Hanukkah  [( khah -nuh-kuh, hah -nuh-kuh)]

[A festival in Judaism that occurs each December. Hanukkah commemorates the victory of the Jews in the second century b.c.  over the Syrians, who had occupied their country, and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem ( hanukkah  is Hebrew for “dedication”). Observers of Hanukkah light one candle in a candleholder called a menorah each night for eight nights in memory of a legend that, when the Temple was rededicated, its lamps burned, without enough oil, miraculously for a week.]*

As a Christian my childhood memories of December  are filled with images of preparation for Christmas.  Trees, lights, stockings, gifts, candy, cookies, popcorn balls.   They are all part of that nostalgic trip I take every December.   But there is a special place in my memories of being a part of the preparation for the Festival of Hanukkah.  My best friend, Si, lived just down the street and his family’s preparation for and observance of Hanukkah was shared with me … just as my family’s preparation for Christmas was shared with Si.  Over the years they became blended, and it’s hard to picture the season without drawing upon both traditions.  I was as awed by the story of the miracle of the temple oil as I was with the story of the miraculous star which stayed above the manger in Bethlehem, pointing the way to the birth of the child, Jesus.  Somehow the stories came from the same source in my mind.  It would never have occurred to me to question one and favor the other.

I learned how to play with the dreidel , the four-sided top bearing the Hebrew letters nun, gimel, he,  and shin,  one on each side, used chiefly in a children’s game traditionally played on the  festival of Hanukkah.  I marveled at the lights of the menorah, the nine-branched candlestick which reminded us of the story  of one day’s worth of oil which burned miraculously for eight days in the Temple, giving light and hope to the besieged Jews.  I sang the Hanukkah carols and ate the special treats associated with the festival.  And when Si’s parents presented him with a gift for each day of Hanukkah, there were gifts for me.

Si helped us decorate our Christmas tree, ate the cookies and popcorn balls with us, and received a “stocking gift” just like the rest of us.  He didn’t attempt the Christmas carols; Si never had a singing voice.

The watering-up of my eyes when I remember those days of my childhood is related, not to one, but two factors:

1. my fond memories of those innocent days in which traditions, beliefs, and theology blended easily
2. my sadness when I think of the anti-Semitism which abounds

Those were days of shalom: peace between two entities (especially between a person and God or between two countries), or to the well-being, welfare or safety of an individual or a group of individuals.

Shalom and Happy Hanukkah!

*The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Photo Credit: Stephane Lehr /Corbis)

Perhaps the most humbling and frightening thing the President of the United States can do is to sign the document declaring war against another country.   It is not an act which creates war, as much as it is an act declaring a state of war to be in effect.   Something has to have precipitated the declaration.*

On this date in 1941 the United States was attacked by the Empire of Japan in the deadly air attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The attack came at the same time that envoys from Japan were in Washington, D.C. negotiating with the government of the United States.  It made the attack all the more dastardly.

It was a matter of one day before the President and Congress overwhelmingly approved the declaration of war against Japan, acknowledging that an undisputed act of aggression against this country required a response.  A state of war existed, and it was to prove to be a deadly, horrific experience that lasted for five years on various fronts around the world.   It was determined to be World War II.

There was no question as to the source of the attack.  Japan carried it out openly and claimed it as a successful act of aggression against this country.    Similar acts in Europe were carried out which called for a military intervention by the Allied Forces who declared acts of war to have been waged which threatened not only European nations but the entire world.

The nation rallied into a war mentality and for the most part there was a unified acceptance of the involvement of this nation in military action against Japan and Germany and the Axis Powers.   That does not mean that there were no objections in this country.   But the predominant mood of the country was support for the troops and for the President and his administration, leading to his unprecedented election for three terms so as to not interrupt his leadership.

It has been more difficult for the United States to garner such support for the two wars in which this country has been involved for the better part of a decade.   The aggressor was not a country, but a terrorist organization which defied national boundaries.   Suspicions and poor intelligence led the U.S. into the War in Iraq and some would say that our involvement in that action was as the aggressor, not the victim.  Afghanistan has been the location where the leadership of the group responsible for the attacks of 9-11-01 were  resident.  It has been a War in Afghanistan, not a war against Afghanistan, although at times it has been difficult to distinguish the two.  When the Al Qaeda moved their leaders to Pakistan, the same ambiguity occurred.

The declaration of war has been a war against terrorists, not a war against a country.   It has not carried the same support and the nation continues to struggle with its authenticity.  This month the withdrawal from Iraq will be complete for the most part, but the war against terrorists continues and is not limited to one specific terrorist group.

