mashdownbabylon

Product Placement

 

I'll be the first to admit that I've done a mediocre job of keeping track of my clips. Though I've kept copies of nearly all of the magazine articles I've written, most of the book reviews and all of the travel pieces I wrote for the San Francisco Bay Guardian between 2000 and 2004 vaporized when SFBG revamped it's website.

In the midst of putting the finishing touches on a brand new personal site (including a Word Press replacement for this blog) I came across a PDF version of this collection of micro-reviews, Sikkum: Tikkun Recommends, that I wrote for the September/October edition in 2005.

Traditionally the domain of the magazine's publisher, I ended up writing most of these interior back page book reviews my last year and a half as Tikkun's managing editor. I'll be posting a couple of more of these, including the color version we debuted with the magazine's re-design in 2006, shortly.

Click on the image for greater detail.

Nuclear Sound Affects

 
During the late 1970s, I can't remember how many times my siblings and I would hear a song on the radio--most often English-language pop and disco--and try to sing along. We'd mimic the lyrics, switching back and forth between English and Hebrew as we unsuccessfully attempted to master particularly difficult American-sounding turns of phrase. Boney M's 1978 mega-hit "Rasputin," and Earth, Wind and Fire's 1979 smash "Boogie Wonderland" were particular sources of amusement, as friends and family would struggle to properly enunciate "R" and "W," sounding, in the case of "Vonderland," like Israeli caricatures of Bela Lugosi.

To read the rest of my review of Soul Messages From Dimona, click here.

London Calling

On July 1st, I stepped down from my editorial position at Allvoices. With two months to pack up our home and move to the United Kingdom, I couldn't have had a better reason to punch out. I'll be spending the next eight weeks at home writing and editing a couple of terrific books while we get everything ready. To make the transition back to book editing, after being immersed in the world of blogs and online periodicals is interesting to note, (as a format exercise), given the direction that this kind of work now moves.

Leaving my office in San Francisco's financial district (pictured above) for the very last time, I couldn't resist capturing the signage of the cylinder shaped newsstand that sits at the building's front entrance. Housing not only my ex-employer, but also a Reuters office, and the headquarters of the local Jewish weekly, The J, my former firm's new abode hosts an above average number of news publishers for such a small, albeit significant, American city.

Just before I left, however, I received a call from the very first periodical I ever worked for, in between my freshman and sophomore years of high school, in 1982. Serving as a summer intern for the legendary Mother Jones (whose building, pictured above, is three blocks west of my former office) has earned me a semi-annual email or phone call from what sounds like another MoJo intern, keeping tabs on alumni. "You're a writer, right?" asked the young man who called me. "Yes," I told him. "And an editor, too."

Tombstone Horizon

Now closed, San Bruno's Golden Gate National Cemetery lives on 161 acres of land. Boasting 138, 352 interments, this enormous military graveyard sits at the northernmost end of Silicon Valley.

I pass by this spot every day on my way home from work. Yesterday, I got out of the car to take this picture. Looking north towards San Francisco, the city was invisible. All I could see were tombstones.

Beirut Readymade

Amongst the photos we received from Reuters today, this remarkable shot of a young Hezbollah supporter chanting slogans in front of the UN headquarters in Beirut really stood out. Between the teddy bears, fake blood and barbed wire, Banksy has finally found his local match.

Originally published at Allvoices

Masada or Yavneh?

CEDAR: When you compare the rebels on Masada to the wise men in Yavneh, the rebels died as lions, and the wise men lived as dogs . But the dogs had puppies, and we are those puppies. So, there was something about blowing up Beaufort, blowing up the fortifications, blowing up the mountain, at the end of the film, that was also about blowing up a symbol of (the lion's) power. It's about our power to create something else that, at least for me, makes us different from our enemies.

ZEEK: It means that as Israelis, we can start over. That we have the ability to reinvent ourselves.

CEDAR: Not only that. It means that we have an identity without the geographical symbol, that we have an identity that is as powerful and as firm as concrete and fortifications, flags and pride.

To read the rest of my interview with director Joseph Cedar, check out the new issue of Zeek.

