newsornotnews (noticiaononoticia)

My blog performance has fallen pretty far behind my aspirations. I think of the words of 19th century renaissance man author and cuisine technologist Robert Browning, “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”

The “Ah,” is the genius part, don’t you think? And this while developing methods of creating a nice umami crust to your meats.

I have used this quote as a justification for sloth and failure since pre-bar mitzvah years. “Of course I’m not my idealized self! D’uh!” I’m just good enough to stand living with myself and, believe me, it took some drastic reductions of standards to get that far.

So I might have written about the strange absence of gazpacho and pan tomate on the Costa Blanca. I might have written about how we’ve worked out beach use on beaches that don’t permit Mel. I might have written on the miraculous omnipresence of Dover Sole Meurniere and barbouni. I might have written about reading Gogol while standing nipple deep in the pool. I might have written about the strange sensation a borough kid feels while eating eggs, fruits and vegetables cultivated on his own property.

I might have focused on Jolean and not my own lint-filled navel. I really should. That she loves me is the top thing on my CV. That may have to wait for heaven too.

I could start with today, feeling the bends of less than a week back in NYC. Or the inconveniences of living in a “staged” apartment while it’s on the market.

Is any of this interesting in the least?

” Was his aching soul thereby revealing the doleful mystery of its illness—that the lofty inner man who was beginning to be built in him had had no time to form and gain strength; that, not tried from early years in the struggle with failure, he had never attained the lofty ability to rise and gain strength from obstacles and barriers; that, having melted like heated metal, the wealth of great feelings had not been subjected to a final tempering, and now, lacking resilience, his will was powerless.”

Not quite on the money but close enough.

I’m going to add one more quote on, I guess you would say, ambition:

“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” ―Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Biden does not need to step down. He’s done nothing disqualifying. The debate, though, did reveal new information about his condition which he really had an obligation to disclose earlier than now. Since the delegates to the convention were selected with incomplete knowledge on the part of the voters, Biden should release his delegates. Perhaps most will stay with him. Perhaps not. It is only fair to let other potential candidates make their case for the nomination and make the case against Trump. An open convention is potentially an ugly affair but given the apparent level of support for Biden, I think any nominee would emerge with at least as much enthusiasm.

The legal tender of European nations, even before the formation of the European Union, always seemed to me to be superior to that of the United States in that differing denominations would vary in size and color, thereby becoming that much easier to identify quickly and, sensibly, the greater the value of the bill, the larger the bill would be in comparison to lesser valued currency residing next to it in your wallet whereas the dollar certificates issued by the mint of the US (although the word “mint,” to me, implies coinage, which we will get to later. Paper [and here I’m using the word “paper” as a term of art because, whatever material being used for currency currently, it is not truly paper] is printed on.) are all the same green, all the same size, which does bring some superficial order to a wallet with the necessary dimensions to accommodate them but requires a more exacting examination of the wallet’s contents before you deliver the tender in a retail transaction.

The EU has sensibly continued this tradition in it’s issuance of Euros so that, once you have learned which color corresponds to which denomination, you can effortlessly select the proper bill and, even if you haven’t committed the designated color for the bill needed to complete the transaction to memory, you can’t go very far wrong by relying on the graduated dimensions.

Another innovation of the EU is minting (and in this instance it fits perfectly) coins for a single Euro or for two Euros, a practice the US would do well to emulate; but in this, I can only assume, the pitfalls of coalition governance has manifested in that the coin for one Euro has a copper-looking rim with a nickel-looking center which, unfortunately, is exactly the same design of the two Euro coin! There is a difference in size so that when you reach blindly into your pocket, you can tactily differentiate between the two, assuming your pocket contains coins of both denominations (yes, they do differ in diameter but not by much – which denomination you will find in your palm after removing a coin from your single-coin-denomination-holding pocket is a crap shoot). In this, they’d do well to look to their fellow NATO member across the Atlantic where pennies are copper-looking, nickels are nickle-looking, dimes are silver-looking (although dimes are much smaller than the less worthy nickel and penny, a breach in logic that I assume has a humorous historical antecedent that I’m not aware of), and the 25 cent piece has two silver looking layers around a copper-looking layer, much like an oreo cookie which, and I’m guessing here, you can purchase in exchange for the quarter.

