Tel Aviv Diary December 23-27, 2017 - Karen Alkalay-Gut

Tel Aviv Diary - December 23-27, 2017 - Karen Alkalay-Gut

December 23, 2017

My sister-in-law is 83 and instead of demonstrating tonight she came over. "I've been demonstrating all my life - let the young ones take over." Almost my sentiments, but i'm not yet comfortable enough not to feel bad that I don't go. I know that after the big demonstration a few years back Rothschild boulevard was beautified and covered with playgrounds and fishponds and all kinds of wonderful distractions so that there would never be another live-in in that area. That was after all the unfulfilled promises that were made to get the demonstrators to fold. And that governments depend on people to get tired of pushing without results. Still, I AM tired. I know this government is corrupt and only pressure will force some kind of respectable government to be created. but i've been kvetching since the Vietnam war and I've got nothing to show for it.

December 24, 2017

Recording the CD With Panic Ensemble. I only came for a few hours but it was really exciting. "Old Mirage," "Inheritance," and "Joseph" sounded amazing. this album is going to be great.

December 25, 2017

i have been immersed in Disraeli for weeks. and tonight i had the opportunity to have a little discussion on Benjamin Disraeli's novels in Tzavta with Meir Uziel. it was an evening where i suddenly found myself saying things like - the whole absence of a hero in literature was what Dizzy was trying to overcome - to imagine the kind of heroes we need to create a better universe and then imitate them. to create a working politics you have to imagine leaders who are beyond what we have now. And then you have to become those leaders.

Meir was shocked and so was I. i was only going to talk about him in relation to Dickens and stuff, but then i wound up talking about Byron and his need for a hero, like the rest of the Romantics. and i believe he's right - that writers create reality, sometimes a better reality. sometimes art gets transferred to reality, in the way wonderwoman is helping change the way women accept force against them.

December 26, 2017

I went to the post office to see what was in the IAWE mail and then took the checks to the bank, then went back to the post office to pay the post office box rent. I have not heard from the accountant who received 4500 shekel of my own money to straighten out the taxes of the organization. now we add 210 shekel more for the post office box. who's a sucker?

December 27, 2017

Tamar walks out of kindergarten into our arms with the greeting, "Ya habibti, ya'aini, yaruchi!" (my dearest, my eyes, my soul in Arabic). Where did that come from? no one knows. But it sure helped brighten up the dark anticipation of the biopsy tomorrow.

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