The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), taking place July 24 – August 9, 2010, announced today the launch of the New Jewish Filmmaking Project’s Half-Remembered Stories, a new multi-media exhibition, co-created by young adult filmmakers, who explore their Jewish past by combining new digital media formats with traditional storytelling forms. SFJFF teamed up with San Francisco based production company Citizen Film and 11 Bay Area emerging artists, ranging in age from 15 to 25, to explore “half-remembered” aspects of Jewish history from the digital generation’s point of view. The result is 50 short films, several of which will premiere on the big screen at the Festival, and 11 multi-media collages to be presented online beginning June 22, 2010 at www.njfp.org and at interactive kiosks in theatre lobbies throughout the festival.
Passports and visas became requirements for foreigners traveling in the United States in 1918. Since then, the laws, restrictions, requirements, expenses, and the amount of time put into acquiring and maintaining a valid passport and visa have grown to an extremely challenging point. Traveling in and out of the United States is becoming more difficult. The difficulties of obtaining a passport and a visa prevent people from reaping the benefits of travel.
A common challenge people face when dealing with the process of buying a passport and visa is time. The time it takes to receive a passport after the long complicated registering process can be from 6-10 weeks. This creates challenges right and left, and anybody who wants or needs it any quicker can receive it maybe two weeks earlier; but of course they just need to pay another sum of $60-$70 dollars more.
Alex Brown, a Mill Valley local; working in the Mill Valley public library is a frequent traveler. She is constantly in and out of Mexico. Having a friend with a Mexican citizenship she crosses the border once or twice a month. She states in a personal interview on May 9, 2010, “Before the passport laws were changed in 2008 or 2009 I didn’t even need to bring my passport with me crossing the Mexican border.” Later she talks about how the traveling has become more recently, “The Mexican border is extremely lax, going back into the U.S. is such a hassle; driving through San Diego it can sometimes take you five hours. They pull you over to ask questions, identification, drivers license.” Alex now uses a border fast pass just to avoid the constant struggle that comes with returning back into the U.S.
On top of the passport struggle, there is an emigration issue that Alex addressed in her personal interview. The lack of passport ownership has a great deal to do with time and money, but I wouldn’t be surprised if just knowing the difficulties of emigration was a large factor in the lack of passport owning Americans as well. There are numerous reasons why every U.S. citizen should be entitled to the ownership of a passport and visa and have are capable to get a hold of them easily as well.
Although the government has been addressing this particular problem with the passport system by creating the new border “fast pass,” it qualifies only for land crossing such as Canada and Mexico. The process to own a fast pass is even more complicated and expensive than a regular passport but afterwards traveling across these particular land borders is quicker and easier. Even though this seems like a step further in the advancement of passport and visa ownership I believe that these fast passes are really another way to keep the business flowing in and out of the states. In CQ Weekly Liriel Higa states in her Narrowing the Highway to America’s Neighbors article, “U.S. citizens made more than 130 million trips across the borders with Canada and Mexico last year. The stakes are high for companies that depend on routine border crossings…” Higa then points out potential risk about America’s economy if passports continue to be this much of an issue, “Requiring a passport of everyone who crosses the border may have the wider adverse economic effect of slowing the removal of trade barriers begun more than a decade ago by the North American Free trade agreement…”
Money is a significant factor into the recent challenges in obtaining a modern day passport as well. Passports began being purchased for a somewhat decent rate of $60-80 before this generation with a renewal rate of about $60 and that was hard enough for the more financially challenged citizens. Sometime between 2008 and 2009 the price increased all the way up to $97 to purchase and renew and other sources, such as Howard LaFranchi from EBSCO host recorded that the cost of your first passport has skyrocketed to a whopping $135, (not including getting the 2 year or 10 year renewal depending on whether you’re an adult or a minor.) To the successful wealthy American this may not seem like such a large amount of money, but to the average everyday American struggling in our up and down economy this can seem like an exuberant finance which compared to making a living and providing food for the family might not seem like such a critical item to invest in.
Passports and visas are definite contributors to holding most Americans in their own little western bubble. Obtaining passports in the U.S. while as difficult as it sounds is still admittedly easier than obtaining passports and visas in other countries. The dilemma starts with the motivation of the average American citizen to even want to leave, travel, experience other ways of living and culture. What inspires an American nowadays?
Carol, a frequent traveler, has hundreds of stories about her voyages to many different foreign countries like India, all over Africa, in Sudan and Egypt, all over Europe, and Kazakhstan. She was able to travel to Kazakhstan 6-10 times a year because her husband works internationally. She says, “Other countries make it much harder for local people to obtain passports, they ask you why you want to travel and think you are going to leave the country for good.” After her years of experience dealing with visa difficulties to traveling all throughout Europe and being exposed to such different cultures, peoples, and places, she tells me, “The reason some people don’t travel has less to do with money or time, as it does where their not wanting to step out of their comfort zone. Some people are afraid of language barriers and the difficulties of leaving what’s familiar and dealing with foreign currency, different traditions, and customs.”
The incentive to obtain a passport in other nations is so much greater because people have a higher interest in venturing outside their borders and affiliating with other people. It really all comes down to basic education in a country. In many other places they speak multiple languages, and because of this, they are exposed to other people and cultures, whereas in America, a majority of the population will only speak English for their entire lives, or rarely use any other languages they might have learned if they had ever learned other languages at all. Later in the interview Carol says, “Once people understand foreign cultures, they won’t see them as threat and may even focus on their similarities instead of their differences.”
With the already instilled Western mindset of “never having to leave” being so comfortable in our own nation without willing to see what the other parts of the world and cultures are like, this is only more reason to make passports more accessible to the everyday American.
We can’t control the people to go somewhere and learn other languages or even to interact with other people and cultures, but we can still control the accessibility of passports and visas for Americans, thus maybe instilling a little more motivation or incentive to travel, grow, thrive, and learn.
I know I’ve found my inspiration to travel. Along with my incredible Manhattan to Kazakhstanian godmother Carol, my uncle Andy’s beautiful wild travels all over the globe have lit up my entire life and exposed a whole another way of life for me.
As written about in my previous blogs (http://njfp.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/the-ability-to-be-the-greatest-inspiration-in-somebodys-life-without-ever-knowing-them/), his ability to embrace the world’s mysteries, beauties, and challenges with such grace and determination has changed my life.
He and others with stories similar to his have inspired me to become the person I am, to grow into myself, and to learn about the others with whom I share this planet. The best (and sometimes the only way) it seems to achieve such self-fulfilling and experiential goals is to leave the comfort zone of our borders and stretch our wings. I hope others find their inspiration as well, hopefully being able to do so with the same ease we have had for years without dealing with the burden of the everyday hassles of traveling; with passports, money, security, and time. We all seem to strive for our balance; we should be able to find that journeying throughout other countries as well.
Without maintaining connection with each other across the nation, I know we’ll lose the very connection we have with one another locally, and even the connection that holds us together within. It is time to reach out, and it is time to choose what each one of us is reaching for.
What are you reaching for? What or who inspires you? Share your thoughts about this issue with me and others on the blog and hopefully inspire many more.
I interviewed my grandmother Susi on camera before her death, when I was 14. A few weeks ago I logged that footage into my computer, letting it run as I worked in another room; I could hear her voice—and it was so much more familiar than I remembered. It surprised me how vividly images of her house sprung up in my mind and how strongly they captured me. I wrote a list: the long tufts of grass peeking from between the rough concrete squares in her garden, the tree with the wonderful leaves, the lemon tree, the smell of the house, the taste of chocolate ice cream, the chex-mix and coffee-bean-chocolate in jars. It’s funny because reading that list now, I can’t figure out which tree had the wonderful leaves and find it unexpected that, of all things, I thought of the lemon tree. I had grown used to hearing her voice in her house, and hearing it from my computer now, it seemed as if she was next to me.
She and Leonard suddenly seemed close . . . as when we had once interacted and I heard Susi’s voice and she was part of my life. I felt they weren’t so far off. My dad was telling me of Leonard’s taxi-driving, how he drove like a lunatic. But that’s not far from how my dad drives, and I could picture Leonard in that seat as a father, swinging through the streets. Why had a frail, sad image of Susi and Leonard engrained itself in my mind and become permanent? Susi in these tapes didn’t look as weak as I had remembered—instead she was tolerant and good-humored and animated, reminding me a lot of my dad. I would add that Leonard, too, was not how I’d pictured, that he was tall and strong even in his old age; but I’m not sure if that was the case.
And as I watched the tape of Susi today, I was surprised at her energy. When the setting changed, however, and she sat in her room, the sad realization emerged that my memory had been correct to a degree. In this indoor footage I could see Susi’s frailty: her tiny shoulders and spare white hands, her messy hair and papery neck. Though she exuded strength in her character and though she made clear that life would not fade until she was ready, her body was weak.
Memory and reality is echoed and bounding, softened as it approaches and moves. The material and relied-upon facts, or what I viewed them to be, were based on my memory and skewed. With distance, the echo’s calmed, and mingles with emotions. I won’t picture Susi as bearing the weight of this last image… of her frailty and weakness. There are too many different images to rely on one. It makes most sense to me to imagine the feeling she creates—with her voice and the bright warmth and eagerness in her face. Also—I remember which tree had the wonderful leaves now and I can’t believe I didn’t connect it before: they weren’t so much leaves but bunches of tiny dried petals that floated away in flocks when squeezed.
I interviewed my grandmother Susi on camera before her death, when I was 14. A few weeks ago I logged that footage into my computer, letting it run as I worked in another room; I could hear her voice from where I was—and it was so much more familiar than I remembered. It surprised me how vividly images of her house sprung up in my mind, and how strongly they captured me. I wrote a list down that night: the long tufts of grass peeking from between the rough concrete squares in her garden, the tree with the wonderful leaves, the lemon tree, the smell of the house, the taste of chocolate ice cream, the chex-mix and coffee bean chocolate in jars. It’s funny because reading that list now, I can’t figure out which tree had the wonderful leaves, and find it unexpected that, of all things, I thought of the lemon tree. I had grown used to hearing her voice in her house, and hearing it from my computer then, it seemed as if she was next to me.
She and Leonard suddenly seemed close . . . as when we had once interacted and I heard Susi’s voice and she was part of my life. I felt they weren’t so far off. My dad was telling me of Leonard’s taxi-driving, how he drove like a lunatic. But that’s not far from how my dad drives, and I could picture Leonard in that seat as a father, swinging through the streets. Why had a frail, sad image of Susi and Leonard engrained itself in my mind and become permanent? Susi in these tapes didn’t look as weak as I had remembered—instead she was tolerant and good-humored and animated, reminding me a lot of my dad. I would add that Leonard, too, was not how I’d pictured, that he was tall and strong even in his old age; but I’m not sure if that was the case.
And as I watched the tape of Susi today, I was surprised at her energy. When the setting changed, however, and she sat in her room, the sad realization emerged that my memory had been correct to a certain degree. In this indoor footage I could see Susi’s frailty: her tiny shoulders and spare white hands, her messy hair and papery neck. Though she exuded strength in her character and though she made clear that life would not fade until she was ready, her body was weak.
This isn’t how I’ll picture her though… there are too many different images for me to rely on one. It makes most sense to me to imagine the feeling she creates—with her voice and the bright warmth and eagerness in her face. Also—I remember which tree had the wonderful leaves and I can’t believe I didn’t connect it before: they weren’t so much leaves but bunches of tiny dried petals that floated away in flocks when squeezed.
A few clips of Susi are below. The last one was filmed by my mom.
This past Yom Kippur was the first time in five years that I fasted. And it sucked. As I entered the 22nd hour, I was doing laps in an Olympic-sized pool of self-pity. For perhaps the first time ever, I regretted taking a day off of work. I kept thinking how unnatural the whole thing was. I was hungry. There was food. I should eat. Fasting went against every animal instinct I had.
It was at this point that some part of my hunger-addled brain began to flicker. How great is it that we can not eat–by choice. I could’ve eaten any number of things lying around the house. Or I could’ve gone out and ordered food. Or I could’ve called a phone number, and someone would have brought food to me. In other times and other places, being presented with all of those options would have been nothing short of a miracle.