As we observe the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor it is important that we spend time considering the nature of war and its meaning for the people of this country.   It is not a glamorous, romantic gesture; to the contrary,  it is a somber and deadly act which jeopardizes human life and, as we have seen, the values previously ascribed to this country.   Today is not a day for parades and celebrations, but a day of solemn contemplation and resolution.

Photo Credit: awesomestories.com

So the point is that today there will be twelve hours of sunlight and twelve hours without the sunlight.  That sounds okay until you begin to do the math.  Since the sunrise today (in Rhode Island) was at 6:34 a.m, it will set just as the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley is coming on!  By the time the Red Sox/Yankee game begins we will be in early darkness!

I had a flashback this morning, remembering walking to the public library one evening (it was just a few blocks from my home) when I was in elementary school.  I was returning a book and picking up another.  I remember being shocked when I walked out of the library and found myself in darkness.  It had been sunny when I went in.   I think it may have been the first time I became aware (in a personal way)  of the changing astronomical factors which lead us from season to season.

It still happens today.  My wife and I will be driving to an early evening event and realize that we have to use headlights.  The autumnal equinox has occurred without our realizing it, and we are on the slippery slope leading to short days and long nights.   I’m really not a fan of those days when the sun is setting at 4:30 in the afternoon.

But the upside of this is that the autumnal equinox also signals the most beautiful season in New England.  Scenes like the one I have chosen for the illustration for today** become prolific and for a few weeks we are bathed in the colors only an artist can imagine.  We lived in the Southwest at one point and I can remember driving with friends to a meeting in a neighboring community.   Suddenly the driver slammed on the brakes and screamed.  I thought maybe we had hit a snake, an armadillo,  or something weird like that. But, instead, she was pointing at a lonely stalk of sumac on the side of the road that had turned red.

“Isn’t that the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” she exclaimed, and all of my Southwestern colleagues chimed in with awe at the beauty of the red weed.  I think I restrained myself, sulking in the recognition that if we were “back home” in New England the entire landscape would be covered with the most beautiful colors imaginable.  Already there is a smattering of color in the trees around Rhode Island.  There is one almost across the street which is always the first to turn, and, sure enough, yesterday we spotted it with its muted oranges and reds. By the weekend it will be ablaze.

The seasons change without asking permission.   If I had a vote, I’d want there to be about six months of autumn.

Photo Credit: crystalinks.com

*Dictionary.com

**What a great excuse to use one of my favorite photos.

It isn’t my brain that is taxed this morning.  It is my heart.   While we have done this nine times now, the anniversary is gut-wrenching.

Photo Credit: Dan Clendinin

When I hear the words patent leather I think of Shirley Temple. No, not the kiddie cocktail, but the child actress.   It seems to me that whenever I saw her in those classic movies she was wearing glossy shoes, typically tap dance shoes.

It is a moment for self-disclosure.  When I was a kid I took tap dancing lessons, and I, too, wore patent leather tap shoes.  They were part of the industry.  If you danced, you wore patent leather dance shoes.  I remember that my dance teacher taught us to clean them regularly using a light coat of Vaseline to keep up the shine.  Sounds strange to me today, but I did it

Photo Credit: chanel

Internecine is a good example of a word that was created to mean one thing, but … through usage … has come to mean another.   Originally (traced to the mid-17th century) the word, emanating from Latin, meant to kill, or to fight to the point of killing. But this is one of those cases where the prefix, inter, was misconstrued to mean within and it began to be used to mean a deadly fight within a group or a country. In today’s use, it is almost exclusively taken to mean a civil war.

Currently, we are experiencing internecine conflict throughout the Middle East in what has come to be characterized as The Arab Spring.  It is a series of sudden explosions of civil unrest in Middle Eastern nations where citizens have tired of domination by exploitative dictators and other forms of unchallenged leadership  and have begun to strike out for greater freedom.   In such nations as Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain,  Syria, and Yemen we have seen internal uprisings, some of which have emerged as true civil war.    Some have been more military than others, but the results have been similar.   There are threats of similar conflicts in Saudi Arabia, and fears on the part of the nation’s leadership in Iran.  These governments have been paying attention to the Arab Spring events and gearing up to prevent outbreaks.

There is one element which seems to be common in each of these uprisings.   Social Media usage has sparked the massive responses of the citizens, gathering them instantaneously and constantly re-charging them with information that previously might not have been available to the ordinary citizen.  Oppressive governments move quickly to suppress the use of such institutions as Facebook and Twitter, but in a number of cases the users are more technologically advanced than the governments and the suppression of information fails.

