When Waiting for Planes to Do What Planes Should Do (Morning Edition).

When Planes Don’t Do What Planes Should Do (When They Should Do Them).

None of Which Were Reindeer.

Things I Saw With My Own Eyes Last Night

CBS Scares.

In order to write this post, I have to publicly admit that I watch How I Met Your Mother.  Which I do, & proudly (at least, until these last two seasons, which haven’t been so up-to-par, but aw, Jason Segel, who could stay mad at you?).  Still, I’m a loyal viewer of those few shows I loyally view.  & it was while watching the most recent episode of H.I.M.Y.M. that I saw this:

I was puzzled, so I researched, which is helpful to do when puzzled.  & bingo-voila-jackpot!  CBS is hard at work not leaving anybody out:

At first, I thought this PSA was a joke.  The more I saw it—the Christmas version aired four times while I watched the episode online—the more I was inclined to believe it takes itself seriously.  Turns out, both versions are for real.  Hilarious, but for real.

CBS, I think, may have the best of intentions, but really?

Unless you have your lady’s special calendar handy—you know, the one with the skull & crossbones drawn on it every 28 days or so—you shouldn’t be scheduling anyone’s pap smear.   (& I’m not talking about the virus-turns-people-into-(arguably)-zombies flick.)  Couldn’t you just remind her to schedule it herself?

& everyone knows all Christians are gorgeous blonds & all Jews sound like Gilbert Godfried, but why O why, CBS, do you have to rub it in?  It’s the holidays, for Christ’s sake.  Just let us play with our menorahs, which we fill every year with lighter fluid & then dance around yodeling & making menorah-related puns as it bursts into flame.

Just the same, it would be kind of awesome if Santa could deliver the gift of a pap smear, something I never would’ve considered if I hadn’t seen this PSA.  Thanks, CBS, for allowing me to imagine the possibilities.

Next year’s CBScares campaign features “A Colonoscopy for Thanksgiving,” starring Michael Douglas.  &, to be sure everyone is covered, “A Colonoscopy for Canadian Thanksgiving,” starring Alan Thicke.

(I have to say, I’ve written an inordinate amount of junk about Jewish-stuff of late.  It doesn’t go unnoticed.  I’ll stop soon.  I promise.)

Jews Write Books.

I’ve so completely missed Hanukkah that I can’t even blog it adieu.  This is the first year I’ve missed the holiday entirely (pause for a thought—elegantly restrained, but tinged with regret—about getting older), but I think my reading list made up for this oversight by stockpiling itself with books by Jews.  It did this surreptitiously, quietly & while I was sleeping, drooling the drool of the culturally ambivalent.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible! by Jonathan Goldstein (2009).

I read this yesterday, & as I’m the world’s slowest reader, this attests to it being a quick, light read.  I first heard about the book on the “Starting From Scratch” episode of This American Life. Goldstein read his chapter about Adam & Eve, which was contemporary & beautifully human.  “In the beginning, when Adam was first created, he spent whole days rubbing his face in the grass.”  Etc.

One of the pleasures of this book was the plurality of voices.  Each character has a distinct tone that could be mapped to an archetypal (Jewish) relative, teacher, friend.  & this seems to be the heart of Goldstein’s project: he sees both the Bible & the world’s contemporary cast of characters as rich, funny territory, rife with stories of trial & failure, of fear, of confusion & triumph.  If you find yourself hearing your grandmother’s voice every time Rebekah speaks, it’s because Goldstein’s decided they’re equally revealing of human qualities & equally deserving of empathy (& a little exasperation).  As someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time reading the Bible, I can get on board with this.

One downside to tackling the Bible as the foundational text for a book of short stories is that it’s the foundational text for the Abrahamic religions.  Which is to say, Goldstein isn’t exactly toiling in obscurity.  It’s easy to think of stories he left out that would have been perfect (the binding of Isaac gets only a peripheral mention; Moses’ involvement is limited to the Golden Calf episode), or particular details of stories that might have begged for a different treatment.  Still, Goldstein’s writing in the tradition of midrash (if you’re Goyische & you know it, click the link!), & as any good ‘drash does, these stories deflect our attention from center stage in order to fill in textual gaps & fill out a bigger picture.  (Jews were never strict constructionists.)  Goldstein’s challenge is to make the background activity as compelling as what’s going on up front, & it’s hard to get that right every time.  Some of the stories make us want to look where Goldstein’s pointing (“Adam & Eve,” “Jacob & Esau,” all three parts of “King David”); others leave us asking for that old-time religion.

But here’s the real moment of poignancy.  In the first paragraph of his prologue chapter, Goldstein tells the story of a Jewish family whose religious & cultural identity had been sanded down to a few bare essentials, a family that resembles so many American Jewish families: “They did not speak Hebrew, but they did toss around a few Yiddish words, half of which were made up, such as the grandmother’s word for the TV remote, something she called ‘der pushkeh.’”  My grandparents, too, have a (presumably made-up) Yiddish word for the remote: it’s called the “schmitchik.”  I didn’t know other families did this.

