Sexy Lady Song

A week or so ago, while driving with my parents, we went through a Jewish-orthodox neighbourhood. On the radio was an interview with the organizer of a classical music festival, plugging a Leonard Bernstein evening. Then, they played America, from West Side Story.

This sing has aged, and not incredibly well. I’m sure it was considered racially sensitive for the late fifties, but when it started on the radio, I felt slightly uncomfortable. That feeling basically stopped by the end of the song, when the music becomes amazing, and they could be in blackface for all I cared. The rhythm is amazing, the vocal work is great, and it’s completely sweeping. The thing that really struck me by the end of the song was, though, that all the men who walked in the streets we were driving in were not allowed to listen.

Some Jewish orthodox men, and especially those who are ultra-orthodox, will not listen to women singing. There are various levels of scrutiny this prohibition can come at, but in its basis, it relies on the fact that the voice of a woman is inherently erotic. I should point out that, depending on how strict a religious Jew is, they might not even listen to non-Hebrew, and non-religious music, but my concern is with women, as it usually is. Just like with segregated buses, which have only grown strong since this article, ultra-orthodox extremists seem to put plenty of blame on women being immodest and too seductive to be seen.

The reason for women sitting at the back is so men will not have to see them, but women are allowed to see men. Similarly, women are allowed to hear men sing, and just like in secular society, men are the rule, and women are the exception. In religious CD stores, it’s assumed that the singer is male, there there’s usually a sticker or an annotation that notes a woman sing on this album, or that there’s an additional album for women. This assumes that women either have no sex drive, or are less likely to become aroused.

As a fan of opera, a fandom which brought us a blog like Barihunks, dear god, do I beg to differ. I liked opera as a child, but I had only returned to it when I realized just how handsome and beautiful some of those performers are. Combined with their lovely voices, and the surprising amounts of sex that you’ll find in opera (when a fandom complains a production of Billy Budd isn’t homoerotic enough, you’ve really found a good one to be in), someone like me has more than enough reason to find a song sexy.

So if women have sex drives, too, should all singing just be banned? How about no. I think that, by 2011, maybe it’s time to realize that everyone but asexuals have a sex drive, and that’s basically fine. We’ve also advanced enough in psychology to understand that even rape isn’t really derived from sexual arousal and lack of control. Sexual assault is the result of power, and wanting to show it in terrible ways. The nearly constant assault women face (check the Hollaback of your choice), isn’t really because someone heard a very sexy lady-song. It’s fine to be aroused by things, but it’s less fine to put someone down via sexual means, because you feel like proving your superiority.

I leave you now with what is probably one of the sexiest duets out there, with Simon Keenlyside and Miah Presson, in a surprisingly non-rapey production of Don Giovanni, from the Royal Opera House, who never fail to deliver.

“Remember Cedric. Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory.”

– Albus Dumbledore

 

I’ve recently considered changing this blog’s title, yet again. While most of my free time is spent in escapism, whenever I feel that I should write, it’s almost never about books, or TV, or music. It’s about racism, sexism, and other -isms in those media. Sometimes, like in the case of Harry Potter, it’s a book that triggers me to write about these topics.

I know very well that good art will not let you escape from the real world, and the things that you should be thinking and worrying about. When I had to choose between what’s right and what was easy, at the time, I went along and joined the IDF. You might say that draft-dodging is easier than going through over a year of service, but even in the most clerical position, I knew that it was not the right thing to do.

It showed very much in the reading material I chose back then, and the music I listened to. My last year in high school was when I rediscovered Bertolt Brecht, and managed to get my hands on nearly every single Hebrew recording of his songs. Near the end of my service, I had also bought Hanoch Levine’s Bathtub Queen, a satirical series of songs and sketches performed in 1968, when everyone was in the euphoria of 1967, the last war Israel had won, really, and the beginning of the occupation. When it came to books, all I could really read was Russian moralistic tales, Catch 22, and, granted, Oscar Wilde. I had also reread the Harry Potter series for the first time in a while, and its themes about bullying and racism and governmental abuse were obviously clearer than ever.

