Boycott Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson has a right to free speech, and we have a right to respond with our dollars. That's all I'm going to say about it.

Crossing This Line Could Cost Him Deals
By Robert W. Welkos and John Horn, Times Staff Writers
July 31, 2006

Mel Gibson is rich enough to finance his own movies, including the 2004 blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ" and the upcoming release "Apocalypto." But although riches can buy a certain freedom from creative interference, no man is an island in the movie business.

Gibson, who apologized Saturday for making "despicable" remarks in what was described as an anti-Semitic tirade after a drunk driving arrest, in some ways now finds himself at the mercy of a Hollywood establishment that may or may not be inclined to extend forgiveness.

His most immediate issue is with Walt Disney Co., which is distributing "Apocalypto" and which also, through its ABC television network, has a development deal with his company to make a miniseries about the Holocaust.

Several prominent critics of "The Passion" have stepped forward to suggest that Gibson, who denied there was an anti-Semitic undercurrent in his movie about the last hours of Christ's life, has now shown his true colors.

"Mel Gibson's apology is unremorseful and insufficient," said Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who added: "His tirade finally reveals his true self and shows that his protestations during the debate over his film 'The Passion of the Christ,' that he is such a tolerant, loving person, were a sham."

Foxman called on Hollywood executives to "realize the bigot in their midst" and "distance themselves from this anti-Semite."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, urged Gibson to drop the Holocaust project, saying it would be "inappropriate."

Gibson's spokesman declined to respond.

Ordinarily, Hollywood distribution deals call for the studio to handle marketing for the movie — a potentially difficult proposition given Gibson's arrest in Malibu and the ensuing controversy about remarks he allegedly made, including: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

Meanwhile, the Holocaust project, to be adapted from a little-known 1998 memoir called "Flory: Survival in the Valley of Death," which recounts the experiences of a young Dutch Jew during World War II, is in the early stages. An ABC spokeswoman Sunday would confirm only that the project was in development and that executives would wait to see a finished script before deciding whether to go into production on the proposed miniseries. Gibson and his spokesman, Alan Nierob, have said little about the project, which is backed by Gibson's Con Artists Productions, the TV division of his Icon Productions.

"It's in development, but not very far in," an ABC spokeswoman said. "It is not at the point where you would make those determinations. There is no script."

Although many of the town's senior executives are Jewish and Hollywood has a long history of supporting Israel and Jewish causes, there was no widespread public condemnation of Gibson's comments over the weekend. Although some high-level executives privately expressed dismay at the statements attributed to Gibson after his arrest, none of those contacted would speak on the record.

As for Gibson, he was said to be huddling with his medical, legal and spiritual advisors over the weekend. Some of his friends, who asked not to be identified, said they hoped he would seek counseling for his admitted drinking problem. One source said the star had already begun rehabilitation, noting that Gibson had long been a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

At this point, the incident's long-term effect on Gibson's career is a matter of speculation.

By the way Mel, apology not accepted.

Now I'm hungry

I Just read Rand's post and it made me hungry. It got me thinking that the State Fair is fast approaching. We live four blocks from the State Fair grounds and I am beside myself with excitement. Last year, during Fair time, I was very sick and only made it to the last day, and had to sit down a lot. This year, my friend Tracy and I plan on going every day.

I should explain that my love for the State Fair is limited to its food. I am not a big fan of crowds. I don’t go on rides, especially ones that get shipped around the country and unpacked and assembled in a matter of hours. I stay away from over-grown chickens with bizarrely colored plumes of feathers, giant pigs who have recently given birth, and the general stench of the animal barns. The live music can be good, and it can also sometimes be hilariously bad. But the food, ah the food. Fry it, shove a stick in it, and I’ll eat it.

I have a list of favorites:
Proto Pups (no other corn dog will do), deep-fried Snickers bar, corn on the cob, Sweet Martha’s cookies by the bucket load. But the tops has to be Key Lime Pie on a Stick. They are sold in a tiny stand just outside the food building. Look for the green and white striped awning.

I am not sure if it’s the same brand, but just now, on the Food Network, Road Tasted had a segment on the making of these little slices of green heaven. Now I am even MORE excited about the fair. Ok, fair food.

Speaking of food, last night we had some friends over for dinner. The kids were polite and even took at least one bite of everything offered to them. I am not a mom, so I never know what to feed kids. For dessert, I made ice cream and we had “make your own sundaes” with hot fudge and two kinds of sprinkles. I had forgotten the whipping cream and cherries, but the kids didn’t seem to mind. Boone forever sealed his place in my will by exclaiming: this is just like Cold Stone Creamery! Dang I love those kids.

A friend's daughter once asked—I think she was two or three at the time—"Why can't every day be a hot fudge sundae?"

