearing a pork-pie hat, and has a long, kung-fu beard growing from the middle of his chin. They look more like a jazz-duo than the air conditioning team. The hatless guy mumbles a few words to me about the AC, then cruises in, followed by his associate, who nods once at me and says a word under his breath. The first gent has some sort of gauge and rubber tubing apparatus in his hand. He pauses by the thermostat, says, "Seventy-five; gone down," to his partner, then they're gone out the back door.

I was going to blog here about lonliness and stifling of harmful appetites and facing the extreme opulence of the DC lawyer world and blogs where girls talk about their sex lives and dreams and love and art and thought and achievement and situps and squats and indolence,

but those Chinese guys distracted me, and now i'm going to move towards doing what I should be starting to do before I do what I came here to do anyhow.

That's it

2007-05-31T15:35:00.000+03:00

Everything is packed- the bag is packed, and the caravan (trailer home) is all cleaned up and all my stuff put in the closet or the back bedroom so the rest of the space can be used for guests over the summer.

Squeakers is officially on the streets, the sheets and towels are all washed and folded. One plant, recently infested by ants, has been dumped on the front yard, on top of the cigarette butts, dog-eaten diapers and David Fuchs' old pants (right next to a discarded toilet brush-- this is trailer living, folks).

It's good-- I look forward to this summer: quality time with Patrick, doing some professional Torah writing, hanging out in New England with family and, of course, teaching again for the first time in 2 years. Wow!

I went to the ma'ayan (ritual bath fed by a natural spring) and purified my this and that so I can fly to America straight and on task.

Right now, I am naked as the day I was born (plus 2 earrings and more hair in most places), about to take my final shower here in Bat Ayin before heading down for 2 more hours of study. After that, beer and Spiderman in Jerusalem, and then the cab to the airport picks me up a little before 2am outside the "Paht Junction Skewer House."

Chicken hearts, anyone?

The Unshakeable Truth of God's Glory

2007-05-28T07:45:00.000+03:00

This is part of an email I wrote to someone about my relationship to all this religious stuff. I think there are some insights here that y'all would want to see. I have always intended to open some of my thoughts and wrestlings here on the 'stu, but have been lazy, and never sat to do so. I haven't proofread it to see if it's blogworthy. Chances are, I might read it over in a week or a month and find some glaring fallacies.

Or not.
______________

NOTHING I do religiously is to appease the anger of a jealous and vengeful Deity. I don't know if there is such a Deity out there. It seems silly to me. (though i leave room for the fact that i might be wrong).

i struggle constantly with God. usually i relate to God as the Universe, the Unity of all that exists- all physical matter and all that which is beyond the physical, that i cannot perceive very well nor conceive. I personally- I, Stuart Bennett Siegel- do not relate to a threatening God, and demanding God, a punishing God. Even the idea of a commanding God- which is perhaps the central tenet of Judaism- is tricky for me. yes, there is tons of that imagery in the Bible. But it is clearly impossible that THAT is the "personality" of God. If God is the Unity of All, how could It be angry or jealous?? The descriptions of God as such must be allegory, or humans' limited perspective of the Universe, but not the reality of God. Many of the Jewish philosophers have dealt with this issue.

When I pray or do rituals, it is part of an large-scale project to align my soul, my being with the universe, with a higher modality than the base, physical world of pleasures and pain which has shown itself (to folks like me and you and many we know) to be so fruitless and alienating. Even before I got into Judaism, maybe from LSD-i dunno, I believed that the Universe was a unified whole, and that our minds had power to transcend that which we see before us and enter into a more fluid intercourse with that Unity of which we are a part.

trippy shit, and it turns out that that is at the core of Judaism.

i don't believe much in Truth. I DO believe that the Rabbis (your Pharisees) had, many of them, insights into mystical secrets of the universe which pervade all of there teachings, even if imperceptibly. By connecting to their Tradition, there is a chance that i will also be able to "Feel the Force" as Han Solo might put it.

To claim that the Rabbinic tradition is just a clever way to control people, subjugate women and be racist by instilling the fear of God is to make an uneducated and immature generalization about a tradition that is far too complex to have such a simplisitc (and paranoid) purpose.

when I make a blessing, i am not trying to assuage the bubbling wrath of an insecure God. i am participating in a Tradition that has been with my people for thousands of years, and i am trying through the power of ritual and tradition (and maybe a little mystical incantation), to connect more deeply to the Universe. Does it happen at that moment, every time? No. But it is another piece, which is hopefully building something within my being.

i don't know much about the Christian faiths, but i tend to see them as demanding one principle of belief that is an all-or-nothing bright line. No Jesus, no religion.

Judaism is nothing like that. There are elements of belief, there are ritual practices, there are mystical pathways to Divinity, there are disciplines of self-betterment, there is the history of the people, there is the bloodline, there's the corned beef.... people connect to their Jewishness in various ways-- some folks are religious anti-Zionists. some are secular Zionists. Some love to study Jewish Law and hate the mushy stuff, some ignore the Law and love to hug and bless each other.

you have to stop thinking of it as monolithic. Judaism is the opposite of monolothic religion.

if i didn't see that my connection to Halakha (the laws of Judaism) and Torah would allow me to continue to be as iconoclastic, skeptical and sensual as i pride myself on being, i wouldn't be here.

One more

2007-05-25T19:10:00.001+03:00

Shabbat Shalom, everyone, my last one in Israel for a while.

Delicate Stu and the Pain of Anonymous Comments

2007-05-23T20:50:00.000+03:00

Aw man-- that last anonymous comment: is someone just suggesting that amazing things can happen in Israel and I mayas well maximize my time here because, who knows?

OR is the comment an allusion to a specific "something really great"???

Gettin' Grown

2007-05-21T23:28:00.000+03:00

Decisions, decisions...

Trying to figure out if I should spend 2 1/2 weeks with Patrick in DC, temping, unwinding a bit before my big summer job at Brandeis, reconnecting to an old friend... OR, should I try to change my flight, stay in Israel longer, go to Eliezer and Sararose's wedding, work the soil of Eretz Yisrael, study more Torah, and be here, which is my home, if not forever, at least for now.

I mean, I already have the ticket to fly on June 1, so inertia has me going to DC for the 2 1/2 weeks in question.

This decision isn't as big a deal as I might make it sound. It will happen. Something will happen.

*********

Tomorrow night is Shavuot, the festival that is linked to the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. In Sefer Shemot (the Book of Exodus), God tells the Israelites to prepare themselves for 3 days before the epic event. They are to stay pure, clean and chaste. In practice, we don't make such a big deal about these 3 days before our commemoration of Sinai, but we note them nonetheless, if only marginally.

I don't feel prepared. I haven't been focused on being a vessel for Divine Emanation. I lashed out in anger at a friend today. I made inappropriate insinuations to someone. I cussed. I ate too much at lunch. So then, how serious am I regarding the real potential of a Holy Day to bring into the world and into my soul the realities which the day symbolizes? If we say that tomorrow night commemorates the day that God's Will was revealed to the world, shouldn't I be fully open and focused and prepared to be a worthy recipient of such a revelation? Is it enough to just eat some cheesecake, stay up all night and pay lip-service to the day? If yes, then Shavuot is in danger of becoming yet another meaningless occasion to eat and be festive, like the American Memorial Day or Labor Day. If no, then perhaps I (we) ought to be doing a hell of a lot more to prepare.

{Anyway, I'm rambling perhaps. I want to speak more on this blog, but don't seem to get my tush on task. Take a look at the original posts, from July and August 2005. Who was that Wanderingstu? I'd like to meet him.}

At a picnic in Jerusalem last Shabbat, this chap Mendel, a real character, who, as far as I understand, owns a chicken farm in Thailand and has done time somewhere or other, harassed my pal The Frez and told him that he wasn't giving 100% to his life. At our little luncheon, at least 3 out of 8 picnickers had been on the streets hungry at some point in their lives, feeling, as one guy put it, the acid burning their empty stomachs.

Mendel told Frez that life was crap unless you give it 100%.

Are you giving it 100%
Are you giving it 70%
Am I??

If not, can we really expect that God, the Universe, the Force (as you like it) will give 100% back to us?

Lost Wallet, redux

2007-05-15T08:35:00.000+03:00

Found it. More on that later

Lost Wallet, part 1

2007-05-14T23:25:00.000+03:00

People are funny- Thus far, I have told three people that I think I lost my wallet. All of them immediately took on the role of detective, and tried to help me "retrace my steps" to locate the lost item. I posted a note here at the yeshiva just in case some comes across it. My fear is that I will spend tomorrow "retracing" with 25 different detectives.

Just as silly is the fact that I posted a LOST WALLET note at the Yeshiva. The damn thing is filled with pictures of me and cards with my name on it. If someone here found it, I reckon they would know to whom it belonged.

When I was at the Option Institute, I decided that I was going to live my life WHOLEHEARTEDLY from that day forth. If that were true, utterly true, this post would be far more engaging, particularly that first paragraph.

Did you know that I have to GO BACK TO FLORIDA to replace my (possibly) lost Drivers' License? Uh....

Did you know that Israeli teenagers spend like $1000 taking over 20 mandatory driving lessons before they can be licensed? Unreal. As the holder of an American drivers' license, I only have to take 2 lessons----

oh crap!!! What if they need to SEE the license to give me the exemption?

It's 700 miles from DC, where I will be in 3 weeks, to Northern Florida-- what are the chances??

The Heavens Speak; The Land Rejoices

2007-05-11T00:40:00.000+03:00

Beach day?

It is more than a month since Israel's rainy season ended, and it is pouring. After some awesomely hot days earlier this week, today opened with a gentle breeze and a cloud-covered sky. We had had a few drops of rain on Monday or Tuesday, and today teased a bit, then gave way with a consistent afternoon drizzle, a light drizzle that brought out that delicious moist earth smell. Now, nearing 1:00 AM, the downpour begins, with a flash of lightning and a generous crack. Nothing like the insane, whipping winds and crashing thunder of the Bat Ayin winter storms, but a real rain nonetheless.

I have plans to hit the beach in Ashkelon tomorrow afternoon, before Shabbat at the immigrant absorption center with a horde of eager Ethiopian kids. They call me "Shemesh," which means "sun," and is derived, sort of, from my Hebrew name (which most people in Israel use to address me), "Shimshon," which means "Samson," and in Hebrew via David Bowie clearly means "The Sun Machine."