This choise between right and easy has stayed with me throughout my entire service, cut short by depression. I think this is the place to do a bit of exposition about the place I live, which is a little town, not very far from Jerusalem. It’s about a mile away from the 1967 border, on the right side of it. Another mile away, outside the border, is an ultra-orthodox settlement, and a huge one, at that. Between us, and outside the border, is a Palestinian village. There aren’t a lot of jobs in the West Bank, as far as I know, and the unemployment rate there is very high. It’s common for builders and others to go into Israel to find work, and if the wave a permit to do so, they can go to a checkpoint miles away, wait for ages, and get into Israel to work some, or get medical treatment, or something like that about living a normal life. Whatever.

Since the Separation Wall hasn’t yet arrived in our town, some people from said village just come here, and hop on a bus to Jerusalem, or one of the towns around us. They may or may not have a permit to be in Israel, and those can usually be taken away at a bureaucratic whim. Personally, and I could be naive, but I don’t see that much risk in letting people who just want to work go on a bus. Yes, buses have exploded, but usually in big cities, in crowded places, and never in a dinky town with only slightly over 6,000 people in it, most of whom own a car.

We don’t like them going on our buses, though, and some bus drivers don’t like it, either. One day, as a soldier, I had started my 6:00 ride to the base, and some clearly Palestinian people went on the bus. The town’s security took them off, even though I’m not sure they have a right to demand IDs from people. Another day, a year later, the bus driver had started demanding to see a woman’s ID, who tried to go to Jerusalem. He would not let her on the bus, and went on a rant, when she gave up. This has been happening increasingly on my morning buses. I never say anything.

What would happen, if I interfered in someone’s favor? In a subject that clearly matters to me, because bus drivers have no right to demand your papers? I might not know every person in this town, but the bus-riding population is small, and so is the pool of drivers. If the debate got heated enough, and if I could afford it, could I leave the bus? Will the same driver let me on it again, at another day? Or will people just start arguing with me on-sight, as I go to work, or school? These are my worries, and for now, they’ve done a very good job in keeping me quiet about this topic. So whenever I remember that quote from Dumbledore, and look back, I still know it’s not a standard I can hold myself to, as much as I’d like to, and this is as depressing as a book can get.

Dorian Gray, 2009: A Review

Yesterday, as appropriate for someone who hates most movies, I was dragged into one by a friend. I read The Picture of Dorian Gray a few years ago, on an Oscar Wilde binge, and the movie trailer made it look just generally bad. I was only convinced by the presence of Colin Firth, who makes everything better by appearing on set and has a very sexy voice. We went to watch it in a tiny theatre, and only realized very later that it was made in 2009, making Israel terrible at bringing movies over.

Going with someone who hasn’t read the book was actually fun. The plot, as everyone should know, is about young Dorian Gray, played by fetus Oscar Wilde Ben Barnes. Dorian arrives to London, and meets adorable Basil, played by Ben Chaplin, and the required quipper, Henry, who is Colin Firth and has a wonderful beard and a sexy voice. While Basil paints Dorian’s titular picture, Basil goes on corrupting the kid. Eventually, in a well-known plot-point, the painting ages, but Dorian doesn’t.

These three main characters play off very well with each other, but the first half of the movie suffers from its many montages. We have sex montages, time-passing montages, and love montages. It also doesn’t treat woman very well, as Women are only there for Dorian or Henry’s pleasure. This makes some sense, when you think of Oscar Wilde, and his own treatment of women in his writings. My biggest complaint about the movie, probably, is that it takes philosophical fictions, and tries to turn it into horror. The picture sounds like a rejected Nazgul, and many scenes are there just to scare us. I didn’t find them very effective.

However, most of my complaints disappeared during the last part of this movie. The portrait still sounds like a serial killer, but at this point, when the story suddenly gets much better, I couldn’t bring myself to mind it very much. The faster pace, the new characters, and the psychology of this act were surprisingly well-done, after a slow start. I could have lived with less CGI, personally, but for a movie from 2009, I know these things age very fast.

The actors, in British tradition, all do a very good job, and no one looks like their face has been sanded to perfection, not even those who are supposed to look like that. I usually get very annoyed by ironic remarks in period dramas, a-la-Titanic, but the few who found their way into this movie were surprisingly good, and served to round-up the characters, rather than show how very clever the writers are. The historical references are well-made, but these, again, only really crop up for the second half of the movie, so much so that it feels as though I’ve watched a double-feature, and one was completely unmemorable.