And yet it’s because food is so plentiful that we have the choice not to eat it. It’s like the old joke about how you never visit the legendary landmark next door until someone comes to visit you. Since you know it’s always going to be there, you don’t feel the need to take advantage of it immediately. And so it is with food. The more we have, the less we need.
Of course, these thoughts didn’t help the fast go any faster. As soon as 6:06 rolled around, I went after the snack tray as if the dolmas might evaporate any second. However, the fast did make me think, which I guess is the point of the holiday. It also reminded me of a concept I heard about a while back called the tragedy of the commons.
The idea refers to a hypothetical plot of land shared by a number of farmers. If the farmers each have enough sheep to keep the grass at a constant level, everybody wins. However, as soon as one farmer decides to try to earn more by adding another sheep, eventually the grass will run out, the sheep die, and everyone loses.
Especially the grass.
This applies to any limited resource; people will try to get as much of it as possible for themselves, but if everyone does this, the resource runs out. However, if we know we have enough, we can feel safe taking what we need, and nothing more.
And yet, even though we live in an age of unparalleled prosperity, there is still a general sense of unease. We know that the world is at a tipping point. It seems that the higher we build, the more complex we get, the more precarious our position: the recent financial collapse has demonstrated that quite clearly.
Historically, humanity’s goal has always been to grow. But, as we stand on the brink of 7 billion people, it’s becoming apparent that growth isn’t sustainable. What would happen if some crisis struck and crippled our modern infrastructure? Could we repair our own cars without electricity? Could we plant a garden without looking to the internet?
Which brings me to zombies. As you may have noticed, zombies are incredibly popular these days. These unreasoning, brain-hungry corpses are neck and neck (no pun intended) with vampires in terms of Google searches and kicking the crap out of werewolves, which is made all the more impressive by the fact that vampire-based fiction is currently responsible for approximately 78% of the American economy.
Suck on that, Team Edward (That makes sense, right?)
Several of my friends have started planning for the zombie apocalypse, and even have an escape route planned out in case of zombie attack.
While both vampires and zombies are undead creatures roaming the night looking for more people to infect, over the years vampires have been transformed into sparkling sex symbols, while zombies remained violent, bloodthirsty brutes. However, in recent films as well as all across the internet, the interest in zombies tends to focus on the aftermath of a zombie attack, rather than on the zombies themselves.
There’s both a lengthy Wikipedia article specifically on the zombie apocalypse and a Zombie Survival Wiki, not to mention an academic paper from the University of Ottawa about the effects of a zombie outbreak. Part of the attraction of the zombie apocalypse is the sheer freedom of it. I mean, in some respects, life would be like a giant game of Grand Theft Auto. You could go around, stealing cars, running over zombies, and doing missions for various underworld kingpins.
However, there would be a more serious side, and that’s where all this obsession and preparation would come in.
In almost every zombie movie, the survivors are forced to find a way to provide their own food, shelter, and clothing–to survive without modern technology or conveniences. You’d have to be prepared to go days without eating, and to live with only what you can carry. So, really, the aftermath of a zombie outbreak could stand in for that of any large scale disaster.
Say there’s a terrorist attack. Or some global warming-related weather event. Or the electric grid fails. Or SARS makes a comeback. Or genetically modified plants gain sentience and go on a killing spree. Or any of the dozens of things the news threatens us with every night. What would you do? Of course, nobody’s seriously preparing for all these events, and with good reason. You’d go crazy from the stress, or at the very least people would think you’re extremely paranoid for acting on what seems like a very unlikely possibility. And yet the anxiety remains. You can see it in the increasing popularity of hobbies like knitting, homebrewing, and DIY projects in general. There’s something in the air, and real or not, it’s best to be prepared.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to interview my younger brother Naum (or Numa as we call him) about his knowledge of our family history, and more specifically, about our great grandmother Chaya. Since he has read my blog, I was expecting him to reiterate everything that I have been writing here, with his own personal spin. However, what he said both surprised me and shed light of the nature of memory.
Numa struggles to recall what he has read and what he was told by his parents, grandparents, and myself . He recollects the facts due to their excessive repetition but can’t piece them together. Perhaps we are putting too much pressure on the importance of remembering one’s history, at such a young age. Maybe it is just too much weight for an eleven-year-old to carry on his shoulders.
Eventually –keep in mind that the original interview is close to 13 minutes–Numa admits that what he doesn’t remember is really what he doesn’t know. This makes me wonder: what is the essence of Chaya’s story that will be passed on to the next generation? Or will she be just a name in our family tree?
At the end, I asked him what he thought was the moral of Chaya’s decision. Even though his answer was quite tentative, his ultimate message was very strong. And it offered an alternative idea about Chaya’s story that I had never thought of before.
From what I observe, people victimized by war or traumatic upbringing speak very little of their past. It seems their offspring fill in those drifting spots mostly after their death: Scouring and piecing together signs, we can faintly merge feelings that, in reflection, feed or skew our understanding. We are guided by feelings, not by reason. In asking my father a few questions, it was interesting to see how his descriptions of his mother are not concrete, yet are memories of great impact.
“When she was pregnant with Chris,” he said, “she spoke to me, saying, brothers/siblings tend to be jealous of all the attention newborns get—and not to be jealous of Chris, on the contrary, to help with him and help take care of him.” My father is tremendously sensitive and self-sacrificing. There are times when he feels he must guide what has lost guidance—and he emerges into the foreground, but never pushes to the center. He took Susi’s urging deeply to heart: “I was very active with my younger brothers—maybe to the point of overlooking myself.”
Though my father has told me snatches of his childhood stories, of his sports triumphs—bold moments—and likewise, of his shyness and uncertainty, I have never been able to form a clear picture of who he was. I imagine he was extremely sensitive, as he is now, but his self-awareness must have come later in life. Through his first years of young assurance and then through the change when his brother was born, I suppose he developed a view of life he is comfortable with. Though he says he is a “rough, tough man, naturally,” that time of his brother’s birth was a natural way of moving him into his whole frame. It wasn’t a change, as within were traits of modesty since birth: As he says, “it was then I became ready to stand in the background, off stage.”
This sense of guidance my father bears—of helping his brothers and others around him—is an abundant part of what I knew of Susi. She was strong and encouraging, always a stable balance. For my father as well as for me, she encouraged art and writing. My father says of his early drawings, “Susi saw the knack and nurtured it,” though to most, the moving figures didn’t “seem to particularly point to much talent.”
My father made this drawing [on the right] with no particular person in mind—starting by scribbling—but upon finishing, was struck by its resemblance to Susi. He assumed it was brought about in the subconscious—his closeness to his mother embodied in its nature. Much of his work evolves around his parents and family, as much of him reflects their composition.
Susi (my grandmother) kept extensive journals from a young age, writing in German. My father compares her journals to mine except she wrote about her ideas rather than feelings. As they transitioned to English, it is interesting to see how her language progressed: her essays were covered in a teacher’s correctional red ink, though underneath this ink (intended to point out grammatical errors), her own words were lyrical and expressive. A year later, in her wartime narrative of the political situation, her language was almost text-bookish.
These are some later journal entries about my father, kept together with entries by Susi’s mother in a large, thick, gold-edged book…
Whoever displeases Andy is a “bad boy.”–e.g. If I am not standing at attention with a piece of toilet paper the minute he is finished I get balled out: “Come here, badboy!” After getting his booster shot Andy went crying into the waiting room and walked up to each waiting patient saying: “Doctor is a bad bad boy!”’ My dad comments that this is where I inherited my demanding side—before, he had thought it was from my “Tartar” mom.
He often talks of his “Cowboys and Indians” days….
Even at the age of three Andy loved his bottle. Cowboy hat pulled down over his eyes, booted legs crossed, he lies on the sofa and sucks on his bottle and glares at anybody who dares to smile. One night at 3 am, he woke me, hands me the empty bottle with these words: “I’m a big boy now. I throw away my bottle.” And sure enough he never asked for it since.
My father remembers this event in remarkable clarity. In his memory it was five or so in the morning when he marched to his parents room and made the announcement. By the time they fully awakened he had already slammed the door and was headed downstairs to throw away his bottle. He remembers opening the door, the air still and dewy.
Sept 52 . . . For some time now Andy has been calling himself “poor little Andy. But today at dinner he changed his tone: “More avocado!” he orders, “for a rough man!” I say: “Well Andy which are you going to be? Poor little Andy or a rough man?” “Both!” he says. “I am poor little Andy at school and a rough tough man at home!” And right he is too!
My dad, in answering a few of my questions about Susi, referred to himself “as a rough, tough man, naturally.” This entry by Susi is a nice summary for me: I’d grown familiar with stories of my dad hating school and feeling pressed under, and also stories of fights and defiance. I hadn’t known he spelled it out for himself at such a young age, so clearly—and his mother was there for observation and agreement.
In the world of science, you would need a machine that moves faster than the speed of light to travel through time. But you involuntarily move through this dimension every day.
You may regard the past as cemented, but it is always changing. Let’s say you have a lot of work to do. You might reminisce longingly about being in grade school, when you were free to take time for granted. But if you revisit that same moment on a different day, your naiveté might appear as a limitation.
Your memory will always refine particular moments and blur others, and its multiple realities are as infinite as the parallel universes that exist in theoretical physics.
I’m also wondering about Jewish identity before and after WWII; how it was altered or how criteria for identifying as a Jew was skewed by the Holocaust. For example, the Nazi’s targeted any who were remotely Jewish by blood.
In order to travel through time, you would have to harness the power of a star. But you involuntarily move through this dimension every day. You may regard the past as cemented, but it is always changing. If you have a lot of work to do, you might reminisce about being in grade school and think back to when you took time for granted. If you revisit the same moment on a different day, you might instead be drawn to the shortcomings of its simplicity. Your memory will always refine particular moments and blur others, and the combinations of alterations are as infinite as the parallel universes that exist in theoretical physics. The past’s fluidity is memory’s only constant.
Thanks so much for your comment last week, and to continue on that thread,
What is the emotional significance to you of that street in Jerusalem? Do you have any specific memories that hold a special place relating to this location?
I think the places that we remember the most often have one or more stories attached to them, as I am finding in my interviews with my family members. I would love to hear any stories you might have!
Thank you for your suggestions for last post’s questions. I looked up both books on Amazon, where I was allowed to read the first two pages or so of each. Reading them side by side, it was interesting to compare the author’s relationship with his subject: while Heschel starts off with the personal and (at least I’m assuming) then ventures on to the more collective, Yerushalmi starts by talking about memory in very broad terms- Jewish history and “Jewish past.” Both works helped me in looking at my own project, because I’m combining the personal and the ethereal (as Sam said) to present my “thesis” about memory and the past: I’m using home videos and my own writing, but I’m also using videos of natural processes, old music, and the writings of others (many of them happen to be Jewish) to offer different views of time and memory.
So my follow-up-question is: do you know of any other Jewish scholars, historians, or professors who have tackled large topics such as history, the past, memory, and time using a personal lens as either a starting point to ground his/her audience or to establish conceits and draw parallels?
HEY JEREMY! I’M MAYANA! SAM TOLD ME YOU COULD HELP WITH MY PROJECT! You seem very resourceful and nice and I could use some of your wisdom right now if you have the time…
Excerpt from my blog:
Andy Bonapart. He was one incredibly inspiring human being. Touching the lives of hundreds around him while he still here with us, and continues touch others and myself with his unforgettable persona, wise words, and a beautiful idea on how to live the life you have while you still have it. What I decided to do my half remembered story about, was this man, the uncle that I never knew yet has probably had the largest impact and inspiration on my life than any one I have ever known, without even knowing him.
After looking at the relationship that I seem to have developed with my uncle over and over again, besides all the other things we share, I feel that Israel and our Judaism pops out to me in particular. I understand that there are many stories in the bible relating to loss, brotherhood, family, and Israel playing a large part in Zionists or non Zionist relationships. Do you see any symbolic stories or references that I could possibly use to portray these relationship that have risen in my project?
Craning back my neck to a time somehow faded into the distance, I feel I have lost familiarity. It was so recent—my grandmother lived and we could still set down our bags on her cold red-and-white tiled floor, traipsing through the vast wooden house that distinctly smelt of musky cedar and books. I remember chocolate-covered coffee beans (always saved for my cousin and me in large glass jars that required effort to open). Her house has since been sold and demolished, and I spurn to visit the bare site of where it stood.