On the merit of my Hebrew name and my good times with the Ethiopian kids, may we have a little sunshine over the beach tomorrow afternoon...

The Moon is Full

2007-05-01T20:14:00.000+03:00

Last time I posted, it was before Pesach (Passover). Now it's a month later. The moon looks to be pretty full tonite. When I walked up to take some garbage to the dumpster, it it hit me in the eye from behind the hill. I got emotional, I felt lonely, I wanted to cry. It was just me and my garbage and I felt like I no longer knew how to love the moon, or how to share it with friends.

It's been a month since I dreamed about George Bush. Good things have happened, and good things have not happened. Learning has been good and invigorating, and learning has been painful and frustrating. I have not prayed much. I spent two weeks dealing with various infections. I explored the pathways of love and relationship. I doubted, dreaded, lamented, complained, opted out, hid, slept, indulged, regretted, wondered, raged, degraded. Among other things, like singing and smiling and laughing. Always laughing. Even in the lowest place, I can laugh. I didn't cry. I don't think I cried.

I always wonder about this blog- what IS it? A chronicle of interesting events? A journal of contemplations? A confessional of horrors and despairs? Because when I feel low, I worry that it is not right to post it to the world. What if some possible employer or future student were to see the {gasp} truth of how I operated in this world? And when I'm rolling on a good wave, I never want to bother to sit here and let it all out....

Have I fallen out of love with this blog?

Have I fallen out of love with you? Heaven forfend.

So some of you have written, asking for more. One of you even called today, theorizing that I held back from posting to force folks to reach out by phone. Some of you don't give a rat's ass. Good for you.

In any event, and girded against all eventualities, here is a post for you. I am leaving Israel for the summer in one month. Until then, trying to learn a thing or two. Maybe just a thing.

My Boy

2007-03-29T07:58:00.000+02:00

Last night I dreamed that me and my friend Lazer were hanging out with George W. Bush. We were in some sort of fancy room drinking something; I can't remember if it was tea of cocktails or what, but at the end of the scene I had some sort of banana juice that I accidentally poured into a glass of tea.

George was pretty cool, man. He was chilling out on the couch, cracking jokes, and just being mellow. We made a few jokes about the fact that everything we were saying was being recorded and that he had the ability to throw us in jail if we got out of line, but it was all in good fun. We had a nice time.

Afterwards, people kept abandoning me when we were supposed to get on a bus together. I was freaking out. My cousin Stephen Siegel showed up with an old skateboard, and I tried to teach myself a few tricks.

But the main point is that me and Lazer had a good time with the president.

I've been chewing on this...

2007-03-23T18:22:00.000+02:00

I've been wondering about this for a while, and have some thoughts, but it's such an interesting question (to me, at least) that I thought I'd send it out to whoever is out there before cataloguing my own thoughts on the matter:

Why am I always thinking about / talking about / yearning for treyf (non-kosher food, especially pork, shrimp and oysters)??

Answer honestly, openly and creatively, just be nice, alright? Wanderingstu is feeling a bit tender lately.

You want a damn post?

2007-03-16T15:09:00.000+02:00

At least one of you asked for a post. That was sweet.

Last week was warm and sunny. On Purim, about 10 days ago, we had a barbecue on the "quad," music, dancing, good time springtime fun.

Two nights ago it hailed. Small hail. Yesterday morning was snowy and slushy. Then the snow stopped. Then it came again. Then a frenzied downpour of tiny hail, the size of little styrofoam balls, or Dippin' Dots ice cream. Then rain. In spite of all of this, Jonathan, one of the guys from the Yeshiva, and Shana, one of the girls from the girls' school down the hill in Bat Ayin, got married. Roads were cleared, parents shuttled out to the hills, and the ceremony was on.

Suddenly, us boys from the Yeshiva and them girls from the Midrasha (girl's school) are gittin' all friendly. My friend Lazer just got engaged to Sarah Rose (I set them up!! Mazal Tov). Another fellow here just went on an epic 7-hour lunch date with one of the girls from down there, and as for me... well, as for me. Those who know, know.

As for me in other realms--- blech. There is much to say, but one never knows which is the forum in which to say it. For now, I'll just say that I ain't feeling so religious, and that is troubling when my entire life is currently built around religion.

Anyhow, more on that later. Perhaps.

I gotta run.
Shabbat Shalom

After Purim

2007-03-05T23:26:00.000+02:00

Well, here's one more Purim shot. My awesome redneck character had ripped shorts, cigarete burns in his t-shirt, and wore longjohns with flip-flops. I shook everyone's hand and said, "I'm Randy- But that ain't my name!!!" Good times.

The truth is, I did not have a shattering, paradigm-shifting Purim, as it's usually described in the brochure. I wandered town, ate meatballs, got wasted, gave some gifts to Rav Natan's wife and daughter*, jumped on a bus from the top of Bat Ayin to the middle, yelled at teenagers to be proud of their native-born Bat Ayin heritage, then stumbled back to the Yeshiva with Noam. Sometime after I induced vomiting and went to sleep around 7pm.

*The gifts, little plastic IKEA boxes with soy pudding and candy, are part of the Mitzvah called Mishloach Manot, which is found in the Book of Esther, and means literally, "Sending Portions," or sending gifts to friends. This morning I woke up, paranoid that I had forgotten to give my gifts during Purim, and had thereby missed one of the most important elements of the holiday. I seemed to have remembered leaving my bag of stuff at Rav Natan's house, because I had intended to give one Mishloach Manot to his son, Aryeh Nachman. I went over there and asked Ruti, Rav Natan's wife, if I had left a black plastic bag there. She said that nothing had been found. I looked across the table and saw one of my litle IKEA boxes. "There it is!!" I was about to hand it to Aryeh Nachman when Ruti told me that I had given it to her yesterday. One to her and one to R'ayah, their oldest daughter. So I ended up stiffing Aryeh Nachman, but I HAD in fact done the Mitzvah on the day of Purim itself, and even kept it in the family. Phew!

Here's the recovery photo:

PURIM

2007-03-04T00:06:00.000+02:00

it's the day when jewish folk dress up funny. and drink.

the mind softens, oozes into mush

2007-02-26T21:35:00.000+02:00

i just completed 2 rounds of my favorite annoying time-waster, Text Twist, on Yahoo! Games. They give you six letters, and you have a minute or so to make as many 3- 4- 5- and 6- letter words out of them as possible. Once you get the 6-letter word, you "qualify" to continue to the "next round," which really means nothing. So I got the 6-letter word RABBIT, then a bunch of the 3- and 4- letter words, but couldn't get that damn 5-letter word...

Next round, I figured out PARLAY, and a few 3-letter words, but couldn't get either of the viable 4-letter words. One of them, it turns out, was PLAY.

Once you figure out the 2 i DIDN'T figure out, you'll see why I am ashamed.

____

Blogging is tricky. There are so many things you CAN"T talk about. And there are things you WANT to talk about, but end up too tired to write about, like the time that Erik Garcia and I found the Kosher Thai restaurant closed at 11am when we wanted an early lunch. It's a great story.

I've become so darn lazy. Not a good sign.

Done

2007-02-21T01:42:00.000+02:00

Okay. I haven't posted in a while. I don't know if that sucks, or if it don't matter at all or if it's symptomatic of a larger problem within me, or in the universe or if it heralds the coming of a Golden Age, a Dark Age, an Ice Age, a Blue Period or what.

Brown is the New Black.

I delayed my return to Israel by one day (only flight I could find this week), so I could have a minute to breathe, launder my skivvies, hang out with mom, go to the beach with Erik Garcia and not be generally totally stressed out. It's been a great day. Most of it was spent at Wal-Mart, but a great day nonetheless.

Tonite me and Mom are going to see Little Miss Sunshine.

More later.

exploitation of the reader

2007-02-05T05:02:00.000+02:00

greetings from US & A. I am in Bradford, Vermont. It's covered in snow.
this post is a pathetic attempt to milk you, my friends, for information.

looking for:

1) A decent and reasonable place to get a nice lunch in Teaneck. Any thoughts?

2) A good KOSHER ASIAN joint in Manhattan or Brooklyn--- noodles preferred, but anything that actually tastes good is great.

Write soon-- after Thursday, February 9, this message will be nothing but a fossil in the great boneyard of the Wanderingstu archives.

Thanks!!!

leaving

2007-02-01T17:09:00.000+02:00

Okay. so my flight isn't for a few hours yet, but I leave Bat Ayin to head to the airport in less than 2 hours. The dusk is creeping in over the valley, my last gaze upon the quiet beauty of this scene. I just started feeling some mild jitters-- who knows what the next 3 weeks hold?

Do you?
I reckon He does, as they say.

See you soon, I hope.

Good Morning, US & A

2007-01-31T13:06:00.000+02:00

Hi. It's 1pm Bat Ayin Time, so it's time to wake up over there on the East Coast, and get some yoga and coffee brewing.

I fly tomorrow night, which is in about 34 hours. I am excited. Besides being excited about repulsing all the Catholic girls with my payis (a JOKE), I am, strangely, excited about keeping kosher in the States, something which I have never ever ever done. In fact, before my last trip to the US, back in March 2006, I decided that I was specifically NOT eating kosher; I wanted to do the rounds of all my favorite delights, especially Pho.

Of course, Pho is not the biggest loss of Kashrut-- carnitas and raw oysters are. If I get my act together, I can boil up a phat pho here, kosher and all.

I just felt like it had been long enough without a post, so wanted to pop in here, before going to Mincha (afternoon prayer). The great payos debate rages on-- feel free to contribute thoughts on the merits/dangers of religious identification, outward physical signs of allegiance to a particular group/sect/race, when such things become racism, elitism, snobbism, etc.

Fond memories of Michelle Cascio are welcome as well, since she started all of this.

Sidelocks and surreality

2007-01-22T19:42:00.000+02:00

I feel wacky these days. Good, but wacky. Like something is changing, like something is giving, opening, shifting.... The past few nights, sleep has been very patchy. In bed before midnite, I am usually awake a few hours later (or less, and always at 4am), realizing that it's futile to lie in the darkness and fight. So I jump up, eat a snack, write an email, call Mom--- eventually I go back to sleep, but it hasn't been the whole night through. Not the past few nights.