I thought the photo I have chosen to illustrate today’s posting  was one of the most telling which came to us during the Egyptian demonstrations.  Citizens tapped into the streetlights to find a power source to recharge their cell phones which were some of the most important weapons employed in the successful overthrow of the government. It was clear to them that the passing of information from the source of the incidents was absolutely necessary and could not afford to be interrupted by a lack of electrical power.

It has been common understanding that information was the necessary commodity required to bring about successful social or political change in a region or a country.   The use of Social Media in the current Arab Spring goes far beyond the wildest expectations of students of conflict.   It is clear that social media techniques have been responsible for amazing changes in the world (some positive and some negative.) But in the realm of internecine conflict the change has been a paradigm change.

The energy and enthusiasm of those who are passionate about social or political change is able to be captured instantaneously and made available to supporters (and critics) throughout the world.  Strategic support or intervention is momentary.   On the positive side, the factual information necessary to garner support is available in a timely fashion.

It is fascinating to try to imagine what the world’s previous explosions of change might have looked like had there been the availability of instant, unfiltered information such as we are experiencing in this Arab Spring.

Photo Credit: http://photos.oregonlive.com/photo-essay/2011/02/egypt_uprising_feb_3_2011.html

In an op ed article in the New York Times by A.E. Hotchner which was published on July 2, I discovered a new understanding of the person of Ernest Hemingway.  Hotchner was one of Hemingway’s closest friends and chose to relate the details of the paranoia experienced by the famous author in the days leading up to his suicide.  It turns out that some of that “paranoia” was based upon fact: the FBI was, indeed, following Hemingway and probably bugging his room as he regularly argued to skeptical friends.

In the context of the op ed piece, Hotchner identifies Hemingway as being “Proustian.“   I was curious about that identification and spent several hours pursuing a meaning of that adjective which would make any sense.  Hotchner is describing a collaborative role he played in helping Hemingway eliminate words from a piece for which the famous author had contracted.  It was way over the budgeted number of words allowed, and Hemingway objected to the eliminations.  He described his work as being Proustian in the sense that it incorporated details which Hemingway felt were necessary to completing the literary “painting.”

In that sense, the word is not only accurate, but expressive.  Proust was known for painting word pictures, detailing his memories (the focus of reality to Proust) in such a way that the specific words chosen made the “painting” capable of being real for the viewer.  Proust has come to be known as a creator of realism in his writing, and the attention to detail was an absolute necessity.  It would not be a stretch to say that Proust was obsessive about such reality.

Evidently Hemingway, in his declining mental health, adopted the same kind of obsessiveness.  It overwhelmed him and brought a level of anxiety to his life that led to his taking of his own  life.

A number of years ago I was asked to reflect upon the tragic suicide which may have been brought on by the threat of a supposed scandal.  My young friend, David, was a purist in his vocation as a police officer.  Flaws in his life plan were unsettling, and I speculated at the time that it may have been that obsessiveness for perfection that led him to take his own life.*  Such obsessiveness can be overwhelming.

Proust’s life ended in a tragic state of illness which wore away at him and eventually made living impossible.  His body rejected the state of illness and  brought about death.   A similar thing might be said of Hemingway, whose mental health deteriorated in such a way that (to his way of thinking) made it impossible for life to be sustained.

In Hemingway’s situation, his death was (and is) a tragedy, as a brilliant mind and a powerfully creative spirit were snuffed out in the blast of a firearm.  His Proustian search for perfection to demonstrate reality overwhelmed him and stole from us the wondrous stories that remained in his mind and in his spirit.  Life became the victim of reality.  And reality became the victim of impulsive obsession.

Photo of Hemingway (left) Credit: American Legends

Photo of Proust (right) Credit: Univ. of Adelaide

*(I have since come to join a number of people who question whether David’s death was really a suicide.  However, that is the subject for another posting at another time.)

Gregory Zinman, a writer for The New Yorker magazine, wrote a very absorbing piece in The Talk of the Town segment of the June 27th edition.   It dealt with the opening segment of the new Terrance Malick film, The Tree of Life. I haven’t seen the film yet, but have been drawn to the reviews and reports, hoping that it would open locally so I could see it.

The opening scene to which Zinman refers is an almost psychedelic visual  segment from artist Thomas Wilfred’s work, “Opus 161″ which was created in the sixties and is relatively unknown to today’s viewing audience.  That is, unless you have the memory of Malick, who remembered the piece they had recorded in the sixties.  It is a surrealistic light show which goes on for “one year, three hundred and fifteen days and twelve hours” without repeating itself.

In the piece with Zinman writes for the New Yorker he quotes Eugene Epstein, a “radio astronomer” who owns most of the Wilfred pieces as saying that the segment is  “Sublime ineluctable beauty…a visceral joy.“  Wow!  That review is as surreal and as much a light show as the piece itself.  Those words explode with color and mystery, just what the segments at the beginning and the end of the movie are described as being.