I remember Susi’s feeling, her floating softness and thoughtfully formed words; crooked toes and fingers; her quiet smile through which each of her son’s faces showed. It seems we have lost everything of my grandparents, and so suddenly. What I keep of her is her memory—and a memory not-yet-explored through her journals and her kept books from childhood; her “inner presence” still waits to be released. And much of my perception of her (perhaps subconsciously built up and developed through my father: his manner and makeup and his closeness to her) has brought me closer to Susi, even after her death, the connection strengthened. I feel now that I did not know my grandmother as a person. I knew her as a protecting and nurturing woman, an ice cream-offering and paper-editing grandmother, who enjoyed the nature of her immense garden and whose body was slowly deteriorating.
One theory of my father’s, out of his million theories, evolves around the deep emotion, incited in the 1930s and ‘40s, that is passed from generation to generation of Jews, brewing in a fear and anger kept just below the skin.
By beginning with my father and close family, examining from inward to out, I will explore my grandmother, to first understand what I am made up of. My father says that at times he felt Susi’s submerged rage or unease, which, from bursts or motivations within his mother, edged into his life. I have yet to unearth its effects on me, to discover if what my dad feels exists: that subsequent generations are connected to the terror of the Holocaust.
My uncles and father, the four Martin Boys, compose in such varied ways each aspect of my grandparents. Without my grandparents to bind our family together, the familiar feeling of family perceived by a nine year-old remains as it is, without expanding; though family events are comfortable and I watch the adults laugh with each other in an old-buddy way, this bond of feeling had been established under our grandparents. It feels somewhat forced, our fun, as if it is an extension of what once was rather than an unfolding experience.
Andy Bonapart. He was one incredibly inspiring human being. Touching the lives of hundreds around him while he still here with us, and continues touch others and myself with his unforgettable persona, wise words, and a beautiful idea on how to live the life you have while you still have it. What I decided to do my half remembered story about, was this man, the uncle that I never knew yet has probably had the largest impact and inspiration on my life than any one I have ever known, without even knowing him.
I started with his post Berkley graduation, in 1982 in Fiji. His friend Phil went with him in the beginning and by the time they went down to Australia Phil decides to stay while Andy treks on to New Zealand. He had a lot of fun in New Zealand especially because he was now a lone traveler, meeting all kinds of people, staying on farms, working for his shelter. He later moves to Thailand and than Nepal where he begins thoroughly documented his travels by recorder and staying in beautiful places in Kat Mandu. He talks about staying in a tea shop, lists 10 minutes of recordings of all the people he has met, their addresses, where they let him stay, the people in the tea shops to the homosexual couples apartments. On his last trek of his journey he hikes Mt. Everest, alone. His recordings are amazing, descriptions of staying at Everest base camp (19000 ft elevation), the glaciers, and his moments of clarity where he breaks down sobbing thanking my grandma and grandpa for bringing him into this world.
Listening to these recordings, hearing the stories from countless cousins, relatives, and friends about the outgoing excited knowledge hungry man he was has been an absolute delight to listen to. Knowing that this amount of respect and attention I am giving my uncle that I have never even met just from hearing about his journey and his life is completely mind boggling to comprehend just how much I would love him if I had actually had the chance to meet him as well.
My love for running, and for carrying an intellectually stimulating conversation, for being outdoors, for clearing and centering my mind and for clearing it of unnecessary clutter, my passion for traveling, for constantly seeking for more questions and answers, the passion I have for people around me, and my unusually extroverted persona, have all been traits I have picked up on and grown on over the years, and traits that I am particularly inspired to keep be proud of and excel on thanks to my uncle Andy.
Self Interview Questions:
Why do you want to escape from suburbia?
What did Andy mean to you?
Why does he inspire you?
Why do you want to travel so much?
In your own eyes who was Andy?
What is the shed?
Why is it important?
How did i come to live there?
What are some of your ambitions you have, was the shed one of them? How is it helping you?
Does a lot of your anxiety come from your strong desire to detach yourself from your family?
How much influence do you think Andy has had over you and how you want to live your life?
Do you think the connection you feel with Andy is something that only you notice or do you think that your dad sees the similarities you feel you have with him?
Are you going to follow in Andy’s footsteps and chase your dream to travel the world, where do you want to be in 10 years?
Is part of your strong desire to see the world underlined with anger toward where you are now?
Do you think the technology-influenced generation we live in now is holding you back in a way that Andy didn’t have to experience?
Does the addiction to cell phones, computers, and technology in general hold you back from your maximum potential? Do you think the addictions holding other people, back as well?
When the viewer first enters the Memory Paths (Zoe’s Time Machine) website, a typed introduction will appear for them to read. This introduction will establish the context for the interactive clock and its memory pods. Here’s a draft for my intro. Any feedback would be great.
Memory Paths
Currently, physics does not allow for time travel to the past or future. In order to visit your ancestors or travel to the year 2020, scientists would have to harness the power of a star and you would have to travel faster than the speed of light. And even if time machines did exist, you would not be able to travel farther back in time than the point of their creation. But you travel back in time every day, and not solely by remembering an event that occurred a long time ago. This time travel is involuntary.
Perhaps when you think of your childhood, nostalgia distorts the positive aspects of your youth and dims the more difficult memories. If you have a lot of work to do on a given day, you might reminisce about being in grade school and think back to when you took time for granted. On a rewarding day, you may revisit that same time in the past, but will instead focus on the fact that your outlook was not mature enough to appreciate what has brought you satisfaction today.
While your past is often regarded as theoretically cemented, it changes every day – its fluidity is the only constant. Memory will always refine particular moments and blur others, but the combination of alterations is as infinite as the parallel universes that exist in theoretical physics. And because by the end of tomorrow evening you will have garnered several more new memories, your memory’s collection of refractions only increases.
Since my grandmother Susi’s passing four years ago, my parents and I have been digging up articles of her past — journals, newspaper clippings, photos, wallets. They’ve all been well-used and each bear the delectable feel of a cherished hidden item unveiled at last; smelling of old wood, dusty and wrinkled in their own way; utilized by someone whose body was once fresh and young. Written in these journals are scenes of the war, poems, letters, stories—and having heard of these in obscure snatches from my father and others, they are strange to see in reality. I must stretch my imagination as I read the handwriting that is so different from what I have ever seen. It feels there is a block between me and her stories (in large part because most are written in German, which I cannot read or quite comprehend my grandmother living with).
In the process of this discovery-project I hope to extinguish what I can of that wall. When I was younger I never indulged in babysit-days at my grandparent’s house (they were frail in their old age), and rarely visited them, which I regret tremendously. But through this, perhaps I can become closer to her as a Jewish woman and as a girl my age in an environment so far removed.
My grandmother Susi (my father’s mother) was born in 1923, peace time. Several years before, her “Uncle Paul” — known then to Susi as her parents’ close friend — had come home from the war. A prisoner of war, Paul had wandered free when the revolution pulled Russia from the war. He was deeply in love with Mitzi Stiassni, Susi’s mother. But because he was not Jewish and because he was a soldier, an officer, he was not considered a suitable match. After traveling by foot a thousand miles, selling his gold dental work to return to his halted life, he found Mitzi married. Nevertheless, they resumed their romance and continued it many years into Susi’s childhood, leaving her factually ignorant until she discovered it in her 60’s….
This gloomy Monday night, I happened across something amazing: Creative Commons search engine through Flickr.
For those of you who don’t know, Flickr is a photo sharing website where people can post basically any snapshot, blog picture or photograph that they want. Now, as I am gathering photographs for my final look into the streets of San Francisco, this search engine is essentially my new best friend. I can look through thousands of San Francisco photos that the owners have given full permission to use! To commemorate this momentous occasion, I decided to post a few of my favorite findings.
San Francisco circa 1950
Upper Fillmore St.
Pacific Heights Victorians
And my personal favorite…
-Note: These have all been edited by me. :] –>Samantha Abernathey
My question, and its a rather long one that could have an enormous answer, is:
What role did Rabbis play in Jewish communities of turn of the 20th century New York?
My project revolves around the struggles my great-great-grandfather had with religion, and as he was an ordained Rabbi in New York at this time, I feel that in order to fully understand him, I have to understand where he was placed in society.
I’m curious about the “qualifications” of being Jewish. I have always thought of myself as Jewish but I know very little about Jewish culture. I don’t celebrate the religion. I feel strange being the end of Jewishness in my family — my grandmother identified strongly as a Jew and my father less so, but is still quite connected to it. It turns out, because my grandmother’s blood father wasn’t Jewish, I’m only an eighth Jewish, barely at all. It’s funny to think about… my grandmother fled the Holocaust and left journals and stories about it. It had a huge effect on our family.
I know people have really different ideas about what makes them Jewish. Is the definition still that your mother has to be Jewish?
My story is about my Grandfather, a gambling addict, married at 17, a father 18, he spent all his time hiding from his family, had a heart attack at 38, and finally went into recovery in the mid 70′s. At my Bar Mitzvah, he encourage me to be a “mensh”, and in his Gambler’s Anonymous speech in 1992, he said he himself was a mensh. So…
Mensh?
1.What is the meaning of the word “mensh”?
2.What did that concept mean to the people who believed in it, then and now?
3.How does it affect a situation where someone who has sinned comes out of a bad behavior and becomes someone who can face themselves?
4.Can mensh-ness be earned? Can it ONLY be earned?
5.From a society standpoint, does being a mensh define our life values?
6.If so, how does Jewish culture perceive and value a mensh? The Jewish version of Maslow’s pyramid, is that the best?
While I have been unfortunately bogged down with a heck of a cold this past week, I have been thinking a bit about where to take my project.
My main question for viewers and Jeremy is:
What locations or streets do you or your family have clear ties to?
Because essentially, that is the basis for my project. San Francisco is an amazing city, but not only is it a wonderful place, but it is deeply embedded into both my culture and my family’s past, present and (hopefully) future. I think that every family and every person out there has those ties somewhere, even if they do not realize it themselves. Home is indeed where the heart is, but who says you can only have one home?
Here’s a new website I found: www.wordblast.blogspost.com. My aunt told me about it, as it is her blogspot (she shares it with a friend). She and her friend are both playwrights, and they decided that they would “tell part of a story and then say “and then…” and pass it on to the next person” with a play. “What would happen if two writers e-mailed each other maybe a line (instead of a word!) at at time? What if you had to write a line a day and only gave yourself five minutes to do it? Or maybe assume one character in a two person play, and write their response to the previous line of dialogue (or action, as the case may be)?”
So the two playwrights started writing a play, blog entry by blog entry. I am posting this website here because the website that I am working on is going to be interactive, and while “wordblast” isn’t interactive like my website will be, it is in the sense that two people are creating a piece of art together without a set path. Like my “time machine,” my aunt and her friend do not have a pre-determined destination or linear storyline.
For the final display of this project I’m making a 3-minute film. This is its narration so far:
As I grow, death seems to push its way into the light, cropping up more often: The death of elders who were the base and tone of the family changed my perception and environment. Change led to a loss of solidity: it’s hard to find a grip in a changing environment as I myself change—it seems, now, all roots are flushed away. I did not have a well-formed view of my grandparents—I was young, or I was not able to consciously form a strong tie. But maybe the simplest feelings are most genuine and maybe the unconscious connection that perhaps existed more than I can guess, was most natural. I am trying to again glimpse into their lives, to understand them. I want to know how I was made, to uncover the blur that expands boundlessly behind and in front of me.
My memories of my grandparents, Susi and Leonard, are peaceful, connected with the festive, the familiar—the openness of their home. They sat around talking, near the French doors of the living room or out on the rough glass tables. Susi would push her way behind her walker, which was padded with tennis balls on the leg bottoms. It’s funny how I mix her images —the image of her swimming freestyle in her pool, in a black cap and old-fashioned bathing suit, with the one of her in the dining room offering ice cream, much frailer and much slower. Somehow I view the two with no distinction of time. With Leonard I remember his red face and square gate. I wonder if my picture of him is also through the eyes of a very little girl, for looking at his later photos, he was hunched in the upper back and his face much more aged.