I am sensing a theme here. I think I’ll go have some of the green tea gelato I made yesterday. It’s divine.

Project Run Away

I have been locked away in my little dark office, writing and revising and thinking deep thoughts. Since all my stories are based in Israel, this is an eerily appropriate time to be immersed in all of this heady stuff. But it also leaves me a little blue, so in the evenings I emerge from my room in search of some levity.

I found it in last night’s episode of Project Runway. I love that show. It’s so stupid, it’s great. In case you had something better to do on a hot Wednesday night, here is the punch line. The assignment was to design an outfit for a fictional woman and her dog. Each designer, and I use that term loosely, was given a tiny dog to use as their muse. Bradley, a sullen, introvert who seems to have last bathed in early 2005, was in a pickle. His design, you see, wasn’t working. Fast forward through a painful hour of fabric shopping, cutting, pinning, and general mayhem, and we see Bradley, an hour away from Runway Time (gasp) and he has made
nothing. Not a stitch. Nada. Not for the human model who is now standing by him wondering if she will have to walk the runway naked, nor for her little dog. Cut to Runway segment. Bradley’s model walks out in two pieces of billowy, shapeless pieces of fabric. One for a top, which looked like it was tied around her neck with a twist tie, and one for what I can only assume was a skirt. It may have all been duct taped together, I couldn’t tell.

The hoity-toity panel of judges, which for some inexplicable reason included Ivanka Trump, loved it! They gushed about his innovating point of view. They even had the size negative 4 model turn side ways to show the “flattering cut” of the “garment.” She looked like a potato sack in mid-flight. Bradley was as shocked as I was.

The judges, and the entire show, finally proved itself to be the joke that I always thought it was. But I still love it, don’t get me wrong. Now if only they would get rid of Heidi Klum. Avidasain.

Photo Series: Introduction

7 a.m. Moshav Shoshana, Israel

I sit cross-legged on the woven rug. Around me are boxes filled with photographs of various sizes, black and white images with cracks running through faces. There are also leather bound albums- black paper layered with photos of children, weddings, friends- all held in place with tiny transparent corners. Notes in my mother’s careful handwriting are scribbled in silver ink next to each photo. Names, dates, places. Some are snapshots of my childhood. But others, the photos I truly treasure, are of times before my own, when my history began. Some faces look like mine; others will forever remain unnamed.

Now I am surrounded with the past, with no clear place to begin. It is a late winter morning, the kind that tricks the heart into thoughts of spring and evening walks. The low hanging clouds outside my windows, the thick smell of coals coming from the potbelly stove, my heavy eyelids, all cast the dreamy mood of early evening although the day has just begun.

My grandparents have all passed away. I am sitting on my living room floor, in our homeland, yet far away from the beginning. My family began in the countries of Eastern Europe, where my grandparents lived and loved and dreamed like all other teenagers around the world. I pull out one photo at a time, study the faces, and look for traces of my father’s eyes, my mother’s tense smile.

In my family history is not easily passed along to younger generations. My paternal grandmother diligently taught me the recipes of her childhoods- goulash and sauerkraut, brisket in dark tomato sauce, golden soups with dense dumplings. As a young child, I would watch my grandmother cook, sitting quietly in the corner of her tiny kitchen. The warm air slowly filled with the scent of rising yeast and sizzling onions. She would explain how hot the oil should be before it was ready for the small ground beef patties to be dropped in for frying. She would demonstrate her careful technique, bent over the stove like a question mark, the oil hissing in the pan. I was instructed in the art of forming the perfect matzo balls to plop into hot bowls of chicken soup, but I was not told the real stories of my grandmother’s youth, suddenly destroyed by hatred and war.

So now I am left to piece together history through these tiny black and white fragments in a cardboard box.

Photograph series: II

Going for a ride with mom

My mother drove a Vespa when I was first born. We drove up and down the coast, me tucked into the sidecar, wind in my eyes and salt in my new teeth.

In this photo, we are ready to fly. I have a handkerchief around my head, tied neatly at my throat. Although it is light gray in the photo, I remember it was actually faded red, washed over and over in a small basin on the sunny side of our yard. My mother has short dark hair and a straight nose, and although I look somewhat like Ed Asner in most of the photos from this era, I will grow up to look exactly like her.

My parents met when they were in the ninth grade, which means that by the time I was 16, I was already behind schedule. My father remembers the day he saw her, wearing a crisp white shirt and a barrette in her hair. Her family had just moved to the kibbutz where my father lived- it was the first day of school. My father remembers the tree he stood under, how she turned to look in his direction, but instead, stared somewhere far in the distance. He was smitten, but it was my mother who asked him to take a moonlit walk just a few weeks later. He kissed her by the side of the pond where the kids cooled off from their fieldwork on hot summer days.