(I just spent some time wondering whether it’s correct to say “Jewish American” or “American Jewish” families.  I skipped Hanukkah without even realizing it.  What am I doing even considering this level of semantics?)

The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza by Eugene Ostashevsky (2008).

Lucky for you, I have much less to say about this book, mostly because it contains so much & my brain, so little.  I picked this up at AWP Chicago last year, after having watched the same YouTube video over & over of Ostashevsky reading in Berkeley.  I’d read parts of it since, but yesterday I sat down & read it from cover to cover, & it’s an adventure (which is a thing I kind of hate when people say about books).  To be more specific, it covers a range of genres, from what you’d think of typically as poetry to what you’d think of typically as song lyrics to what you’d think of typically as drama.  Which is to say, it’s sort of a genre-confounding book, & you shouldn’t let issues of classification keep you from it.  It’s a book that asks for your leniency, & if you give it, it’ll reward you with laughs, quizzical head-cockings, a number of Google-able characters who—if you research them—will make you smarter, & real empathy-upwellings.  Go read it.

But keep an open mind, & watch this first.

Pallette Cleanser.

To apologize for yesterday’s unsavory, film pun-saturated health care post, here’s a song I heard in a coffee shop yesterday & have been listening to ever since.  Take time out from your day & have a listen.  & then another.  Because you deserve it.

I’m Just A Bill or, Things About Which I Have No Authority to Speak, Part II.

I really recommend reading this New York Times comprehensive comparison of the differences between the original House health care bill & the second draft the Senate recently shat out.  (Proof that workshop isn’t at all a productive environment?  Perhaps.)  The article helped me make some brain-thoughts in my brain-tank.  Please forgive, if you can, the difficult-to-ignore-but-hopefully-still-charming fact that I’m kind of an idiot when it comes to these things.  By “these things,” I mean “most things.”  Still, someone somewhere’s entrusted me with the right to vote.  Man, I sure did pull the wool over democracy’s eyes.

(I invite responses to this post, particularly if I’m doing a disservice to liberals everywhere by woefully misunderstanding whole chunks of these issues.  Ok, </self-consciousness>.)

The Public Option: When Harry Met Ben

Meet Harry Reid, Democrat majority leader from Nevada.  Meet Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat from Nebraska.  Despite their post-collegiate roadtrip & timeless sexually-charged banter, they can never be friends.  Everyone knows Democrats from two different N-states can never be friends.  Until one fateful night when, feeling jilted by Senator Joe Lieberman, Harry uses box after box of tissues while contemplating his biological clock & only Ben is there to hold his hand.  Then, on New Years Eve, Ben tells Harry he wants the rest of his life to start as soon as possible.  & the public option, as they say, is history.

Vouching Tiger, Hidden Classism

I’m completely stymied by things that make me think our government wants to be run like an arcade.  While the bill contains an individual mandate for coverage, that seems to be as far as we’re willing to go; past this point, it seems as if we’re encouraging employers to hand their workers a handful of tickets & tell them to get whatever prize they can afford from behind the counter.  What this looks like: a cornucopia of choices!  Multicolored plush toys!  Benevolence on the part of the employer!  What this is (as far as I can tell): a way to marginalize the less-informed choice-maker; a hassle; a shirking of responsibility on the part of the employer; an illusion of consumer choice that results in consumer confusion.  Thanks for playing.

Go & Get A Schmaschmortion at the Schmaschmortion Clinic (But Have A Bake Sale First)

Abortion-block (v.): The means by which uncontroversial &/or unreligious issues are made controversial &/or religious.

Not only will abortions not be covered by federal funds, but states are granted the explicit right to refuse to cover abortions through their insurance exchanges.  Last time I checked, abortion was a legal procedure.  Constitutionally ruling that abortion is legal & then refusing to acknowledge it financially is a little bit like having a kid & refusing to buy it diapers (or pay for its college).  At this point, I’d be willing to bet that America gives more money to its other, more explicitly illegitimate child—religion—than it does to abortion.  That’s probably because abortion skipped class to huff gasoline with its friends & religion did its homework & ate all its vegetables.  Plus, it’s just so gosh darn adorable.

Maybe it’s insensitive to say, but it seems to me that if tonsillectomies are covered by medical insurance, abortion (within its existing legal limits) should be too, to the same degree that certain “elective” procedures are still partially covered.  Instead, if you’re lucky enough to go with a plan that has ignored every last shred of its good Christian morality & chosen to cover abortion, you’ll make two separate premium payments a month.  This sounds suspiciously like adding collision coverage to your car insurance.  Where does paying for health insurance stop & playing the odds begin?

Mars Attacks

The bill now also features a big middle finger to illegal immigrants, who aren’t allowed to purchase insurance even if they can afford it (not even with sweet, sweet vouchers).  Evidently, my conviction that Signs would have been better if M. Night Shyamalan had left out the aliens is one that operates on a federal level.