When I first studied the word ineluctable without consulting a resource I tied it to the word elocution and came to the conclusion that it meant  “unable to be described by words.” Wrong!   That’s what’s amiss in depending upon one’s own intellect solely and not seeing language as a team sport.

So I went to the resources which face me from my corner bookshelf and found that the word ineluctable actually means inescapable, unable to be avoided. I was not far off; I just failed to come down on the correct root Latin word, electa, which means “to surmount” or to “wrestle.”   I suspected it might also be the source of our word “elect” which means to succeed in overcoming someone in a voting race.  It, however, turns out to have come from the Latin word electus, meaning to surpass.  I’m not a trained student of Latin, but my guess is that there’s a connection.

That all having been said, I’m back to the point, that this word, ineluctable, is a profound word.   Epstein’s  comment that the video art  is a “visceral joy”  I understand to mean that it affects the viewer physically, using more senses than vision.  One’s whole being is electrified by observing it.   Clearly, the whole piece is not used, only a portion of it.  But there is something about all of this emotion over it that it leads me to:

1. want to rush out and see “The Tree of Life” movie even more rapidly
2. want to have a chance someday to see “Opus 161″ (or at least a longer portion of it)

I can’t help but believe that this exposure of a portion of Opus 161 will bring about a call for the entire piece to be shown again.   Then we all can have an ineluctable visual experience.

Photo Credit:http://hirshhorn.si.edu/visualmusic/organs.html

At 1:16 p.m. today the sun reached the point of summer solstice on this, the longest day of the year.  I’ll be arriving at my urologist’s office for an ultrasound of my bladder.  Oh, well, different people will be celebrating in different ways all over the world.  I may be unique in that matter!

Photo Credit: Daria Belov

I realized a couple of days ago that I have been using the word upscale a lot lately. It was one of those awakening moments when something flashes across my consciousness, seemingly out of nowhere.  My immediate reaction was to make sure I wrote the word upscale into my increasingly expanding word list and to begin checking it out.  There was no mystery about its meaning … it means exactly what I thought it meant:  it is a way of designating something as being expensive and available primarily for the people who dwell on the upper end of the economic range.

For instance, I have a tee shirt which has become my favorite tee shirt.  It is from an upscale, beautiful boutique hotel on Martha’s Vineyard named HOBKNOB.  (I put it in capitals because that is the way they depict it in their branding. ) I love their logo which is front and center on the shirt.  It is an impressionistic line drawing of a cow at rest.  Don’t ask me what that there is about that design that attracts me.  It is just that it is an illustration  which is very professionally designed.   Someone who saw me wearing the tee shirt made a gesture and said, “Whooooah!  Hobknob.  Do I have permission to talk with you?” I thought they knew about the hotel, but it turns out that the word hobknob indicated to them that it meant exclusive, and they were joking about whether they were exclusive enough to converse with me.  I’m disappointed that the shirt sends that kind of message, because I just love its color (Nantucket Red) and the design so much that I’m going to continue wearing it.  In fact, I’m wearing it as I write this.

The other night we joined friends in Massachusetts for dinner at a really great seafood restaurant.  When describing it the next day I found myself saying that it was an “upscale seafood restaurant.”  I think I was trying to characterize it as being something more than a fish fry.  It is a very well designed restaurant with a somewhat formal atmosphere.  There are no ground rules posted about clothing style, but it isn’t the kind of place I would be comfortable in jeans and my favorite tee shirt.  The service was professsional; the menu was extensive; and the prices were not what I would call “cheap.”   The food was great and the experience was wonderful.  And … in my mind … it was an upscale evening.

It bothers me now that it sounds as if I’m obsessed with things that are elitist.  I’m not.  My favorite restaurants are still diners.  My favorite foods are traditional comfort foods.  I love to wear very casual clothing when I don’t have a meeting or an event to attend.  I love the Red Sox, hot dogs, and Decaffeinated Diet Coke.   I enjoy fine dining occasionally, but it’s not my norm.  I seldom miss Jeopardy or American Idol.  We use coach when we fly, but we are more inclined to drive.  I think we are pretty middle class, and the term upscale is not one which would apply to us at all.

It’s just a word, and it’s a very descriptive word for depicting certain places, homes, clothing styles, food choices, etc.  Now I’m paranoid about the word,  having spent some time thinking about it.  I’ll probably avoid it for a few days and then it will creep back into my vocabulary again.  How stupid is that?

Photo Credit: http://www.upscalemagazine.com/