The entrance to the driveway of our house (which is a big Bond-villain motorized sliding wooden gate) is at the end of a twisty dirt road. The other end of the road opens onto CV735, which for us is the mother-road: go left, you’re heading to Javea (aka Xabia); go right, you’re heading to Denia; cross the road and you’re only a short hop to Jesus Pobre, the nearest and smallest outpost of civilization.

We’re about equidistant from Javea and Denia as the crow flies but the 10-minute trip into Javea is much simpler so we go there much more often. There are three different points we head to.

First is the big underground parking lot at the edge of the old city, convenient to the Municipal Market, the Saturday outdoor market and the better, often fancy-shmancy, restaurants (When we told the pharmacist we ate at one, he shook his head like we were pathetic). We also were directed yesterday to a very appealing looking butcher shop only a block or two away.

Second is to the parking lot adjacent to the gravel beach and the docks. This is also where the fish market is. It’s lined with restaurants which appear to be of variable quality. We found one that’s very good, Tasca Port, and we usually go there when we’re in that area (Their frittura, the fried fish plate, always has red mullet [salmonete en Español] and I love that).

Third is Platja de la Arenal which is a sandy beach and where parking is a little trickier. There’s a long promenade that runs along the beach, bordered by the kind of restaurants, ice cream shops, beachwear and beach toys and casual clothes stores like you might find in any beach town the world over. Again, we have a fave, Posidona, that’s our go to eatery there.

Most restaurants throughout the area have outdoor space, whether a terrace or an inner courtyard, a glassless open front or a few tables in the street. This has allowed us to bring along Melech the dog (usually referred to as Mel) whenever we go out to eat. I was against it initially. We have a big house, Mel’s perfectly comfortable in it and there’s no reason we need to deal with him wherever we go. Jolean prevailed in that controversy.

One problem, though, is that dogs are not permitted on the beach. Now, I like the water, I like the waves but I’m not crazy about sand or gravel. For me, if there was asphalt up to the water’s edge, that would be an improvement. Jolean, however, who spent her summers on Nantucket growing up, loves the beach. She loves salt water. It’s what she loves best.

So she goes on the beach and I stay on the promenade walking Mel. It’s not an arrangement that pleases me.

Another factor in plan-making we have not yet mastered is siesta. Most retail locations close for siesta but exactly when and for how long is particular to each establishment. Although the Municipal Market is open until 8:00PM, the butchers, fruiterers and fishmongers there shut down at 1:00PM and they’re done for the day (the tapas bars and beer and cocktail bars are open all day but we’re not permitted to bring Mel inside).

The Butcher in town closes at 1:30 also and then reopens from 5:00 to 8:00. The dog-friendly pharmacy across the plaza from the market closes at 1:00 and reopens at 4:00. The fish market opens for one hour, more or less (depending on how quickly the day’s catch is sold), at 11:00 and 4:00. The Saturday outdoors market in Javea (and the Sunday market in Jesus Pobre) is open all day but only a couple of stalls have fruit. Most sell cheap clothing and tchotchkes (Jesus Pobre’s market has lots of baked goods, cheese, charcuterie and olives, a little fruit but no butcher or fishmonger).

The restaurants open at 1:00 and accept diners until 3:00, close at 5:00 and reopen at 8:00 and take reservations, usually, until 10:30. The bodegas, which are taverns that serve tapas and full meals, generally are open from noon until midnight (although not everyday) and don’t take reservations.

Things move slow. They pause. A meal lasts hours and is followed by a nap. I’m still living by the New York minute. But I’m adjusting.

Facebook informed me, a couple of days ago, that it was Larry Bloom’s 85th birthday. I did some obituary hunting and found none so I guess it’s correct, that Dr. Bloom is 85. I’m glad he’s still here.

Bloom was my shrink for about 35 years. Sometime once a week or twice a week or three times a week. Sometime, additionally, in a group he assembled and monitored.

