Category: Lopsided Observations

The altar in the temple, they may not even call it an altar, looks pagan to me. I know that is an absurd assessment since Jesus was a Jew but the prohibition of idols or images of god thing takes my favorite part of religion off the table. There’s a great big wooden cabinet behind the lectern, they probably don’t call it a lectern, and inside the cabinet there is a reproduction of the sacred Torah scrolls. I know this because I opened the cabinet a few years ago when my nephew made his Bar Mitzvah.

My brother converted from Catholicism and we’ve been to three of these coming of age rituals now. Our niece had just turned thirteen the day before and that is such a pivotal period, it’s fun to just look at her on this cusp. Serious on one hand and childlike on the other, the rabbi scolded her when she made eye contact with her friends who were sitting right behind us.

Peggi and I were asked to play music during the event so we were sitting right by the piano. The canter had a beautiful voice and she was backed by the keyboardist for the Yankees. Peggi and I jumped in on sax and hand drum. The minor key modal thing is right up the Margaret Explosion alley.

Our neice’s lesson (upon being called to Torah as a Bat Mitzvah she is now a “teacher”), one she picked from a story in the book of Numbers, was how she learned and will continue to learn how to stop complaining and be happy with what she has. She said, “I know Apple will always introduce new products that are better than what I now have.”

The front page story in our local paper Sunday opened with a bang as reporter Gary Craig retold the story of a staff member at the Christian residential ministry, Freedom Village USA, who shot out a television set with a .12-gauge shotgun because the kids were watching a banned show. We’ve driven by this place many times because it is right next to my aunt and uncle’s farm on the shores of Seneca Lake. They were freaked out by this place when it sprang up in middle of farm country thirty years ago. Fueled by PTL (Praise the Lord) donations until the Jim Baker scandal broke, the complex dwarfed Dundee’s tiny parish church and the Mennonite worship house. The flamboyant, evangelical founder, Pastor Fletcher Brothers, commuted by helicopter rattling their community and fueling wild speculation.

He had built up a Gates congregation in the 70’s with strident anti-abortion and anti-pornography stands before running it into bankruptcy by misusing church funds. Now in the middle of a bitter divorce (his fourth) and another bankruptcy at Freedom Village, his own staff is ratting him out over his misuse of the organization’s money. Meanwhile Pastor Fletcher Brothers is still raising money from donors through his weekly show on Rochester’s Christian station. Meanwhile the deacon at Freedom Village USA has quit and started a blog entitled “The Stench Of Spiritual Abuse.”

My favorite artist/philosopher, Robert Irwin, is deep into the ponies. Peggi and I usually tune into the Kentucky Derby because it marks the anniversary of our first date when we traveled to Louisville in the back of Steve Hoy‘s van and watched Secretariat win. The derby is one of my favorite sporting events because it only lasts two minutes.

Yesterday’s winner, “I’ll Have Another”, is owned by the former philosophy teacher, Paul Reddam. In the winners’ circle he was asked to quote one of his favorite philosophers and he chose this one form Ludwig Wittgenstein. “After all the philosophical problems have been solved, nothing of importance will have been accomplished.”

I check the temperature in seven locations with my iPod weather app. Rochester (where we live), Madrid, Barcelona, Sevilla (where we traveled), New York, LA, San Francisco, Paradox NY (where we have friends) and Huntsville, Canada (where we camped last year). It is not often the case that Rochester is the warmest but today it is. So there.

Police find eye witness information some of the least reliable. People see what they want to see or what they have been taught to see rather than what is there. We lose our ability to see at a very early age. The peak period for most kids’ art is around age five. Relearning to see is huge project but worth pursuing.

One of our neighbors still has their Irish flag up from Saint Patricks Day and some others fly a Puerto Rican flag but I had never seen a 9-11 flag until I spotted this one flying under an American flag on Culver Road yesterday. I googled “9-11 flag” online and didn’t see anything like it so maybe it’s homemade. The towers are kind of short. My mom made a peace flag back in the sixties and we flew it out front until someone stole it. We always suspected it was the youngest son of one of the neighbors. His mom had called my mom and asked “How dare you fly a peace flag when my (oldest) son is fighting in Viet Nam?” Patriotism comes in all stripes.

Peggi was telling me she stopped at a light behind a pickup with two NRA stickers in the window and a bumper sticker that read, “If the earth is your mother I walk on your mother.” That goes beyond patriotism’s borders. As the light turned he blew smoke from his cigarette out the window.

Coming back from the Margaret Explosion gig at High Falls last night we pulled up next to a car that was cranking’ the tunes. I looked over and it was white haired dude with a baseball cap on and he was bobbing his whole body with the music. I rolled down my window to hear what he was playing and it was Ozzie “goin’ off the rails on the crazy train.”

You spelled “is” wrong.

I wonder what Jerome’s would say if we bought one of these orange Renault 4TLs and brought it in to them for service. My hunch is Ted would be fine with it but Mike would go bananas. “A French car!” He’s still giving us a hard time about our Obama 08 bumper sticker. Of course the Glen Beck and Rush shows that he listens to at top volume have got him all wound up.

There are so many cool European cars on the road over here. I’m kind of partial to the Seats since they’re made in Spain but I don’ think I’ve ever seen one in the states. In Barcelona about half the vehicles on the road have only two wheels, mostly motorcycles and scooters but thousands of bicycles too. They have racks all over town where you can rent them and you can drop them off at any of the other locations. We can only think locals rent rather than buy their bicycles because they don’t have any room in their apartments to store them. Maybe that’s why it seems like there is less crap over here. Space is at a premium and it is used well.

We stopped at a cafè/bar on the way home tonight and heard “Everybody Wants To Rule The World.” That thing gets stuck in your head. When we got back to our place we put our “Gypsy/Flamenco/Spain playlist on the iPad to cleanse our ears. Which rounded up the Gypsy songs (mostly Gypsy Kings) and inadvertently added “The Screaming Gypsy Bandits.” They sound good here.

There is no doubt that Spaniards have a highly developed sense of design. Despite multinational, big money influence they have their own colour palette and they pay attention to detail. They certainly have a longer history so it follows that they are further along the evolutionary scale in that regard.

Hundreds of years of culture are all around them. Roman ruins, ancient buildings and art in public spaces, a respect for the past and a hunger for the new are all part of the package. And then there is Generalissimo Francisco Franco. When his dictatorship ended the country blossomed as if on steroids. It is something to behold.