And yet I am not tired throughout the day. Just feeling a little wacky. Different. Out of it, and yet in it. Today I got a haircut. More on that later. During the haircut, I drank some Arak from last summer (a Sefardi Jewish version of Sambouca or Ouzo). Later, in class with Rav Daniel, I asked a question on this deep, complex discussion we've been having for months about blessings, wisdom, questions, knowing and not knowing, relating to God, etc... As I asked the question, and he looked at me and smiled, I started cracking up. Not stupid laughing, but a sort of elated, profound laughing that was connected to the questions, which itself was profound, and yet needed no answer. (does this make sense? told you i was feeling wacky). He laughed. Then other people in the class laughed, then I told him that I didn't need an answer, that it was enjoyable enough just to ask.

Uh-huh.

I am excited about my trip. For many reasons. One of them is because I want to see my STUFF. Sweaters and socks and books and comics and- well, mainly sweaters and socks and books and comics. And I am excited, actually, to eat kosher food with Esta. And to eat kosher Indian in Manhattan. And I am excited to see you. And you. And especially YOU (ahem).
HAIRCUT
So I cut my hair today. Actually, Aaron Braun (bottom of this post) cut my hair. The point is-- I now have PAYOS. Payis. Peyos. Payot. Sidelocks. Sidecurls. Whatever-- those funny horns that religious (frum) Jews wear. CLICK THIS. Mine are little right now, and silly-looking (thus no picture yet). But I got 'em. Payos and earrings. Rock n' Roll. It's a great way for a balding guy to have long hair. But a certain person said it's not cool for guys to play with their hair, which could be an issue. I was debating for a while IF I would cut them into my hair, and WHEN to do it-- before the trip to America or after? At first I thought to do it after, so I didn't look too weird, or freak out people I was meeting for the first time, like at Jay and Sarah's wedding. Then I realized, since the last time I left Israel to go home for a wedding, I ended up moving to California with a Catholic waitress I'd met in a Taco joint, maybe it would be better, for me, at least, to be a little funny looking, to remember the deal, and where I'm at, and what I'm up to. Just like I keep the earrings on to not lose the other side of me while I'm here, now I got the 'locks, so I can remain an honest orthodox heretic.

Or something like that.

Okay-- it's Fish n' Chips night upstairs, so I'm gonna run. Below are a selection of photos I came across when trying to Google "payis." (payot sidelocks payos, etc...)

And THIS I discovered in the process. Haven't explored it yet, but it looks odd enough.

employ me!!

2007-01-21T13:41:00.000+02:00

It seems so far away, but late January is typically the time to start looking for summer employment. Most summer camps try to do their hiring by February. So it's on the table. Here's what I need--

a job at a place that provides housing (like a camp or retreat center)

a job in Atlanta or South Florida or in the Jerusalem area (or in your town, if you have a couch for me-- i do dishes!)

a job that either pays handsomely enough for me to afford travel costs

a job that provides an airline ticket (if it's in the States)

I am open to opportunities in America OR Israel-- or elsewhere, for that matter, like a goat-herding job in the hills of France (that would be amazing). BUT, the crucial thing is that, while I am looking for a good experience, the main need this summer is to make a decent amount of money to get me through the next year, which means that extraordinary unpaid adventures are (sadly) not on the right page.

My skills are generally in the teaching department, especially Jewish teaching stuff. I am also quite a customer service gent, but not so much of a salesman. If not teaching, I would prefer to do something manual, like construction or farming (rather than work at Blockbuster or in an office).

If you have any ideas, please let me know.

Thanks!!

Blown

2007-01-20T20:50:00.000+02:00

Right now, the village of Bat Ayin is in the middle of a thick, foggy, whirling cloud. The wind is totally intense. After washing some dishes, I stepped outside of the Dining Hall to find that all the recycling cans had blown up against the door, flying 15 feet through the air to get there. Unrecycled plastic was scattered everywhere. I ran up the hill to take out the garbage, wind howling around me. Part of the wooden picket fence outside of the yeshiva was flapping in the wind. Visibility limited. There's a guy in Bat Ayin who runs a Paintball place in the city (Jerusalem). He has a trailer that he tows behind his truck, with a 6-foot tall sign advertising the place. He parks it in a little lot near the Yeshiva.

It's tipped over.

Luckily it's not raining too hard, and my caravan (ie- luxurious trailer home) is not too leaky. And I have a heater without mildew in it, so I can stay warm and healthy. The garlic seems to have worked.

Yeah, that's it. Just a little blurb on the wind. More poetic stylings next time... maybe.

I leave for America in 12 days. First stop: Boston.

Shavuah Tov (have a great week!)

vampires and snot

2007-01-16T08:06:00.000+02:00

My healer, Alice, has me on a 6-cloves-in-6-hours garlic remedy to blast this snotty cold out of my system. It's stupid to catch a cold 2 weeks before leaving the country. When a flu wiped out half of the Yeshiva 2 weeks ago, somehow I stayed pristine. But one of my heaters is moldy, and it was on all through Shabbes, so that might be somewhat to blame. Needless to say, I stink. Not that I can smell it, so I'm pretty content about the whole thing.

Sometimes people's comments are opaque to me. Not that I don't enjoy them, I just have no idea what to do with them.

Beyond that, it's chilly here, skies have been blue this week, and this blog is kinda dragging.... what to do?

Snow Day

2007-01-06T20:17:00.000+02:00

As promised, Dr. Tucker, some daytime shots of Bat Ayin in the snow. All this accumulation was pretty much gone by the end of this same day.

Standing at the Yeshiva, this is the hill across the little valley, where the Arab village is. In between the two hills is the Emek HaElah, where Valley of the Oak (oak?), where David slew Goliath. The view opens all the way to the sea.

At the top of this shot is my humble (and somewhat leaky) home.

This is the other side of the hill where the Yeshiva is. Our side faces a hill with an Arab village on it. [It's funny, I never thought of Arabs in the snow before. But there they are.] This side faces another hill, which has a forest and a few natural spring mikvehs (ritual baths) and a lovely restaurant/cafe on the other side. What's amazing is to look down in that valley and see the line where the snow just stops, and everything is nice and brown. It's a little hard to tell in this shot, but the snow line is actually visible on the hill that holds Bat Ayin.

Your faithful host.

The one and only Avraham Eliezer, who lives down there in that valley, where there ain't no snow. I wonder if he's got rain right now...

We sure as heck do. Last night was a howlin' wind and rain and lightning and thunder storm. I sat in my trailer alone and made Kiddush for Shabbes (the Sanctification of the Holy Sabbath), and watched the whole trailer shake. Squeakers was a bit freaked out as well. At one point, I thought that lightning had struck inside the trailer: there was a sudden flash of white right in front of my eyes. But the thunder was a second or two later, so it wasn't even that close. Must have been the angle of the light in the window. In any event, the rain has barely stopped since yesterday afternoon. Luckily I had a ton of heaters on, so I had a nice little Shabbat meal by myself. A tiny bit of bread and some amazing soup I made. I'm still on the juice fast, but had bread to honor Shabbat.

My chevruta (study partner) Ari came by and brought some delicious natural juices (and a sinful Almond-Ghat Leaf chocolate drink) from Uzi Eli, the Yemenite medicine man in Jerusalem who makes all sorts of wild concoctions. Today I went to the home of my friends Eliyahu and Rivka Adina Dror, and spent all all all day there, from 11am until 6pm,, then walked home in the fog and rain. It was a good Shabbes.

Hope you have a great week.

P.S. By way of complaint- when this nice little Yeshiva boy mentions a strip club and bacon in the same post, I expect some comments, fer cryin' out loud.

Clean

2007-01-03T19:19:00.000+02:00

Today is the fourth day of my juice fast. The last real meal I had was on Shabbes, lunch with the Bialer Rebbe-- a huge salmon and some great chulent (Shabbat stew), among other things. I ate some M&Ms Saturday night, but not a lick of solid food since then. My excellent pal Lazer Zinn has been with me on the fast. He started last week, and is going off of it tomorrow.

Today's lunch juice was cucumber-beet-tomato-orange-lettuce-cayenne pepper. Sounds freakish, but was actually quite bold and refreshing. Breakfast was apple-pear-kiwi-ginger.

As well, I am drinking clay and psyllium husks and lots of tea, and sneaking occasional swigs of natural maple syrup (a gift from Dr. Tucker) for my mo.

If any of you saw the movie Crumb, you remember the brother who swallowed the 50-foot ribbon in order to cleanse his intestines. I am doing that, but my ribbon is a long piece of parchment with the name of God written on it. Not really. Not at all. Actually, I am engaged in other cleansing activities as well, but i won't detail them here, for the sake of the public.

I am spending Shabbat in Bat Ayin, preceded (please God) by a nice Friday morning massage. On Shabbat I will eat a little bread (a bissele brot), make some nice hearty Shabbes veggie broth, and lay around a lot under warm blankets, enjoying my Holy Solitude.

I am not sure when I will come off the fast. I guess when it feels right. So far, so good.

You know, I did a week-long juice fast by myself years ago in Florida. On the last day of the fast, a few of the gang (i believe Nic and Mike Walsh) were in town, and it was a special occasion, so a bunch of us went out to the Solid Gold Club on Federal Highway. That night, after a week of nothing but pure fruit and veggie juice, I drank several gin and cranberries, smoked a bunch of cigarettes and then, around 1am at Denny's, had a grilled cheese with bacon and tomato, fries and ketchup and an Oreo milkshake.

God-willing, I shall be easing off of this fast in a more contained manner.

a new post

2007-01-02T09:05:00.000+02:00

someone asked for a new post.
ach-- forgive my slacking... i left you all in the snow,
AND promised daytime snow pictures to at least one of you, and have yet to pay up... tomorrow night I will skip going to a friend's wedding, just so i can blog for YOU.

All of you.

In the meantime, today is the third day of my juice fast. Breakfast this morning-- apple/kiwi/pear/carrot with homemade almond milk.

Today we being the intestinal cleaning as well. Fun!

White Christmas

2006-12-27T21:53:00.000+02:00

Or at least the Day After the Day After Christmas..

It doesn't happen too too often, but sometimes it does. And it did today, after an unseasonably warm and sunny Chanukah. Amazing! Baruch Hashem!!

Squeakers took one step outside, looked around, and bolted back into the (relative) safety and warmth of the trailer.

Three little girls stared into a dumpster...

2006-12-26T07:36:00.000+02:00

Dear Dr. Tucker,

In our last session, you suggested that I blog in order to get in touch with my feelings about the dead horse I saw in the dumpster here in Bat Ayin yesterday. And then you subsequently, with a chilling nonchalance, dropped the bomb-- James Brown was dead. And suddenly, that little dead horse in the dumpster, whose momma kicked at it and wouldn't let it suckle at her breast, that little sweet brown horse- let's just say it's of a different color now.

