An employee of the I.R. advertising agency once told me that a client asked his colleagues for an exact Russian translation of a Hebrew slogan containing the word “mitragshim.” His colleagues explained that, in the context of the slogan, the word doesn’t really translate into Russian: you could say “worry,” but that would introduce an element of uneasiness, or you could try “struggle,” but that would create a feeling of alarm…Basically, in Russian there’s no direct translation for this word—it just wasn’t gonna happen. The Israelis didn’t believe them. The advertisers joked that Russians just don’t “mitragshim.” “But wait,” said the Israelis, “say, for example, a bride on her wedding day—what does she do?” “Cries…?”
“…of course, there is a pacifist pathos in the work of Vadim Sidur that I just don’t share,” Vsevolod Chaplin, ardent champion of Orthodox values, informs us in connection with the attack on the sculpture exhibition at the Moscow Manège in 2015. An episode with the marvelous beauty of a Moebius strip: an operatic kind of beauty, I would say.
A certain humanitarian NGO—let’s just call it NGO X—is having to close up shop after being designated a “foreign agent” and now, downcast, has to figure out what to do with a forthcoming book series under the heading “NGO X Library.” “Look,” the employees say, “what if we kept publishing the series under the same title? Couldn’t the ‘NGO X Library’ exist without the participation of NGO X?” “Well, technically, it could,” the head of NGO X pensively replies. “After all, the Church of Christ the Savior exists without the participation of Christ the Savior…”
#ISpy: a very young girl in shorts and an embroidered Ukrainian folk shirt telling an aging nun with a backpack the recipe for sugar cookies.
Yermilov told me how in the metro a guy was explaining to two girls how men and women are “fundamentally different.” As evidence, the young man referred to an episode from Huckleberry Finn: allegedly, when a something is tossed into a boy’s lap he quickly closes his legs, whereas a girl will open them. “So the thing will go through and not hit her?” asked one of the girls. “Exactly!” the young man happily and energetically confirmed, and then, said Yermilov, “he went on and on about the ‘woman’s way’ of solving problems through avoidance.”
I think this story is worth telling to students (I mean my students who are studying costume theory). First of all, as an illustration of how wearing a specific kind of clothing gets imprinted on the subconscious (like, catching something with the hem of your skirt* was a subconscious and instantaneous action determined by the immutable and lifelong presence of that very skirt; nowadays, even a woman wearing a long skirt is probably more likely to close her legs in that situation than to open them). Secondly and more importantly, it’s an illustration of why it is important to study the fundamentals of the theory and history of costume, regardless of what discipline within the humanities you’re planning to study**—if only to avoid forgetting that people do wear clothes. And thirdly and most importantly, it’s an example that perfectly lays bare the problems faced by the outsider researcher seeking to explain the behavioral patterns of an alien culture.
*If, of course, we consider Mark Twain to be an authoritative observer of girls. More sources needed?☺
**Although in the specific situation in question, common sense should have been enough, but such is the aplomb of youth and so on.
#ISpy: a shortish butcher thoughtfully lunching behind the counter on pickles and quail.
An advertisement on a pole in Tel Aviv: “Cozy room available for intimate encounters. Available by the hour, Mon-Thurs 8:00am-3:00pm.” Looks like someone very enterprising is working the first shift!
Gavrilov contemplates why it is that ethnic Russians wishing to conduct their personal lives in unbearably complicated fashion always, without fail, seem to do so in Nice, or Biarritz, or, worst case scenario, in Tel Aviv. He suggests that in those places life is good, which leaves Russians with plenty of internal space for suffering. “Let’s say someone lives in Torzhok, well, how much suffering can she really fit in? Not much. In Biarritz on the other hand, there’s loads of free space!” This logic seems outrageous to me, insofar as it suggests that the volume of suffering that fits inside a native Russian is ultimately finite. I really feel like that undermines “spiritual staples” of the motherland and is a treasonous thing to say, Mr. Gavrilov.
