this cup is half full, fer cryin' out loud

Sunday, March 23, 2008

All my friends are poppin- A Purim miracle


How long has it been since my last wonderful friends had a baby? A coupla months? Well, about 15 minutes after my last post, i got a message from Craig that Keren gave birth in Brookline this morning to a delicious baby girl!! On Shabbat/Shushan Purim!!

Mazal Tov!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, because our world is finally catching up to the Jetsons, I got to see little Tiny Blinderman, barely 8 hours old, wave to me Mac-to-Mac using Skype video!!!! Unbelievable.

i wanna rock witchu

right now 38 seconds from my door, there is a MAMMOTH Purim street party in effect. Several hundred israelis in costume, most of them gorgeous, most of them drinking substantially. you could imagine several versions of how i respond

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Time passing, spaces filled

It's been almost 2 weeks. Golly.

I think that this is the first post on the new WanderingStu blog that features that classic tone of melancholy, the one which I think I promised to avoid. I wonder if, had I not opened with that previous sentence, you would have noticed.

I just threw out over 20 business cards that I had collected over the past 2 1/2 years, from teachers, healers, musicians, artists, bodyworkers, peace-workers, photographers, tour guides- all the kinds of folk who strive to link person to person, person to soul, person to history, soul to eternity, nation to nation, body to mind, mind to soul, body to soul, soul to soul. I guess those are the only kinds of people from whom I collect a business card in the first place.

But i never called any of them. Never had a need to. Or should I say, an occasion to. An occasion to re-engage that tiny spark of a smile, that random chat on the New York subway, that nice connection made over a Shabbat table... The connections fade. The energy dissipates. At least one of the people in the stack has already passed away.

Life- for me, that is- seems to be a series of fabulous sparks that then become business cards in a pile that sit ignored, collecting dust. The fire does not get lit.

On the other hand, half an hour ago I mounted one of my watercolors onto cardboard. I've been meaning for months to begin mounting all of my little paintings, and finally began the process. I reckon that's a good thing, on two accounts (the painting and the mounting). This one is called Jonah. It was painted with water from the Red Sea, even though Jonah was chucked into the Mediterranean.

The photo was taken with the Photo Booth software for the MacBook's built-in camera, so the image is reversed. When I painted this, I held the paper at a 90-degree angle to how i am now displaying it. I think it works better this way.

I mounted it on a bit of cardboard cut out from a Jaffa orange box. I just now realized that Jonah boarded the ship at the port of Jaffa, and then was thrown overboard to quell the storm.

That's pretty nice.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

When in Doubt...

I got my first lead!!

I am starring as Father Flynn in the Jerusalem production of Doubt, presented by the Bamat Mabat theatre company ("Bamat Mabat" a Hebrew word play, literally transating into Gazing Stage or something like that).

Truth is, I don't think they had a ton of guys auditioning, so they called me and asked me to try out, even though I am leaving for America 10 days before the thing goes on stage. So now they have to change the performance dates in order to acommodate my travel schedule- i guess that means they liked me well enough, eh?

The play is about a priest who is accused by a nun of being inappropriate with one of the boys in the church. It ain't no jaunty musical, I'll tell you that. And it turns out that my pal Erin is playing my nemesis, Sister Aloysius (in memory of Squeakers the cat, whom we both loved, just not enough).

[Hey mom, when are you gonna go hang out with Erin's Aunt Rivka??]

But the best (or actually the most daunting) part is that, come December, you'll have Philip Seymour Hoffman to compare me to, as the film version of Doubt, also starring Meryl Streep, is in the works.

Too bad I don't get to recreate Phil's opening scene from Before the Devil Knows You're Dead....

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Love knows no bounds




Mr. Mann is such a love lover. Can't we all be, or does one have to live in California to be so transcendent?

More status reports

anyone listening?

Shimshon-

  • wants to change his status every 45 minutes.
  • is in an unmade bed at 9:46 PM and about to watch "The Wire."
  • danced a hole through his sock tonite at the Boogie.
  • made a great guacamole. It helped his self-image issues.
Today I found out that Shimshonn in Korean means bringing energy down into the heart. Huh. So why is mine so unenergized?

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Social Networking Utilities allow me to be Me-- Facebook Status Reports, vol 1

Quicker and more incisive than a blog entry, my Facebook status reports give delicious little snappy bites of where I'm at and how I'm feeling at any moment.

I wonder if this is an historical moment in Web 2.0- the Blogging of a Facebook status. Get ready folks. Here are a few good ones from the past few weeks:

SHIMSHON-
  • yearns for the black gospel spirit of America
  • thinks it's all out to slap him in the face
  • is about to be flooded by Latinos
  • doesn't quite know
  • is officially working for BIMA this summer!!
  • is in bed at 7:30 PM and loves it