For was it not the Godfather of Soul at whose Breast of Funk I myself suckled when my spirit flagged? First at the Trump Casino in Atlantic City (1994), and then at Mariners' Hall in San Francisco (1999)? Was it not the glory of his glistening mane that inspired my ill-fated gelled coiffs in the days of my wild youth? Was it not James Brown himself who, when kicked by a mother of a society that just couldn't hold his light, couldn't offer him the sweet nurturing he needed, jumped up, shouted "Hey!" and let us know that "This is a Man's World?" (so to speak)

That dead little horse in the dumpster is now my only link, out here on this hill, thousands of miles from the birthplace of Soul, with a man whose refusal to stay down, refusal to be peacefully led off the stage of life taught me that, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how cracked up you might feel, you always got a brand new bag in which to reach, to pull out some vessel filled with that sweet nectar of life.

You know about bags, Dr. Tucker, and their power. Have a donut for me. On me. And join me in remembering one of our legends.

You ask how I feel?

I feel good.... I knew that I would. Hey! Ow!

Between the Cracks

2006-12-22T13:06:00.000+02:00

This is me and Kirvaya Maayan Newman at Rav Daniel and Batya Kohn's house last night, having a time of it at the first post-wedding Sheva Brachot for Jacqui and David Fuchs. David Fuchs was my roommate. Now he's Jacqui's roomate. I look goofy in this shot, because I have to make weird faces when being photographed, otherwise my eyes end up all cocked or closed, as can be seen in a rough shot at the bottom of this post. Below is the amazing Avraham Eliezer and some other folks I know, dancing at Sarah and Pesach's wedding last month. Parts of Pesach are at lower left.

So much happens between posts that doesn't make it onto the blog. When inspiration strikes, I'm usually too tired or occupied to post. When I take a moment to post, I usually forget what was so inspiring. I think I let the crappy signal affect me too much, use it as an excuse not to blog. Also, there's the ever-present tension between blogger and reader; the need for an active readership to make the blog feel alive, and the need for a dynamic blogger to keep the blog readable.

By the way, what happened to that Anonymous gal from a few posts back. I think I bugged her out with my "family restaurant" comment.

For now, here's a bit of a tale of prayer-

My friend Big Viv sent me some notes to put into the Kotel (Western Wall). So I went there to pray Mincha (afternoon prayer) right before the wedding of my roommate David Fuchs. We were both dressed up all snappy for the event. The Chabad guys were there with a wagon of Tefillin, and I hadn't wrapped that morning, so I started sifting through the cart for a lefty arm tefillin. I wrapped, said Sh'ma Yisrael and started taking off the tefillin when a secular Sefardi guy in his 40s came up and asked me if he could wrap too. I almost told him that I wasn't working there, and then I realized what a great opportunity had been placed in my hands.

He rolled up his sleeve, and I wrapped the straps on his arm, and placed the tefillin on his head, leading him in all the blessings along the way. I looked around- Another secualr guy with his kids, all wearing the paper Kippot they have for Kotel visitors. Two Ethiopian soldiers, wearing the nylon kippot that Chabad provided (I confess-- I was wearing my black Kangol for wedding styles, with no Yamicha under, so I too wore a white nylon bar-mitzvah kippah borrowed from the cart). It really hit me-- Jews come to the Kotel, and they want to pray. They want to connect to God and the Tradition. They come up to the Chabad cart and shyly ask for help partaking in a ritual that our people have been performing for millennia. They want to re-link to their People and our ways (re-link is the meaning of the Latin relegere--from which we get "religion--" or so I read once, though there are other opinions). To wrap tefillin on the arm and head of a grown man is a profound way of sharing the beauty of Jewish heritage. He approached with such purity and simplicity- a small request-- could he, too partake in the Mitzvah? Could he, too, be a part of the chain?

After that, I went to pray. I was standing maybe four feet from the Wall, swaying and making noises and crying out and muttering and scrunching up my face and moaning and maybe even wailing a bit, and I noticed this kid come up on my left and kiss the wall, as many of us do (don't call it idolatry- even if it is). He leaned against the wall a while, and I closed my eyes again and continued praying. At some point I opened my eyes again, and saw the kid, leaning against the wall facing me and staring at me-- clearly in utter rapture at my beatific glow and my saintly devotions to the Lord.

Or he'd never seen someone make such funny faces before.

Since I was sticking notes in the wall, which I never do-- I think pilgrims and tourists do that more than regulars-- I decided to write my own little note. My third one ever, which said the same thing as my famous Notes in the Wall from 1987 and 1998, except this time in Hebrew, and with a bit more qualification to avoid undesired consequence.

I would tell you about the guy who cleans up the fallen notes at the Wall, but it might be too harsh for public consumption.
_____
Take note of the new chapter name and number.

God Willing, it looks like our drought is going to end-- the sky has been decidedly unlcear today. This winter has been way too sunny and blue-skied.

*Note on the etymology of Religion: Forget it-- I had read that "re-link" thing years ago, but a little bit of Googling suggests that everyone has a different answer for the origin of the word. I am not going to do deep research now, but at least we all now know it's complicated

Just wanted to light it up..

2006-12-15T08:38:00.000+02:00

Happy Chanukah, friends.

Be well, and be in touch!

The month of sleep and dreams

2006-12-11T20:22:00.000+02:00

The Hebrew month is Kislev, the month of Sleep, the month of Chanuka, the month of dreams. My Chanukiah (Menorah) is already out and ready to go. Last year I made the glorious switch to oil, which is standard among the observant Jews... I highly recommend it, for a more tactile, hands-on Chanuka experience.

In our Torah readings this month, Yaakov sleeps and dreams of the ladder, Lavan dreams, Yosef dreams, Pharaoh dreams. Stuie has not been dreaming too too much, but I have been sleeping a lot, and feeling quite indolent. I would like to blame the winter, but then again, it hasn't been so cold yet, and to assume that the winter makes me indolent would suggest that I have another couple three months of indolence ahead of me.

Then again, I was indolent in the summer, so ya can't really blame the cold.

As far as waking dreams, it's kinda funny (ha?) that a guy who fantasizes about doing everything in the world is so afflicted by (indulgent of) indolence... I'm sort of a young Walter Mitty (check your 6th grade English textbook for sources on that one).

Then again, the fact that I would fear general ignorance as to the identity of Walter Mitty perhaps speaks of the indolence of an entire generation.

Huh. Too much to think about.
Or too much about which to think, really.

For the real action, check the 3-way commenting blitz on the previous post. Silly.

WanderingWho?

2006-12-05T18:12:00.000+02:00

Oy.
It's a bit challenge for me to know if to blog, what to blog, why to blog, when I am feeling less than shparkletacular, you know? Do my friends and fans and critics care to hear my whining about having a mid-level cold, being confused about romantic endeavors, feeling lifeless, godless, clueless, aimless? Have they heard enough of that? Does it belong on a blog? Does it belong on this blog?

The thing is, the blog needs quality content and consistent posting, otherwise folks will get bored or will stop checking in. So, if I am moody for a few weeks, and decide not to post, people will drop the blog from their regular surfing routine, and I lose readers. But if my moping is off-putting or just plain dull, folks will become uninterested, even sick of it, and will quit The 'Stu outright.

Upon reflection, I have been told that I make great company even when I'm being cruddy, and I've also been told that my writing is good enough even on a not-so-good day, so perhaps I have decided that it is better to blog depression, than to not-blog depressed.

So here it is.

I'm sick, I feel crappy. I don't know what the hell I'm doing, and whatever it is, it's not flowing so well. I'm listening to Willie Nelson (thank God).

Little things I should have said and done; I just never took the time-- but you were always on my mind....

Here's some pics I found ages ago and just love, and wanted to share.

Dinner with Steven and Bradley

2006-11-30T07:29:00.000+02:00

After all the furor and garbage burning in Jerusalem over the scheduled gay pride parade a few weeks ago, me and yitz (yitz.com) decided to prance around town like a couple of chubby bear buddies on vacation in the holy land ("oh, that Jesus is cute, but thorns are so pase...").

The only thing is that any real gay guy, even a chubby bearded one, would have better style than me. Those jeans are a wreck-- I seem to have lost about 23 pounds over the past few months (Mazal Tov!!-- through no apparent effort of my own, no dietary or exercise effort, that is; Alice, my naturopath, says the weight has slipped off because I "no longer need it to protect me." Spiritual/Emotional Dieting! Now THERE'S a book that would sell in L.A. {Jenn...?})... as i was saying, i seem to have lost a bit of weight (about 11% of my body mass, in fact), and so my mildly baggy jeans suddenly are just shlumpy. The worst was the other day when I went into town with the outfit in the photo, but with a blue sweater and a brown, African-style boxy kippah-- for some reason, the combined effect shouted: "Total Dork on Safari."

The truth is, that yitz and I hung out for dinner with no gay costuming strategy. But when we got out of his car, we were horrified to discover that we were dressed exactly the same. I wonder if the haredi guys ever have a moment like that (Aw man! Yossele is wearing black and white today too! I'm going home to change.).

Going to see the new Scorcese flick tonight. It will be fun to read the subtitles. I have yet to learn how to really cuss or kick in someone's head in Hebrew. [NOTE: film people have the pretention of calling a filmmaker a "filmmaker" and using his last name... "Scorcese's work is really flar blar blah blar blar compared to the early Copolla stuff..." Industry folks use nicknames on the first name: "Yeah, Marty's been out of it for a while, but at least he hasn't vanished the way Frank did... ]

A Little Sucky

2006-11-27T05:59:00.001+02:00

ugh-- i tried to post the other day, and bargled the whole thing, and got in trouble for inappropriate posting. THEN, i sent a bitchy email to five people, whining that they ignored my mom on her birthday, and found out that 2 of them had NOT ignored her.. Meanwhile, the promised Renaissance of Wanderingstu.com has yet to happen, and NO ONE has bought my car yet.

It all is somehow linked to the fact that i ate no turkey on Thanksgiving.

Were you at my Thanksgiving in August in Oakland, CA, year 2000?
Those were the classic days.

Stick with me friends, I'll come around soon!!!

3 weeks until Chanukah!

Just to Say

2006-11-17T13:46:00.000+02:00

Shabbat Shalom, my friends.

