Signs of Life

Have Put Out the Germ! Saw this for sale in the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. Supposedly, the Via Dolorosa is where Jesus carried the cross. This was also for sale:

In New York, I discovered that if you buy T-Mobile, you can avoid Sin!



A gas station in Wisconsin that I pass on the way to work every day -- well, they sell Freedom:


Yes, we will all have to pay at the pump for Freedom, America:
And, back in suburban Minnesota...well, this just sounds dirty:

Old Guest Poster: My Dad

Okay, the title is not a slight at my Dad for being old, but simply that this post is old. It's my Dad's quite hilarious account of spending Christmas Eve in Bethlehem -- you know, back forever ago when we spent Winter Break in Jerusalem.

I didn't end up going to Bethlehem, as I was feeling crappy and simply went back to our short term rental apartment in Jerusalem to go to bed. My parents came back at about late at night, pale and trembling. Here's what my dad wrote about the trip:


Julia arranged in advance for us to go to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, with St. George’s church in Jerusalem. It is the Anglican church in East Jerusalem, an easy walk from the Damascus Gate. It has an English and an Arabic congregation. Bethlehem used to be a sleepy Arab village, near Jerusalem. It is now one of the fenced in Palestinian areas, under the Palestinian Authority.

We needed to be at St. George’s by 7 pm, and arrived well before. People began to arrive en masse about 6.45. Our leader, Father Bob, was a huge man, wearing a bright red beret. These turned out to be valuable attributes. He greeted us jocularly, and we started to get on the buses. Each person had to identify themselves as they got on the bus, and have their names checked against a pre-established list. There was a waiting list, and I have no idea how many of them got a seat. As our names were checked off, we were given a badge and we were told to display it in easily visible place. This, like the red beret, turned out to be crucial. We had been told earlier to bring our passports, although it turned out we didn’t need them. I still don’t know whether we might have needed them to prove that we weren’t Israelis going into Bethlehem, or that we weren’t Palestinians coming out. The careful procedure was followed as each person got on the bus, and the third bus was delayed in arriving, making for a tedious wait. Finally, we were given our marching orders: Display your badge prominently, keep together when we got off the bus. Walk briskly together straight to the church. Don’t dawdle or stop for something to eat or drink. Look friendly but avoid eye contact. Return straight to the bus after the service. The bus will not wait.

Father Bob’s large and comforting figure took the seat immediately in front of us. His cell phone was constantly ringing. He always answered “Ho Ho Ho. Merry Christmas. Father Bob speaking.” * The calls were all from people in Jerusalem and Bethlehem keeping track of our progress. About a kilometer or two from Bethlehem, all three buses pulled over. We were assured this was a planned stop, to pick up an escort. We soon got back on the road and the escort turned out to be a HumVee flying two large Israeli flags. This did not make me feel safer.
Soon we drew up to a huge wall, made up of prefabricated slabs colored a drab beige. We stopped, and were briefly investigated by a border guard. We were then ushered through the gate, apparently made extra large for the influx of visitors on Christmas Eve. It turned out that about twice as many pilgrims came as were expected.

From then on it was utter chaos. The environment entirely changed as we went through the gate. The traffic was gridlocked; it took us 45 minutes to inch our way a few hundred meters to the bus depot. The streets were garishly lit, and full of people, some going about their business, some tending their shop or restaurant, most young males just lounging around. The scene was in the manner of most border towns: souvenir shops and cafes. Many people smiled and waved at us, yelling out “Merry Christmas”. Father Bob said, “Smile, but don’t encourage them!” **

We eventually got to the bus terminal, down a hill and around a sharp corner. We pulled into the half empty, underground bus depot. I wanted to make a joke about never realizing that Jesus Christ Our Lord was born in a parking lot. When we stopped, we were told again: stay together, go straight to the church, don’t stop, return straight to the bus afterwards, display your badge prominently at all times. We climbed out of the buses, left the bus terminal, and started to walk up the hill and around the corner to Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity. The streets were full, and got more crowded as we approached the church. Our group soon spread out, and it was impossible to tell if the person you were following was a member, as we all wore our badges on our front. It was here that Father Bob’s stature and red beret proved invaluable, as you easily see his large red-topped figure moving confidently through the crowd.

More and more Palestinian soldiers were in evidence; their uniforms were entirely black, from their helmets to their boots. And most had machine guns slung over their shoulders or carried at the ready. As we approached the church, thousands of pilgrims jammed up against crowd control fences, with ranks of armed soldiers manning the fences. Behind us in the square, there were loud celebrations that were, as far I could tell, entirely independent of Christmas and the pilgrims. I think it was a Palestinian rock concert, and I was fairly sure I was hallucinating when I thought I saw and heard boy scouts playing bag-pipes. This turned out to be a Palestinian tradition.

