Another Queer Jewish Buddhist

Predictions for 2009

What does 2009 hold? These predictions from a bletological clairvoyant give a good indication...

The Banned Words List

Lake Superior State University in Michigan released its annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness. For those English professors who get to feel superior just because they live on a lake, I have two messages. First, in the United States the only people who speak the Queen's English live in West Hollywood or Chelsea. And second:

It’s that time of year again, New Year’s Eve, when pundits make lists and I take my staycation, not because I’m going green or want to reduce my carbon footprint. No, it’s simply that despite my desperate search for employment, I have not received a bailout. Clearly I live neither on Wall Street or Main Street, but on Madison Avenue, a street filled with copy monkeys posing as marketing mavericks, and the first dude you run into will try to pitch a game changing campaign for some iconic brand in the hope of not only getting a job, but winning five nominations for a Clio or Andy award.

There, I used every one of your damned banned words. 3 you!

Patchin Place Landmarks and the Con Ed Fire on West 10th Street

If the dessert and pastry shop Ciao for Now is lucky enough to live up to its name, it will be back at its location at 107 W 10th Street. Along with village landmark Adam West (the barbershop, not the Batman actor from the 70s) and the apartments above, the shop caught fire due to a an electrical short in a manhole. The website of the Fire Department's Squad 18, which fought the fire reports:

With the winter season upon us the falling snow, salt and accumulating water cause numerous manhole fires. This is due to the corrosion of the insulation on the high voltage wires and transformers under the street.

Squad 18 was turned out at 2113 hours for smoke from a manhole, at the corner of West 10th and 6th Ave. Upon arrival a heavy smoke condition was emanating from the transformer vault. Additionally smoke was showing from one of the buildings. Fire was first discovered in the basement of 108 West 10th. Fire was also discovered in 102, 104, 106 and 110 West 10th street in basements first and second floors. A second alarm was transmitted around 2200 hours.

These buildings are a part of an extremely unusual, interesting and historic triangular shaped corner of the West Village as they are bounded on one side by Patchin Place and Mulligan Place on the other.

Mulligan Place is an alley that is identified only by cast iron script on top of its narrow gate on Sixth Avenue north of Tenth Street. The four buildings in this cul-de-sac were built in 1852 as second-class boarding houses for waiters (primarily Basque) working at the nearby Brevoort House hotel. These vintage homes were built on the property of Samuel Milligan, the original owner. Milligan's daughter Isobel married his surveyor, Aaron Patchin, who is remembered by Patchin Place.

Patchin Place, on West 10th Street (formerly Amos Street) just west of Sixth Avenue, is more conventionally laid out that its partner Milligan Place in that it's a straight cul de sac without Milligan's odd angles. No one except Patchin Place residents get to see it because of the locked iron gate, but Patchin Place affords one of Greenwich Village's most picturesque views of the old Jefferson Market court, formerly adjacent to a women's prison and today a library. Famous residents of Patchin Place have included poet E.E. Cummings and authors John Reed and Theodore Dreiser. Patchin Place also contains NYC's last functioning gaslamp (below). The lamp dates back to the gaslight era and has since been electrified.

Patchin Place was also home to e.e.cummings, and is where storyteller Diane Wolkstein lives. Today, signs were up in all the stores from the city calling for evacuation due to fire damaging the structural integrity of the buildings. Will these historic building survive? These buildings are a New York treasure, and must be saved.

Yaji & Kita: The Gay Samurai Musical

Not many Americans have read the Hagakure, which is the book that became the code of the Samurai in Edo period Japan. Written in the early 18th Century, excerpts were popular during the 80s, when Japan's economic star was ascendant, giving American managers lessons in Bushido, the way of the warrior. Of course, what get left out were the queer bits. Yup, not unlike ancient Greece where a man had the responsibility of training a younger man in the arts of war, and love, so too in Japan. The Hagakure recognizes these relationships (within the larger context of family responsibility, not unlike Greece). But there was nothing like this:

Yaji and Kita: The Midnight Pilgrims is a wildlly surreal, genre busting musical road trip, somewhere between The Wizard of Oz and Kurosawa's Dreams on drugs. Lots of drugs, because KIta is a drug addict. And to heal him (and get out of town fast for reasons not revealed until late in the film) he convinces him to go on a pilgrimage to one of Japan's three great shrines, Ise.

Imagine if Brokeback Mountain had been a musical comedy. As if it had been invaded by Oklahoma. And then Blue Man Group.