I have been reviewing the blog this week, once via a guided tour with a friend, another time by tracing the comments of a new friend. And besides remembering how much I enjoy crafting words for all of you, I was also reminded how much I love having all y'all scurvy scalawags in my life.

Which is why I started this thing in the first place.

I have to go and shower and cook Quinoa with scallions and Pine Nuts (Tznobar in Hebrew) for the pre-wedding Shabbat celebration of my yeshiva-mate and fellow Broward County son, Pesach Ben Tzion Rothberg.

Take care.

i want to , i need to

2006-11-13T23:22:00.000+02:00

but it just isn't hitting that flow at the moment.....

sorry it's been slack lately. signal issues don't help, nor does a busy schedule and bad time management and my general running-aroundness.
i just was reading some old wanderingstus, from last month and last year-- it's good stuff folks, you're right.. so i will try to keep it up more so, and more deep and real as well.

i've been toying with the idea of doing more thinking here on the page, and less brooding...
_____
so what's new?

here at yeshiva, I've been pushing into the Zman (Hebrew for "semester" or "learning term"), wrestling with issues of freedom and tradition, openness and boundaries, milk and meat. finding the deep, glorious core of grandiosity that is this creature they call Shimshon Stuart (Bennett) Siegel. Fighting apathy, both within and without. Stacking cans of mushrooms and jars of tahina (my work-study duties). Sleeping later than I'd like. Making nice with friends, getting deeper and closer as we experiment together with these two crazy ideas: Life and Torah. Or is that just one idea.

Pesach Ben Tzion (a/k/a Zack Bennett Rothberg), the other South Florida guy here (also Rav Daniel Kohn is from Pompano), is getting married in a week. He asked me to be the announcer at his wedding. This will be my third wedding as the Man with the Microphone. I think I am also doing my roommate David Fuchs' wedding in December, and then I will be kicking a little Hocus Pocus at Jason and Sarah's wedding in Palm Beach in Florida. For a guy who is so intimately involved in so many weddings......

(you finish the sentence)

A fair price to pay

2006-11-03T11:27:00.000+02:00

Many restaurants in Israel don't even offer it at all.

Anyway, a cute shot from somewhere in New York last April. Did a little survey of photos from my trip to New York, found myself missing lots of people, and wondering about communication over long distances, the reality/necessity of being in frequent contact with dear ones, and the role that nostalgia plays in mythologizing the past.

Then I ate a whole container of cottage cheese.

I have not been feeling so bloggy lately; it comes and goes in phases. I wonder if there is really a point to doing this anymore-- to do it without a "drop of service" would probably present itself as bland weekly updates on my life. To put heart and soul into "The 'stu," as it's fondly called by many, would mean.... what would it mean?
_______
Ah yes-- important news: Esta figured out how to make an overseas call. She called me. That was great. For real.

will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?

2006-10-21T23:32:00.000+02:00

...Shall we stick by each other as long as we live???

Here's a quote from a conversation I had with Olga in March, 2002:

Kevin described me as being like Walt Whitman the other night in San Francisco: brilliant, caring, filled with love, isolated and alone

_____
Kev owns a restaurant now in San Francisco. Sometimes I miss him. And Johnae too. I don't know that Kevin's story about me, Sonnets for Strippers, ever made a big splash. My story of Aires the "dancer" with the tattoo that said in Sanskrit, "The body is but dust," never even got written....

Forgiving and Giving, OR NOT

2006-10-19T09:08:00.000+02:00

I had a wonderfully nasty urge to post a delightfully vitriolic bit here about people's Emotional Cowardice-- how people can't be honest and loving and giving even (or especially) when they know that someone they love is in need. I mean, if your wife tells you that she loves flowers, especially on a gloomy day, then bring her some damn flowers. What does it take? How many flags need to be waved in a person's face before he opens his heart a little to someone he claims to love?

So. A few minutes ago, sitting outside and writing a letter that no one will read, I got extremely pissed at someone who doesn't bother to call, even though he KNOWS that that call would make a huge difference to me (don't worry, it's not you... and yeah, I know I could call him, or you, but at some points in life, you just wanna feel the need). And then I started thinking about the people who make excuses not to call people before Yom Kippur, even though they KNOW that the entire spiritual outlay of the coming year is (in theory) based on the repairing of last year's hurts.

And oh, did I get all self-righteous and sad and pissed. And oh, do I know that it ain't pretty to talk about such things on a fun website like Wanderingstu.com, especially if it leads to domino-effect revelations of my less-attractive personality traits/flaws. Like bitterness. Or inability to let go.

Or hypocrisy?

A week or so ago, when I first remembered that certain people hadn't even TRIED to make amends with me, I realized that there was one person in particular to whom I owed a call and an apology. So I called her immediately (see that? see how amazing and righteous I am???).

She said: "Come off it, Shim, that's old news, I'm over it."
(some people are resilient, like i said a few posts ago)

But what I DIDN'T do after that one call was apologize to all the other people who I've wronged, towards whom I know specifically that I have acted cruddy (not that there's so many). What to do? I'm gonna send an email to one of those people right now. And beyond that, I guess I'll ask you all for forgiveness RIGHT HERE, then just fall into the pile with the rest of the schleppers, who still owe me attention.

Frickin' hypocrite, me.
__________

by the way-- the first annual Wanderingstu Bloody Heart Award for maintaining sweetness and support in the face of extreme whining and self-deprecation goes to:

Avraham Eliezer and Shoshana Guggenheim-Tertes
Chana Hinda and Alan Frazin
Jennifer Berkowitz
Honorable Mention- Rav Natan Greenberg

_____
ed's note: due to the overwrought nature of the above post, the previously scheduled post entitled, "Shabbat is coming and I have nowhere to go and I am so damn lonely- Christ won't someone feel bad for me," originally slated for this afternoon, has been cancelled.

Good times at the heart of it

2006-10-18T22:32:00.000+02:00

My roommate David Fuchs is a bassist. See him? He's been playing a little with Peh Daled, a funky Jew band from the States who are here for a few weeks. He asked if they could jam a little here at the trailer. I came home, and there was a little party going on, hookah-smoking, cake and vodka, and a steady flow of fellas drawn to the music. All-in-all, not a bad gathering at all, especially considering that one of my insecurity complexes is hanging around musicians (true story). It would probably be worse if a troupe of Cirque du Soleil performers were blowing lines off my kitchen counter--- those people are gorgeous and probably listen to cheesier music....

You might notice me wearing my cool hat that I bought in Crete years ago, on a blissful sun-drenched Mediterranean escape with Craig. I look pretty good. What, me worry?

______

Here is a great grafitto from a highly-American section of Jerusalem. ("grafitti" is plural, don't ya know?)

I Can be a Bit Melodramatic

2006-10-18T09:01:00.000+02:00

But that don't mean it ain't real. I dunno, that's how I am. Some people only talk in an undertone. Some people never laugh out loud. Some people get soup all over their chins when they eat.

Then again, some people know how to deal. But is it that they've learned how to deal, or that's just their temperament? Like sitting in a Chinese restaurant-- Whoozis is freezing cold, and Whatsisname is complaining about how damn hot it is in this place.

Me? I can be a bit melodramatic. I open wide. I let it all in. I don't filter. Or if I do filter, it's usually towards the bittersweet. Stuie-- let in more sweet!!!!!

_____
Learning begins again on Sunday, and the plan is (ahem) to finally get myself on a learning program that is invigorating, purposeful and realistic. The idea is that I need to find a way to totally immerse myself in learning, since that's what I'm here to do. Make love to the books.

That's the plan.
That's the plan.
_______
someone send me a link to a good traffic counter i can embed on this blog; my attempts to just close eyes and let go, post proudly into space, ample comments or not-- that ain't working. I'm too needy, as we know.

Esta also says:

2006-10-17T14:11:00.000+02:00

i like the fact that Negative Creep is the name of a classic Nirvana tune. Mom writes sweet stuff. too bad she never CALLS MY TROUBLED ASS:

instead of going back to suckyville don't put so
much weight on someones feelings that you cannot
control and be happy for the time you had and stay
happy till the next happy time comes and maybe that
will be the one it's obvious that the sucky
pattern doesn't work so try a level plain some
level of happy and no sucky vibes or words MOVE ON
and get back into study and forget the past

grab onto a thought that makes you happy and think of
it whenever the negative creeps in and stop it in it's
tracks try it keep busy that works also
surround yourself with happy people also

"Alway look on the bright side of life"
try it you might like it

love mommy

Momma knows best

2006-10-17T14:05:00.000+02:00

Esta says--

since this is the beginning of a new year, try being happy and toss those bad traits you mentioned in your blog in the ocean and don't let them creep in again and move on to a new life of positive thoughts those good traits mentioned and not so much in your head and finding fault with yourself and someone wonderful will find youhave a happy NEW year

Tikkun (A Correction)

2006-10-14T21:49:00.000+02:00

I was unfair in one small point on the previous post.

I was not, in fact, "tossed to the wayside," as I stated, and I apologize to the one whom that sarcastic blurting-out offended.

The whole post was an indulgence of my sense of being a victim, but not a victim of a particular person, more like a victim of the Universe, nasty ol' Universe it is. The particular person in question, when pressed by me, had made a decision about our relationship from a place of difficulty and honesty. That decision is causing her pain as well, and I appreciate her ability to be strong and clear and not lead either of us to a place of deeper pain or confusion.

The record is set straight.

Great News

2006-10-12T07:36:00.000+02:00

Three items of exciting value:

1) Hey! Reader response to my Torah on Sukkot (previous post) was so amazing (see the flood of comments), that I am encouraged to write even more, to open myself and offer my thoughts even more frequently! Stay tuned!

2) Recent surveys suggest that an increase in bitter sarcasm and lashing out at one's readers and friends does nothing to enhance the atmosphere of love and community on one's website, and may even anger and drive away friends. Nevertheless, the staff at Wanderingstu, eager to give you more of what you love, has chosen to ignore this information, and actually increase the sense of bitterness and anger on the blog. Just for you!

3) For those of you who were worried that recent developments in my romantic life posed a threat to the International "Stu Unloved" Conservation Campaign (I-SUCC: 3 years running and still going strong!), fear no more:

Luckily, after a few weeks of possibly thinking that I had met someone really wonderful and fitting, I am back in the game! A free man, praise the Lord (for He is all Love). No more having to try to learn to understand another person's way of being in the world, no more being aware of how my words and actions affect someone else. No more imagining that maybe someday I will be involved in a vital partnership in this life. Phew! Back to puttering around my trailer, skipping class, sleeping a lot, eating too much... the good stuff.