Father Bob started to wave his red beret, and shout “St George’s, St. George’s”, and eventually, “Let’s go!” One of the security gates was drawn back, and a group of soldiers formed a gauntlet through which only people wearing St. George’s badges were allowed. There were thousands of people crammed together, all waiting to get into the church. Although they didn’t rush the opening, they didn’t exactly fall back to let us through, either. It was only by pushing and being pushed that we made progress.

Things were complicated by the fact that there were two-and-a-half high concrete bollards at various places, and as one was pushed against such a thing, one had to make artful, or clumsy, adjustments to get around it. As we arrived at the gap in the security fence, several nervous young men, armed and uniformed, looked anxiously for our badges, which we equally anxiously displayed. Emerging into the empty spaces between the security gates and the church, we hurried up to the latter. We entered the nave, but rather to my surprise, we didn’t stop there, but were ushered through to an empty courtyard. I have only the vaguest of memories of what the interior of the church looked like. None of the pictures of the Church of the Nativity look familiar. After many of us had gathered in the courtyard, we ducked through a four-foot doorway into a small chapel. Here I finally realized that we weren’t going to a Christmas Eve service in the church, for which St. George’s had a few places reserved, but to a small carol service, put on for St. George’s alone. For all I know, there were dozens of other such special services put on. In fact, there probably wasn’t a Christmas Eve service in the Church of the Nativity at all that evening. The Church of the Nativity is an Orthodox church, and they celebrate Christmas at a later date. The big Christmas Eve service on Dec 24 was probably held in the nearby St. Catherine’s, which is Roman Catholic. I should have thought of all this before. In Jerusalem, the western churches (Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal; I didn’t notice any others) were very much in the minority, even among Christians. There were several varieties of Orthodox, Coptic, and Armenian churches in bewildering variety. For instance, the main Armenian church (in fact a cathedral, I think) is St. James, in a large monastery in the Armenian quarter. But there is also an Armenian Catholic church, with the wonderful name of “our Lady of the Spasm”, on the Via Dolorosa.

The carol service itself was very simple: eight lessons and about a dozen carols (no choir or accompaniment). The service was all very familiar, except one of the lessons was in Greek (read by, I think, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem), and one of the hymns was in Arabic. The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Suheil Tawani, read one of lessons, and read a long prayer on behalf of Palestinian Christians. This latter was in part to thank the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. Rather to our surprise, he was present for at least part of the service (who was present for at least part of the service, rather to our surprise). The service took about 45 minutes, and then we left the chapel, and the church. Now the crowd was even larger, and the Palestinians partied on in Manger Square. Father Bob and another leader (a Palestinian, I think) tried to persuade the soldier in charge to let us return another way. He decided against it, and we once again surged through a gap in the security gate, this time into rather than away from the crowd. It was easier, somehow. We easily got back to the bus about 10 pm, and I even had time to buy a glass of tea from a young boy manning a stand in the bus terminal. ***

All in all, I am extremely glad to have gone to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. It was quite an experience, though I don’t think I would describe it as spiritual.

David, Jerusalem
Jan 3, 2010

* My note: What is up with Father Bob?

** Seriously, what is up with Father Bob?

*** My dad drinks tea approximately every five seconds. Or coffee. Think I drink a lot of coffee and tea? Haven't met my dad. My dad is kind of the best.

My dad didn't take any pictures at Bethlehem. Here, instead, is a picture of my mom and me, at the Dome of the Rock/site of the second temple/end of the world:

Learn How To Park! You Are So Inconsiderate! Smiley Face!

Back in Minneapolis. There's a ridiculous amount of snow. And parking sucks.

I got on the wrong side of a snow emergency and had to wait multiple hours to get my car out of the impound lot. Multiple hours. Nearly three. And an hour of that was waiting outside. It was such a bizarre experience, actually, that it was almost worth it just to have the story. Almost.

The first hour (and this is at 10 pm at night, by the way) was, as I said, outside, and even with FUR-LINED boots my feet were freezing. The line was one of those lines that move so slowly that it seems as if it's not moving at all and how you progress forward seems mysterious and unlikely.

The lady in front of me had had a tracheotomy and talked by using one of those electronic devices that you press to your throat, which only compounded the surreality of the whole thing.