One of the reasons I love adaptations of Oscar Wilde, and his writing, in general, is the decadence you get away with in your period drama adaptation. The clothes in most of these are usually very good, but this movie, which spans over 25 years, starts of very, very badly. Wilde is most-recognized for his 1890s fashion, but this is represented so badly in the movie, I could never have guessed this was the period we were in. The men’s clothes are fine, but all dresses, apart from Sybil’s artistic-movement gowns, and some of the orientalist get-ups are just awful, and look like they were made in the eighties. One we reach the early 20th century, though, the movie takes another turn: All women are actually very well-dressed. I suspect they just raided Downton Abbey’s costume department.

All in all, I enjoyed this film, and especially the last hour of it. Keep in mind, though, that as a movie about decadence, it doesn’t shy away from sex, and any kind of sex, at this. It also doesn’t ignore the homoerotic undertones of the original novel, which is wonderful.

To Be Israeli

This Wednesday will be the eve of the Jewish new year, and our newspapers and TV are very likely to go even slightly more insane than they usually are. There will be end-of-year lists, which will repeat themselves exactly in December, but I expect to be bothered most by that semi-religious, nationalistic feeling that seems to come down on our media during the fall’s holiday season. The bane of this time (and any other time, in my opinion, as there’s always an excuse), is articles like these.

They crop up, several every year, and tell us what’s so special about being Israeli. Most of them read exactly like articles explaining why what’s so special about being American, why the writer loves New York (City), or what sets Italy, Sweden, or the UK apart from those other EU countries who are stuffy and boring. It’s the sort of article that’s supposed to make you feel nice about living in a country that would probably rather elect a new and better public, if this one is dissatisfied. These articles come to our aid, and tell us that even if things are bad, there’s no place like home. I usually need a good shower after reading one.

To me, being Israeli doesn’t hold any kind of great national pride. Maybe I’m slightly incapable of it, or just had bad personal experiences with Israeli authority, but from my earliest memories, this status of being a Jewish, Israeli citizen, is one of violence and privilege. There are so many boxes you have to tick, in order to be Israeli, that I wonder if I really am one, and if so, do I want to be, after all this scrutiny?

Early in school, there was one Ethiopian girl in my grade. There was a fairly large Jewish-Ethiopian and Jewish-Russian immigration into Israel in the nineties. Some people probably made fun of this girl, because a teacher spoke about this with us, one day. Charlie Brooker mentions an incident like this in the seventies, but ours didn’t go very much like that: The teacher had told us that we mustn’t make fun of black people, because they’re very hard workers. During one of the first Bible in middle school, in which we were rereading Genesis, we reached Sodom and Gomorrah. Our teacher had flat-out told us that the cities were destroyed for homosexuality. That teacher went on to claim that one of his former students, who was transgender, was punished by god for not paying attention in Bible class, and that Muslims are barbarians. Another teacher assured us that a certain kabbalistic ritual was a ‘scientifically tested and proven method’. It involved randomly opening a Bible book.

My high-school was semi-private, and while I’ve had the opportunity to learn from several great teacher, it was when I felt the media starting to change around me. This campaign, ending with the words “A true Israeli doesn’t dodge draft”, came out when I was seventeen, and on the verge of my own draft. While it created a lot of backlash, it was the first time being Israeli started feeling, to me, more like a burden than anything else. I won’t discuss the issues with serving in the IDF, but conscription exists in Israel, and the options to avoid draft are to sit in army prison for a few months, or be discharged for some reason. In either case, the army is the one that releases you.

I was drafted at 18, and being Israeli became being able to discuss the merits of genocide over lunch with a nice officer, learning that sexism and racism is a casual thing, and there’s really very little you can say about them, if you don’t want to be grounded to base. Why aren’t you smiling?

And so, to me, being Israeli has always been about finding someone less Israeli than you, and kicking them. It’s about being taught from the earliest age that everyone is out to kill you, and that this justifies absolutely anything that you might be able to do to prevent this, because Never Again. Being Israeli is about being extremely violent to the society around you, to take advantage of anything that you can, but still be home for the new year, with your family, and read and article about the true meaning of being Israeli: A white middle-class Jew, who served in the army, and is preferably not a woman or gay, thank you very much.

