A centuries-old argument

There have been squabbles in Catholic-Jewish relations for centuries.  And as recently as two years ago disappointments arose again, this time from text in the Vatican’s Good Friday prayer.  One can research this, but the holiday season of good cheer and all that has inspired me to write of the wonderful story that happened about 400 years ago.

Back then the Jewish folks had a modest residency at the Vatican.  This had been on and off again over the centuries.  One day the Pope had words with the Jewish delegation and decided to once and for all evict them from the Vatican.  This caused uproar with the Jewish Community such that the Pope agreed to a deal. He would have a religious debate with a member of the Jewish Community; if the Jew won, the Jews could stay; if the Pope won, the Jews would leave.

The Jews realized that they had no choice.  Attempting to catch the Pope off guard they picked a commoner among them named Moishe to be their representative.  Moishe asked for one additional rule for the debate.  To make it more interesting, neither party would be allowed to speak during the debate.  The Pope was skeptical but willing to go along and he agreed.

The day of the great debate came.  Moishe and the Pope sat opposite each other.  For a full minute they were motionless; then the Pope raised his hand and showed three fingers.

Moishe looked back at him and raised one finger.  The pope then waved his fingers in a circle around his head.

Moishe then pointed to the ground where he sat.  The Pope looked at him and quickly pulled a wafer and a glass of wine from his ornate satchel.  Moishe pulled out an apple from his paper sack.

The Pope was dumbfounded and stood up, raising his hands saying, “This man is too good.  The Jews can stay.”

An hour later, the Cardinals gathered around the Pope asking him what had happened.  The Pope said; “First I held up three fingers to represent the Trinity.  He responded by holding up one finger to remind me that there was still one God common to both our religions.  Then I waved my finger around me to show him that God was all around us.  He responded by pointing to the ground, showing that God was right here with us.  I pulled out the wine and the wafer to show him that God absolves us from our sins through His Son.  He pulled an apple from his sack to remind me of Original Sin.  He had an answer for everything!”

Meanwhile, the Jewish Community had crowded around Moishe.  “What happened?”  They asked.  “Well,” Said Moishe, first he indicated to me that the Jews had three days to get out of here.  I indicated back to him that not ONE of us was leaving.  Then he indicated that the whole Vatican as well as the city would be cleared of the Jews.  I let HIM know that WE were staying right here.”

“And then….?”  Asked a woman. 

“I don’t know,” Moishe said.  “He took out his lunch and I took out mine….”

Inner Peace Discovered

I saw this awhile back on Dr. Phil.  I don’t usually watch him but I had just thrown a paperweight across the room in a fit of uncontrolled rage watching a brief segment of Hannity on Fox News (which I had stopped on while surfing the cable).  It shattered an expensive vase and damaged a lamp.  I was about to throw the remote through the TV itself.  Picking it up, my thumb hit the buttons and Dr. Phil popped up.  I saw this as a divine intervention.

I feel compelled to pass this along via my blog because I found it to be the best advice I’ve had in some time. 

Dr. Phil proclaimed “…the way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you have started – but have never finished…”

So, I looked around my house to see all the things I started and hadn't
finished.  I made a resolution right then and there.

Before leaving the house this morning, I finished off a bottle of White Zinfandel, a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream, a package of Oreos, the remainder of my old Valium prescription, the rest of the cheesecake, some Doritos, a box of chocolates, and a half bottle of scotch.

You have no idea how freaking good I feel right now.

Pass this on to those whom you think might be in need of inner peace.

Pat-down alternative

You’ve probably heard of this, so go on to the next blog if you have.  I just thought it was so ingenious that it needed to be passed along.

Airport screening.  E-gad what a mess it is now.  Full body scans or, your choice, a nice touchy-feely pat down.  Everyone is up in arms.  Well, not really everyone as the press loves to intimate, but certainly another step in the invasion of privacy in the quest of safety.  And, just recently, some poor guy with a Foley Urinary Catheter bag full of urine had it ruptured by an aggressive TSA employee such that he had to endure a trip home smelling like he just came off a New York subway.  Now THAT would piss you off.