"I...want...my...car...back..." she said several times. "Just...give...me...my...car."

I sympathized. Also, she wasn't wearing a hat, which...what?

Once we got out of the cold into a makeshift covered waiting area, which was heated, the quality of life improved greatly, though the line moved even more slowly.

What was remarkable about the whole thing was that for the most part everyone was quite nice and well-behaved. You wouldn't think that, as we crept into the next day, in the cold, without our cars, having to face the prospect of paying a lot of money, that we wouldn't take it out on each other. But I think the fact that the line was so completely terrible, and that we were all in the same boat, and, to a certain extent, it was our own faults that we were in this situation (I mean, the snow emergency rules are confusing, but they're not impossible, and I certainly should have known better), combined to make us reasonably pleasant. Someone had written a note and hung it up: BE KIND TO EACH OTHER. NO ONE WANTS TO BE HERE. And for the most part, people followed this principle.

When I got the window, finally, the guy working there was even in a fairly decent mood. He couldn't read my handwriting on the form I'd filled out, and joked, "What, are you a professor or something?"

"Uh...yeah," I stammered. "Sort of."

"Really?" he said and we both laughed. "Why do professors always have such terrible handwriting?"

I'd actually never heard that before, though I'm willing to believe it's true. I thought he was going to say "doctors" since they're the ones who have the reputation for terrible handwriting. I guess professors do too.

I'm actually pretty confident I know why my handwriting sucks, but I'll explain that another day.

Anyway, I eventually got my car back. Here are two other parking stories:

1) Now, you can't park on the even side of non-snow emergency streets until APRIL. Which means available parking is cut IN HALF. This BLOWS. It used to be easy to find parking in my neighborhood, unless you came home past, like, one in the morning (if, for example, you were coming back from claiming your car at the impound lot). But now, even coming home at seven it's nearly impossible to find a place.

2) I've written before that parking at the University where I work is difficult to come by. I used to come to teach at an insanely early hour, meaning I could usually get a spot. Now, I still have to come early, but not insanely early, so parking is very difficult to come by. On Friday, even the metered parking was reserved for a special event. And I didn't have tons of time to find a spot. I ended up accidentally parking blocking a driveway. Which is awful, I know, but in my defense, the block where I parked makes it very difficult to determine what's driveway and what isn't, since snow basically covers all of it, the driveways don't occur in regular or logical intervals, and there are no signs. Anyway, when I got back, I realized what I'd done, and somehow I'd escaped a ticket. However, there was a note tucked into my windscreen wipers, written in cute, curly handwriting:

LEARN HOW TO PARK! YOU ARE SO INCONSIDERATE!

The contrast between the message and cute handwriting was so great that I almost expected them to add, HAVE A NICE DAY!

I also love how Midwestern all of this was: you are enjoined to be nice in a horrific line in the middle of the night, and the worst insult anyone can think to level at you is that you are "inconsiderate."

Anyway, parking sucks. And I suck at it. Please stop, winter.

Happy New Year!

So, it's New Year's Eve, and I'm chillin' in the Jerusalem apartment with the parents. Not that I'm complaining -- I have notoriously bad luck/bad timing with New Year's Eve celebrations, which in the past have included being hospitalized, falling asleep in a cab on the way home from the airport, and being stuck in a supermarket parking lot in the freezing cold. So being in a Jerusalem works for me.

To be fair, the past few New Years have been totally pleasant, often including going out and dancing to eighties music with Mary and friends, afterwards eating Mac and Cheese at 2:00 am to absorb the booze. Last year, I joined Kate at Mancini's, where she informed me she is going again this year. Hi, Kate! Happy New Year!

What have I been up to? Well, I had ambitions to do a chronological account, but that's clearly not going to happen, nor would be very interesting. Instead, I'll give pictures with captions!

Okay, so in continuing crazy-cat-person-ness, I bought some cat treats that I have been giving to stray cats. I made friends with a cat that lives in the Armenian quarter, near the Armenian Catholic church. Also, there was a cat in the Monastery of the Holy Cross that DEMANDED so serious loving:
We went to the Temple Mount and saw the Dome of the Rock, which I will talk about in more detail later. I just wrote a bunch about it and deleted it -- there's so much complicated history there, so it's hard to write about it, particularly in the flip way that I usually write.

I will say, from the Temple Mount, you can see the Mount of Olives and the Valley of Josaphat, which according to some traditions is where we are all going to go when the world ends:
I sat and looked at the view for a long time. Not bad!