As a small person roaming a tall-ceilinged and spacious house, I seemed to be focused on its lower regions: I would observe the floor, tiled with wide clay hexagons. The dining table was eye-height and when I moved around the room past Susi’s portable heating tray and past the Mexican sculpture upon the counter, I remember, at the head of the table, seeing the back of Leonard’s head with fine and smooth white hair, so purely white. It would be neatly combed and parted against reddened ears and neck.
After Leonard’s death, I remember lunches at that dining room table. We would stop by briefly and Susi would offer me chocolate ice cream or fruit. I don’t know why these times seem more often now than they probably were, but every time going there, I was anxious to leave—because of homework probably. I would stare at the foggy yellow bulbs on the dining room ceiling, which, in rows, mirrored the length of the table.
This table, now, is at the house we are moving into. It looks much smaller there. This house, very modern and very clean, is much different from Susi’s, or the house I grew up in, different from anything familiar. Spaces, family and traditions seem to haze in the background as we move from the past.
In a delicate world origins are easily forgotten, but I am trying to grasp what I had not collected in the first place, and to fill in the quick-in-passing, the gap within growth. Since my grandmother’s death we have found boxes and boxes of journals and letters, albums and stories— belongings with the mark that lasts for all time. It is so rich in there. Susi and Leonard established our family’s connection. Their own connection was deep: underneath open conflicts was a bond that harnessed them together into old age.
My plan for this week was to post the titles and short introductions to my “podcasts” but as of my meeting with Jeremiah and Sam today, I need to revise one of them. As such, here are the rough drafts of two of them.
For my first podcast (Introduction of Solomon)
Spark/Struggle
(Religion and Disbelief)(The Overarching Need to Do Good)
For my last podcast
Impact
(A Seperation From What Was Known)
I hope to have a revised third title and the interview questions to my grandfathers follow up and my mothers tomorrow.
After meeting with Sophie, Emma, and Julie last Thursday, my project changed once again. For the span of about five days, I was sure I was going to create a single-channel film, but after Thursday we have decided to go back to the interactive website idea. However, this new website will be very different from the previous idea; this new idea presents the viewer with a clock, and in each number, a “memory pod.” Each memory pod is composed of a visual and an audio piece. The viewer gets to choose what audio piece they want to hear while watching the video, which is the interactive part of the piece. So for example, the number 7 on the clock might be an old family video, and the viewer gets to choose whether they want to play a quote or a piece of music against the visual. Some of the audio pieces will repeat from number to number in the hope that the viewer will “accidentally” choose the same piece of music twice, but for different visuals. I want this repetition to allow the viewer to experience different emotions around the same audio clip, which draws off of the previous interactive webpage idea- my interest in the five sense’s influence over memory and how one particular sense can govern a person’s emotional attachment to a specific time in the past. Each time the viewer selects a new number, the webpage will refresh so that the clock’s numbers are jumbled. The clock’s numbers will only be in order at the beginning, because I want the interface to reflect my theme: the interpretation of the past is continually changing based on current experiences.
Interviewing my dad; wow, well that was an experience. He was my first interview I had every done as well as a family member! It was exciting as well as a bit nerve racking…especially for the reasoning behind the interview. I asked him a bunch of heart hitting questions, I wasn’t even quite sure he was ready for. But we worked up to it and I think I got what I usually get, and what I expected. Instead of bringing out some nostalgic heart squeezing intense emotions, I got a few more exciting stories about Andy, some more background on my dad’s life, and a full on father to daughter lecture on how to go about life safely. I mean what did I expect? I gave my dad a perfect opening for a chance to counsel me and try and give me his words of wisdom when I was completely all ears.
Although that it went well, even though there were still a lot of unanswered questions, the funny thing about the interview was feelings came up for ME that I never thought would be brought up, or even have. During my dad’s speil he said some words to me that really hit me in a place I had never addressed. I guess he noticed a shift in my emotions or something because after the interview he asked me about how I was feeling. I wasn’t really able to describe what I wanted to say, the words wrung my throat like a dishtowel. In trying to explain to him what was going through my mind tears began to swell up inside me like a water balloon and his hug just stuck the tack right in the water balloon and a whole other feeling emerged. He said some words to me that I won’t forget for a long time while trying to explain the protectiveness his brother’s death might have instilled in him as a dad:
“Mayana, you are so busy growing up, running around, trying to get everything done all the time, that you never let yourself stop and smell the daises.”
As corny as it sounds it just made me realize the insanely amount I love my dad.
My sister sent from London another of my grandmother Susi’s writings, from Susi’s personal journal. This was upon the same subject: her mother, blood-father Paul and presumed father Alfred. Susi says how she remembers coming across the second journal: it was some time after Alfred’s death and Leonard, returning from a visit in Los Angeles with Mitzi, brought it to her. Thinking it was her mother’s, she put it away. Mitzi’s journal excludes any mention of Paul, and Susi writes, “I don’t know how she could have left him out of it in this cruel way. Who was she lying to? Me, an unborn child?” Paul’s journal describes Mitzi with affection, and about one of the book’s parts Susi says, “Throughout the whole story runs a pathetic refrain concerning her life in Brno from which he was excluded.”
Impressions that last after death—that can be re-adopted in cycles and by future generations—can be so easily sculpted. Here, so much is left out; Mitzi’s journal covers nothing of her child’s father, and she presents her daughter with slanted information. What the combined journals leave is confusing—with the content Mitzi chose to bequeath. I suppose it would have played much differently if Susi had read Paul’s journal when Mitzi was still alive. But as it was, there was no dialogue beyond her written pages. Susi herself chose to leave her family with much to understand her with—insights into her thoughts that perhaps none of us had known. What she does not display remains with her, private.
Last Thursday we spent almost an hour talking about my project, and I got fantastic feedback. This weekend I considered everyone’s suggestions, and have decided to change my project from an interactive website to more of a viewer-sit-back-and-watch type of layout. I’m now leaning toward a short film that will contain every element of the website, just in film-form. The content will be the same, still focused on time travel and memory, but rather than actually asking the viewer a series of questions in the hopes of generating their memories, I will present them with my memories and talk about my relationship with those memories, and the previously explicit questions will be implicit. If anyone has any suggestions for how to implement that interactive aspect into the project (which I’d like to keep in some form or another), that would be great, and I will post a more solidified update next week after my meeting with Emma, Sophie, and Julie (coach/mentor) on Wednesday. Thanks again for all the great feedback!
This past weekend, I interviewed my mother Denise. This was the first of five interviews about my Grandfather’s life; about being a gambling addict, going through recovery, and finally living the end of his life as a “mensh”.
My mother spoke about how she felt isolated from him when she was a child:
When it came to the end of the interview, and a few tears had been shed, I asked her is there’s anything else she’d like to say about her dad:
The challenge- Explain what the Time Machine is succinctly.
So here’s my (feeble?) attempt at being concise:
In my interactive website (“Time Machine”) I will transport the participant to the past by conjuring up his/her memories from memories of my own. The “Time Machine” will ask the participant questions about his/her view of the past and whether he/she believes the past to be cemented or malleable. The “Time Machine” will divide memories into different aspects governed by different senses in order to suggest that current experiences shape our relationship to older memories. Through the “Time Machine,” I will use open-ended questions to argue that by just living in the present, we ultimately travel back in time and alter the past; what we experience in the present and anticipate about the future alters the way we perceive our past. Thus, the past is not static; each day we create a different version, continually re-shaped by an accumulation of everyday experiences.
Yesterday, rummaging through yet another box of photographs and books, my dad came across Mitzi’s journal—the counterpart to a thin, red-bound book of Uncle Paul’s. Both were written in German, but a section of Uncle Paul’s had been long translated by Susi and filed away in her drawers. It was a story called “Spacek,” of a tiny twirling dwarf made of wood. It was written for Susi still resting in the womb, to a daughter who would not realize their blood connection until many years into adulthood. Uncle Paul’s Spacek spins in arches across town, fleeing from his ferocious wife. My father very much appreciates “Spacek” because it reminds him of his own inch-high dwarf drawings.
So after hearing about “transcribing” things, honestly it sounded like a complete bore. But while I was doing my first transcription on Andy’s tape recordings from his travels, I have never been more entranced! Listening to his voice was one of the coolest most psychedelic experiences, on the whole hour CD I couldn’t get past more than 12 minutes because I had to pause it every few minutes and quote something! Everything he was saying I could relate to so much. Listening to him jump from one topic to the next with such ease, made me go through a series of emotions, getting this unusual almost nostalgic feeling. I couldn’t help but chuckle at so many parts about standing out as a “white tourist” or talking about Mill Valley like he was sitting right next to me kvetching about the same things I do!
Here are some of my favorite quotes from Andy so far:
6:49 minutes in, “I’ve been cruising a bicycle for the last few days and its fun getting right in the thick of the quagmire, the miasma, the congested flair of Kathmandu.”
Andy running a marathon, he developed a strong passion for running after he graduated Berkley
Reading this sent me into my own daze of my love for my beautiful green Peugot bicycle. Reminicing the dreamy bike rides I’ve had around towns, through hordes of people, and got me pondering about my own future cobblestone bike rides through rural foreign towns.
10:33 minutes in, “The old crowd of Mill Vallians, the IJI people, Berkley contents, Biet people Hillel people, Zionest people, Kol Shofar people, Democratic context people, work people, etc.”
The way he calls people “Mill Vallians” pretty much sums up our town to this day.
Sound designer and sound artist, Jeremiah Moore, is one of our media coaches who has been working with NJFP’s Alex Pollak. Jeremiah shared this site with us as an example of how the focus on place, combined with the visual elements, and placement of the audio clips, all contribute to the success of the project. Take a look around and navigate through the various questions on the top header.
“And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine dipped in lime-blossom tea that my aunt used to give to me (though I did not yet know and had to put off to much later discovering why this memory made me so happy), immediately the old grey house on the street, where her bedroom was, came like a stage-set to attach itself to the little wing opening on to the garden that had been built for my parents behind it (that truncated section which was all I had seen before then); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square, where they sent me before lunch, the streets where I went to do errands, the paths we took if the weather was fine. And as in that game in which the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping it in little pieces of paper until then indistinct, which, the moment they are immersed in it, stretch and shape themselves, colour and differentiate, become flowers, houses, human figures, firm and recognizable, so now all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann’s park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne, and the good people of the village and their little dwellings and the church and all of Combray and its surroundings, all of this which is assuming form and substance, emerged, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.” –Marcel Proust
I came across this famous quote a couple weeks ago, and started thinking about why certain objects evoke the past. In other words, what about the rain or a certain kind of tree or type of food evokes our nostalgia? I have thousands of memories, and could create endless lists of different things these memories contained: tons of locations, smells, people, colors, etc. But why is it that when we see specific things we become so much more reminiscent than when we see other things that have also had a part in our memories?
Amongst my grandmother Susi’s many stories, written as she neared old age, was a short piece addressing her blood-father, known to her as “Uncle Paul.” Before the war Paul and Mitzi were entwined in a romance, interrupted when Paul left for the front. Upon his return, he discovered Mitzi married to a man who her parents dubbed “acceptable”: Alfred was a well-bred Jew. Mitzi and Paul continued their relationship some years into Mitzi’s marriage and into Susi’s childhood. Feeling a need to begin a pledge of loyalty to her husband, Mitzi finally broke it off when Susi was nine.
In her writing Susi speaks of two journals: each a token of her mother and of Paul, each written to her in the months before her birth. Her mother gave her the first journal when she could easily read on her own. Susi was very touched by it—it described the calm of a beautiful marriage and the strong love between her and Alfred. This journal, as Susi wrote, “was the basis of my stubborn belief that I was Alfred’s child, even when Leonard tried to tell me otherwise after Alfred’s death in 1961.” But as Susi grew into teenage years she became embarrassed by the book’s sentimentality and let it lie on her shelf, untouched. Many years later, in America, her mother again handed the book to her and Susi returned it to the shelf.