Press Hard

My head has been through a lot, recently. Earlier this week, I found that I have lice. Now, I’m generally the sort that’s fine about insects, with one exception: Insects crawling all over my skin, which might just be the worst sensation in the history of humankind. So naturally, finding that I now have insects crawling all over my scalp and sucking my blood, I went all-out, with a special shampoo and spray. Those may have gotten rid of the lice, but left my head in very poor shape, and itchy.

Itching has only reminded me of that little bump that grew on my head a few months ago, and made me think immediately of cancer. It also made my family doctor think of cancer, but skin cancer. The dermatologist didn’t really think it was skin cancer, but wanted me to cut it off, either way. I booked an appointment, for a few months later, and there I was, the other day, having surgery in a mall.

The Israeli health services aren’t so bad. They’re not exactly great, but not bad. What I’m really trying to say, is, at least it’s not America. Health insurance is pretty affordable, and as long as you don’t have any chronic diseases (in that case, you are screwed), prescriptions and appointments are mostly covered. My appointment, as said, was in the largest mall in Jerusalem. Why? I’m not sure, but it came in useful, as I was reminded that human society is crumbling before my very eyes, and that I don’t look very well in skinny jeans.

While waiting, someone who got my phone number was trying to induct me into preparation classes for the university’s standard placement tests. My doctor was very nice, but generally in a hurry, and first saw me in what was obviously an ENT office, but I understand budget cuts happen, especially considering how our doctors have been on strike for a few months, and 800 interns will be quitting their jobs next week.

My nice doctor looked at my scalp, and said that he thinks we can do it today. Considering the fact that I had come for the surgery today, this seemed very reasonable. I told him I was free, and indeed, not at all in a hurry. I had to go through from one clinic to the other, and sign several papers. While I did read them, I didn’t understand a word. As far as I was concerned, I could have been going into a circumcision-correction surgery, and paying $20,000 for this treat. This did not happen, but I was just given some sterile clothes by a cool Russian nurse, and sat on what was definitely a dentist’s chair in the operation room.

Now, being just a very minor operation of a mole removal, I had some local anesthetic, and for five or so minutes, the doctor and nurse just talked about how awful it is to be a doctor and a nurse, and how hospitals are basically big mafia families. The doctor then took my hand, and had me press a bandage to the top of my head. Since, like many women, I suffer from a condition called ‘long hair’, he didn’t want to stitch or burn the cut, so we just had to wait until the bleeding stopped. He said five to eight minutes, and left.

The nurse, as far as I was aware, did wait five to ten minutes. I tried to look at the clock across the room, but it took me about two minutes to realize that it was out of order. Looking under my bandage, it seemed that I was still bleeding, and the nurse repeated her mantra for our time together, “Well, press hard. What can you do.” So I pressed hard, for five more minutes, and i still bled, five minutes later. This process repeated itself a few times, until the next patient had to come in. In an attempt to keep things in order, the nurse bandaged me like an old-timey lady with a toothache, around my face and chin. In my sterile smock and booties, I’m sure I looked very sexy.

The bleeding hasn’t actually stopped, when the doctor finally came back and said I can go, so I had a bandage taped onto my head, and had been sent out, just like that. The glue wasn’t very good, considering that it fell one hat later, in the mall’s H&M. I had to set it to the bleeding cut with hair pins. It didn’t hurt at all, and I definitely didn’t look weird doing that in a public toilet. Then again, I look just as weird in a beret. And what have I learned about having a tiny surgery? It still hurts. A lot. And makes for a great excuse to avoid doing chores.

Why I Die A Little Bit Every Time You Link Tim Minchin to Me

Dear readers, this post will have to come with a disclaimer, and one that goes beyond me being an oversensitive feminist. If you’ve been long enough on the internet, you probably know that argument does not go down very well. However, for the purpose of this post, and on this topic alone, I am crazy. You will think it while you read, and I accept that. And yet, I simply cannot get over that man called Tim Minchin, and his fans.

I am an Atheist, and as such, anyone who shares this trait with me is Tim Minchin’s Biggest Fan. Really. It’s in the Atheist guidebook. To those who are not atheists, though, there should be an introduction: Tim Minchin is an Australian comedian, and somewhat an heir for Tom Lehrer, in that he writes and performs comedy songs and plays the piano nicely. And really, when I first looked up his videos, he seemed like one of the best things on the internet. I have my tendency to obsess over this or that comedian, and these tend to be lovely weeks. Some of these binge periods have made me a lifelong fan of many, and I’ve written about QI before.

