Tel Aviv Diary - March 19-23, 2018 Karen Alkalay-Gut
A lecture on Arpad Gut in Acre today brought us to the local college there. We were very proud and even I learned something new, that he built the hangars in Jaffa not just with the British but primarily with the Egyptians. Wow - there is so much to learn about this man.
and i'm sooo tired.
yes. fell asleep on the keyboard. this organizing a launch is big work and lots of fears and arguments as well as pleasures and loves. i can't wait to give to Mula Ben Haim - the painter whose work is on my cover - his due, to explain how complex is his work and why he inspired me.
where have i been? The Bukharian quarter of the city for one. i have a friend who loves everything about Tel Aviv and finds beauty everywhere, and she was celebrating a birthday with her friends. So we went to lunch at Hanan Margilan and the Manto was amazing. they are dumpling stuffed with meat. Afterwards we went to a bakery and I saw the same Manto on sale there for half the price. so i know where Hana Margilan gets their Manto. But it was very good anyway.
This should tell you about what really happened to me there: there was Oshpolov that is rice with julianne carrots and bits of meat. Suddenly I remembered my househelper Michal who made oshpolov for me when I came home from the hospital more than two decades ago. She was with me for almost twenty years but had to quit when her husband's illness made it impossible for her to be away. And then she developed Alzheimers and called to tell me she would not remember me in a few weeks and she wanted me to know how much our love meant to her. Nothing else in that visit made any sense to me after that oshpilov. I didn't even tell my celebrating friends. Michal was all I could think of. Michal who was all beauty and goodness and giving and didn't know she deserved a much better life than she had.
Oshpilov.
Sorry, I got carried away. But I guess I like food more for the memories and the meaning than the taste.
We also went to see the exhibit of Ronit Elkabetz at the Design Museum. The daring and dazzling actress Ronit Elkabetz who died two years ago at the age of 51 was the darling of critics and audiences alike, and it is always breathtaking to see her acting and/or modeling her famous audacious dresses. As a lover of the creativity inherent in selecting a wardrobe I was very curious about the exhibit but suspicious as well. My suspicions were confirmed. She was no different than any woman would have been with her age, her body and her means. Exotic and imaginative, thought-provoking and impractical, but not quite art.
I have been trying to avoid all the talk about Israel's admission of bombing the Syrian Nuclear Weapons site ten years ago. i just don't understand why anyone has to say anything about it. and yet everyone is talking, arguing, fussing over details of credits. So I'm not going to add my two cents.
I just hope that Benny Ganz runs in the Labor ticket. just saying.
I never read what i wrote because as soon as i do i get all self-conscious and start re-writing or acting fake. But today at Apos (where I have been going for years to get my shoes adjusted to my strange gait) my physiotherapist and I started talking for the first time and she googled me and discovered I once worked with her dance teacher Iris Erez. So I dug up the show i did with her ten years ago that i don't think i've ever looked at and almost started looking at it when I chickened out. It's called "Love Soup" and this is a dress rehearsal that Ezi filmed. you can look at it if you like and tell me if it is any good
so you didn't make it past the first 14 minutes? If you had you would have gone on and found me dancing with Iris Erez and Yael Kraus and there may even be a Galia Chen with me.
We made fudge cupcakes and decorated them for the launch with yiddish words: Nem .. Es / take .. eat.
but although we invested lots of money on cookies crackers and wine and tea and all that, i'm still fighting with the management about people paying at the door...but even though they are desperate for money, im sure we can raise enough in sales to make it worth their while.
want to read my latest book? It's here. the invitation for the launch is here