happy new year

readers and friends,

my wish for you for 2008, as elvis sings it:

Deep in my heart there’s a trembling question
Still I am sure that the answer gonna come somehow
Out there in the dark, there’s a beckoning candle
And while I can think, while I can talk
While I can stand, while I can walk
While I can dream, please let my dream
Come true, right now

link

she fought the law

my mother is not a fan of the domestic goddess, the divine nigella lawson. she should tie her hair when she’s cooking, my mother says.

my mother, the critic.

the rabbi

IHT:

In 1965, after walking in the Selma-to-Montgomery civil-rights march with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was at the Montgomery, Alabama, airport, trying to find something to eat. A surly woman behind the snack-bar counter glared at Heschel — his yarmulke and white beard making him look like an ancient Hebrew prophet — and mockingly proclaimed: “Well, I’ll be damned. My mother always told me there was a Santa Claus, and I didn’t believe her, until now.” She told Heschel that there was no food to be had.

In response, according to a new biography, “Spiritual Radical: Abraham Joshua Heschel in America, 1940-1972″ by Edward K. Kaplan (Yale), Heschel simply smiled. He gently asked, “Is it possible that in the kitchen there might be some water?” Yes, she acknowledged. “Is it possible that in the refrigerator you might find a couple of eggs?” Perhaps, she admitted. Well, then, Heschel said, if you boiled the eggs in the water, “that would be just fine.”

She shot back, “And why should I?”

“Why should you?” Heschel said. “Well, after all, I did you a favor.”

“What favor did you ever do me?”

“I proved,” he said, “there was a Santa Claus.”

And after the woman’s burst of laughter, food was quickly served.

first time I’ve had goose bumps

“I’m supposed to be a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time I’ve had goose bumps for the last two days.”

i try very hard not to push any website, song, book, movie on this blog because they are too many people doing that already.

too many must-see, must-buys, must-clicks.

but i will make an exception.

if you don’t watch this, you’ll miss out.

the transcript is here.

Will Self

There is a deep sadness to American poverty, greater than the sadness of any other kind. It’s because America has such an ideology of success.

i don’t agree with this completely but this is especially poignant if you watched The Assassination of Richard Nixon, which i did last night. 

Benazir Bhutto (1953 – 2007)

I know some people will think it was naïve [to return despite death threats]. But if you believe in a cause you have to pay the price.

Jim Loehr

The world is full of people whose sole professional purpose is to get you to say yes to their requests, suggestions, commands.

fickle and dangerous

IHT features a professional letter writer in India who writes for the illiterate. he writes all sorts of letters but he refuses to write love letters.

“Love is fickle and dangerous, he said. Lovers lie; they cheat; they offer their love and rescind it. He refused to engage in chicanery on other people’s behalf. “

shame in the blood

i ended up buying shame in the blood after a quick glimpse at the back cover.

“considered one of the finest love stories in modern Japanese literature” didn’t work for me.

“then he meets Shino, a beautiful waitress who serves him hot sake and captures his heart” did.

why

a month ago, i wanted to stop writing here.

i changed my mind.

i should explain why.

Joseph Conrad

To be hopeful in an artistic sense it is not necessary to think that the world is good. It is enough to believe that there is no impossibility of it being made so.

John Updike

Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.

John Updike on his first marriage

We went our separate ways, she to a boxy Volvo station wagon, for Swedish stability, and I to a lime-colored Mustang convertible, for American pizzazz.