So anachronisms abound, from the very start, when the two lovers leave Edo (what Tokyo was called until the late 19th Century) they jump on a motorcycle Easy Rider style, only to be hailed down by a cop for breaking dramatic narrative rules. Well. Giant babies. A local lord who requires people to make him laugh or face torture. A bar serving magic mushrooms straight out of Alice. Sword fights. Love scenes. Hip hop dance numbers. It's a very wild ride. Don't miss it.

Some Light Reading for the Eighth Night of Hanukkah: Plutarch & the Pieseszner Rebbe

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be ignited."

—Plutarch

"I am certain that after you spend a period of time engaged in constant work of this type, [mindfulness meditation] God will help you sense the rays of supernal light and divine holiness that have entered your soul, body and essence."

—Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, the Pieseszner Rebbe

You can download Shapira's guide to Jewish mindfulness meditation, as he taught it in Poland before being killed in the Holocaust.

May we all learn to burn with the fire of this, and not be consumed.

Sunday Morning Cartoon: Harry Potter

There have been all kinds of mashups in the fan world from the Potter movies showing Potter and various of his friends and enemies falling in love or lust. Not unlike the Kirk/Spock fan mashups of an earlier era (done painstakingly with actual film or video). But this little fan cartoon of Potter and Voldemort has a weird combination of Narcissism (Harry as Voldemort as Everything and loving himself) along with an unconsciously mystical understanding of the Divine (and thus the Demonic also) in everything. Okay, enough of my ponderous thinking about this cartoon, watch and enjoy:

Some Light Reading for the Seventh Night of Hanukkah: The Zohar

Rabbi Yitzak said:
The light created by G!d in the act of Creation
flared from one end of the universe to the other
and was hidden away,
reserved for the righteous on the world that is coming,
as it is written —
Light is sown for the righteous (Psalm 97:11)
Then the worlds will be fragrant, and all will be one.
But until the world that is coming arrives,
it is stored and hidden away.
Rabbi Yehudah responded:
If the light were completely hidden,
the world would not exist for even a moment!
Rather, it is hidden and sown like a seed,
giving birth to seeds and fruit.
Thereby is the world sustained.
Every single day, a ray of that light shines into the world,
animating everything;
with that ray G!d feeds the world.
And everywhere Torah is studied at night,
one thread thin ray appears from that hidden light
and flows down upon those absorbed in her.
Since the first day, the light has never been fully revealed,
but is vital to the world,
renewing each day the act of Creation.

Some Light-hearted Viewing for the Sixth Night of Hanukkah

Some Light Reading for the Fifth Night of Hanukkah: Sufi Poetry

Although you may not know it,
If you love anyone, it is Him you love;
If you turn your head in any direction,
It is toward Him you turn.

Let go of everything,
Completely lose yourself on this path,
Then your every doubt will be dispelled.
With absolute conviction you'll cry out —
I am God!
I am the one I have found!

In the light I praised you
And never knew it.
In the dark I slept with you
And never knew it.
I always thought that I was me,
But no, I was you
and never knew it.

Fahkruddin Iraqi
1213 — 1289

Some Light Reading for the Fourth Night of Hanukkah

Remember always that you are just a visitor here, a traveller passing through. Your stay is but short and the moment of your departure unknown. None can live without toil and a craft that provides your needs is a blessing indeed. But if you toil without rest, fatigue and weariness will overtake you and you will be denied the joy that comes from labour´s end.

Speak quietly and kindly and be nor forward with either opinions or advice If you talk much this will make you deaf to what others say and you should know that there are few so wise that they can not learn from others Be near when help is needed but far when praise and thanks are being offered.

Take small account of might , wealth and fame, for they soon pass and are forgotten. Instead nurture love within you and strive to be a friend to all. Truly compassion is a balm for many wounds.

Treasure silence when you find it and while being mindful of your duties set time aside to be alone with yourself. Cast off pretence and self-deception and see yourself as you really are.

Despite all appearance no one is really evil. They are led astray by ignorance. If you ponder this truth always you will offer more light rather than blame and condemnation. You, no less than all beings, have Buddha Nature within. your essential mind is pure. Therefore when defilement causes you to stumble and fall, let not remorse nor dark fore-Bonding cast you down. Be of good cheer and with this understanding, summon strength and walk on. Faith is like a lamp and wisdom it is that makes the flame burn bright. Carry this lamp always and in good time the darkness will yield and you will abide in light.

Written by the venerable (and rather witty) Shravasti Dhammika as a sort of Buddhist response to that odd bit of writing that turned up in the '60s: Desiderata.