Past the death of her parents, and as her family dispersed—as her own marriage was set off course and her sons steered toward college—she re-visited this journal. Her therapist had asked her to search through papers or letters to try to uncover “something hidden and strange about [her] early childhood.” Returning to the dust-gathering shelf where the journal housed, she was “flabbergasted” to find with it another book of the same binding. This was Paul’s. It was a documentation of the time before Susi’s birth and “incontrovertible proof” of their relationship. Susi, with so many questions, had no answering-source. Her parents no longer lived: what remained were only facts. The two solidly inked journals provided fragments of her blood-parent’s states—further details were left to fade with them. . . . “It makes me sad [that] I did not respond to my mother’s giving me his book. What must she have thought? That I was angry at her?” She felt if she had known this when she was younger, she would have treated Alfred more softly during the depression of his end-years. She said, “Mieze told me many times that I would never know how noble he was. I guess she referred to his making it easy for her, always treating me as his own child and Opau [Paul] as a family friend. When in 1923, she wrote so glowingly about their love and their deep understanding of one another, perhaps that is what she meant, and it was true.”
This past weekend, I interviewed my mother Denise. This was the first of five interviews.
I found this interview to be quite inspiring. Although I had already known most of the information she told me about my Grandfather, I got to see and hear for the first time how she felt about my Grandfather’s life being a gambling addict, going through recovery, and finally living the end of his life as a “mensh”.
Our interview began and we talked about my Grandparents early relationship, I found out that for their wedding “cake” they each had an ice cream cone because that’s all they could afford besides a bus trip back to New York from Maryland where they eloped.
When I asked her about his gambling addiction and how it affected her life, and the structure of her family, she spoke about how separated they were when she was a child…
When it came to the end of the interview, and a few tears had been shed, I asked her is there’s anything else she’d like to say about her dad, and I was touched to hear her words…
So, I think this interview was a success. There’s still much to hear in my upcoming interviews in New York. I am eager to continue to discover who my Grandfather is, and how through a lifelong addiction, became a “mensh”
As you may have noticed, zombies are incredibly popular these days. They’re neck and neck (no pun intended) with vampires in terms of Google searches and kicking the crap out of werewolves, which is made all the more impressive by the fact that vampire-based fiction is currently responsible for approximately 78% of the American economy.
Suck it, Team Jacob (That makes sense, right?)
There are numerousarticles written about the zombie apocalypse, and my friends even have a route planned out in case of zombie attack. Now, granted, Cracked.com isn’t a leading scientific journal, and my friends are…well they’re the type of people who make zombie maps, but the point remains that zombies are certainly on peoples’ minds. But why?
As this article points out, the idea of the living dead has been around since Babylonian times. Our modern conception of zombies is mostly shaped, however, by more recent texts like “Frankenstein” and authors like Edgar Allen Poe. This, plus the Haitian practice of voodoo has led to what we now think of as zombies. But the question is, why is this idea so persistent? Why does it resurface again and again, across time, space, and cultures? One thought is that they were the living (or not) embodiment of our unconscious doubts over our own humanity. That is to say, they are an outlet for deep uncertainties about what it is that defines personhood.
Of course, what an object represents can change over time. There is an element of bricolage, or placing something that already exists in a different context to create an entirely different meaning. For example, vampires were originally portrayed as diseased, bloated corpses that fed on the living. However, as people began finding the whole neck-sucking thing sexy (I guess?) vampires became synonymous with eroticism. Similarly, an army of mindless zombies have represented Communist hordes, rampant consumerism, and corporate greed, just to name a few. So what do modern zombies represent?
To me, the most interesting thing is that the focus seems to be on the aftermath of a zombie outbreak, rather than on the zombies themselves. There’s both a lengthy Wikipedia article specifically on the zombie apocalypse and a Zombie Survival Wiki, not to mention an academic paper about the effects of a zombie outbreak. Of course, the zombies could still represent Communists or terrorists or killer bees or whatever, but the fact remains that the focus seems to rest more on the apocalypse and less on the zombies. So, again, we have to ask why.
Going back to the article I mentioned earlier, there are several reasons listed for why people are fantasizing about a zombie apocalypse. Some of the reasons are obvious. I mean, in some respects, life would be like a giant game of Grand Theft Auto. You could go around, stealing cars, running over zombies, and doing missions for the Yakuza (or looting stores or whatever). However, there would be a more serious side, and that’s where all this obsession and preparation would come in.
You’d need to provide your own food, shelter, and whatever other amenities you would want. So, really, the zombie apocalypse could stand in for any large scale disaster. Say there’s a terrorist attack. Or some global warming-related weather event. Or the electrical grid fails. Or SARS makes a comeback. Or genetically modified plants gain sentience and go on a killing spree. Or any of the dozens of things the news threatens us with every night. What would you do? Of course, nobody’s seriously preparing for all these events, and with good reason. You’d go crazy from the stress, or at least people would think you’re extremely paranoid for acting on what seems like a very unlikely possibility. And yet the anxiety remains. So preparing for a nuclear holocaust makes you seem crazy, but preparing for the zombie apocalypse? That’s hilarious. Or is it?
Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
When I recall the moments in which my grandfather Leonard grappled to keep pace with the energy he had set for himself, a feeling of sadness always stirs in me. I wonder if these exposures were a strength—simple humanness when regarded with a pang of tenderness—or glitches in Leonard’s rough character that could be viewed as a weakness and with feelings of pity.
It seems the closer I am to a situation or person, the more easily I separate myself from something negatively affecting it. For example, upon seeing a limping and homeless animal I lament inexhaustibly for it. When I see something that evokes pity or grief, I feel the need to become closer to it—to help it and understand its suffering. This is a reaction that quickly mends grief: once close to the source and comprehending the reasons for it, sadness dissipates.
When recently I saw Leonard’s signed credit card among remnants on a table, I felt relieved: this piece of modern reality was relatable—it made sense. There was no gap in time or custom, no cause for me to over-compensate mystery with emotion.
Above is an except from the obituary given at my great-great-grandfather’s funeral. I am having trouble tracking down the interview with my grandfather, so that will be up tomorrow, but in the meantime give this a listen.
We are at a very significant place; do you mind talking about where we are?
How does it feel being here with me, your daughter?
Do you feel that we connect here more?
Do you think that the death of your brother has impact over our relationship?
Has this led you to be more overprotective of me than you might have otherwise been?
I under stand Andy had a rebellious nature, could you talk about that?
Do you see that same nature coming out in me?
Do you ever see parts of him in me?
Andy traveled a lot around the world; can you talk about the places he went to and why?
Would you say he had a passion for traveling?
When do you think Andy first developed his passion for seeing the rest of the world?
What do you think triggered his passion to just go out and do it?
Was Andy unsatisfied with the way he saw the world?
Do you think his beliefs and assumptions of the rest of the world correspond with mine? How so?
Questions for me
Why is living is living in this shed outside your house so important to you?
What are some of your ambitions you have, was the shed one of them? How is it helping you?
Does a lot of your anxiety come from your strong desire to detach yourself from your family?
How much influence do you think Andy has had over you and how you want to live your life?
Do you think the connection you feel with Andy is something that only you notice or do you think that your dad sees the similarities you feel you have with him?
Are you going to follow in Andy’s footsteps and chase your dream to travel the world, where do you want to be in 10 years?
Is part of your strong desire to see the world underlined with anger toward where you are now?
Do you think the technology-influenced generation we live in now is holding you back in a way that Andy didn’t have to experience?
Does the addiction to cell phones, computers, and technology in general hold you back from your maximum potential? Do you think the addictions holding other people, back as well?
If you’ve watch the video that Adam posted and want to see the actual projects, this link will direct you to the story projects that are featured in the video.
Hey all, I’m just posting a brief video that you might be interested in. It’s something I worked on the other day, and it ties in really well to what we’re doing: Forget E-Books: The Future of Digital Storytelling
At his grandfather's funeral: Leonard is center, staring at the camera. Aga is beside him crying and Kuka stands at the coffin's head with hands crossed. (Click to view a larger image.)
My father says my grandpa Leonard very rarely talked of his childhood in Harbin. He spoke once of his mother’s “home remedies” and once of a conflict with a Guomindang officer:
Aga, her brother Peter, and Leonard.
Aga, his mother, would brew a glass of raw ground liver each morning for Leonard to drink; she considered it an aid for anemia. For him, this was a torturous exercise.
Leonard’s daily route to school forced him to cross a narrow railroad bridge, its walkway wide enough for two people abreast. On his way one day (probably after ingesting the liver potion), he was approached by a crossing Guomindang officer. Considering Leonard too slow to move from his path, the officer began to beat him with his walking stick. The rail ties were set far apart—the bridge was crossed gingerly. As he was being beaten, whipped full-strength in every direction, Leonard could only concentrate on the water far below—finally clinging a rail tie to keep from collapsing through.
Leonard, left in the foreground, with his grandfather directly behind.
Twenty years ago, this story allowed my father and sister to find Leonard’s home: In the Russian part of Harbin, after passing many bridges, they came across an old iron railroad bridge. Following it, they were greeted by a little neighborhood; crowded with cottages and sweetly layered with snow. For my father it was quite a contrast to the gloomy torment of Leonard’s portrayed childhood.
After a lengthy discussion with Jeremiah on how to upload files I have recorded to the blog, WordPress will still not accept them, even after converted to .mp3. Other than that, my project is progressing nicely; I’ve recorded the interviews necessary, and hope to have them up as soon as I find a way to get them on the internet.
Ten Negative Memories of Childhood (to supplement the past week’s list, not in chronological order)
1. Feeling out of control of my parents’ lives when they dropped me off at my kindergarten class. Every day I went through a ritual with the parent who dropped me off, making them promise not to get punched, shot, killed, abducted, or lost while they were not in my sight.
2. When my cousin Marissa got Baldy, the rarest Beanie Baby. She made sure to call me from her house in New York to tell me she got him, and I felt terrible. (About a month later, I got a package with Baldy in it from her dad.)
3. When I was eight and my other cousin teased me by holding my A’s baseball cap out the window while we were driving on the freeway to Seaworld. He didn’t mean to let go, but he did. We all got out to look for it for about an hour and didn’t find anything, and the rest of the way to Seaworld my cousins and I cried- I cried because I wanted my cap, my cousin Jared cried because he felt guilty, and my cousin Marissa because our trip would be delayed to look for my “stupid hat.”
4. Getting to Seaworld after losing my cap. I had just started feeling better at the sight of the dolphins when a woman passed Marissa and me with a huge stuffed animal. Marissa told her the stuffed seal was really cute, and the woman gave it to her. That was the final straw. I felt terrible, and made my dad and uncle play in a water gun game (the sole two dads playing against a bunch of middle school boys) to win me a stuffed animal like Marissa’s.
5. The second-grade drive to Pt. Reyes. I had one enemy in that class, a girl named Christie. My dad volunteered to drive a student in addition to myself, and I told him I was worried Mrs. Rynerson would assign us Christie just to make me upset (she was a diabolical teacher). My dad reassured me that there was only a one in thirty chance of that occurring. Of course the next day when we looked at the driving sheets, my teacher had assigned Christie to our car. The whole drive to Pt. Reyes was tense and silent. (About two years later, Christie and I became best friends for the remainder of elementary school.)
6. My dad getting remarried when I was around eleven. I was not used to sharing him with anyone else (I am an only child), and the new dynamic with his wife really threw me for a loop, to say the least.
7. Middle School. All three years were terrible. I was at my “awkward age,” had horrible teachers who were almost all either racist or excruciatingly boring, and had a whole group of bullies who picked on me everyday in PE.
8. When my mother flew to Spain for a work conference for almost two weeks when I was in fourth grade. Her trip was the longest time I had been away from her, and I felt very worried about her safety (I figured that if I wasn’t around to protect her, something bad might happen). For about two days I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything.
9. When I got salmonella at Disneyland. I got it from raw beansprouts, and felt miserable. We had to stay in the hospital overnight and I still remember the pain in my stomach. I was around four years old.
10. Feeling patronized by my parents when we visited family. Often I was told I was interrupting the adults, and felt left out of conversations.
Ten Reasons Why I am Glad to be my Age
1. I have more control over my day. I can get to places on my own, make plans with my friends without the help of my parents, and make decisions on how I want to spend my time.