In my adoration to some of these comedians, this is probably when a bit of crazy kicks in. I can get very attached to the celebrities I like and agree with, and this is probably my biggest problem: Tim Minchin is a wonderful performer. I still love him. Not only is he very funny, and an Atheist, but he also writes some very touching songs. Go on and listen to this. I remember tearing up, at that point.

Right after White Wine in the Sun, which really was my favorite song of his, I stumbled across two other videos. This is when my oversensitive feminist rears its critical head. And while she makes me miserable sometimes, such as whenever I watch commercials, I know she’s right. The next two videos by Tim Minchin that I stumbled across, then, were this and this. I cannot watch these videos again, unfortunately, so I will not hold your hand and write exactly what is wrong with them. I will say that a key part of it was the condescending look at feminism, and the invocation of women as sex objects, no matter the topic. Women are still, in the first video, totally acceptable targets, even as the song marches on.

This was when the feminist in me clashed with the adoring fangirl, which still resides in my head since my days in the Harry Potter fandom. Somewhere, deep down, I still become fourteen whenever I see a talented person on-screen. And in this world of Western comedy and Atheism, these people have a general tendency to be white middle-class men, usually heterosexual. Now, I’m familiar with privilege, and I can’t say that I don’t enjoy it. I know that we can’t crucify just anyone who’s failed to look beyond it, but when this person is someone I’ve grown to adore, it depresses me, and I feel a bit betrayed. I hate feeling this, because these people do not owe me anything, and I have my full rights to just not watch or read them anymore.

These videos, in combination with the ones I loved, disturbed me to a somewhat extreme degree. I remember crying myself to sleep, that night, and I still can’t bring myself to listen to any of his songs that I still love, and certainly not enjoy them. I don’t really know why I’ve reacted this way for Tim Minchin. I enjoyed Rosemary’s Baby, despite Polansky being a rapist; I still love Stephen Fry, despite some slightly sexist humour, and statements that made me shift uncomfortable in my chair; And I still look up to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, even though the former belittled sexual harassment, and the latter just has an overall creepy-sexist-vibe I can’t even really explain.

A part of me wonders if I can’t forgive Minchin because of his relative youth. British humour, especially with its younger comedians, has grown on me because it approached matters of gender and race with a sort of grace and progressive manner I haven’t seen before. Not really. The internet has more of this, now, but the new generation of British comedians was the one who introduced me to it. Could it be that our PC culture had worked, and hasn’t killed of humour like the old generation moaned about?

I don’t know. Because I’m crazy. I cried myself to sleep over a sexist video, remember?

This is one of the things I always find hard to admit, or even think about, when reading atheist blogs, or other comedians, writing about Tim Minchin. The man, if you’re on the right places online, is completely unavoidable. To admit that I dislike him might just be coming out as a certified crazy-lady who doesn’t have a sense of humor or irony. A bit like a naked king of comedy, iff you like clichés as much as I do. It pains me, because I love comedy, and I love Tim Minchin. It’s just the sort of love that makes me die a little inside.

Three Songs, One Motif

I like classical music. A lot, but not enough to never be bored with it. I start an opera, and then just sort of never finish watching any. One of my favorite things, though, is to look up classical melodies and motifs that ended up having a major part in Israeli culture, and the little connecting dots, and differences, between our version, and the original.

The best example to this is the one I’m not going to discuss, but one of our most famous Hannukah songs is this, which is much more familiar and beautiful as this choir performance to Handel’s 327148th oratorio, Juddas Maccabeus. However, probably the biggest classical motif in Israeli culture, is La Mantovana. And this is when things get a little bit obscure.

La Mantovana is a motif, as I am told by Wikipedia, that existed since the 17th century. There were two very famous uses of it. We’ll look at three, because I’m feeling archetypical.

Ma Vlast: Die Moldau, Bedřich Smetana

This might be the earliest and most famous one of the three, and it’s still not exactly familiar. It’s a beautiful melody, and written as the second in a set of symphonic poems, written between 1874 and 1879. Each one depicts a beloved aspect of Bohemia, which was a country at some point. the Moldau is the German name for the Vlatva, the river running through Prague. Two world wars later, in which that area changed its name more times than a runaway war-criminal, it still manages to evoke a sense of patriotism along with a love of nature. I wish Jerusalem had a river.

