Oh, be amazed…
These are the days of miracle and wonder, according to Paul Simons lyrics. And so it was, with those words ringing in my head, that a random January day last year found me completely mute…
There once lived a hunter
At lunchtime today, a certain columnist for The Hoot, who has been away for the weekend, learns that his hero, Steve Irwin, known the world over as the Crocodile Hunter, is dead. Dear readers, this is a shameless eulogy. No apologies are forthcoming.
Deep is the gulf
Imagine, if you will, a city below sea-level. Every minute, every day, on the nearby Gulf of Mexico, waves roll and break above your head. Now picture a narrow portage of sunken land between Pontchartrain and the continents mightiest river, the Mississippi. Imagine this is your home.
When surrounded by water, you had best look to God. And learn to laugh at death.
Hope from America: A letter to Papa in the old country
New Haven: 18 April, 1943
Dear Papa,
Sholem alechem! I miss you much and hope this letter should find you safe and well. Please pardon my Yiddish;
it has grown a bit rusty in America. We finally got our orders this morning, so I am writing to you aboard a troop train bound for New London;
we ship out tomorrow to the European front…
In the forest of our Creator
Imagine a nice Jewish boy finishing his second year at Brandeis University. Since starting here, hes become connected as never before with his people and his roots;
now he studies Yiddish and attends Shabbes dinners on Fridays because he wants to. So this same student sings in the Gospel choir at Protestant services, praying in Jesus name with the rest. Friends, its time for a story which I must tell in my own way. Gather round
Watching the dung-beetles: NotesfromastudentssemesterinAfrica
In the dead of night, compound guards were knocking at the door. Pardon us for waking you, Miss;
we thought you might like to see the aardvark weve spotted outside
Mau ke aloha no Hawai`i (LovealwaysforHawai`i)
It was one of those rare cultural treats on a Thursday night;
not the kind packaged as an evening in paradise, as it often is for the tourist set. I think its sponsors, BAASA and the ICC, have every reason to be proud of last weeks Hawaiian lu`au, part of the ongoing Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month festivities. There was something about it that attracted the passerby with an island-style welcome: E komo mai! Come on in
In the season of the peeper and the crocus
There comes an indescribable sense of liberation when Winters grip finally breaks;
a feeling of freedom that perhaps only people in cold climates can appreciate. The first hint of this great deliverance is some hearty chestful of outdoor air breathed in at just the right moment: A rush of earth, moss, decaying leaves, fungi, and dew, mixed in perfect proportion and aged. Yes, thats it! Its coming…
Kaselehlia! – A journey to the Pacific
Friends, let me tell you about the weirdest trip I ever took. It was two-thousand miles past Hawaii to the island of Ponape, a two-day flight over the turquoise side of our planet. For long crossings, no body of water even remotely compares to the Pacific Ocean. I took Continental Airlines island-hopper shuttle between Hawaii and Guam, a six-stop bus-ride across the sea. People from the countless islands fly on it…
Sunday night in Terminal B
Once the planets eighth-busiest airport, formerly boasting the worlds highest control-tower, Bostons Logan International sits just a few miles from Lynn, Massachusetts, where General Electric invented the jet engine. But on this winter evening all the counters were closed, the ticket-agents long gone, the arrivals area all but deserted. Perhaps, were it at JFK or OHare, the American Airlines terminal might have been busier at this hour, as would befit a place with a history so marked by world records and ingenuity…
A Brandeis homecoming
Friends, this week let me tell you a little about my life. This is really a story about us all, and the wonder of that circle when it finally closes
Before this dance is through
Theres something indescribable about the movement of dance. Watching someone who finds dance natural, the sublime, easy coordination is visual magic to the beholder. God knows how it must feel to the dancer;
she couldnt imagine, as dancing never felt natural to her. Still, she longed to know that sensation of effortless movement, and the certainty that any random man would ask her to dance the moment she found herself unaccompanied. Imagine
The color of twilight
She has always been Grandma to me, even though my dads real mother, Martha, died before I was born. Long before my grandfather married either one, just as he was to go off to college, life intervened. The Great Depression forced him to leave New York for California to help his uncle in his shoe store. Things used to be like that, Im told. But while in Los Angeles, he met my biological grandmother, and thats why youre reading this…
Qimmeq and the cafeteria caper
Fall semester: Seems like only yesterday. Fear. Dysentery. Midterms. And none of us will ever forget the events of 12/11, the day that changed Brandeis forever
Thus began a quest by some brave students, with the help of my faithful dog, Qimmeq, to solve the Mystery of the Cafeteria Caper.
E pur si muove: Themanwhosawthroughthedarkness
First Light: It is the moment when a new telescopes lens is first exposed to the light of the heavens. Light, made of photons, particles that have no size, travels through space fast enough to travel in a second seven times around the world. It could reach the moon in under two seconds. The time it would take to reach us from Jupiter: Forty-five minutes. Thus, long ago, did photons travel from there to the eyes of a man in Italy, through a small tube he had fashioned and now held in his hands, gazing at the sky
What stories they will tell
It was my privilege this semester to go with my Yiddish class to the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. Not a bad destination for my first Brandeis field-trip. Its hard to describe: Bookstore, lecture-hall, cinema, museum, library, bindery, and research center. And youll hear young people speaking Yiddish there;
you should go.
Stranger still is its location. My mind and heart expect anything Yiddish to be somewhere in orbit around New York or Eastern Europenot rural Amherst, Massachusetts. Yet there it sits on a nondescript rural plot: A modern, unpainted wood building with a peaked roof, vaguely resembling a European shtetl. Its appearance is understated, sincere, definitely quirky, confident in purpose. Hey, thats us!
Beanie Baby
Authors Note: This is a true story;
only the names have been changed. It is not meant to express an opinion;
merely to present a glimpse into a human life.
My name is Mnica. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I hardly know myself. Ive been through so much in my 19 years and Im still a rebel. Ive been in trouble with my mom, school, and the law;
maybe, God willing, I can now leave it behind me…
A letter to Yalile in the year 2015
My Little Girl,
Even as I write this letter, youve not yet been born, nor am I certain that you ever will be. But no matter;
as I merely wish, if indeed this letter finds you in this world, that it should find you well and happy. Hopefully I will be there at your side, your father: To protect and take good care of you;
to calm and soothe you when you are distressed;
and to somehow show you all that I have found in the beauty of the life that surrounds us…
Grandpas picture
In Mr. Arnolds kindergarten art class we created pictures one day with a new technique. We drew in crayon, then painted over it in solid color. The paint covered the bare spots but ran off the crayons marks so the drawing showed through — a beautiful effect. I painted a house with an evergreen tree and clouds, in a childs typical style, and chose a deep, bright blue to cover it. I liked my picture. My mom did too. She often displayed my schoolwork on the kitchen icebox. Not this one…
A cantar de nuevo
Where is the point of contact? In what universe does Panama share a border with Jamaica? Where can you find the confluence of currents and the crossroads of journeys, where the conga and timbales flirt with the verse of Frost and Longfellow? Does there exist a doorway that can teleport us from Ireland to Cuba?