People can call an article in a medical journal “Two Knitting Needles in the Thorax in a Suicide Attempt Diagnosed on Day 6 and Treated Conservatively.” And you talk about “flash fiction.”
On the playground, a kid comforts a crying friend with a bump on his forehead: “Don’t cry, this stick is here so that we can learn how to bang our heads properly.”
EXCERPTS FROM BIBLICAL ZOO
TRANSLATED BY ASHLEY MORSE AND ALEX TULLOCK
SPIRITUAL RABBITS
God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good.
▶ Genesis 1:25, NRSV
You’re going to Israel for a month and a half and looking for an apartment—online to start. You sort through the initial options. The majority of apartments on the internet, intended for short-term lease, have exactly one feature: “Close to the beach.” Someone with a fear of sand, bright light, and dolphins has to deal with hints, half-hints, and photos taken from strange angles. (With most shots, it’s not hard to guess that the photographer is trying to do his work without getting up from the sofa; that shadow looming across every shot belongs to his wife, who’s been chewing his ear off about the necessity of posting an online ad because we’re leaving in a week, the day after tomorrow, in an hour, “the taxi’s waiting downstairs!”) I’ve been living in Israel on and off for the past ten years, either staying with my parents or, if it’s for work, in a hotel; accordingly, I haven’t looked for an apartment for about twelve years. But like all expats, I feel both aggressive and sentimental about my homeland. I love everything and nothing satisfies me. That is, I always want an apartment in a neighborhood that’s enchanting, lively, quiet, empty, crowded, right by the sea, a ways from the beach, with a quirky layout, the simpler the better, in a very interesting area, directly over a supermarket, right next to a nice restaurant, close to fast-food falafel—and so on. Meanwhile, the television is constantly informing the world that the situation with apartments in Israel is a total nightmare, that there’s nowhere to live, prices are hellacious, and all that. In a panic, you start asking your friends for advice. Friend X, who has just sold one apartment in Tel Aviv and bought another, tells you, “Don’t sweat it, dude. True, it’ll be really expensive, but it’ll work out. Worst-case scenario, you’ll live in a tent, it’s really trendy these days, there’s tent protests against high rent, people have been living in tents for months already, we go there to smoke weed.” I riffle through online ads. I turn up a surprising number of posts with mind-boggling apartments for ridiculously little money. I send X the links. “I dunno,” X says warily, “maybe they’re brothels?” A brothel would never take me, I’m too old. The specter of a tent appears before me; it’s 90 degrees outside and I don’t smoke that much. I arrive, leave my suitcase at my parents’, and go look at apartments. Mom insists that I take a gas mask with me. It occurs to me that if you live in a tent right in the middle of Rothschild Boulevard, a gas mask might not be such a bad idea.
A charming, cozy, bright apartment in Ramat Aviv, one of the most off-the-hook neighborhoods in Tel Aviv. The owners are departing on a diplomatic mission to Sweden and renting it for really cheap—they don’t need money, they need a cultured tenant with a love of lame rabbits. The rabbit’s name is Ehrlich, after the owner’s first wife’s maiden name. He has a crazy appetite—given the chance, he’ll eat you out of house and home. Ehrlich devours everything: the carpet, a porcelain statue from the golden age of Bauhaus, a chair leg.1 The universe, with its perverse sense of humor, has conspired to make th
e lacquer on the antique chair leg do something to the rabbit’s nervous system that paralyzes his right hind leg. The rabbit drags it behind him, like Lord Chesterfield proudly demonstrating to the world his aristocratic case of gout, acquired through an excessive consumption of Rheinwein and Tokay. The rabbit needs looking after—and that’s how you pay for an amazing apartment in an amazing neighborhood with an amazing Jacuzzi, amazing Bauhaus features, and a widescreen TV of amazing proportions. The owners themselves can’t believe how lucky you are to take care of such an incredible, gouty rabbit. Wash him twice a day, no need for more; injections six times per day—he has a vitamin deficiency; he eats only fresh foods, and don’t give him artichokes, they make him pee and poop. The rabbit looks at you with gloomy crimson eyes, slightly pulling back his upper lip. His frightening long teeth sparkle in the light of an amazing Tiffany lamp. The rabbit conveys to you that you can’t even imagine how and what he pees and poops—but soon you will. In anguish, you ask to see the Jacuzzi one more time, just because; it’s like looking at a beautiful woman whom you’re fated never to touch, or a museum statue in a city from which you’re being driven for drawing a penis on their proud coat of arms in the central square. You’re so sorry to part with the amazing owners that you nearly cry. Ehrlich trails you all the way to the door. He’s made it very clear to you who lives here and who doesn’t.