2. My friends. Now that I am in high school, I have the best group of friends I have ever had.
3. My cellphone. I get to call people whenever I want, and when I was little I had no interest in talking on the phone. I thought it was boring and an activity for adults. Now I love talking to people on the phone, and because I have a cellphone I get to call people in other states who I don’t get to see very often.
4. My job. I’ve gained a lot of independence and self-confidence from working. (I have worked at a bakery in Oakland for almost 2.5 years.)
5. Knowing my way around Berkeley. When I was little, I always depended upon my parents to drive me to school and to friends’ houses. Now I get to decide where I want to go and when, and enjoy walking to school and around Berkeley.
6. English. It has become my favorite class, and I look forward to reading novels and discussing them. I love writing expository, argumentative, and creative essays.
7. Responsibility over my own social etiquette. I don’t have my mom or dad scolding me for interrupting and condescending to me like when I was little.
8. Classical music. I listen almost every day, and now that I am older, I appreciate it. When I was younger I regarded classical music as something to fall asleep to, but now that my ears have become attuned to different musicians’ styles and composers’ idiosyncrasies, I don’t listen to it as background music.
9. Being able to watch R-rated movies. I know this sounds juvenile, but most of my favorite movies are rated R and when I was younger I felt left out when my older relatives got to see movies that “I was too young to understand” or were deemed inappropriate for a child.
10.College. While I will miss my parents, I am looking forward to living on my own with people my own age. I can’t wait to take classes I will be interested in and get to know a new city or state.
I decided to look back at my Bar Mitzvah blessing, now knowing where my Grandfather’s words came from.
The line that now stands out to me the most is the one right after he tears up, “Be a human crutch to those who fall”. In the first few lines of his speech, he mentions the “human crutches” from his past, people who helped him get through those tough times. Then he said, “Be a mensh”, a man who contains “all the goodness of humanity”.
I think about how those words shape who I am today. Today, I want to do what I can to make a difference in the world. Starting at home, with my friends and family, I try very hard to maintain a lifestyle that makes people feel good, that fulfills my need to bring good things to the world. I think I’ve always have been that way, but I remember and can feel when I listen to his words, that he definitely help remind me of the direction I should be heading.
Considering his past, it makes sense. I think he suffered through feeling empty, and lost. I’m sure he didn’t want me to feel the same things he felt.
This blessing is now more personal, since hearing his speech. It was the one time I feel I made a connection with him that was more than just everyday talk about what I was doing and the weather difference from New York to California. I guess that if I were to talk to him now, and asked about his speech, what he wanted me to take away from it, would be his blessing. He said everything that he wanted me to be, and by doing so, perhaps I wouldn’t make the same mistakes as him.
I have a better idea of what this blessing means, but to fully understand it, I need to continue to find out more about my Grandfather’s past.
[from Aga 1: My great-grandmother Aga is in Irkutsk, in search of her husband . . . ]
Tagging along with Aga was another young woman whose husband was also aboard Kolchak’s train. . . .
Snippets of the story:
A little boat ferried people across the river at Irkutsk. As Aga stepped from the boat clutching a freshly-bought sausage, a man offered to help with her package. She passed it to him—and off he ran. From then on in Irkutsk, she carried in her hand, fiercely swinging it, a pistol.
Aga’s father had left Omsk ahead of Aga and her mother, brother and sister, who had traveled together. . . .
A few days after leaving her family (who continued on to Manchuria), Aga was making her way through the huge, panicked crowds wrapping the Irkutsk train station. Suddenly, through thick layers of faces, she saw her father. They shouted each other’s names across the sea of people and through the roar of bustle and steam-engines. They struggled to get closer, pushing against the resilience of the mixing currents of the crowd’s movement—and stretching out their hands, her father passed her money. As she grasped it, they were parted by the throng. The next time she saw him was in Harbin, a few months later.
Aga begged Czech officers upon her knees to spare her husband’s life. They would dismiss her—they were probably confronted hour after hour by crying wives. One officer, however, took pity on Aga, an alone and pregnant teenager. He told her lightly to come back later. When she did, the officer summoned his footman, telling her to go with him, he would help.
It was night, very dark, when they reached the site of Kolchak’s train. There were many trains, endlessly, one after another. Aga was told to wait in the dark, by the wheels of a train. The footman walked ahead, and in the distance she saw his dark figure climbing the steps of another train. A few moments later he reappeared. By his side was Kuka.
The details here are unclear . . . but Kuka made his way to his waiting wife, and they again were together in the silence of wartime. But far away down the row of cars, a wail cut the air: Aga’s companion had followed her, and seeing that Kuka was saved, and that her husband was still on the train, so close to where they stood, she was tearing her hair, howling. Kuka told Aga they couldn’t help her, they must flee while they could. Kuka was the only one on the train to survive.
It was spring and the river ice was breaking. The rivers in Siberia are wide, and to cross Aga and Kuka were forced to jump from ice to ice. Aga was already very pregnant as Leonard was born in July.
On the train (to Harbin) Aga’s clothes were thin, and she was shivering in the ice-cold. A woman in furs watched her disdainfully; finally she threw Aga one of her coats, “What kind of a jacket do you have? Take this!” Aga was extremely grateful.
In Manchuria, aboard a new train, they explained to the Chinese conductor they had no tickets. The conductor instructed them to wait in the bathroom when he collected tickets; they could come out later. Later, the conductor brought them a mandarin orange—for a long time, they hadn’t eaten. When Aga retold this, tears would come, the orange they split, his kindness, meant so much.
When they got off the train in Manchuria, Chinese tailors greeted the Russian passengers, telling them they would be unable to find jobs in their ragged clothes. They would tailor a clean suit and upon finding a job, pay then. Some Russians returned to pay, some didn’t.
I am now not so surprised at the power of Leonard’s personality: before I hadn’t connected his fierceness and strength to Aga’s. In her Harbin pictures, her expression never changes: a stern, guarded stare. Leonard’s, even as a young boy, is very similar (though in this photograph it’s hard to tell). In coming to America, Aga allowed herself to become jolly, roughhousing with her grandsons and emanating Leonard’s vivaciousness.
Aga's father
Aga’s father, my great-great-grandfather, is spectacular. He is a direct image of Leonard’s tartar side, a tough, fiery-faced, forthright Russian. Aga’s brothers, Peter and Anatole, bear a strong resemblance to Leonard as well, though more delicate—as Leonard was as a young man.
Now that, in my own mind, I have connected Leonard’s roots, I feel somehow relieved—that he was not alone in his ways; that he did not stick out awkwardly as one whose inherited traits are given rare emphasis, and whose traits are muted in his sons and descending family. It was a subtle and reasonable incline of intensity, transferred from one generation to the next, blending with and sharing traits from another side and another kind of person. Leonard is not alone, to be washed out after life.
Verbally recounting her stories, it seemed as though Aga—Leonard’s mother and my great-grandmother—was once again in the midst of dramatic wartime scenes and the emotions 70 years ago were still as keen in her mind.
Aga’s husband, Kuka (Victor), was an aide to Admiral Kolchak, head of the White forces in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. Kuka was stationed in Omsk where he regularly dropped by Aga’s house, on the grounds of visiting her brother. Of course, like many other young men, it was not Aga’s brother he wished to see. Aga was dismissive at first,
uninterested in hair “too curly!” However, Aga’s mother was fond of Kuka and allowed him to rent a room in their house. Over time Aga “became used to him” and they were married. At 16 she was pregnant, harboring Leonard in her womb.
Aga and Kuka
Soon, as the Whites retreated from the approaching Reds, it was time for Aga’s family to flee. When their train approached Irkutsk she was told that Kolchak’s train was stranded in its station—Kuka aboard.
The scene was chaos: the Czechs, held as prisoners of war during WWI, held the city; they were stuck in Russia. Their single objective (a difficult one as opposing forces lay as barriers in the west) was to make their way eastward to Vladivostok. They were willing to side with Red or White if it presented advantage. Here, in Irkutsk, they were a third army.
Kolchak’s train was in the control of the Czechs—who were about to turn it over to the Reds . . . who would kill Kolchak and his officers. On hearing this, Aga left her family in search of a way to help her husband. I imagine that was an extremely difficult split: no family would want their 16 year-old daughter wandering a war-scene (on a futile task) . . . just as no family would be strong enough to restrain the stubbornness and passion and desperation in a girl like Aga.
Kuka is at left (in black hat), saluting. Kolchak is at center, facing camera.
Have you ever started having entire conversations with people just to realize the person was having a conversation with somebody else on their Bluetooth?
Do you remember when you were in middle school or elementary when you begged your parents for a cell phone? Or when it got to the point that everywhere you turned or everyone you would try to converse with in reality would be lost in another unknown cyber dimension?
Well if you don’t know what I am talking about you are probably already addicted, adapted, or just very secluded but the truth is we ALL are addicted and adapted. It’s a shame but it’s the truth and I’m still trying to wonder how I become one of them.
Truth is, I dreaded the thought of getting a cell phone, and I even begged my dad not to get me one. Even in late elementary all my friends were getting them or begging their parents for one. It seemed so strange…. telephones are for my mom who is a lawyer, or for the house. Why would I, just being a 10-year-old little girl need one? My parents gave me many reasons which seemed like more and more bull when I think about it but back then they weren’t even too sure why I “needed” one.
But it had something to do with “keeping track” of me. I even said “Well then why don’t you just stick a tracking device in my head.”
My mom actually ended up sticking one in our dog instead.
Anyway I remember I walked or biked home one day after school like I usually did, like I had been doing all my life and said hello to my dad and there in the middle of the living room was a big cingular box.
“Oh no dad you shouldn’t have, REALLY.”
“No baby! It was my treat; really I want you to be safe! You’re always walking around by yourself all the time I just want to know where you are.”
“Ehhh…thank you I guess but I really don’t want to use it that much…”
“Of course just when you go out, so I can know where you are.”
On October 13, 2009 my grandfather Shevakh (also known as the husband of Chaya’s daughter) turned 80. In order to celebrate this important milestone and prove that he can beat senility, I decided to purchase him a personal computer. The talk of getting my grandparents a computer has been going on for years but every single time I would bring it up, they would say that the new form of technology would be too complicated and difficult to master. I, on the other hand, was convinced otherwise.
Raya and Shevakh in their 20s
I knew how talented they were and I was sure that they could master anything, with the proper ingredients that is. After two weeks of researching, without their consent, I purchased an All-in-one personal computer, three learning books, videos-all in Russian, and an internet connection. Now they had no excuse but to tackle their fears. If only they knew what I had up my sleeve…
For days, I have been pondering on ways to break it to my grandparents of my surprise. I have decided to approach it from an authoritative standpoint: I told them that their their computer would be arriving in two days and there is nothing they could do about it. My grandpa was thrilled! Even though it has been greeted with resentment initially, my grandparents invited this now common piece of technology into their household, with open arms.
Remember, it is one thing having a computer and completely another know how to use it properly. What seems completely natural and easy for us(everyday addicts) is foreign for them as I had to explain the essential double clicking of a mouse on a folder.
Dedushka vs. the Technology
This has been such a rewarding experience. I visit them once every week (I wish I could do it more often); my grandpa fascinates me with how far he has gotten. So far it has been 2 months and he is advancing at an alarming speed. He can comfortably navigate around the computer, go online, watch movies, play games, check email, and most importantly- video chat with his friends and relatives in Israel.
Creasing the edges carefully I put the papers into envelopes.
Lick each one, take my mother’s address book and search the pages for their contacts.
I write out each address with care.
I select and place my stamps, will I have the trust to drop them in the mailbox?
There can be so much value in simple ink on paper.
It is like letting fate take over, the unfolding of the future of this project cast to the winds of the US postal system.
When I send letters to friends in far off places I try each time to put a bit of myself within those fat looping words I scribble. I include little maps of time having passed and think that the papers which my fingers that have grown familiar with will become their familiars as well.
My mother’s mother had a silver letter opener. Sharp and capable, producing that quick ripping of envelope bits apart. So efficient it was.
My father’s father wrote letters. Brisk scratching on the backs of old receipts. So efficient it was.
I must go perform my tasks, get those letters off, sealed with courage and with love.