At least initially, he was old school Freudian. Whatever my problems of the moment, transference and counter-transference was the currency we traded in. All the classic complexes, most frequently oedipal, made appearances in our sessions.

He always had a literary bent and would celebrate Bloomsday with an annual lecture on Ulysses to the psychiatry residents at Mount Sinai hospital. At a certain point, maybe, 25 years in, Martin Buber showed up as a canonical influence which, unfortunately, was the nose of the camel. Spirituality, light and dark, metaphysical influencers became a large part of my therapy. My atheism was interpreted as resistance.

Was I helped by all that talking we (mostly I) did? I think so. I learned a lot which is a poor substitute for changed a lot but I’d say I changed. I was also 35 years older and would have certainly changed some with or without therapy. Nothing that happened in session, though, provided the elation that came with retirement. It shocked me, the way the anxiety and stress of my work life permeated all the rest of my life and how happy I was to jettison it.

While I was seeing Bloom, when I was, let’s say, analytical, I could see life’s complexities and, I believed, people’s subterranean motives and I miss the absence of that very much. I feel shallower, dumber. It’s as though I’m an apartment house with people scurrying about upstairs but all the mechanicals, the boiler, the elevator controller, the AC compressors are all down in the basement and I can’t get in there anymore. I don’t even remember where the door was. All I can do is scurry.

It’s possible that I stopped seeing Dr. Bloom because, after 35 years, I had simply had enough. That was not the reason I gave.

My second wife, Syd, was a drug addict and a borderline personality, something it took me a couple of years to realize, but, after less than a year’s marriage, we determined we needed couples therapy. I did a little research, asking around, and came up with a few names. I told Syd we’d go to whichever she chose.

What she wanted was for Bloom to be our couples therapist. I resisted but I talked to Bloom and he said he had been in that position before. “You must understand though,” he said, “that when I’m treating a couple, the marriage is my patient. I want the marriage to be healthy.”

So we began our sessions. It quickly became clear that the reason she wanted to see Bloom was that he would know, from our very first meeting, how fucked up I was and that our problems all stemmed from my issues. In a year of Blooming she never once acknowledged that she was at least a little at fault. In fact, as time went on, she saw me more and more as a villain acting out of evil, sadistic intent.

Early during that time though, when we were only 12 months married, we had a fight that, I thought, was beyond the limit that I could endure and I resolved to end the marriage. I informed Bloom of this during one of our private sessions. “That solves a problem, I suppose, but I believe that the best chance you each have for growth and happiness,” he said, “is with each other.”

I stayed another two years during which things got worse. Her paranoia got worse. Her agoraphobia got worse. Bloom was willing to do house calls but she came to see him as an agent of those who would harm her, as was I. Things once got physical and, two days later, she swore out a complaint against me at the local precinct and I was arrested. Then she had me arrested again for no reason.

There were other times the police came to the house, called by our neighbors mostly (one time police and firemen when she set our mattress on fire). They came to know her and to know how damaged she was. We had her admitted to a few different resident programs. Finally we divorced.

I carry a lot of anger about that time still, notwithstanding the fact that I learned a year or so ago that she was dead. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, I don’t know any of the circumstances. My anger doesn’t prevent me from seeing what a sad, helpless, hopeless woman she was. I hope there was something approaching a happy ending for her before she went.

If my anger at Syd was modulated by pity, my anger at Bloom was unchained. Whether or not the marriage was his patient, I was his patient too. I felt like Brando talking to Steiger in the backseat of the car: he should have looked out for me. He had a much clearer idea of Syd’s psychology than I did. Were it not for his encouragement (mind you, he almost never made behavioral suggestions to me – it was not that kind of work) I would have avoided two years of needless expense, pain and drama.

So our time together came to an end, another item, perhaps, broken by Syd. Or perhaps not. It’s true that our sessions at the end revolved around my anger at his failure to deal with the corporal world and the practicalities of living (such as a drug addict wife). His spiritualism shielded him from recognizing what a grave mistake he had made and the price I had to pay for it.

And today? Today I love him. I appreciate all the concern, all the emotion, all the counter-transference, he gave me. He made a mistake, definitely. Everybody does.

Happy birthday Dr. Bloom.