That said, if there's any fiesty young ladies out there who are eager to meet a guy who is:

Occasionally Charming but usually Moody and Depressed
Funny as Hell but often Offensive & Obnoxious
Talented but Aimless & Unfocused
Extremely Lovable but Evidently ABSOLUTELY UNKEEPABLE; (ie- unworthy of an actual long-term relationship)
Honest and Straightforward
(sometimes bitingly sarcastic and bitter)
Nice, Compassionate, Conscientious, Caring (worthless qualities-- sorry, i'm working on getting rid of them)

-hey! if this sounds like the kind of guy with whom YOU'D like to spend a few weeks and then toss to the wayside, you know where to find me.

Happy Holidays!

To Dwell in Pleasantness

2006-10-06T09:25:00.000+02:00

The Fabulous Festival of Sukkot begins tonite!

Here are some pictures from the first Sukkah we built at East Lake Commons in Atlanta, back in 2001. All natural, framed with long branches lashed together with ivy, not a single man-made item used in the entire structure. (The roof in this pic may not be kosher; i tried to move the bamboo around enough to keep it covered, but I'm not sure... it was a good time nonetheless.)

These last two are from a later year, when I was not there, but they give a good sense of the overall structure and atmospehere of the ELC Sukkah in all it's glory.

This year will be the sixth year of the ELC Sukkah. Paul Marquardt and Jim Lando have kept it going all these years, Baruch Hashem.

My yeshiva-mate Eitan Levy (the guy in the middle in this picture, which was on a previous post right here at The Stu) just started a blog, and my existential meanderings prompted the first post. Read on!

_________
My friend Caren Philips has been suffering a very very hard time. Her husband Steve, who was an amazing athlete, biking hundreds of miles through the mountains, running long-distances, bringing much joy into this world, had a terrible heart attack and is now in a persistent vegetative state. Caren has been maintaining updates on the site of her shul in Boulder.

I wrote her today, some thoughts about Sukkot. Just a flow, really, but I wanted to share.

More on Sukkot in the future. Much love.

i didn't proofread this. or reread it for logic or accuracy. it's just a friday-morning flow. hope it benefits.
________
The Sukkah--- it IS about trusting God, but it is also about permanence, or its lack. the Sukkah is a temporary structure. By definition it protects you from the harsh burn of the sun. To the Greeks, the Sun was linked with Apollo, who represents truth- Emet. I don't know what us Yidden say about the sun, but i reckon the connection works by us as well.

The Sukkah protects from the harsh burn of Emet, the kind of Emet that is untempered by love. The Emet of something like-- your beloved husband is struck down mercilessly with no warning. The Sukkah a refuge from the brutality of that din.

But it is not like the safety of home. It has to be able to withstand mild winds, yes, but even a little rain gets in, and in a storm, the whole thing might go a-rollin' down into the valley.

The whole thing about Schach is that it is temporary. The Sukkah is a temporary structure. Like our lives. Like our bodies. When we are in the Sukkah we realize that all the things to which we grasp are so tenuous. They could slip away at any moment, come crashing down with the right wind.

I've been thinking a lot about the verse in Psalm 147:
Lifnei Karato, mi Ya'amod?
Before His cold, who could stand?

in some ways, God, Flinger of Ice, Blower of Frigid Snows,
is just cold cold cold. too cold for us to withstand.
and if He wanted to blast our Sukkah with an early frost (or if you were doing Sukkot in Alaska), you wouldn't stand a chance.

And yet.

And yet Sukkot is called The Chag-- THE Festival-- a time of ample joy and celebration. The Talmud describes the nightly Water Drawing at the Temple during Sukkot as wild revelries, with the great Sages doing amazing flips and gymnastics, fire-twirling, dancing, leaping into the air----

Somehow, in the midst of this radical awareness of frailty, massive joy is unleashed. The Water Drawing took place at the Temple itself, the "permanent" structure, God's sukkah. Maybe there's a clue there. WE dwell in impermanence, but the House of God is hosting a major party every night, and we are invited.

We read Psalm 27 every day, from Elul all the way through the High Holidays and Sukkot. It's got that great line-- Achat Sha'alti--- One thing I ask from God-- Let me dwell in the House of God all the days of my life, to gaze upon the pleasantness of God, and to visit His Courtyard

I think that's connected.

How to make that reality, I dunno. Meditate on it. Somehow, Hashem is both unbearable freezing cold, and desirable pleasantness. And in the Sukkah, we are reminded of both, reminded of the fact that, no matter how brutal the storm winds are, the ultimate Dwelling Place is one of No'am-- Pleasantness

challenges

2006-10-05T22:46:00.000+02:00

how many days after Yom Kippur is it? do you remember it? do you remember praying, crying, vowing; the realigning you did way back then? do you remember how you bled for your Immortal Soul and all the stupid things your feeble body has done to deprive Her of love and light? you actually bled for the pain of your soul. right on the book. do you remember?

and then there's the trick of opening up your being to totally receive the Light of another, while simultaneously emanating your own Light, without stumbling, without fearing, purely Being, constantly grateful. just holding the space between you. holding, honoring, witnessing the life of another discrete being. Shiviti Hashem l'negdi tamid- I place God before/against me always.

or, even better,
the amazing dance of patience, slow breathing, chewing each bite thirty-seven times, pulling back your frantic ego and letting the Universe unfold before you; just smiling because you know that the opportunity to play the game is worth the price of admission.

sometimes it burns. like when you're cutting a chili pepper, and the oils get on your hand, then you touch your mouth or some other place, and after a few minutes your flesh is on fire. there's nothing you can do but smile, sip your coffee and enjoy the pain of it all. eventually it will go away, and then dinner will be served.

something like that
______

this is me and my pal Lev Israel Stark. he's super! check us out (with another cute pal) at Lev's very own site, Superstarks!
______
i've given up my grudge and begun calling my mother again-- someone call me! (even you, Mrs. Berkowitz)

atonement

2006-10-02T23:59:00.000+02:00

last night, after Yom Kippur maariv (evening services), I was doing a little praying out of Likutei Tefilot, a book of prayers inspired by (of course) the work of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, written by his disciple, Rabbi Natan (Reb Noson, not to be confused with Rav Natan, the head fo my Yeshiva). I was reading a rather emotional piece, crying out how small and feeble I was, a putrid lump, a clod of dirt... and was crying heavily. I reached a section that said something to the effect of: If I was truly aware of even a tiny bit of the thousands of myriads of misdeeds that I have committed, there would be no place on earth that would be able to contain my screams. Something like that. I wept even harder, and felt the tears spilling down my face, dripping onto the book and lectern below me.

Then suddenly the dripping felt too intense for tears. I looked down, and watched huge drops of blood splashing down from my left nostril. I had been crying so hard that my nose busted open. A small puddle was on the lectern, and two drops had splattered onto the book. I grabbed the bandanna from my pocket, and ended up smearing the blood all over the book, which is now a gory testament to the scale of my emotions this Yom Kippur.

And, yep. That's the tale for now. Huh. I've felt a little far from this blogging effort lately. I dunno if it's just me, or if it's a sense of a lack of a worshipful public, or what. Anyway, we are on break now for the next 3 weeks, which include Sukkot and Simchat Torah. I am hoping to visit some of my cousins, travel a bit up north, and spend lots of time with a certain young lady with whom I have been spending lots of time of late.

More on Yom Kippur later (no promises).

Amazing

2006-09-26T01:06:00.001+03:00

Some day, when we're sitting around sipping iced tea and sharing an avocado and arugula sandwich, remind me to tell you about the time a bus full of Hasids fresh from the Ukraine picked me up in the middle of the night at exactly the right time on exactly the right night after Rosh Hashanah, when all was wild and new and bursting with the spark of future growth.

I Am an Israeli Woman

2006-09-21T15:25:00.000+03:00

In a very unceremonious hand-off of documentation today, I officially became a citizen of the State of Israel. There was no fanfare, no balloons, no speeches, but nonetheless, it's official. I am a dual-citizen.

And I am a woman. Take a look at the lower right side of my Teudat Zehut (Identity Card). The second word from the bottom says n'kevah (spelled nun-kuf-bet-heh), which means "female." Whoops. I plan on using this new status to enter as many synagogues as I can through the backdoor, to hug religious girls, and to wear skirts in public.

Also of interest is a comparison of my US Passport photo and my Israeli ID photo, with a time differential of about 8 years. Youch.

And, for fun, this picture was taken in the Yeshiva Beit Midrash (study hall) using the camera built into Eitan Levy's new MacBook computer. Eitan's the guy in the middle. Aaron on the left is the guy whose stomach problems gave us a fun night at the Hadassah emergency room a few weeks back, the day I got to see the famous Chagall windows.

This is the last post before Rosh Hashanah-- I haven't been feeling so inspiring (or inspired) lately, so I will keep it simple-- have a wonderful new year, may you all be inscribed for Blessing in the Book of Life, for a year of joy, love, productivity and communion.

Shana Tova.

Be well.

More food for horrified imaginative excursions from the US Military

2006-09-18T22:32:00.000+03:00

Read this fun piece about a potential gang war in the Army. This would make a great comic book series or HBO Drama or theme album by Johnny Cash and Radiohead, but will probably end up as a movie with Nick Cage.

My favorite bit:

The executive director of the National Major Gangs Task Force, Edward Cohn, said those numbers do not come as a shock. "People are initially surprised that there are gangs in the military, but really it shouldn't be a surprise," he said. "For somebody to believe there are no gangs in the military would be very naive."

Mr. Cohn also said some gang members refine their techniques in the Army. "There is a sophistication there," he said.

Reminds me of that scene from Spinal Tap with Martin Short. Not that I can remember the scene, but it reminds me of that. Check the comments, Erik will be along soon to quote the scene for me.

Also new and fun in the US Military are White Supremacists, some of whom are using the valuable training paid for by YOUR TAX MONEY to prepare for some down home ethnic cleansing back Stateside.

Ugh-- I had a great picture of the adorable White Supremacist Pop-Rock duo Prussian Blue, but the images aren't loading onto the blog. But they sure are cute. Click for more White fun here and see the picture, and unlock a whole new world of white power. Not surprisingly, last year's big event went down in Florida. I used to think, back in the old days, that Florida, with its safe, race-blending mix of Cubans, Haitians and Jews, was a haven of good ol' American muttry. Heh. Guess not.