Two weeks ago, I was introduced to a new element to my story I had not considered. I always knew my Grandfather was a gambler and he was in Gambler’s Anonymous (GA) for years, but that is all I knew. When I was home recently for Thanksgiving, ironically right around the time a year after my Grandfather’s death, my mother asked me if I had ever heard his GA speech. No, I hadn’t, I didn’t even know it existed.
My mom popped the tape in the car radio and his thundering voice echoed in my ear drums. For the next sixteen minutes, I laughed, cried, and remembered him. In his speech, he talked about how he married my Grandmother, how he wasn’t ready to be a father, and how gambling took over and destroyed his “treasures.” He finished with how he’d changed and how he finally become “a part of the map of life.”
I was in a silent shock when the tape ended. I didn’t even know what to think. All these years I knew him, flew out to see him, and him to me, I never knew just how much turmoil and tragedy he went through. I felt left in the dark, like he should have told me about this. It was from this speech that the words from my Bar Mitzvah blessing came. I always wondered why he chose those words and I am hearing them on a tape, after his death, the reason.
All I wanted to do was call him on the phone and have a lengthy conversation on everything he said, but I couldn’t.
Aunt Nicole and my Grandfather a few years ago
At one point in his speech, he said that when my Aunt Nicole was 28 years old, she went to a GA meeting with my Grandfather and there she sat with tears “welding in her eyes”, “Father I never recall you saying ‘I love you’.” I couldn’t believe that was true. How on earth does a parent never tell their child that they love them? For 28 years…
My parents tell me they love me almost everyday. Being reminded that I am loved is something I take for granted but it’s like a battery that I’m unaware of, it keeps me going. Hearing that they love me keeps me sane. It prevents me from losing control because it’s easy to feel out of control when there’s no love to balance out the difficulties of life.
My Grandfather’s difficulties with gambling caused the almost sure destruction of his family. Somehow he realized that needed to change and he made those changes.
Now, I will use his speech to guide me to help uncover more about who he was, bringing me that much closer to feeling connected to my Grandfather.
I’m going to diverge from Susi’s stories for a moment—or maybe for a few posts. . . .
My grandfather Leonard always complained about his mother, that she would force him to eat raw, ground liver every morning before school. He was quite harsh with her, one day identifying himself on the phone (after hearing, “Who’s this!”) as Anatole, her long-dead brother. He’d joke that upon her death the family would happily throw a celebration. And Aga (his mother) would complain what an impossible son he was. They were both fierce people. Their large personalities were to each of them exasperating and clashed in a small space.
In spite of that, when Aga died, Leonard wasn’t himself for a year: he was in deep mourning, forgetful and aloof and unresponsive. They were only 17 years apart—they could have been siblings. In that way they were extremely close, fighting like siblings; by appearance they might have grown up together. Aga became pregnant after she married at 16: Along for the bumpy ride fleeing across Siberia was Leonard, a giant lump in Aga’s fearful body. It was a traumatizing time for Aga (the story of which I’ll go into in my next post), undoubtedly affecting the baby inside her.
Nothing major has happened in this past couple of weeks, so I have nothing interesting to post on the blog this week. I’m currently solidifying what equipment I’ll be using to record the interviews, and scheduling said interviews with my family members. Unfortunately, my great-uncle passed last friday, so I’ll be unable to include him in my project.
My current plan is to record a speech given at Solomon Lowenstein’s funeral once I get my equipment. If anyone has any suggestions for blogs between then and now, please let me know.
I just wanted to add something before you read this post: Because for this assignment I’m thinking of a bunch of negative things, I can see why I might come across as harboring a bunch of negative feelings. So just a reminder, this is supposed to be glass-half-empty (nostalgic), but the next post will be more positive.
Ten of my Most Vivid Memories of Childhood (not in order)
1. Looking for crabs in the sand with my cousins in Laguna Beach during the summertime.
2. Watching the same Charlie Brown and Disney movies with my dad over and over.
3. Walking with my mom to the Safeway on Shattuck when we lived in our apartment near the JCC. I remember balancing on the raised parking lot barrier area and looking down at the fallen ginko leaves and noticing that they were the same yellow color as the paint in the parking lot.
4. Getting put on a time-out in fourth grade with four of my good friends. We were all seated in separate areas so that we couldn’t face each other. Although each of us sat by ourselves, I felt united with them. We were all victimized by the same oppressor, Mrs. R (the principal).
5. Drawing giant chalk Pokemon characters with my mom’s help on the cement outside of our El Cerrito house.
6. Waking up one night and staring at a floating semi-transparent mass that was hovering near the doorway, getting smaller and larger. I was terrified and woke my mom up, who was sleeping beside me (my dad slept in another room because they were in the process of splitting up). I was convinced I had seen a ghost.
7. My dad carrying me to his room on the nights I stayed with him (my mom slept in the main part of our Berkeley house, while my dad slept in the basement). I remember eating “Basement Crackers” (Wheat Thins) while listening to the Beatles on my dad’s walkman before falling asleep.
8. Going with my mom to her work. I sat in her undergraduate English classes and drew pictures, excited at being surrounded by a bunch of people who weren’t old enough to be boring grown-ups. I remember glancing at my mom’s students when they weren’t looking, and when they finally looked over and met my gaze, I quickly moved my eyes to someone else.
9. Going to Beatnik’s Bagels with my dad when we lived in Boulder, Colorado. I remember looking at the parrot on the Odwalla fridge while my dad ordered. Beatnik’s had hourglasses at the counter. They did not have sand, but had a more lava-lamp-like goop. I remember turning these hour glasses over and over again, watching the lava-lamp-like liquid seep to the bottom.
10. When my mom picked me up from my friend’s house and told me she had a surprise for me. I looked inside the car and saw a clear plastic bag with a red betta fish. I held it in my hands the entire ride home, thrilled to have a new pet to look at.
Ten Reasons Why I Wish I Could be Little Again (not in order)
1. Homework. I get home from school, and work until the wee hours of the morning. Often I am the last one to go to sleep at both houses, which feels lonely.
2. The Internet. I procrastinate at least an hour every day on Facebook and various websites like YouTube. But being online isn’t satisfying or relaxing for me; I feel cut off from the rest of the world and feel guilty for wasting hours I won’t be able to get back.
3. The dynamic of my relationship with my parents. I feel more distanced from my parents and less able to communicate with them now that I am getting ready to leave for college.
4. College applications. Those two words speak for themselves.
5. I don’t like thinking that my family is getting older. It depresses me that my parents are approaching fifty and that my youngest cousin will be seven. I remember when my cousins were babies, and now some of them are getting ready to go to middle school. Their increasing loss of innocence is noticeable every time I visit them, and it becomes harder and harder to live vicariously through their childhood.
6. Having to live in two separate houses – I never get to be with both parents at once.
7. I am more cynical now that I am seventeen. When I was little my way of thinking was less critical and more blissful in its oblivion and ignorance.
8. My relationship with time: I rarely live in the moment. I am constantly in anticipation of something in the future, perpetually counting down to some goal (right now most of my goals concern college admissions). I either mull over the past or obsess about the future.
9. My relatives living in other states. When I was younger, most of my aunts and uncles lived near or with me, and I miss being able to see them on a regular basis.
10. Not being able to take anything for granted anymore.
(In the future I will add two more “Ten” lists: One with specifically negative memories of childhood, and one about why I’m glad that I’m older).
Maybe you’ve heard the word. Or even wrote your master’s thesis about it. Although both are unlikely, allow me to invite you to a Yiddish based series of thoughts, comedic shorts, and interviews.
I am beginning to evolve into more interview based filming for my project and subsequent blogs, and have therefore decided to post potential interview questions to this blog in hopes of any form of response, critique or praise. Please comment/add more!
QUESTIONS:
-Can you tell me where you lived when you were in San Francisco?
-How long did you live in each place/how long have you/did you live in San Francisco in total?
-Do you have any favorite things about where you lived?
-What is some of your fondest memories of San Francisco?
-What are some other San Francisco streets that you have memories about, good or bad?
-What do you most distinctly remember?
-What do you miss the most?
-Do you have any photographs from your time in San Francisco?
Chaya and Yosef remained in Novograd Volinskiy, known at that time as Zvyagel. They lived a noble life: built their own house (which was later destroyed in WWII), had three children, and loved to help the less fortunate..they were not that far off from that themselves.
Chaya never questioned her decision to remain in Novograd even though she had lost contact with her brothers.
Zvyagel (currently known as Novograd Volinskiy)
The next three generations, including myself, were born in Novograd as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to meet my beloved great grandparents, as Chaya died (to the day) a year before I was born and Yosef passed away 15 years before that. Chaya’s only son, Naum, immigrated to San Francisco in 1992, at the age of 65, through the efforts of his wife’s relatives. He immediately started to search for his lost uncles and relatives. After many long years of posting ads in various newspapers all over the country, Ruvelle, a daughter of one of the brothers, stumbled upon an ad and contacted him.
I heard that this reunion was featured in newspapers and on TV, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any of these reports.
On Jewish holidays, my grandmother and Ruvalle call each other and only speak in Yiddish, as my grandmother doesn’t understand English and Ruvalle is not familiar with Russian. It is absolutely remarkable that a dying language is able to bind the two cousins, once separated for 90 years by thousands of miles and an Atlantic Ocean. What was once known as foreign land became the country of endless possibilities.
My father just discovered a series of stories written by Susi, my grandmother. The first, the shortest, was written in the point of view of my grandfather Leonard. Her depiction of him is sweet, one of tenderness. In it he is guilty of flaws as everyone is, and through that he is unguarded and accessible. She includes her own complaints towards Leonard, but when a complaint comes from another direction she stands by him loyally. It is wonderful to come across her stories—a window through which one is able to understand, little though the window is. This story displays the strength of their love—expressed without obvious sentiments but with an unquestionable interdependence. They were a pair, co-existing.
Here is a bit of the story:
“We had heard the key turn in the lock while we lay cozily in bed, having fed the baby his early bottle and put him back to sleep. I padded barefoot to the living room to find my father-in-law staring hot-eyed at three empty bottles on the floor in the corner and various unwashed glasses left from last night’s party and then, even more pointedly, at my stubbled chin and rumpled pajamas. He beckoned to his wife and they both left without a word.
The words apparently were saved for Monday morning. True, I have but a second hand and rather piecemeal account from my wife, but I can reconstruct the scene with deadly accuracy.”
I visited my elementary school with my dad today. Surprisingly, I hadn’t set foot at Marin School in years. Normally, I see my old school through the glaze of the car window, but don’t really look at it. Today, though, I decided to see what it would feel like to physically revisit my childhood.
We get out of the car and walk up the wheelchair ramp to the front of the school. It’s a Sunday, so we’re the only people here, save for a little boy on a tricycle with his mother and grandmother. I’m nervous, maybe because I’m anticipating an old teacher to walk out of her classroom, recognize me, and think of me as pathetic for coming back to this place.
We approach the front office’s awning. The ground is the same; dark cement, not quite smooth. Chalk Art Day was yesterday, so colorful rectangles filled with sharks and pumpkins line the classroom walls. I stop and look down at a Raggedy Ann doll, its strokes too contained to have been drawn by a child. I put my face up to the office window and remember standing here twelve years ago. In first grade, the office was a place to go when you had a fever or a stomach-ache. I remember the comfort of spending an hour with the nice older ladies who talked slower than normal people and enunciated every word in lilting voices, like the telephone operator.
We walk toward my old kindergarten room. It looks the same, except now it’s a second and third grade classroom taught by my fourth grade teacher. The chairs are the same tiny size, the whiteboards most likely the same ones my teacher used to teach us spelling on. I wonder how many times they’ve been erased since we wrote our names on them.
When we look toward the courtyard, I remember having lunch with my best friend, Alia. We sat where I stand today, and with the same eyes I am using now, I once watched the third graders in the adjacent classroom with curiosity, amazed at how old they were. “I can’t wait ‘til we can buy lunch like the big kids,” I once told Alia.
“Yeah,” she would answer longingly, gazing at the plates of spaghetti while lethargically eating the yogurt her mother packed her every day.