Not to worry, citizens.  Not to worry.  Someone has come up with a solution.  Everyone would still need to be screened, but this steps back from a feeling of invasion towards a more high-tech, sterile approach. 

Yes, it’s still impersonal.  The solution is to provide a walk-through container operated by airport security.  Your luggage would accompany you in the chamber.  Once the traveler securely inside, the agent would flip a switch which seeks out and detonates any explosive device in a bag or on the person of said traveler.  The explosion chamber resonates with a muffled “whump”, security staff goes in, flushes out the debris, and the process continues.  The threat is compromised and the 77 virgins of Islam welcome yet another suitor for all eternity.

A bit harsh?  Possibly.  Taking the worry out of the friendly skies?  Priceless

It’s always something

While recently in New York City we saw this play, and I have so say is the best one I’ve seen in a great while…..

     … I’ll not bother here with detail of plot, what it is - what it is not, though I’m sure it will be some time before I see another play so well written in rhyme.

  The following I took from the web site and have paraphrased it since it didn’t sound right.  American playwright David Hirson's rollicking 1991 play, La Bete, is a comic tour de force about Elomire (David Hyde Pierce), a high-minded classical dramatist, quite the pessimist, who loves only the theater, and Valere (Mark Rylance), a low-brow street clown who loves only himself, on which he will incessantly expound.

  When the fickle princess (Joanna Lumley) decides she's grown weary of Elomire's royal theatre troupe and its theory, he and Valere are left fighting for survival in her court as art squares off with ego in a literary showdown of retort.

  At first one wonders just what is it about the clown who blunders his way through the first 30 minutes of the play.  But the script so eloquent mesmerizes the listener to such extent that one cannot help but be swept in.  Mr. Rylance has a cadence so rhythmic and seemingly unending that it builds the humor - sending the audience into a trance.

  How fun it must be to write completely in rhyme that I myself might try it sometime.  One who has knowledge of couplet and verse may think this play possibly worse but as for me it was delightful to see it.

  It was something

Jesus at the Metropolitan Market

I'm always grumpy in the morning.  The other morning I was heading to the office, hungry, pissed that I was both hungry AND out of bed.  I decided to stop by the Metropolitan Market for some yogurt, pissed that I was hungry, out of bed and had to eat something I really didn't want because eating a donut makes me fatter.  I pull up, get out of the car and hear a woman's voice crying "Oh, no...OH NOOOOO!".  Good Lord, what?  A robbery at 7:30 AM?  
No.  Apparently a stylishly dressed woman was tendering to her stylishly dressed kid and had spilled a $7.50  grande, decaf, double shot, no-whip, mocha-yoka coffee drink inside what appeared to be brand new champagne colored Cadillac SUV mega land-yacht.  I surveyed the scene, chuckled to myself and walked into the store, happy that something bad had happened to some hoity-toity rich person.


Then I remembered reading recently again about someone commenting on those W.W.J.D bracelets.  What Would Jesus Do?  Shit, c'mon, God, don't lay this junk on me right now, I'm sleepy and hungry and in nooo mood.
I started singing this little jingle..."what would Jesus do? what would jeeezus doo, do, do..." and I thought, "well, I suppose He wouldn't have had pleasure from someone's misfortune, now would He?"  No, I suppose not.


Then an apple rolled across my path.  I picked it up and took it over to the guy stacking them unsuccessfully at the fruit counter.  His face lit up as he thanked me.  He put it back in the stack.  Note to self - this is why we wash apples before eating them.  Anyway, it sorta picked me up and gave me a bit of a Jesus is walkin' here strut.  


I walked past a depleted bread shelf and, feeling like Jesus, waved my hand over it to see if I could make more bread appear like in that Cecil B. DeMille event 'feeding the 5,000'.  Didn't work.  The bread was as sad and empty as before.  Ahh, WTF I thought.  It was fun while it lasted.


