ezola

aboard a plane to austin, still on the JFK tarmac. captain just announced that the plane is overweight so eight people have to come off before we can leave. good to be back in the states, fuckin supersize fries.

the doors opened for the silver jews concert at six (sic). there were two opening bands, we arrived at 9:15 after eating at a highly authentic low-quality mexican food restaurant around the corner from elliott’s loft. when we got there we found out that berman & co were already on stage. we arrived in the middle of the first song.

everyone who follows this band knows that david has had some tough years with depression, multiple drug addictions, and a suicide attempt. he looked fairly well put together considering. his voice was predicably worn but easily recognizable – he’s one of these male singers who don’t really sing, he talks melodically over the music. his wife cassie has a strong stage presence, and the affection he demonstrated toward her onstage was one of the coolest parts of the show. the set was ridiculously short, a little more than an hour. he played a lot of the greats, but they’re all great so anything he played would have been great: random rules, how to rent a room, pet politics, horseleg swastikas, dallas, punks in the beerlight, sometimes a pony, trains across the sea. toward the end cassie played an excellent dead-esque country song, which dave said she wrote. elliott claims to have recognized it, though i am sure i have never heard it.

webster hall is a superb venue, an old building with a balcony, ornate carvings in the walls and one enormous disco ball. dave was uncomfortable on stage. the show ended shortly after ten and the audience was incredulous. none of the ~500 of us were willing to leave. the lights went up, the background music came on and finally after 15 minutes he came back and sheepishly told everyone how lazy he is, that he’s “been avoiding this for 15 years, gimme a break.” that said, he seemed genuinely touched and surprised at the adulation. he played _there is a place_ as an encore. during that song, a fan jumped on stage and grabbed dave’s red trucker cap, which was on the ground next to him, and did a bellyflop back into the cowd. cassie, so much more composed than dave (who seemed put out just by being on stage) politely demanded that he give it back. she said it was dave’s lucky hat. the fan returned it.

when dave wasn’t strumming his guitar, he was searching for a pack of cigarettes in his pants, and ultimately had to excuse himself for a few minutes to find one backstage. i got the impression that the guy is just cashed out, a jittery former addict now trying to keep it together, touring for cash. he couldn’t even remember his own lyrics. he was reading them from cheatsheets and even still made a couple errors, but his myth is so overwhelming he could have spent an hour pissing all over us and we would have loved it. great show.

picture courtesy of thesevensteves.

Many of my friends and I have long struggled with the crease between culture and religion. Today elliott investigated two alternative branches of judaism that attempt to address this problem. First he forwarded me a link that describes Reconstructionist Judaism, which advertises itself as a “progressive, contemporary approach to Jewish life which integrates a deep respect for traditional Judaism with the insights and ideas of contemporary social, intellectual and spiritual life.” This amounts to a variant of reform judaism that values community wishes over the individual. Reconstructionist Judaism fully buys into traditional monotheism, and as such it is totally inadequate.

Then elliott offered up a much more appealing sect, Humanistic Judaism. These guys reject god, which has the advantage of making the religion compatible with the sensibilities of most living jews, and they recognize the appeal of jewish traditions. Unfortunately, they reconcile the crease by reformulating the traditions in such a way that they make sense in a godless universe. This is the sort of delusion we associate with the bible as metaphor people who, for example, suggest that creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive because the seven days actually represents seventy million years or whatever. Furthermore, Humanistic Jews censure any mention of a higher power and exclude those aspects of jewish culture that they are unable to twist into a secular form, and I’m not willing to give up my favorite jewish prayers. Another inadequate solution.

Reubenistic Judaism rejects the supernatural, but retains jewish traditions for traditions’ sake, admitting that these traditions are based on bullshit but that they are fun to do, and make us feel part of a larger culture, which feels good. Reubenistic rabbis deliver sermons that decry faith of any sort in favor of a rational approach to modern problems. Talk of god is not avoided, god is accepted as a fabricated remnant of an obsolete ideology. Biblical stories are actively discussed and applied to contemporary life, but are read not as the word of a supernatural being, but as the collective voice of generations of smart people whose ideas are sometimes insightful and sometimes silly and irrelevant. Individuals are encouraged to draw meaning from or reject biblical dictums as they see fit. The positions of other religions or individual thinkers are put forward and considered with equal appreciation and scrutiny. While Reubenistic Jewish leaders endeavor to account for competing viewpoints with sensitivity and fairness, all people and belief systems are not judged equal, and blatantly absurd notions such as original sin are ridiculed.