Die Moldau, Brecht-Eisler

This song, still referring to the Moldau river, was written by Bertolt Brecht. Now, with someone as prolific as Brecht, it’s sometimes very hard to find information about his lesser-known songs, and Moldau is no exception. However, it does have a nice Hebrew translation, and Eisler was clearly quoting Smetana in his composition.

What I really find to be lovely about it, is that instead of raving about the idyllic countryside, Brecht does what he did best during his early years in the Weimar republic. He takes a rather beautiful classical theme, and makes it about slaughtering dictators.

Bravo.

Hatikvah, Naftalie Herz-Imber

And, with my national anthem on topic, return to patriotism as our leading motif. Personally, I don’t like Hatikvah at all- To me, it seems that everything that was good about Smetana’s composition seems to disappear completely when the lyrics are added. To anyone too lazy to check them on the video above, they go, roughly:

Jews, Jews, Jews

We are the Jews

This is our country

And Jerusalem is Jewish

So fuck off.

You can probably tell while I’m not hugely in favor of a national anthem that ignores about a quarter of the country’s citizens. I also have gripes about the melody- The pacing was slowed for the anthem, which makes is drag very unpleasantly, and makes the song last forever. Have I mentioned that the original version had ten verses, each separated by the refrain?

But the one thing I like, in an ironic sort of way (I’ll spare you another hipster .gif), is how we’ve gone from patriotism, to revolution, and back. If the history of my national anthem has taught me one thing, it’s that we can’t let the powers we fight against assimilate us. Bertolt Brecht a vehemently anti-Nazi, and spent years in exile from Germany. Years later, a country that rose because of this war he was so much against, is denying human rights from millions of people, and uses one of inspirations as its national anthem. I’d like to think that he’s rolling around, but only because the mental image makes me smile.

Ways to Die #1000: Suicide

Channel 8, in Israeli cables, is the sciency-cultury channel, and the only one there is. When I was just a little girl, it aired opera and ballet on the weekend, and I watched A Street Scene, Bluebeard’s Castle, and Howard Hanson’s Nymphs and Satyr. These days, it mainly airs usually excellent BBC documentaries, and even QI, a program that helped me through a very bad year of my life.

Today, after a sensitive documentary about a teenage boy, who was adopted after his parents abandoned him because of a genetic deformity, channel 8 aired an episode of 1000 Ways to Die. It was an episode from season three, which means there are more of them, and I already want to die.

I was vaguely familiar with this show from clips, and from my mom being a bit hysterical about some of the situations she’s watched on it, but boy, was I unprepared for what I had in store. In general, I have no issue with silly deaths, or The Darwin Awards. Silly deaths are silly, and the gene pool clearly does need some chlorine now and then. What I clearly wasn’t ready for, was just how mean-spirited it can become.

The main premise of 1000 Ways to Die, is that someone, who is not like you, has done something stupid. They reenact it with some aspiring actors, and the narrator makes fun of them. Then there’s a pun that makes you cringe your face off. To me, after I reinstalled my face, the most horrible thing was seeing how each story is clearly narrated and structured to make me feel as though these people clearly deserved to die. They deserved to die not only because they were bad people, in some stories, but because they acted outside the norm.

A man who likes being treated like a baby, who is called a freak by the narrator, died in a household accident. This is okay, because his sexual preferences weren’t like yours. While his wife played along with his perversion, she won’t cry for him. She probably feels released, right? That fat guy didn’t tip the woman who saved his life, so he went into cardiac arrest. The feminist… The story about the feminist activist nearly made me cry.

A radical feminist activist, shown as pretty violent, has just finished a conference about attacking men’s privates, a favorite pastime of mine. They interview a feminist during the segment, and the subtitles for her read ‘BLAH…BLAH…BLAH’, because that clearly doesn’t make me want to go and cut the first penis-bearer I see on the street, right? Those kooky feminists. Said radical feminist is not only masturbating in her hotel room with a vibrator, but she’s also a lesbian. She dies. Children, please highlight the number of perversions from society this story presents in order for us to be glad a woman is dead, and send it to the editor. The winners will receive a bachelor’s in gender studies.

And this thing got made. This thing has three seasons, and possibly more. They got actors to play in it. They got people who agreed to be interviewed. They got a narrator. They hired someone whose job was to write bad puns about dead people. I can’t, for my own life, fathom how can anyone watch this without losing all faith in humankind, and all will to live.

