Tomorrow Is Promised To No One:” Clichés Which Make Death More Palatable

JUL.27.2013

 Two English friends were discussing a mutual friend who recently passed away. One of my friends said “I am so sorry that I missed my chance of seeing her again and now it is too late.” I knew exactly what she meant, as it has also happened to me. Death leaves you with a helpless feeling of missed opportunities.

When my husband died, a friend quoted the expression: “tomorrow is promised to no one,” and I often reflect on the different meanings of this saying. I also ask myself why it is that so many insights concerning our fate are formulated in expressions, idioms and cliches: “Carpe diem,” for example, is an empowering way of saying that you may not live to see tomorrow.

 Since “an opportunity missed is an opportunity lost,” when a tragedy occurs we often make resolutions on “how to make every moment count,” and how we should lead our life while we can still “wake up and smell the coffee.”

 But as it is a heavy burden to “live every day like it is our last,” we often go back to the way we were before calamity struck. From my personal experience and from talking to other widows, I feel that disasters could be an opportunity to re-examine beliefs, attitudes and positions which are no longer relevant, and to make changes: “When life gives you lemons make lemonade”

The concept of making changes, makes me think of Stevens, the protagonist and narrator of  The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. This is a novel about passivity and resignation which lead to missed opportunities and regrets. Stevens, the head butler at Darlington Hall, is a man whose  inner self is clogged up with irrelevant beliefs, attitudes and positions.

Here are two examples:

 “What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took?”

Or:

“In any case, while it is all very well to talk of 'turning points', one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect.”

Stevens' worldview results in paralysis. Luckily we often do recognize our “turning points” in time, and are able to regain control, take action and make changes in our life.

Perhaps the answer to my question about overuse of cliches is that they comfort us and help us brave "what is waiting for us around the corner.” Moreover, those expressions emphasizes that we all "are in the same boat."

So while sailing, next time “when life deals us a tough blow” let’s make a large glass of lemonade, toast it and “seize the day!”

What Does A Fat Cat Do In The BBC?

AUG.11.2013 -

Johnny and I were sitting  in the train when he drew my attention to one of the headlines in the freebie that was lying about. It took me a few seconds to decipher that title. Then it occurred to me that those  kind of titles were incomprehensible to many of the tourists who were travelling with us in that London train.

Teaching my students how to write the topic and the main idea sentence of a passage, I instruct them first to look at the title and the subtitle of the article. We usually practice this skill on articles from newspapers such as the New York Times and even The Guardian.

But this technique would never work with the Metro and the Evening Standard, which are full of puns, idioms and slang.  As they belong to the culture and the history of the people who speak the language, puns and idioms are the hardest to learn and to use correctly in a foreign language.

I was discussing with my students an article which appeared in several newspapers in the US, the title of which was, “Would your child pick up a gun? Don’t kid yourself.” Perhaps because of the gravity of the subject, some editions refrained from including the pun.  It seems to me that, in contrast to most American publications, the British freebies never resist a good pun.

When I first came to Britain in the late 70s I was fortunate to meet the grandfather of an English friend. He was a real Cockney who used to work on the Thames docks.  He taught me  some Cockney rhyming slang: a beer was “Pig’s ear” and a sister was “a skin and blister.” The issue became more complicated when a beer was replaced with “pig’s,” and a sister with a “skin.”  I had to know the whole phrase in order to decode the part which didn’t rhyme. Like Alice in Wonderland, I felt confused. It was a though I was introduced to a secret language, which in a way was what this Cockney rhyming slang was.

 London is full with tourists most of the year, and many of them have a good enough mastery of the English language. But  if they happen to look at the freebies they would  lose all confidence in their language skills. Perhaps this is the sweet revenge of the British, whose island is conquered every year by millions of foreigners: in their own quiet and understating way they make sure that we remain outside.

Oh, and I almost forgot, so what does a fat cat do in the BBC? She draws a fat-cat pay cheque of course.

   

http://www.cockneyrhymingslang.co.uk/

"I Am A Feminist And I Also Don’t Have A Sense Of Humor:” A Story About Facebook

 - AUG.31.2013

I belong to the Israeli group “I am a feminist and I also don’t have a sense of humor” on Facebook. The group defines itself as “the group of disgruntled uber feminists and their friends." The group serves as a watchdog against discriminating misogynistic practices in different areas of life in Israel and  acts against offensive texts, photos and pictures in the media in general and on Facebook in particular. The other day the trigger for action was a cartoon that  appeared on FB, courtesy of a group called “Welcome to the Internet” https://www.facebook.com/4funsociety 

The cartoon showed a roller-coaster ride in an amusement park and the caption read “rape-- you could either scream or enjoy the ride.”

Our humorless group has over 3000 friends on FB and many of us reported the cartoon to FB as abusive and inappropriate. At first Facebook refused to regard that cartoon as offensive. Today more than a week later they wrote me to inform that they have reversed the decision. Here is what they wrote:

“You reported Welcome to the Internet's photo for harassment.