There are almost no talking animals in the Old Testament. Except for the serpent, whose story is well known, poor Balaam’s ass has to hack it alone. And even she kept silent, more or less, until a surprise encounter with an angel made an exceptional impression on her.
VENUS FLYTRAP
There’s a Venus flytrap in apartment number two. It’s in Ramat Gan, in an excellent, quiet side street, with the back door of the low-lying apartment looking out onto a lovely garden. The owner is an elderly woman with short, bright red hair, delicately jingling bracelets, a smell of perfume about her. She’s a strong woman, she raised three sons, all military officers, one Canadian. This excellent woman is going to Canada to visit her grandsons. Her amazing little place is available for next to nothing, money’s of no interest to her, she’s never had money and never will—it’s not important, she says. What’s important is the garden. There are eighty-two types of plants in the garden, including artichokes. There’s a thick notebook of weeding, watering, and fertilizing regimens. It occurs to you that all that’s missing is to resettle Ehrlich to the garden and introduce him to the artichokes, but you keep this to yourself. You’re shown the Venus flytrap. A despondent cockroach, having already renounced this mortal world, twitches convulsively in its sticky jaws. There’s a whole bucket of them. Feed it once every two days, make sure to give it the fat ones, it’ll get upset if they’re too little. You feel like the flytrap and Ehrlich would have a lot in common, but you yourself don’t feel up to it all somehow. But you still spend forty minutes having coffee with the red-haired woman. She’s a former army doctor—you want me to make you breathe way easier? Crack! She pops your back with the side of a frying pan. Something in your back cracks interestingly, breathing really does get way easier, and you’re so sorry to leave that you nearly cry. The jaws of the Venus flytrap have now closed completely, and you’re vaguely comforted by the idea that it was already sated when the two of you met.
A breathtaking apartment in Givatayim, completely upholstered in black leather. The skinny, long-haired owner with three rings in his lower lip is about to do a month-and-a-half stint in jail for attacking a movie theater guard who requested that the owner check his two-meter-long, lead-handled whip at the door. He’s not interested in money, he just wants to give his apartment to someone who won’t “turn the place into a brothel.” An hour-and-a-half conversation about the features of the modern-day erotic couture (recorded on tape for an article in Theory of Fashion). He’s dying to try on the gas mask. I say that my mother wouldn’t like it. It’s a shame to part, but bailiffs come to take the owner away.
A magical twostory loft in Kfar Saba with one downside: every Thursday, a group of Ukrainian folk song enthusiasts gathers there—can you sing? A small, tidy, quiet apartment on Sheinkin Street in an aristocratic, bohemian Tel Aviv neighborhood, third floor. For a second, happiness beckons—a unpretentious girl opens the door, inside is unpretentious student furniture, an unpretentious fridge, an unpretentious cat on four mobile legs, a moderate number of houseplants, a working washing machine, and the girl is leaving for the fall to study something or other on an exchange program. The bedroom has no floor. It’s simply not there—it’s been disassembled. You look down to see a nice man in glasses waving at you warmly from the second floor. They tore up the floor and a curtain, ropes, and so on hang down from there now. You can’t be a slave to the system if theater is your life; you have to create theater yourself, within yourself, and all around.