Intermarriage is encouraged. Charities that bring about the assimilation of Palestinians into Israeli life are supported, as are secular political leaders. Young Reubenistic Jews are directed to act in ways that consider the consequences of their actions, rather than adhering to rule-based credo. The old testament is presented as an enchanting work of fiction inspired by the events and beliefs of a distant era. Death is the end of a Reubenistic Jew’s existence, and the religion’s primary mission is to disseminate strategies that enable its adherents to maximize their enjoyment of their limited number of sentient days.

Reubenistic Jews are atheists. They do not believe that to be atheist one must be able to prove there is no god; Reubenistic Jews do not have a proof that there is no god and do not intend on developing one. Reubenistic Jews hold that it is not the responsibility of the atheist to prove there is no god, it is the responsibility of the believer to prove god’s existence. Similarly, Reubenistic Jews hold that it is not the responsibility of those who do not believe in the tooth fairy to prove there is no tooth fairy.

Reubenistic Jews may wear a yarmulke, keep kosher, light candles on shabbat, fast on yom kippur, and avoid chametz on passover. They might perform the holiest mitzvah through a hole in the sheets. The synagogue holds service for all major holidays; any and all jewish rituals are fair game and the content of any service is decided by each congregation. Reubenistic Jews draw a clear line, however, between ritual and the supernatural beliefs that underlie them. The rituals are celebrated as enjoyable traditions that connect a group of people to their ancestors and to each other, whereas the supernatural beliefs are discarded as both false and beside the point.

The Reubenistic Judaism homepage is Web 2.0 compatible. Use of public transportation to and from the synagogue is encouraged, however, sanctimonious environmental activists, or any other sanctimonious activist, is forbidden to enter. At the end of the friday evening service, the melody that Adon Olam is sung to is based on the wishes of the youngest person in the sanctuary who is able to voice a preference.

I rented my current apartment hastily. The location is right, the size is right, the landlord offered me a spot in the garage for my motorcycle. Thank you craigslist, I’ll take it. Across the street was an eyesore of a building, a three-story deserted, boarded up mess. I barely paid attention to the view above that building, but over the months I have come to love the mountain and especially the cross, which I feel protects this household from evil spirits and unwanted pregnancy.

They tore down that building across the street, and started rebuilding it. A few weeks ago I realized, in one of those moments where your heart just sinks, that in its place will be a four-story building, and out my window I will see nothing more exciting than the occasional bedroom view, when one of my neighbors forgets to lower the blinds. Since then, as the new building comes up, my days under the spell of the cross have taken on increasing meaning. Yesterday they built the ceiling on the third floor, and out my window this evening the fourth floor is almost finished. They built the two sides of the floor, and, in a thoughtful gesture, have left the middle unbuilt, as if to say, this is your last evening, enjoy.

This is one of so many examples of the importance of stimulus vs. context. I would have moved into this apartment if there were no view; for example if there were a four-story building across the street from me before, and they tore it down and replaced it with another four-story building, I would have enjoyed my view during the construction but would not be bothered by the loss of the view when the fourth story was rebuilt. In this case, I have come to understand my apartment as one with a view of the mountain and the cross, and I earnestly feel wronged by its obliteration. Hurt, even.

When you recognize that most of how you respond to something is contingent not on the thing itself but on your expectations of that thing, you can conduct yourself in such a way that you’re more likely to be pleasantly surprised and will enjoy many more good moods-I call this managing expectations. I go about this by minimizing exposure to preconceptual bias as much as possible. For example, once I decide I’m going to see a movie I will actively avoid talking about it, reading its reviews, I even try to steer clear of the trailer. When I’m being set up on a blind date, I don’t want to know what you think of her, just give me her number and I’ll arrange it. Expectations are the enemy of a good time.