Jesus save us.

the fire.

2006-09-18T19:25:00.000+03:00

Lukas, who is a cousin of Craig's, and an initiate into Native American ritual, asked me a question, which is to be found as the sole comment to the previous post. Sometime soon he will sit with his brothers and sisters around the sacred fire, eat the medicine and seek communion with the One Who Is, Was and Will Be, and with the ancient wise grandfathers who walked the paths of life before him.

Here's part of my answer to him:

-fire.
fire
fire in my soul.
a focused, burning, clarifying fire that would sear away all the years of stagnation and calcification that has clogged the machine.
fire in my soul that drives my mind and body to strive eagerly for perfection, holiness, strength.

or

a simple joy.
a simple joy that simmers at the bottom of my soul like a sweet autumn potpourri, fragrant and warm in any situation.

or

a journey.
a trip back to 1979 to meet a little five-year old sitting in his room and playing quietly, probably already overwhelmed with thoughts and notions of being different, already a little freaked out by his dad, sitting on the floor and creating worlds of escape and adventure on his floor. i would go back and watch that little guy play, then give him a big hug, shed a few tears with him, and give him something, some sort an amulet to let him know how much the world is waiting for him, how excited we are for him to grow up and to be happy, happy little Shimshon Stuart Bennett Siegel, international superstar.

Aho.

some words to feed your hunger

2006-09-15T01:51:00.000+03:00

man.
it's been a week since i posted.
man.

this is a short update, because i don't want to let you all down....

it's been a hard week, as far as learning goes. The learning day goes from 8:45 am - 7:15 pm, 10.5 hours, with 2 hours in the middle for praying and lunch. Out of the 8.5 hours of learning time, 3.5 are the morning Gemara (Talmud) period, which includes lessons with Rav Natan (shiurim) and studying with a partner (chevruta learning).

My connection to the Gemara has been crap this week. For various reasons. But crap, that's the point. And, in my way, I spin off of the catalyst of crappy learning (which manifests as my mind refusing to budge another inch on a difficult passage) and plummet into a general grouchiness/despair/rage, which usually results in a nap. Like a 4-year old gets a nap after a good tantrum.

Huh.

In other news, I gave my passport to the woman from the Ministry of the Interior. When I get it back, it will have a new visa in it, the visa of a NEW IMMIGRANT. Exciting.

BUY ME!!!!!!!

2006-09-08T09:39:00.001+03:00

I am trying to sell my car.
It lives in Atlanta.

2001 Mitsubishi Mirage DE 2-Door Coupe (almost typed "soup"-- aw hell, if you buy the car, I will buy you a can of hot soup! Hot in the can even!)

It's a sportyish little stick shift thing, comfy, fun to drive, good mileage, etc etc

$4037.72 (plus 627 Romanian Lei for fees, approx 9 cents US)

if you know ANYONE interested, let them and me know!!!!!!

thanks.
____

I just noticed that i say "...Heh" a lot recently. Is that bad? Is it annoying? Is it a sign of my increasing cynicism? Arrogance? Emotional remove from the world? Should I be worried? Or is it just a little trademark of that indomitable WanderingStu style? Did I spell that correctly? ...heh.

____

Yesterday we had a meeting with all the guys who are starting the Smicha program here at the Yeshiva. Smicha means "becoming a Rabbi." Samuch means "leaning, resting, relying on." Smicha refers to the ancient ceremony, as seen in such famous books as The Bible, in which authority is transmitted to the next generation by the elder laying his hands on the head of the new leader. It also suggests that the Rabbi now gives his support to the young initiate, or possibly that the tradition in the elder Rabbi's hands is not resting on the new Rabbi, who will carry it into the future.

In our meeting yesterday, no one touched anyone. We just discussed a few details about the next 4-5 years. It's an exciting time in the Yeshiva. We haven't had a large group of guys working on becoming Rabbis together, as a group, in a while. Right now there are 7 or 8 guys, with at least one more coming in February. Auspicious beginnings.

By my car.

Siegel Family Hits the Internet

2006-09-08T09:27:00.000+03:00

Me and Val became the most famous people in the world last week, at least for a minute, when we both appeared in various places on the Internet.

Valerie is Reform Judaism's Youth Worker of the Month.

They call her a WOMAN, they say she's DEDICATED, they call her UNIQUE-- all pretty good, if you ask me.
She's doing a great job out there in Atlanta. Maybe we should work out a program whereby she sends her Youth Group kids to Bat Ayin for the WanderingStu Jew Makeover... heh

As for me, they call me a traitor, a lefty, a non-Jew, a threat... Heh.
For more on that, look up "Shimshon Siegel" or "Acharei Hamilchama"
or click some of these and be sure to read the comments section as well.
CLICK HERE!
NO! Click ME! I appeared on ABC news and Yahoo! as well!
Click here! I have the most comments from angry right-wing Jews

Great weekend activity ideas from the US Military

2006-09-08T09:09:00.000+03:00

Hey kids!
Summer's over, but the good times keep going in the Fall! As the world careens towards global war, some of our boys (and girls) in Iraq are keepin' it light by always remembering to have a good time.

And now you can too!

If are looking for something unique to spice up your weekend get-togethers with family or friends, the US Military's new GUIDE TO ALL-AMERICAN FUN offers some excellent suggestions:

...forced nakedness, hooding and other procedures that have become infamous during the five-year-old war on terror. ...beating prisoners, sexually humiliating them, threatening them with dogs, depriving them of food or water, performing mock executions, shocking them with electricity, burning them, causing other pain and a technique called “water boarding” that simulates drowning, said Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence.

Talk about a Barbecue Get-Together to remember!

For more on this exciting new publication, click with pleasure here.

it's on me...

2006-09-03T01:59:00.000+03:00

I love it! The first debate on wanderingstu!!
You know, other people's blogs, like Eliezer Israel's Wilderness City (see link on the right), have these intense debates with 20 or more comments on a single post. But he's talking about the legitimacy of homosexuality in a religious context, and I'm talking about my own debt. So.

I have comments on the comments on the previous post, but for now, this clever appeal:

I am coming home in January/February for the wedding of Jason Rogers and Sarah Kravitz. If I accumulate another 40,000 skymiles by then, i can come for free! I accumulate miles by swiping my Skymiles American Express card. So, if you have any major purchases to make, and if I trust you (ahem)-

Don't Leave Home Without Me.

serious.
it's a plan. it could work. keep me in mind
___
in other news, i am planning a bit of an upgrade to the content of the blog here-- gonna try to post regularly, and with more info about my actual life here, not just my tangentials. Stay tuned....

they have important things to blog

2006-09-01T11:18:00.000+03:00

debriefing the war, the coming attack on iran, hurricanes in the gulf, elections, murders, cancer.....

me?

I just fully accepted the fact that I am ONE-HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS in debt,
with little chance of ANY INCOME for the next 4 or 5 years.

it seemed so easy, just to think, "hell, i'm living in new york, i'm in school, i have expenses... what can i do?
in a few years i will have a sweet job as a Reform Rabbi, and I'll get that debt paid off right quick."

heh.

we are doing a Spiritual Growth workshop on fear-- regaining a healthy sense of the Fear of Heaven (or the Awe of God, if you like). Our textual model is the Israelites standing at the sea before it split, having no sense at all of where they are going, or how they will survive.

You just gotta look at that sea, see its turbulent waters, and jump.

rock

2006-08-29T23:58:00.000+03:00

That's me and Avner, the Yellow Submarine cat, before last night's show (which took place at Jerusalem hot spot Yellow Submarine). The show came off purty darn well. We had around 100 people, and, in the end, probably raised about $1000 for civilian relief. The costs of the show were about $800 or so. Damn costs.

This is Saz- a rapper from Ramle. He is an Israeli citizen, and raps in Arabic and Hebrew and English, and does this excellent bit where he busts out all these wacky sound effects like the guy from Police Academy, but way smoother. Very cool guy. If you are in New York, look for a show called the HIP HOP SULHA, a Palestinian & Israeli collaboration, Sept 13 at SOB's. He will be performing, along with Sagol 59, who also played our show.

This is Shmuel Nelson. We were in Yeshiva together here in Bat Ayin 7 years ago. I sang Prince;s song 7 with his band at the wedding of my friends Avraham Eliezer and Shoshana. One of band members described the act, called, Eden Mi Qedem (The Primordial Eden..) as "U2 with a Middle Eastern flair." Check out their site. Truly gorgeous, amazing stuff.

That's all I'm posting now. It's late late late. More concert pics soon.

aw fer cryin' out loud

2006-08-27T00:13:00.000+03:00

more later, but just a little whine--- i am EXHAUSTED, and my stomach has revolted against me again. Spend much of Shabbat in BED, and what wasn't in bed was at the BEACH (yay), or playing with ETHIOPIAN CHILDREN or flirting with this foxy ETHIOPIAN GAL.

NOW I AM USING CAPITAL LETTERS AND LISTENING TO BEN FOLD'S AT DAN'S HOUSE,
AND AM 13 minutes from passing out

Yeshiva starts tomorrow,
and YOU are neglecting me.
so kiss my tuchas.

love.

Frustrated? Frustrated.

2006-08-23T13:29:00.000+03:00

MP3 player: lost
Concert co-organizers: exhausted, frazzled, periodically sad
Weather: hot
Me: exhausted, frazzled, periodically sad
Donations from America: ceased
Comments from many Jews on this concert: hateful, mean, one-sided
Press response to the concert: mediocre
Communications with family: sparse and unfulfilling
Personal spiritual development: nil
Personal physcial fitness: nil
Personal creative expression: yer lookin' at it
People in the streets: rude, uninterested, cold, untrusting

I mean, when you see a guy who looks like a hippie, with linen harem pants and a big floppy hat and lots of colors on and longish hair and a beard, how would you think he might react when you approach him with a flier and say in Hebrew, "concert to raise money for those in need"?????? Don't hippies love music and helping and talking to new people? That fraud hippie wouldn't even LOOK at me, let alone take a flier, let alone say hello.

This one girl asked me 20 questions before indicating her refusal to take a flier by glaring at me. Why would some little twit prefer to sneer and interrogate me about what the flier says, rather than just read the damn thing herself? Why wouldn't you stop for a minute and check out what kinda concert this guy in the bright green shirt is promoting?