I back track to get something and pass back by the bread shelf, now resplendent with fresh new bread, packed to the brim.  I have to saay I did a double take and looked at my hands.  I went back outside to get in my car and noticed that the SUV had departed with only a small puddle remaining.  Then I saw a bread truck leaving the parking lot.  Uh huh.  I think i might get one of those bracelets anyway.  It's entertaining.


It's always something

Catch the last train home - Got to get on it

This describes what I am feeling this morning as I come to the office on a Friday.  We're out of work, or nearly so.  The train has left the station.  Whatever it was that I had planned to do has passed on.  I've been a traveler on this life's journey as an architect, running to catch the next train - sometimes not the train I wanted, but a train that took me to the next town, the next pay station and the map that shows "you are here" on a map in the lobby.  

The lobby is empty.  Everyone made the train but me this time.  There is a cold damp wind out here on the platform as I peer down the track and study it as it disappears into a point.  This is one-point perspective you see, and I understand that and know how to draw it and even teach it. It's what I've done for 30 years.  But this morning it only reveals a distance into which I won't go today.  I've missed the train.

I sit inside the station where it's warm.  Even the ticket windows are closed.  I look at the light reflected in the windows.  It's dark outside and the play of light inside and out, the distorted and reflected colors and shapes are intriguing.  The floor is at least 100 years old and has a marvelous patina to it.  The shadows play in and out on the stacked equipment in the corner.  I think about my work, all the buildings completed - some not so great, some quite satisfying.  I take out my sketch pad and pencil and start drawing, thinking about a composition of shapes I see in charcoal or maybe oil.  Maybe both.  

I look down the track again but this time it's not with a lament of things missed.  It's looking for a train to come my way, one on which I will ride to a new destination of adventure, art and expression of who I really am.

   

A weekend in Westport, Wa

I first saw Westport when I was about 5.  It was all black and white back then.  I don't remember much about it but it was really strange and quite frightening riding there in the back seat with my mom and grandparents and seeing the world change to black and white as we went through Aberdeen. My grandpa scared me a little when he got out a bottle of whiskey as we drove into town, took a big swig and chortled in a pirate's voice "...arrgh, we're in Westport, matey...".  This had set the tone for that day back then.

My friends and I visited Westport last weekend.  Coming back after 50 some-odd years we found that it not only flickered into black and white now and then, drinking seemed to be still quite the pastime.  We were pretty hammered that first afternoon when we went out to see the sights.  Nothing was in focus, no matter how I tried to take photographs.  This....THIS, by the way, is THE TALLEST light house in the State of Washington just so you know.  We went up to it and by God, it is.

We found our way back to the car and went over to Ted's IGA to get some supper fixin's.  The parking lot was pretty vacant, however, there was a plethora of various dilapidated bicycles parked all around.  Walt explained that most everyone in Westport has lost their driver's license due to a DUI so they ride bicycles.  I didn't get a good photo of one (mainly because these scruffy folk seemed to take their rides seriously and being new in town I didn't want to wear out my welcome.)  I managed to come up with a facsimile here in what may just be a Westporter's dream ride. 

Riding a bicycle isn't without risk, however.  This me-lee occurred last summer on the main drag when a newcomer to the town who had not yet had a DUI plowed into a group headed down to Ted's to take advantage of a two-for-the-price-of-one sale on Mike's hard lemonade, as long as supplies lasted.

"Geezus H. Christ,"  One witness said, "It was something like I've never seed.  They was bodies lyin' all over."    Miraculously no one was hurt.  Doc Adams said later he thought that the .34 alcohol levels of most of the riders contributed to this.

Every weekend during most summers a tour boat heads out to spot the drunk floaters that wash up on Saturday and Sunday mornings on the jetty just out from the tide flats.  They get their photos and then fish them out, back slapping high five-ing.  Then its a memorable boat ride back in as the tourists get treated to the tallest tales ever imagined (or hallucinated).  Progressive town that it is, Westport has a "hike 'n bike" program where folks like the floaters and others can borrow a bike and return it to another station around town.  Eventually they come across where they left their own bikes.

I'm looking to another trip to Westport next year for sure.