I’m standing in the pool. The water’s about nipple high. There’s a little Bluetooth speaker amplifying whatever the Apple Music shuffle selects from a very long playlist I’ve assembled, The water felt cold at first. Now not.

The pool use within the property Jolean and I bought with the intention of it being our primary residence. Our much loved Spring Street apartment is listed for sale.

The property abuts Montgo National Park. The closest village, Jesus Pobre, has a population of about 3,000. That includes the British pensioners. We are part of the city of Denia and the state of Alicante, Spain.

It’s been five years since my last post.

Jesus pobre!

Something odd that I don’t think about near enough – I stopped posting when my mother died, not that she ever read the blog. Yet, I think she was the audience I wanted to reach. I wanted her to hear me and I wanted her to say, “Good job.” I can’t recall ever hearing that although I’m sure I did. My story, as I tell it to myself, is that she didn’t.

Her mishegoss and my mishegoss, to use a Spanish term.

There are a lot of topics we could talk about from the last five years: a couple more surgeries; why we decided to become expatriates; what’s living in Spain like; my Daughter Samara’s two novels; the gansa mishpucha of Jolean, steps and in-law; how and what music I’m listening to; old movies or US politics or even my mother.

For today, I only wanted to let whoever is interested know my intention to be back. And I do take requests.

Having had the pleasure, in the several days since my return from my very exotic and somewhat pricey (although less pricey than you might think but if you want to be judgmental about my perceived extravagance that’s okay with me because that’s exactly what I’ll be assuming you’re doing anyway) two-week sailing vacation to Greece, of waylaying a handful of undefended conversationalists prepared to discuss the Emmy awards, the weather or the most delicious pork riblet (which they were recently fortunate to taste from the plate of their dining partner and resolved to order said comestibles themselves the next time they comest at that restaurant) and forcing them to listen to a 1/45th scale retelling of my fantastic experiences that they were not there for and never will be even if they replicate the same trip in the future (because it’s never the same water twice or even once, if you think about it), I’ve discovered that my fellow New Yorkers, sophisticated in so many respects (would a Ohioan know where to find the most delicious pork riblet ever, especially one served at a Chinese eatery? Absolutely not!), have some odd misconceptions about Greece and the Grecians which I am not misconceived by because I have had this transformative and very enviable travel experience. Allow me to recount:

– The Nation Greece has no discenible association to Grease, the ingredient, the play or the hair condition. In fact, firstly, much of the food is lightly grilled with the barest brush of shortening evident and, in fact, can sometimes be a tad dry if you don’t squeeze a little lemon on it (lemons are always provided); secondly, while I was pleased to listen to an amateur chamber orchestra which had commandeered the central square of the town of Nefpoli and demonstrated enormous ability in regard to Grecian songs, oom-pahs, and other Grecian songs (accompanied by a mixed pair of very pleasing vocalisers), they, to my hearing, did not perform any Show Tunes at all unless they were plucked from indigenous Grecian Musicals with which I am unfamiliar (they did undertake a disarmingly brassy arrangement of The Theme From Zorba the Greek but that song, i beleive, does not appear in the Broadway Musical Zorba which opened with a fame-declining Anthony Quinn recreating his film role of the title character), and, thirdly, you should not characterize an entire Nation Greece by the less-than-fastidious personal hygiene of some indeterminate minority of it’s population.

– Every salad served in Greece is a Greek Salad. It may have dates and stale bread on the bottom of the bowl, it may have no olives, feta or balsamic – it’s still a Greek Salad. There are many menus listing an item entitled Greek Salad but it’s no more Greek than any other salad. It’s kind of Greek Salad squared. It’s a meta thing. I believe Magritte drew a picquant illustration of a salad with feta and olives with the Acropolis visible in the background and I’m going to let that be the last word on the subject.

– Nation Greece is primarily occupied by pussycats both furry and feral who outnumber the quantum of bipeds and noncat quadrapeds combined. The Grecians remove their feline sex organs and offer as recompense, present on every street corner, kibble and other foodstuffs not likely to be consumed by homeless people. On the other hand, besides Romany, who practice professionally, there are very few people living on the streets. They’re in repurposed kennels, I assume.