I'm wearing a damn BRIGHT GREEN SHIRT!!!!!!!!!!! With a little prismatic heart pinned to my breast. Isn't that reason enough to see what I'm going on about? Punkass fake hippie. I bet he talks all this love and brotherhood crap to bed chicks, when the fact is that he's a hateful, anti-social weenie.

Weenie. Little Israel twit. I hope her nails break. YEAH, I'm spiteful. And I'm raising funds to help the enemy.

Now I understand why i like the religious community. Even if some folks might be a little too tripped-out or pious or racialist or smelly or if they use "it's all good man, it's all from Hashem," as a mode to evade personal responsibility, at least they're frickin' NICE. If you walked up to a "hippie" Yid with a flier for a concert, he'd definitely check it out. And invite you for Shabbes. And comment on your great shirt.
_______
By the way, I need a replacement for "hippie" to describe the community. We sure ain't all hippies. I was never a hippie. I mean, I guess like 75% of the commnunity likes the Grateful Dead, or did at some time, but i feel like "hippie" disenfranchises someone like me, who might be better labelled "Well-Travelled Suburban Funk." Because I'm not a hippie.
_______
I hit a moment today at the print shop where I couldn't speak English or Hebrew. Total brain freeze. I want a burrito. And a day on the beach. I haven't been to the beach all summer.
_______
Oh yeah. It took about 11 tries to get that photo. In the first seven I was smirking horribly. Bad actor. No gold statue.

even i have the right to be bugged

2006-08-22T09:03:00.000+03:00

Some T-shirts take rude cracks at the person reading the shirt. Some indulge in self-deprecation of the wearer. Well this morning, as I walked back from the printer after making emergency changes in the Hebrew spelling of humanitarian on our concert poster, I saw a shirt that did both:

Just because I'm nobody doesn't mean you're not irritating

What a great shirt. On the one hand, the guy is accepting his smallness, his uselessness in life. And yet, like the Mouse Man desperately bellowing from his little nest, demanding his voice be heard, he asserts the right to be substantial enough to critique the unsavory behavior of his fellow.

"Don't think," he squeaks, that just because I am hardly a speck in this cold universe, that I don't feel, that I don't react to your ill-informed overtures, flawed attempts at interaction and dreadful personal style. I may be nothing, but I'm something enough to see what YOU are."

Then I looked online (curse that Internet!) to see if I could find the shirt. I did:

Just because I'm moody doesn't mean you're not irritating

Whoops. Not a bad shirt at all. Funny, cynical, and quite relevant in times of war, where a pointed finger is often used to deflect any calls for self-reflection or mutual admission of guilt. I may be a jerk, but you ain't so hot yourself. Also good for use against those folks who like to grab onto your moodiness and make a case out of it: Oh wow, you sure are in a mood, i'll stay out of your way, heh heh, who peed in your cornflakes, i'll keep my distance from you this morning, hey man, there's no need to get angry man, just let it flow..

But you know me, friends, it's the Dosoevskian battle of the one man with his place in society that captures my imagination. Not that Dostoevsky would be against pitting a righteous grouch against an annoying populace. In any event, maybe I'll get the "nobody" slogan on a T-shirt one day, all for me. Although, in the final analysis, moody might be a better description of me than nobody...

some day...

2006-08-21T20:56:00.000+03:00

It's for REAL (and for Israel)

2006-08-20T15:26:00.000+03:00

We got our first press coverage!!
Israel's Arutz Sheva, a right-wing, settler-oriented news organization, just put this up on their site.
CLICK HERE!!

cool.

Hit the Street!

2006-08-20T02:08:00.000+03:00

Hey-- if you are in Israel right now, we need your help for our street team to promote our benefit concert, K'vod haBriot, which is taking place next Monday, 8/28, at Yellow Submarine.

See the previous 2 posts for more info.

Right now we have booked Eden Mi Qedem (Shmuel Nelson), hip hop artists Sagol59 and Saz, and hopefully Coolooloosh (or at least their frontman Rebel Son), Marsh Dondurma and Lenses.

We are confirming acts and hitting the Israeli press in the next 2 days, and then doing poster and flier blitzing and pre-sale of tickets the rest of this week.

ANY FORM OF HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED

If you are around at all this week, please call me-- 054-221-5100 and let me know when you can help. the more help we get, the more of an impact this event can have. if you know friends that might want to help, put them in touch with me as well.

and, as always, feel free to donate-- go back 2 posts for donation info.

thanks!! i love youse

my own little pinko, jew-hating left hippie idea, in print....

2006-08-17T16:05:00.000+03:00

Actually, not "my own," but "me and Amy and Dan's own..."
Amy's mom rocks the world and sent us this editorial from The Forward (Deh Foiwahds)"

It’s a safe bet that donations will pour in from around the world for the victims in Lebanon. It’s equally likely that Israel will be left to rely on its own resources, coupled with whatever help it can get from world Jewry and perhaps the American Congress. Even after the killing has ended, the humanitarian reconstruction efforts could easily become one more part of the inexorable drift toward polarization and, eventually, new conflict.

Or people of good will could choose another path. Friends of Israel could begin planning now to direct a portion of its fundraising proceeds to Lebanese relief, in the hope that other international relief agencies will reciprocate and direct a portion of their Middle East aid to rebuilding northern Israel.

See that? An acknowledgment of Israeli's unfortunate position in the international community, directly followed by a call for us to HELP THE OTHER TEAM. What? Even though WE WE WE are suffering and need help, and even though THEY THEY THEY are gonna get help from all those other nations-- we still can stand up and reach out. We can try to operate from a new paradigm, one not based on bitterness and finger-pointing, one that might ultimately prove foolish in the end, but one that is based on hope, and a quiet confidence that, even rejected, our sense of love and justice demands expression, and sees beyond today's conflict into the chance for a more unified tomorrow.

Hashem Echad-- remember that one?

it's all hopeless, there's nothing i can do...

2006-08-15T17:04:00.000+03:00

...that's how i usually feel about most things these days, especially when people write me and demand that i single-handedly end the violence in Lebanon.

Well, inspired by a bit of rebuke I recently received regarding my living-dead approach to life, I have joined with my friends Amy and Mobius, the Orthodox Anarchist, to arrange a benefit concert for refugees of the war. The best part is that we decided to split all proceeds evenly between an organization that helps refugees in Israel's North, and an organization that helps refugees in Lebanon. We are booking Jewish and Arab acts, ethnic music, Middle Eastern-inspired rock, and hip-hop, and planning for a big ol' dance-a-rama.

So now there's something you can do.

Either come to Israel soon so you can dance with us, or SEND MONEY!! Even if you got limited funds, you can afford to send $10 to help folks who have been driven out of their homes or, worse, had their homes destroyed. Think of the children, the cute little Jewish and Lebanese children, who lay in strange beds every night, or are hiding in some bomb shelter, never knowing if they will ever see their beloved SpongeBob plush doll again (not to mention their Patrick and Squidward toys).

So get out your checkbooks, and help us demonstrate that, no matter what your politics, no matter what your take on the war, there is ALWAYS room to have compassion for any citizens who are affected by war.

Some of the donations (hopefully a very small amount) are needed to secure the theater for the show. That's why I am appealing to you today, ahead of the event. If we can gather pledges from friends in the States, and see that we have garnered ample support, we can make the event even bigger, and attract more donations and press attention.

If you are reading this on the blog, please send a comment pledging a generous amount-- ($10 would be nice; $100 would be amazing). If you are receiving this as an email, please respond to me directly.

Thank you so much for helping me help take some positive action here in this crazy time, from the side of love and universal compassion.

Peace upon all of us,
and soon.

-Shimshon Stu

You can send US donations to Mobius' organziation, Matzat:
Matzat
472 Henley Avenue
New Milford, NJ 07646

or PayPal to -- info@matzat.org.il

just be sure to make obvious notation that the money is for the REFUGEE FUND, or
Mobius will pocket the cash for his own sinister intentions. Matzat is in the process of getting non-profit status, so Tax Deduction info can be sent to you retroactively.

if you are in Israel, we are right now only equipped to handle cash donations. so yer gonna have to trust me.

truths from the bottom of the treasure chest

2006-08-15T00:31:00.000+03:00

the honest truth is that, since day one (or at least day 11), wanderingstu has dreamed of being a radical, subversive, groundbreaking, pioneering, wild and wooly, sexy and sophisticated, international, cosmopolitan, inter-disciplinary fancy artist-interlectshual-literati type, having long and convoluted conversations about deep deep stuff mingled with clever meaningless fluff in exotic locales with other brilliant, convoluted, radical subversive artsy-brainy types.

perhaps he even wanted that before it became cool to want that.
he still wants it, in that "wanting it" kinda way.

but... but... but...

i am the walrus

2006-08-14T11:04:00.002+03:00

Oy. War, politicals, the eternal "question" of the Jews.
Some points to ponder.

The Israeli government is not the Israeli citizenry.
The Israeli government is not the Jewish people.
The Israeli miltary is not reading the Torah as its strategy manual.
Hamas, Hizbollah and that little Iranian man are not the Arab people.
Nor are they Islam.
The death in Lebanon is not the Zionist dream.
The current State of Israel is not utopia, or perfection, or the utter fulfilment of the Zionist dream.
The Zionist dream is not necessarily the same as the eternal dream of the Jewish people to come home.
The actions, biases, misdeeds and possible gross offenses of the Zionists of 50, 70, 100 years ago are not the core identity of every Israeli citizen, Jewish person or modern-day Zionist.
Leaders are biased, have agendas, are swayed by self-interest and ideology.
Politicians use the people's money (Bush, Arafat, Sharon..... all of them)

The mistakes of the past are ours to not repeat.
They are ours to rectify, God-willing with compassion, wisdom and subjugation of our egos.

A modern-day American is not an Indian killer.
I did not evcuate Arab villages in the 40s.
German teens living in Berlin today did not slaughter Jews in WWII.

I am not South Florida, I am not Boston University, I am not the State of Israel, I am not the war in Iraq. I might be Tiger Woods, or a coffee achiever, and I am definitely going overboard here. This post has gone beyond the tight little bullet-list I intended.

You gotta gotta sort these things out before judging.

Oh yeah, one more, the universal truth of untruth-

Your news source is biased. Period. Period. The news is not a record of an event, neither is a video or a photograph. It is an interpretation. And reporting the news is someone's JOB. They get PAID for it.

Unless you read The Onion. That's truth unfettered.
____

Postscript- Tom Meade is the future of human consciousness.