In the Business (Of Giving You the Business)

Who wins in all of this?  Small businesses, who get a tax credit for contributing to their employers’ health care, as they should be doing.  & insurance companies, who will continue to be exempt from antitrust laws.

We Put the “Fun” in “Face Lift” (But Not in “Funding”)

Getting down to brass Benjamins, where’s the money coming from?  Not the House-proposed 5.4% tax on the ridiculously wealthy (folks worth $500,000/year or more), but, among other money-cullings, a 10% tax on indoor tanning.  Evidently, they chose this over the originally proposed 5% tax on plastic surgery.  I’ve always thought that the elective cosmetic procedures industry could fund America’s future; look what it’s done for Bruce Jenner.

No New Tacos.

Two nights ago, at a little taco place in the Heights, the curator of the Stock Photography Museum & I had the distinct & unexpected pleasure of eating dinner mere feet away from George H.W. Bush & his wife, Barbara.  The inside of the restaurant was such a picture of anti-chaos, everyone self-consciously minding his or her own beeswax and looking engrossed in his or her own plate, that it took us a little while to even realize things had taken a turn for the presidential.  There were a couple of unobtrusively placed secret service agents.  Mr. Bush walked with a cane.  Mrs. Bush helped her husband with his jacket as they were leaving the restaurant.  We were sitting too far away from him to read his lips, but the tacos were delicious.

After the 41st President of the United States & I parted ways, I took a little opportunity to learn some things about my dinner-date.  Here are some things I realized, with numbers in front of them.

I’ve Never Before Eaten Tacos in the Same Room As Someone Who Has…

1.  …debated Geraldine Ferraro on TV.

2.  …run for anything against Pat Robertson.

3.  …a “vision thing.”

4.  …shaken hands with Mikhail Gorbachev.

5.  …a good 20-minutes of 90s Dana Carvey stand-up devoted to impersonating him.

6.  …vomited on the Japanese Prime Minister.  (Thanks, A.)

7.  …bombed Baghdad.

Pop Quiz: This or That.

To make up for my unforgivably pretentious look-I-visited-an-art-museum post, here’s a pop quiz pertaining to some art I’ve consumed in the last 48 hours.

Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever or Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye

1.  Some kids rent a cabin for the week & get a flesh-eating disease.

2.  Girl hangs herself inside a wardrobe & the people who find her cut her down & “besmirch her corpse.”

3.  Some kids meet at the beach & have an orgy.

4.  Guy tries to sleep with girl & finds her legs covered in blood.

5.  Guy & girl bike naked to the sanitarium to rescue another girl, & have sex in the woods.

6.  Guy shoots deer; gets face full of blood.

7.  Boy meets Winston.

8.  Girl asks for raw bull testicles, which she then eats.

9.  It’s a story about love, violence & raw eggs.

10.  It’s a story about love, violence & the local water supply.

Best of luck to you.

(Eli Roth: 1, 4, 6, 7, 10.  Georges Bataille: 2, 3, 5, 8, 9.)

Things About Which I Have No Authority to Speak.

I’m finding that I can neatly summarize the last several days by linking some thoughts together, thoughts I thought, with numbers in front of them in the hopes that some sense of order might lend them more authority.

1.  I know nothing about art.

2.  My trip to the Menil Collection was pleasant.  As I moved with what I hoped was just the right amount of pensiveness from the series of rooms marked “Surrealism” to the single room that showcased Cy Twombly’s Treatise on the Veil, I thought a little about what makes me like a piece of art (the former) versus what makes me hate a piece of art (the latter).  I’ve found, from my visit to this museum & others, that I am a lazy art-looker-atter.

3.  Here’s something I think I might prefer about art-things: When a piece contains something I recognize—an object, say, a puzzle piece or an apple or a piece of cheese—& then puts that thing in a strange or unrecognizable context.  I think I like this because it’s like the art-maker is saying, “There’s something you’ve never thought about that I want you to start to think about.  But I’ll allow you to start with what you know.”

4.  Here’s an example of what I’m doing in my head (quick shift to the present tense!) when my face is trying to look all intelligent & pensive in an art museum.  I put myself in front of a Yves Tanguy piece that has some melty-looking puzzle pieces rising up from the ground.  I think, “Puzzle pieces.  I know what those are!”  My brain starts looking for a corresponding puzzle to associate them with.  There isn’t one to be found, or at least not one in a box labeled X number of pieces.  “These must not be ordinary puzzle pieces,” I think.  “This guy must want me to wonder what these puzzle pieces are doing coming up out of the ground like that,” I think.  I think, “What are these puzzle pieces doing coming up out of the ground like that?”  At this moment I realize I’ve forgotten to look pensive.  I think I’m doing it by accident now.  “Accidentally looking pensive,” I think, “sounds an awful lot like actually thinking.”  I think, “Very clever, Tanguy, you’ve tricked me into thinking about art.  I think.”

5.  Fast forward a day to sitting in Waldo’s Coffee House listening to David Byrne.  I’m thinking again, but only a little, when it occurs to me that David Byrne owes a lot to Rene Magritte.  This is not his beautiful house.  Or a pipe.