My dad and I walk toward the cafeteria and look through the windows at the lunch tables. I remember that in fourth grade, I took advantage of my pre-paid lunch ticket. I often waited in line for seconds, immensely satisfied as the withered lunch lady scooped clumps of rice onto our trays. I used to take globs of rice and squeeze them in my hands so that each grain lost its individuality and oil rolled down my palms.
I take my glance away from the cafeteria and look at my dad. Aside from his shorter haircut, he doesn’t look much different than he looked twelve years ago. I, on the other hand, have changed from the five year old I once was, both physically and psychologically; a few years added to the life of a younger person comprises a much greater percentage to the ratio of years already lived.
I continue looking through the tinted window outside of the cafeteria. I’m sure my dad understands that I’m thinking about something, so he doesn’t say anything and instead walks a few paces over to the library. I remain still, and move my hand up and down, like a fan. I watch as my hand blurs into a trail of fingers. Then I imagine myself at different ages. I see a five-year-old clutching a Beanie Baby, and a first grader ripping an earthworm apart on the playground. An eight-year-old sits in the lunchroom under a large dome, craning her eyes upward to see projected constellations turning slowly and mutating against the tarp’s wrinkles. A fifth grader walks past me, more confident and resolute than the girl trailing behind her, the latter worried about her parents’ tardiness in picking her up and other things out of her control.
Then I imagine myself as separated into layers, each comprised of a different age and stage of life, like a Russian doll. On the outside I am seventeen, but if I look down I see a pair of tiny sneakers inside of my Converse low-tops. The ground I stand on now has been stood upon by these sneakers, worn by a girl who smiles in a class photograph kept inside a box somewhere. I can see her in my dad’s home videos. I use the pronoun “her” because when I watch these videos and see a toddler-version of me giggle or whine or sing, I am not sure if this person is dead or if I should view her as alive in myself now, part of what makes up my perspective.
As the children fade from the courtyard, I tell my dad I am ready to go home. When we drive away, Marin seems less immediate and less concrete, more quaint and picturesque with distance. Right before we turn, I see a child running up the stairs. I imagine her as Alia, and see myself running after her. And as my dad and I turn onto Solano toward home, I try and imagine the children before me who have climbed those steps. I wonder how many of them were the adults who hurried to work and stopped for a second to watch us play. Even as a child, I knew these grown-ups did not see us as we saw ourselves, but I felt too detached from their lives, lives governed by a clock that ticked faster than our own, to wonder what they saw. Now I know they weren’t looking at us just because they thought we were cute or charming. They looked for more selfish reasons, not seeing us as particular people but more symbolically. To them, we were shades of a different time, and depending on the person, possibly tinged with nostalgia or resentment or contentment. And today, I cannot reclaim myself from an old videotape any more than these adults claimed our silhouettes as holograms of themselves, projections of their own memories.
2. What attitude did your parents have towards religion?
3. What was your stance on religion when raising children? Did you tend to lean either way?
4. What is your stance on religion nowadays?
5.[Pato(My grandfather)] Do you have any memories of Solomon Lowenstein?
6.(All besides Pato) What do you know about Solomon Lowenstein?
7. Did your parents ever talk to you about Solomon Lowenstein?
(Note that these are rough drafts, the first things that I have written. Jeremiah gave me some tips, but if anyone could help me in phrasing questions to provide useable material feel free to contact me)
Do you ever wonder why the world is the way it is?
Why some people have it off so good with mansions and Ferraris?
Why others are left to rot away next to gutters with feeling nothing except anger neglect and shame?
Walking through the streets of any town or city with my dad (San Francisco especially), we make sure that any homeless person throwing themselves out there for judgment, criticism, and rejection get a little of our time, money and respect. A specific example of the passion to start doing good deeds (mitzvahs) started at Jack in the Box. My dad and I went through drive through, (be aware this was totally random, I usually never eat any fast food especially Jack in the Box and especially with my dad), but today was a morning before Hebrew school and he wanted to cheer me up. We decided to live on the edge and buy some delicious “Waffle Dippers.”Big mistake…. we ate half of one and we were finished. We laughed about what a bad idea that was as we stopped at a red light. A homeless man was standing right outside the car and we were frantically searching for money and my dad ended up taking out a couple dollar bills and throwing them in this bag of still warm breakfast and giving it to the man. I will never forget the look on his face. Astonishment, shock, joy, appreciation. Our small amount of food (that would have been garbage) and our small amount of change (that would have gone to a parking lot meter) changed this mans emotions or maybe his day or maybe even his week. From then on I truly decided that the simple things were what really mattered to me. If I couldn’t fix everyone’s problems I might as well start with one homeless man at a time and it was completely worth it for the little amount of effort I needed to put in and for the refreshing satisfaction if gave me each time after that.
Do you wonder why or how so many people everyday are able walk by these poor people, these sad misunderstood human beings who work up everything they’ve got every day no matter what tragic state they are in to ask us to spare an insignificant amount of money or food that is meaningless to us, basically our GARBAGE just to have their dignity slammed right back in their faces while hundreds of people run by without even a glance?
Can people not even bear to look a homeless man straight in the eyes because of the overwhelming amount of guilt lingering before them?
Or are the homeless just not even worthy of their presence, or worthy of their eye contact?
These are the questions I think to myself everyday as I pass hundreds of people completely oblivious to those around them every day. It makes me sick.
This boiling rage that I have growing inside me and keeping me aware of these small selfish acts people are committing all the time is the same inner rage that my uncle Andy had.
Out of all the stories of Andy that my dad has told to me throughout the years one story stuck out to me in particularly because I was now beginning to sense the blood relation between us and started to get a grasp on the kind of man he was.
This story started out at Berkeley College. Andy loved Berkley, and as many know Berkeley is also well known for having an amount of homeless people on the streets. Being the kind of person Andy was, he developed a relationship with one homeless man in particular. Every day as he would head to and from his dorm he would give this particular man all the spare money he had on him at the time. They would have some conversation here and there and after a while became quite genuine acquaintances. One day Andy invited him up to his dorm. He let him stay in his dorm for a while; he clothed him, fed him, and listened to him. He was able to learn all about where this man came from and how he ended up the way he did. This certain story was extremely touching to me, Andy taking the small acts I try to do every day one step further.
Andy (far right) and friends graduating Berkley
I reflected upon this with my dad and listened to his outlook on his compassionate brother. “He wasn’t afraid to befriend people who were different and people who were not necessarily even on par with him. He rarely looked down on people and when he died some of the people who were most upset at his funeral were the people who have had the most tragedies in their lives and recounted Andy as someone who would help them through it.”
This story inspired to take the extra step. Going through San Francisco not only do I make sure to give them my spare change, but my spare time as well. My great grandma Rose used to say “Listening is the greatest gift you can give a person.” So I’ve made it my mission so spare some time, some change, and some listening in homage to Andy and because all the little things really do count.
Man from Memphis, Tennessee standing on the corner of 6th street by the "Jesus Cares" church waiting for the new preacher to arrive.
The summer I was eight years old my dad and I drove across the country. It was a journey of epic proportions. For the first time in my life I had my pops all to myself, and with miles of open road flying past the window we were comfortable in our mustard yellow Thunderbird, singing along to the Beach Boys and eating French fries as it pleased us. When we made our way east to South Dakota I remember marveling at Mitchell’s claim to fame, the corn palace. The time we spent in my dad’s hometown was short and in truth superimposed with some fuzziness. I wish I could say I remember every second of it- but indeed my memories are limited to just a few sharp moments. To the dark and somewhat damp safety of the family fabric store- being told I could have my pick of the many pieces of lace fabric that would serve as my much needed dress up clothes for the rest of the journey, to sitting in the hot tub of the hotel feeling the bubbly contrast of cold soda as it slid down my throat, and to peering shyly at my Uncle Simon as the two brothers spoke behind mostly closed doors and I waited in the living room of their childhood home, not knowing the worth of that space, not knowing all that those walls had witnessed. Already I have begun to fill in some of the gaps between those memories. Call it a vivid imagination, but I have always had a talent for creating memories based on photos or stories told to me- I can’t resist this human instinct to make my narrative more fluid.
Like the Rabbi involved with the interpretation the Torah, I have begun to take a closer look at what I “know” (or think I know), what I don’t know, and I have been creating my own Midrash, an interpretation, in the hopes of transforming this fuzziness into meaning. Perhaps because Jews are the “people of the book” time and time again we look to our history as a people (recorded, oral, imagined) so that we might learn about how to live in our contemporary world. In following this precedent I want to look at our more recent family history to help me to find my own way. “Le’Dor va Dor” (from “Generation to generation”) is a reoccurring theme in Jewish practice. We are constantly looking from where we came, seeking out what is to be learned from our past, and telling and re-telling our stories.
As I am growing older, 23 and out of college, having seen more of the world than ever before, even having a bit of history myself, I have grown to value the family history that I have been told. However, I find myself wishing that I had asked more questions, paid more careful attention when those stories were being told to me. I feel like I want to know where I came from. I’m wondering what experiences are unique to our family? How has that difference helped to make us, and then me who I am?
For a long time I have been thinking about our family. I have been wondering about Sam and Edith, our grandparents/parents and about the realities of what it was like for all of our parents to grow up in Mitchell, South Dakota. Our family has many stories. Perhaps you have been at a family gathering and have heard some brothers reminiscing about that time they had to walk up hill in the snow both ways to get to school and back, how in the summertime the boys used to all sleep out on the porch or that winter my pops was dared to stick his tongue to a telephone poll and ending up getting stuck- having to pour hot water on his tongue before ripping it off. There are also stories of Sam’s trip to the US, of what he did upon arriving in San Francisco and how he made his way to South Dakota. Then there is the story I’ve only heard more recently of Edith’s father, and how he homesteaded by Chamberlain on the Missouri river then traveled to Sioux City, Iowa to meet up with wife and family there.
For as long as I can remember I have had these stories in my head and they serve as clues as to who my ancestors were, where they came from and ultimately, who I am. These clues are the shards of identity that form who I am…the grandchild of Russian immigrants, the daughter of a first generation South Dakotan, a Jew. However it is not enough, I feel incomplete…There is so much that I don’t know and I am asking you to please help me find out where I came from so that I can move into my future with a more solid sense of who I am.
It is important to me to ask questions now. I know that each of you has your own memories and thoughts. I feel the need now to find out about our shared past. I am afraid that if I don’t ask questions now I will loose my chance and everything will fade away.
What I want you to understand is that each of you has something to contribute to my endeavor, whether it is through memories, thoughts, or stories passed down from your parents. I want to hear it all, to immerse myself in it…even the most mundane details delight me!
With this email I want to reach out to you and let you know of my desire for connection with you and with our rich family history.
Please let me know what you think about all of this. How would you feel about sharing more with me about your and about our pasts? I would love to talk to you about all of this and if nothing comes out of this but us getting to know each other better then, Dayenu (that would be enough)!
In July 2010, we will be rolling out a multi-media exhibition about lost people, lost places, and the quest to reclaim lost memory. In preparation for this exhibit, we've invited 16 young Jews, ages 15 to 25, to blog.
Susi (my grandmother) kept extensive journals from a young age, writing in German. My father compares her journals to mine except she wrote about her ideas rather than feelings. As they transitioned to English, it is interesting to see how her language progressed: her essays were covered in a teacher’s correctional red ink, though underneath this ink (intended to point out grammatical errors), her own words were lyrical and expressive. A year later, in her wartime narrative of the political situation, her language was almost text-bookish.
He often talks of his “Cowboys and Indians” days….
wooden house that distinctly smelt of musky cedar and books. I remember chocolate-covered coffee beans (always saved for my cousin and me in large glass jars that required effort to open). Her house has since been sold and demolished, and I spurn to visit the bare site of where it stood.
“Uncle Paul” — known then to Susi as her parents’ close friend — had come home from the war. A prisoner of war, Paul had wandered free when the revolution pulled Russia from the war. He was deeply in love with Mitzi Stiassni, Susi’s mother. But because he was not Jewish and because he was a soldier, an officer, he was not considered a suitable match. After traveling by foot a thousand miles, selling his gold dental work to return to his halted life, he found Mitzi married. Nevertheless, they resumed their romance and continued it many years into Susi’s childhood, leaving her factually ignorant until she discovered it in her 60’s….