A wonderful, tidily made bed is securely bolted to the wall, out of harm’s way. The girl is not interested in money, money is garbage; what’s important is spiritual elevation and the smiley man in glasses. No one in our country is interested in money; patriotism isn’t about money but about love; no money for us, thanks. You simply have to tune into that love, emotionally. That’s all you need—just live! Wash your rabbit, feed your flytrap, sing Ukrainian folk songs until you lose your voice, swing on slings, but the main thing is not to turn the place into a brothel. The owner of the leather apartment was outraged that, while he was serving his previous sentence, his friends did god-knows-what here, thirty people would gather at a time, it was shameful and in poor taste. It’s impossible to mistake an Israeli apartment for any other in the world—people live there not by choice but out of love. For lack of other options, people fall in love with it and make it beautiful due to pure affection for this shelter that lets you stay for a while, due to quirks, spiritual restlessness, lame rabbits, flytraps and all.
I call X and tell him that money is shit, garbage. Money doesn’t buy you anything, you know? You just need to wash your rabbits. Within yourself, around yourself. Don’t give in to the system, you know? Put up a tent, put on a gas mask, bolt yourself to the bed so that no bitch can ever part you from it—and live on, purely out of love. X says, “Listen, dude, I just saw an ad for an apartment and popped in. It’s an awesome apartment, it used to belong to Arabs, it’s in Old Yafo, it’s ancient, there’s mosaics, five-meter-high ceilings, a garden, everything. The landlords are Polish Jews who’ve lived here for a while, they love their house—it’s not a house, it’s a jewel. They’re great people, not interested in money, they just want to be sure that—how do I put it?—that you’ll care about their home, wholeheartedly, like it’s your own. You’ll meet them and you’ll be sorry to leave.” I ask about the downside of this magical apartment. Is there a tiger in the tub? Is there a pagan altar instead of a stove? Does the owners’ dog transform into the local bartender under the full moon? Like all expats, I’m ready to love everything about Israel. It’s just, I’d like to prepare myself emotionally somehow and start loving all of it right now, ahead of time. “Weeell,” X says cautiously, “it’s not exactly a downside…more like a special feature. This is an Arab neighborhood, you know. Arabs here, there, and everywhere. The neighbors are Arabs. There’s a mosque on the first floor—I mean, an Arab one. But you know,” X adds quickly, “they’re really sweet. Really chill Arabs, always smiling. I think they’re cool with it.” “Are they?” I ask cautiously. “Weeell,” X says, “how can you know? Soon there’ll be a Palestinian state—then we’ll see.”
The Arabs turned out to be really sweet after all. They helped me with my suitcase and offered me weed. They have a friendly little dog. They’re extremely fond of their neighborhood and hang little lanterns from the trees during Ramadan and water the bushes every day. And yeah, you know, soon we’ll have a Palestinian state and then we’ll see.
RESPONSIBLE GOPHERS
Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with
you. Bring out with you every living thing […] nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.
▶ Genesis 8:15–21, NRSV
People in Israel have a special relationship with the feeling of danger. It’s not that it’s dulled, it’s just that no one has the energy for it. All of your energy goes into convincing your relatives not to worry. With so many relatives, by the time you’ve convinced them all—what do you know, the war’s over. In the excellent words of a certain village idiot who lives in Jerusalem near the bus station (usually said as he takes three or four steps toward a random passerby): “Oy, as for you, good sir, I’m not worried about you at all! It’s obvious that you’re the kind of person a guy doesn’t need to worry about!” And then immediately to another passerby: “And you, my good man! Well, I’m absolutely not worried about you, not one bit! It’s obvious you’re the kind of person a guy just doesn’t have to worry about at all!”
It really reminds you of a typical conversation between an Israeli woman and a foreign relative after yet another explosion, terrorist attack, rocket strike, or military operation: “Ninochka! Come on, stop worrying about us! You know you’re not allowed to worry! If you worry about us, then we worry about you and it’s not like we don’t have enough to worry about as it is. What I mean to say is there’s absolutely no reason to worry about us! Ninochka! Ninochka, stop worrying! Ninochka! No, I can tell you’re worrying, I can hear it. When you worry your dentures always clack into the receiver!”
Found Life Page 19