Speaking of the world ending, I generally don't wear crocs, but there are some cases where I make exceptions:
Cute:
I wonder if I wouldn't rather go here when the world ends:
Or maybe here:

Not touristy stuff

Strib review is up. Huzzah!

When in Eilat, I went to the pharmacy to buy some conditioner. While trying to figure out the difference in Hebrew between "shampoo" and "conditioner," I heard a wispy song in the background. It sounded a lot like the T.I. song, "Whatever You Like," a Popular Hip-Hop Song I have Quite the Fondness for, in lame whitey ironic way. Listening closer, I realized that it was the T.I. song. A little-girl voice was lisping lyrics like "Late night sex, so wet and so tight...You ain't ever have to go in your wallet...long as I got rubber-band banks in my pocket...gas up the jet for tonight and you can have whatever you like."

A little weird to realize when you're standing in an Israeli pharmacy in a town in the middle of a desert, not far from the actual Sodom and Gomorrah.

Intrigued, I did with the googling and you tubing when I got to a computer. I found the cover, and it turns out it was featured on Gossip Girl so as per usual I'm way behind the times on this one. It's a cute lady called Anya Marina. I watched the video and fell in love with it. For starters, JUSTIN KIRK is in it! Justin Kirk, of Angels in America and Weeds who grew up partly in Minneapolis and who I saw at the Jungle Theater!

So you must watch this video. Aside from Justin Kirk (if you don't know him, he's the one being ridiculously adorable in the video), it's set in a sex toy store, which gives a weird/fun edge to the theme of "whatever you like." If it hasn't already been done, someone NEEDS to write a graduate thesis on the different iterations of sexuality expressed in this video and its companion video, the original, epic T.I. video.

Here's the T.I. video, which also illustrates why I love him: sure, there are the obnoxious booty video clichés, but there's a sweetness and a sense of humor.

And here's the Anya video:

Petra-fied

Happy Boxing Day!

My family and decided to spend Christmas in the Holy Land -- we've got a little apartment in Jerusalem, across from Ye Old English Tea Shoppe -- Kosher!

Getting here was an adventure, delayed by snowstorms on the East Coast and a taxi cab ride to the wrong address when I got to Jerusalem. Once I safely arrived, I was right away bundled into a rental car by my parents and we drove to Eliat, a resort town on the border of Israel and Jordan. The next day, we took a tour into Jordan, to see the "lost city" of Petra. Crossing the border from Israel to Jordan was quite the experience -- you literally have to cross a "no man's land" of dirt and barbed wire.

Our guide was a young Bedouin who looked like Jeff Goldbloom, if Jeff Goldboom were a Bedouin. There was a long bus ride to modern-day Petra, the outskirts of which are a plain-looking town. Then you take a hike through some canyons, beautiful and unreal:
There's carvings and tombs in the rocks, which is lovely and unusual in and of itself. Then, you turn a corner, and oh
Holy

Shit
Yeah, that's carved INTO the rock, people.
It's kind of like beautiful American Southwestern canyons COMBINED WITH beautiful Hellenistic ruins with a little bit of ambitious Egyptian tributes to the dead thrown in, for good measure. Those Nabateans could make some beautiful shit.
Being me, I got distracted by the animals.

No, not the camels. The cats!

Totally cute, undernourished, and clearly diseased, apparently they're kept around to keep lizards and scorpions away from the tourist areas that sell souvenirs. Sniff! I want to take them all home. Because yes, I'm one of those crazies that cares more about cats than people.

However, the donkeys and horses that give rides through the canyon have an open-to-the-public clinic sponsored by Princess Alia, so there's for sure concern about animal welfare.

So: Petra. Holy fucking shit. I'm not one of those tourists given to Shock and Awe -- I'm a pretty lousy and easily bored tourist, to be honest with you. Today, for example, now back in Israel, we went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum and I was like, yawn, I'm hungry. But Petra. Not a bad place to go when you die, huh? Look at these tombs:

Pop-culture reference points: Petra was where Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was filmed (they have an "Indiana Jones" stall in modern-day Petra) and nearby is Wadi Rum, the desert that's the backdrop for much of Lawrence of Arabia, I think.

Petra was really incredible, that's all I have to say. Not very profound.

Let's look at the Treasury, just one...
more time...
Sigh. Lovely.

I've found my new timewaster...

You know those fun blogs with a concept that post new things every day or almost every day?

Well, my friend Serena has thought of a good one: hotties in art. Check it out. You might learn something. If you have money (wait, you're reading this blog -- of course you don't have money. But if you know someone with money--they must exist--send them to Serena's store to buy pretty things).