15 Minutes

My hometown has been all over the news in the last few days, but it’s not the kind of fame anyone wants. I was born and raised in Nahariya, Israel, about six miles from the Israel-Lebanon border. It’s a beautiful little resort town popular with both Israelis and tourists. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the west and small agricultural communities known as Kibbutzim in every other direction.

Downtown Nahariya boasts a creek that runs through the middle of town, flanked by eucalyptus trees and outdoor cafes. Little bridges cross the creek- the Venice of the Middle East. The creek and the promenade that surrounds it end in a wide spread of beaches and beach front restaurants.

If you want to catch a glimpse of the place where I was born, just turn on CNN. Anderson Cooper has been reporting from there for a full day now. As I sat glued to my television set, the sun slowly came out behind Cooper, revealing the streetlamps and eucalyptus trees I remember so well.

Every neighborhood in Israel has community shelters- sci-fi looking structures that jut out of the ground in sharp concrete triangles. When I was young we used to have parties in these shelters. We played spin the bottle and danced. We were 11 years old. We didn’t get it. During katyusha attacks, my parents believed we would be safer at home than running through the streets to the shelter, so they would place my brother and I in the shower (the inner most room in our tiny house) and shoved pillows on all the windows. Once, when my father was out of town, my mother took us to the shelter during a bombing. We thought it was exciting. We got to be with our friends and stay up all night playing games. I cannot even imagine what my mother must have been going through at that time. I long now for the ignorance of youth.

This is not how I wanted to revisit my memories of my beloved hometown. I can’t pretend to understand what is happening there, or have the answers to this ancient war. I just know that bombs are destroying streets I used to play in as a child. I know that my best friend’s parents have fled their home and are now safe with her in Tel Aviv, although her mentally handicapped uncle refused to leave and was left behind in Nahariya with a week’s supply of food and water. I know that is it 6:00 a.m. in Israel and the familiar sound of katyushas are coming from my television set and that old fear in the pit of my stomach has returned, even though I am safe in St. Paul. I know I will probably stay up tonight and watch the day unfold in Israel, wait for my friend to get on IM so I know she is safe too.

If it sounds like war, it is.

Feel the Love

Just a quick note to tell my friends (who evidently read this blog but are too shy to comment) that I love them and am eternally grateful for all of the support and interest. I am one lucky girl.

Peace, love, and Girl Scouts cookies.

Photograph Series: I

Dad in front of work

My father was a librarian— when he was not taking photos of his children. He worked until 2 p.m. in the afternoons, in a library on the main road leading to our tiny downtown district. We lived in a small town on the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. My father’s parents escaped from Europe and built an entire country with their bare hands; roads and homes and fields from which their children were fed. They came to this desert land and named their first-born son Israel.

My father is standing in front of the brick wall of the library’s only entrance. His hands are shoved in his jean pockets; a dark curl escapes and lands on his forehead. He is tall and shiny like a 1940’s movie star. A movie star in flannel. He squints against the bright sunlight.

Barely two decades before this photo was taken, the luxury of books, of freedom and sunshine, would have seemed a distant star to my father’s father, alone in a cold room in Romania, soldiers marching on the street below.

Friends Don’t Let Friends Drink Starbucks

This weekend I went for a walk around my neighborhood with a good friend who lives in a slightly more “suburbany” area. We talked about the differences between city living and sort-of suburban living, and I noticed how often I raised the “I can walk to three coffee shops” flag as a source of pride. It seems silly, but yes, I am choosing to live in the city and give up the huge house and even huger yard for the sake of my daily walks to Java Train and Como Park. There is just something about the fact that every house on our streets looks so completely different from its neighbor, or that people live so close to each other they can share gardens, that really appeals to us. I understand, sort of, the allure of Woodbury or Plymouth or even St. Michael, where a friend of mine recently built a mega McMansion. I get that small children can ride their bikes in relative safety of the cul-de-sac and that the chances of three St. Thomas students renting the house directly across the street is smaller than in my neighborhood of West Como. I also get that you can probably build a 4000 sq. ft. house in St. Michael for a fraction of the cost it would be here. And maybe, some day, I may (hand to heart, deep breath…) choose to move out a bit further from the center of it all. But for now, as I approach 40 and am considering giving this whole parenting thing a try, I could not be happier in my tiny house and my tiny yard and my tiny porch on a street that end-caps in two privately owned coffee shops. Which brings me to my next subject.

It seems that mom-and-pop coffee shops are the last of the privately held small businesses to continue to flourish. Java Train down the bend is never empty, and they have just added a beautiful patio. On the other side of us, the Coffee Grounds showcases local music. They don't do that at Starbucks.