–  Grecian Men are frequently photographed dancing with each other. No one asked me to dance. I sat on the side of the square (i’m aware there are more prominent, more showy places I could have sat but i was very close to the chamber orchestra so i would be noticed and i couldn’t stand in the middle of the Grecian Square, I couldn’t – I’m not that kind of guy) and I was confident that my appearance was polished to a kind of radiance (perhaps not as radiant as some of the very popular Grecian Men who all seemed to know each other and hung out over on the other side by themselves but I looked good and i knew it) and it was clear I was available. I was not sitting with any other guys. Just the same, I was the wallflower at the fiesta. I left undanced. My conclusion? All Grecian Men are antisemites.

It is said that “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” It’s wise bons mots (equally is it mots justes [ i don’t think there is any argument to be made that they are not mots – i’ll leave the appropriate qualifier in your hands]) but not in this case because I spent a crapload of money, more than you would ever pay for your vacation (though less than a rental of equal length in the Hamptons [except maybe Westhampton] would be unless you eat nothing but corn flakes for two weeks while I was eating fantastic greaseless food). It’s the sharing, though, the sharing that makes it all worthwhile.

George Jetson was able to support a wife, two children, a dog with a speech impediment and robot maid, all from working two hours a week pushing a button.

That’s what we thought the future was going to look like in 1962. Over at Hanna Barbera, they understood that automation was going to lead to efficiency and the benefit of efficiency was to liberate us from the obligations of labor. If it wasn’t going to allow us to have more fun, well then, what was the point?

In 1970, the book Future Shock imagined the profession of Leisure Counselor to advise those perplexed on how to spend all that recreational time they were going to have in the modern world.

That was the dream of modernity, wasn’t it? A superior technology that would result in ease and prosperity through all levels of society? The elimination of certain types of work was anticipated. Industrial advancements had been causing changes in work for two hundred years but it had always resulted in new-fangled, less physical, more productive, more lucrative work that filled the gap. We’d seen that before.

So how come it didn’t turn out that way? Why hasn’t greater efficiency and it’s resulting greater productivity translated into fewer work hours? What used to take two hours now takes one hour – why isn’t the laborer the beneficiary of that hour? If what once required two people now requires one person, then either there needs to be a new form of work to employ the spare dude or the two dudes can split the workload and work half as much, right? {And it was always dudes. The labor market was far less congested since working women were far more rare both because of cultural limitations we seem to have evolved beyond but also because George’s wage was sufficient to allow Jane to spend the day shopping. Today most households require two working adults to maintain.]

We work as many hours as we ever did and for many workers displaced by technology, there are no new jobs to fill that space. Increased productivity goes to increased operating profitability but profits aren’t allocated to labor. Profits go to shareholders.

One cause that occurs to me – in 1962, the top marginal rate for federal income taxes was 91%. Maybe you worked a little less hard turning ten million dollars into twenty million dollars if you’re only going to keep 9% of it. Maybe you’re a little more willing to share revenues with your labor force under that condition.

I’m really not an economics maven and I’m a little outside my comfort zone here. The decline of unionism plays a part. Investors demand (and receive) a higher return on investment than was the case 50 years ago. Trust laws go unenforced. Labor has been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed to the lowest value it can exist on. The low dollar value attributed to sweat is something I will never understand (Ditto the overvalue attributed to white collar labor, particularly finance).

There’s a cultural dimension too. We work. We work as though we were meant to, as though our purpose is only realized in the products of our labor, the sprockets we make, the deals we close, the wages we take home. Who questions the appropriateness of two working parents being necessary to keep the household going? Who believes that their moving up the ladder will mean working fewer hours? How many bargain for more leisure time instead of more money?

I did. That is, I retired young. Sometimes I’m kind of bashful about it. It feels a little dishonorable. “I choose to be unproductive. I choose to avoid labor. I choose to dedicate my time to the my pleasure and the pleasure of those I love.” What a lazy dog, eh? What a misguided soul whose days offer no material enrichment.