I’ve never had to deal very much with death, but I have given mine a lot of thought. This happens, when you go through periods of depression. I served in the IDF, and would sometimes sit and think about committing suicide in the toilet, like any other depressed soldier, but one of the things that stopped me, apart from reciting jokes from QI, was that our toilets were absolutely disgusting. It’s nice to know that if, in service, I were found face-down in a pool of diarrhea, I can count on TV to make it as entertaining as possible, so my loved ones won’t have to cry.

what is this i don’t even

Hi kids!

Today we’ll try to talk about the things that depress me, but in a funny sort of way that won’t depress you, too, because What’s our motto? That’s right- Internet is for Escapism! This is why I won’t be talking about the really depressing things in our world, like genocide and Glenn Beck.

1. Reality TV for weight-loss 

These shows probably have to be the most depressing things that ever existed. Not only do they take people who are not only insane enough to go on reality TV, but also hate their bodies enough to lose weight, TV-style. These programs usually include, then, very miserable and mentally brittle competitors, competing over something they ultimately don’t really control. And their hosts and trainers are scum. If you can yell at someone who is already broken, panting, and on all forms that they’ve giving up and need to try harder, I certainly have no other word for you. In one of the programs I’ve watched, this happened to be a teenage girl’s dad. Because teenagers are mentally unbreakable.

2. Cheap opera for children

I like opera. Probably a little more than is popular, this day and age. I’ve liked it since I was very little. I’m not an expert, or know all that much about it, but my very favorite opera happens to be The Magic Flute, by that Mozart guy. He was neat.

mozart l opera rock pictures
This love for his last opera mainly means that I look for just about any production of it I can watch, especially in Hebrew. There is a nice translation of it, and listening to it done properly, is actually very nice. This is where cheap and weird knockoffs come into play. I’ve seen three productions of The Magic Flute that were aimed at children, and it’s usually very interesting to see what is cut and what stays. One, however, made me laugh and cry like a bipolar Glenn Beck (I swear no more Beck jokes).

It had little badly-written connection scenes, because the writer has cut off from the plot, well, more or less the entire plot. Characters got the axe like a soap opera on cuts. Instead of a full, 10 or 15-instrumenmt orchestra, they had a piano. A badly-played piano. The post-production added visual effects straight from Windows Movie Maker. The singers were all from the Israeli Opera, and while actually very good, looked like death would be a sweet, sweet release. I stopped halfway through, and died a little inside.

3. Previews for Israeli comedy shows

It is a universal truth that 90% of Israeli TV comedy done in the past decade is shit. Do not contradict me, for I am an expert in comedy. I know this not because I watched 90% of Israeli TV comedy of the past decade (I’ve stopped watching Israeli TV at least four years ago), but because I’ve seen previews. And oh boy, do they know how to make me not want to watch their program ever in my life.

Therefore, dear preview editors, I’d appreciate it if you at least tried to do things like: Make sure the jokes are funny, not have a shot from a blackface scene (Israel is a bit late about these kind of memos), not have all your jokes involving women be incredibly sexist, and for the love of god, make sure the jokes are funny. I’m not completely sure why this is so hard, but social issues aside, it really does seem that we, as a country, have obviously lost our sense of humor. These are some successful shows I’m talking about, and I haven’t chuckled at a preview in years. Clearly, we need a kick up our comedic asses.

These are things that depress me. I am a sensitive soul, and 150 years ago, would have been described as ‘of a melancholic disposition’, which, yeah, is about right. Off to get emo to Brecht.

Sexy Thing

People say that it’s very easy to criticize and hate thing, talk about how critics are probably the lowest form of writers, and so on, but I have to admit that I find it remarkably hard.

Now, I hate plenty of things. I like writing about them, too. But the hardest thing for a critic to do, for me, is to get over how depressing all the horrible shit that goes on is, and actually properly write about it. I don’t know if my current melancholy situation is best for it, but it beats going emo to Bertold Brecht. Even if I love Brecht.

 

 

But unlike my Brechtieppopsiekins, I don’t get very angry when I see something horrible or stupid- I just get very depressed and refuse to leave the house before sunset. I’m not even a vampire. So while I’d like to keep this blog updated, please stand by until I’m capable of seething again.