The whole Caribou/Islam thing confuses and saddens me, because I do like their coffee but as a Jewish girl born and raised in Israel, I feel guilty every time I go there. I tried to read about the subject a bit, but I still don’t really get it and being torn just makes me anxious so I stick with what I know: shop local. Support your local (and privately owned) coffee shops, ice cream shops, and bookstores. Put your money where your heart and home is, people, and we will all be better off for it.

It is a beautiful day outside, isn’t it? I just got back from the dentist (which I hate, but not as much as Voix does) and it wasn’t so bad. I got to drive down Summit Avenue, which is just so darn lovely. I am just in love with my life. Or maybe it’s the tall Cold Press…either way. Happy day everyone.

Leah

This was an exercise in Place for Sheila's class. It is only an exercise! But in some form, down the road, it may end up in my thesis. Or not.

We spend cool spring evenings in the sandy yard behind Leah’s house, smelling of dirt and strawberry gum. The cream stucco of her house serves as shelter from the ocean breeze, while tall eucalyptus trees swayed back and forth above us like a canopy. Behind us, a winding asphalt path disappears behind the neighbor’s back shed, where a long-abandoned Vespa stands ashamed on its rusty stand. We rarely wander down this path, preferring instead the comforting confines of the tiny rectangular yard, bordered by Myrtle shrubs on one side and a sandbox on the other. We never use the sandbox because the neighborhood cats often do. Besides, we tell each other, we are eight; we are too old for sandbox games.

In our sleeveless light cotton shirts that we stubbornly wear against the damp evening, we sit on the limestone wall that segregates patio from dirt yard, weaving colorful rubber bands through our fingers. Behind Leah’s house sits a two-story apartment building that blends perfectly with the other homes with its cream façade and clay-tiled roof. On the stairs leading to an upstairs apartment, a black and white cat peers at our twilight activities from its shadowy perch. I think of Leah’s mother in the kitchen. I can hear the clinking of cookie sheets; smell the warm scent of vanilla and raspberry.

As the sun sinks into the ocean two blocks away, I can barely see Leah’s freckled face just a few inches from mine. The bronze metal of her glasses catches the light from the street lamp, where bugs swirl in a frenzied dance, their dead comrades dotting the glass globe.

“I should go in,” Leah says, as the eucalyptus swoosh over our heads. “I’m cold.”
I look up at the silvery sage leaves, buying time. I wish for the longer days and warmer nights of summer as my feet swing back and forth beneath me. I kick each foot with the other, sending grains of sand trickling down to the patio sandstone floor. Leah’s teeth have been chattering for a half an hour as she bravely refused to concede defeat against the setting sun. I wish for those warmer nights so that Leah would stay out here with me a little longer. Her hair is the color of burnt honey and her skin is so pale you can see her blue blood rushing beneath it. She is quick to tire of the cold, while I could stay out in the yard all night; wait for the stars to poke through the eucalyptus leaves one by one. I sigh and jump off the ledge.

“I don’t want to catch a cold,” she apologizes. “My mom would kill me.”
Even in my eight-year-old mind I know, I sense, that these frequent colds are more problematic than her parents let on. Their eyes shine with fear every time she coughs.

As she lets the screen door gently close behind her I hear a muffled sneeze. I imagine her mother in her warm kitchen, swiveling on her heels, a gasp catching in her throat. The sound of waves lapping against rocks fills up the silence in the yard. I wrap my arms around my chest, cold skin against damp cotton. The gum has gone stale in my mouth. I spit it out in the sandbox and close the metal gate behind me.

Thesis Update

Two days into it, I have two whole pages written. BUT! I have spent most of the time organizing and outlining and thinking and I believe those are all legitimate and important tasks so there. I am also trying to work on my run-on sentences, because I am told that is a problem for readers, so I hope I can break that nasty habit before the first draft is due, but don’t count on it.

Actually, I am pretty excited. Yesterday I started solidifying a plan and creating an outline, and I think it’s going to be ok. Tell me it’s all going to be ok…

Tomorrow, if I am brave, and if I remember, I will post a short story that may or may not eventually end up in the collection.

In other news: If you miss David and Herbach half as much as I do, come down to the Soap Factory on Friday. Dave and Geoff will be doing a reading along with other authors.

Friday, July 7th at 8 PM.
Outside the Soap Factory
518 2nd St. SE Minneapolis, MN

Admission is FREE.

Your Assignment

I don't know what you are doing right this minute, but I strongly suggest you head over to Jason's blog and add your Songs of Shame to the list.

Then, visit Lex Ham Rand and let the world know how much you love your 'hood.


You can always stain the dock or burn the burgers later.