Don’t worry about me, i’m comfortable, tanx god, but I’d be comfortabler if I had kept the office going (Though my hospital time may have motivated client-flight and killed the practice. I dunno).

Back in ’62, though, I was promised this, along with videophones and moving sidewalks and ever longer cigarettes and ever bigger cars, along with cities on the moon  and hover-bikes and equality for negroes, along with universal analysis, the Playboy Club and miracle cures for everything. We were promised the time to enjoy it.

Isabelle Huppert is sitting on stage as the audience enters on an impossibly wide white leather sofa, filling the span of the stage like a Tex Avery limo pulling up to the nightclub. Her face is powdered white, not quite mime, not quite noh but ashen, dusty. Her lips are deep red. She’d be vampiric if she didn’t seem so juicy with flesh and blood.

She looks up from the book she’s reading from time to time, bored, shutting her eyes but she also looks at us, locks eyes with audience members in the fully lit room, with an expression of distaste, contempt. She is absolutely beautiful.

Here is the set-up for Mother – An empty nest couple grown apart and antagonistic. He is probably having an affair. They have a son and daughter but it’s the boy who consumes Mother’s thoughts. His absence obsesses her, his neglect, his interest in another woman – it echoes in her,  so deep, so resonant, so reactive.

There are precisely three scenes – Father comes home, the Son comes to stay overnight and they are all up in the morning when the Girlfriend comes to reconcile with the Son – but each are played over and over again, each one a variant on the version before it. It’s like rotating a crystal to view it’s facets.

Any one iteration may be a dream. Maybe they all are. Maybe it’s all Mother’s hallucination.

Mother is lively. Huppert is lively. Very lively. It’s a very big performance and it, over and over, punched open a spot in my head, moved right in and maintains it’s occupancy still. Tough, vulnerable, frightening and often very sexy. She wears a slip and black stockings better than any 65 year old has a right too. She’s edible and oedipal.

The rest of the cast, which includes Mr. Big, Chris Noth, react as if to say, “Well, what the hell am i supposed to do with that?” which must be performance by now but i’m betting was their intial take as craftsmen. “How do I answer that?” Odessa Young was particularly well cast as the Girl.

Try to catch it before the run ends this week. Far more iconic than Glenda in Lear, you’re never gonig to see another performance like it. Strong recommendation. The show lasts 90 minutes and the CL never twitched.

Did you have a chance to look at the Zeeeko cartoons that Alex did? The Gordon Ramsay one? On Youtube, that got more than 3,000,000 hits in one week.  My posting of it got 25.

That’s the way it is, starting up the blog again. A couple of years ago, after I had been doing it dependably for a while, I could count on 50 or 60 reads and, on occasion, a post would get a couple of hundred hits. Last week, well, let’s say the Zeeeko post was my most popular.

On the other hand, four views last week came from France, two from Finland, one from Germany and one from China. Amazing, right? How does that happen? What are they googling that brings them here?

An expatriate in Hong Kong checking Glenda Jackson’s reviews or maybe a Manchurian teen with a love for animation who hacked past the Chinese firewall to become part of an international community of toon lovers? Do the Finns all take antidepressant medications resulting in trembling legs? Perhaps that explains Finland toppipng the list of the worlds happiest countries? They’re all doped up!

https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/happiest-countries-in-the-world-2019-united-nations

Notwithstanding their rep, I’ve always found the French open and friendly.  I think somewhere I heard that they’re very fond of American Jews there. Maybe that’s what brings them here (I may be misremembering that). [This is my wisdom on the French and Jews: In France, they don’t like Jews but they are completely accepting of any individual Jew;  In the USA, everyone claims to be unprejudiced towards the Jews but they’d just as soon not have to encounter or deal with or vote for one.]

Whoever you all are (and I recognize that most readers are my friends and family), I thank you.  We few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters – I wouldn’t do it if you weren’t there. I’m very grateful.

The Jonathan Demme film Handle with Care, begins and ends with the voice of Candy Clark (whose persona, Electra, trolls the CB radio waves every spare moment, it being 1977) whispering in the dark, anonymously, to a trucker known only by his handle,  “There are a lot of voices out there, but yours is different.”