Details: We reviewed the photo you reported for harassment. Since it violated our Community Standards, we removed it. Thanks for your report. We let Welcome to the Internet know that their photo has been removed, but not who reported it. Facebook never discloses who submits a report. We have marked this content as insensitive and reached out to Welcome to the Internet and asked this to remove it.

Report Date       August 20

Status   This photo was removed

Owner  Welcome to the Internet

Reason Harassment”

I am relieved that Facebook has changed  its scandalous decision. However, it is discouraging to see, first that cartoons like this one are still posted at all, second that they could be considered humorous, and finally that for more than a week FB refused  to acknowledge the noxious nature of that cartoon.

For generations, feminists have been accused of having no sense of humor; the  Feminist  group on FB takes pride in having no sense of humor when it comes to offensive content.

Humor is a quality that allows us to put a distance between ourselves and the world around us. But could fathers, brothers, sons and husbands remain detached when rape, the most violent and inhuman crime against their women, is treated as a joke?

PS. I just found out that the cartoon could still be seen on FB

Blue Jasmine, A College Dropout Or A Gifted Anthropologist?

Although women’s education is not the main theme of Woody Allen’s movie Blue Jasmine, it is an important leitmotif --serving both as a characterization  device and as a moving force of the plot. In the opening scene on the plane, the heroine Jasmine tells the unfortunate lady who happens to sit next to her that after she had met her future husband she dropped out of university. She asks her neighbor whether she could imagine her as an anthropologist.

The neighbor does not have an answer, she has no idea who this rambling lady is, but Woody Allen has made a clever choice. Jasmine has not completed her education, still she is a gifted anthropologist. She becomes involved in a long standing field study of the rich and  famous. She does not keep a scientific distance from her subjects, quite the contrary. For several years she lives among them, carefully observes their movements and studies their practices, gradually she adopts  their norms and attitudes and becomes almost indistinguishable from them.

For years Jasmine has not worried about completing her education, as it served its purpose—marrying a rich man. However, when this chapter in her life abruptly and tragically ends, she is forced into a totally different field. Here she could no longer function as an anthropologist, she has no desire to study her new environment or adopt its customs. Thus she turns to education again hoping that once more it will provide her with the delivery she so desparately needs.

Unfortunately this time around Jasmine cannot be saved, going back to school proves too difficult in her current state of mind, and the connections that she obtains let her down.

Education (or learning), as it is presented in Blue Jasmine, does not have any intrinsic value; it only serves as a means for a specific purpose or as desperate prospect for a way out. I feel that Allen's disbelief in human nature has resulted in his cynical view of education in general and of education of women in particular.

This view of education brings back images of bleak periods in the history of Feminism; for generations women had to work much harder than men in order to be taken seriously. Moreover, their dedication was mocked or frowned upon by men (and sometimes by women). Until the 1980s gaining admission to either Oxford or Cambridge was much more difficult for women than for men, since their enrollment was limited to the only few openings in the women’s colleges.

Once they were admitted, their presence in these universities was not always welcome. Earlier in the century the poet and critic John Betjeman expressed a highly negative view of Oxford’s women who “drive out many good men from the clubs and societies they invade.” He even accused them of raising the standard of examinations since “they work so more doggedly than many of the men” The prominent feminist Edith Summerskill (an Oxford graduate, a physician, a Member of Parliament and a Minister of Cabinet), wrote to her daughter Shirley, a student in Oxford in the fifties that “it would be quite inaccurate to suggest that we were welcomed into the universities or into the public life”

 Blue Jasmine does not take place in the 1950s, a period when women were accused of going to university only to find a suitable husband, but in the present. Thus Jasmine must have attended university toward the end of the 20th century; I don't believe that at that time many women dropped out of school in order  to become  socialites.

Critics would argue  that Blue Jasmine is one of Woody Allen's best films, and  I am quite certain that it will win numerous awards. And yes, it is true that Cate Blanchett is brilliant as Jasmine and Woody Allen's  homage to old Blanche from Streetcar Named Desire is touching. However, we should not forget how hard we worked to get to where we are today and leave the 1950s behind. So at the risk of sounding humorless, I say: "it's not funny" and demand not to be  sent back there.

Young, Restless and Extremely Gifted: The Israeli Painter Zoya

O

You can never know what you will find on Facebook, I often think of it as a virtual bazaar or a giant T.J.  Maxx  store. It offers an array of unrelated, mostly irrelevant, information. However,  there is always a chance to  find a real  gem.

The  painter Zoya Obianuju Cherkassky-Nnadi  is such a gem. I was first introduced to her when someone shared on my wall several paintings from her series “Aliya 91.” Those paintings realistically depict scenes from the new reality of the Russian immigrants who came to Israel in the early 90s (the young Zoya and her family were among them). The paintings were clever, funny and insightful.

Looking at the one devoted to the Russian culture week in Ashdod, I found myself laughing out loud even though it wasn't really funny.

Please keep reading in my Times Of Israel blog

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/welcome-to-the-russian-culture-week-in-ashdod-the-israeli-painter-zoya-obianuju-cherkassky-nnad/