Making News

Nearly a year to the day I left Tikkun to complete my book, I went back to work as an editor again. Not so coincidentally, the gig was online, with Allvoices, an international news and community portal. Tasked with recruiting a team of bloggers to help launch the site's publishing platform, and responsibility for editing and managing the largest collection of international news feeds I've ever seen, I've spent the last five months adjusting to a job that's both new and extremely familiar at the exact same time.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity. Given what a crisis publishing is in, I continue to find myself exceedingly lucky I found any work at all, let alone work in news media. The degree of relief I feel, as you might imagine, remains profound. My biggest concern in quitting my former job in such dreadful economic circumstances was that my book might be my final hurrah to fourteen years in publishing. I'm glad to say its not, though I would have continued to do this irrespective of whether I'm paid or not.

One aspect of my present gig that makes it so fulfilling is familiarizing myself with English language news resources in places I would not have otherwise gotten to know, such as central Africa and the Caribbean, discovering first class, UN-funded news organizations, or independent European agencies that are every bit as good as AP or Reuters. It's all been enormously inspirational to discover, especially at a time when it seems as though the business is going to absolute pot.

The other aspect of my present gig that I've really enjoyed has been working with a crew of twenty-two regular bloggers, such as my longtime colleague and pal Mitchell Plitnick, the Belgrade-based  journalist Amy Miller, Cairo's aBendinTheNile, and Ilana Sichel in Jerusalem, to name a few. Their writing can be every bit as good as anything I read at past gigs, if not more so. I still do a serious amount of traditional editorial work at Zeek to balance it all out, and the perspective it helps provides is something else.

The best anecdote I can impart about all of this is that my co-workers, who hail from India, Europe, and Pakistan, like to jokingly refer to me as the 'Mossad agent.' Though it's not meant to be pejorative, in context, it's still a hoot to hear. Relating this to a relative who queried me about the Arab media I've been having to review, giggling, he responded, " Nu, you know, this stuff could come in useful some day."

(De)Programming the Middle East

If you live in the US and need to follow events in the Middle East closely, Mosaic is absolutely indispensable. A thirty-minute long aggregation of regional television news programming broadcast on Link TV, the show is the brainchild of award-winning producer Jamal Dajani.

A Jerusalem native, and a resident of the San Francisco Bay Area, I spoke to Dajani about his work on Mosaic for the March issue of Zeek. What transpires is a fascinating conversation about the state of Middle Eastern media today, and its increasing importance for Americans.

If you enjoy this piece, check out Covering the Coverage, and Left of the Middle East. Short excerpts from my book, they cover much of the same topical ground as my conversation with Dajani, but focus on US and otherwise progressive Western news media instead.

The Song Remains the Same

The best stocked section (aside from the Health and Diet shelf) in San Francisco's Green Apple Books bargain media annex.

Perhaps the single most frequently asked question posed by my interns at Tikkun was why we continued to receive so many books about Nazism and the Holocaust to review.

Indeed, every day, new books about the Shoah would inevitably outnumber arriving titles on Israel and Judaism. "It's one of the occupational hazards of being a Jewish magazine," was my stock reply.

Back in the USSA

Who better to talk to about American politics than a German periodical. Revisiting the discussion of purity in Jerusalem Calling, this interview, in the new edition of Pulse Berlin, just came out.

I haven't spoken about such issues in years. It was a pleasure to think through them again. The renewed perspective that this side of the Bush era helps provide is really something else.

Conscientious Objections

France24 has launched The Observers, a new, bilingual citizen journalism initiative. At the behest of staff writer Roi Ben-Yehuda, I became an Observer last week, and gave my thoughts on a new Israeli government drive to encourage teens to do their obligatory military duty.

As someone who, when they came of age in 1985, did not do their service, I explain why, as well as criticize a new state-produced video designed to prevent kids from doing the same. Check it out. The following response, by the anonymous Yael, is worth the price of admission alone.

Later on this week, Roi will be running a piece on the first Tel Aviv Sex Festival, which was held a little over a week ago. I'll be reprising my Observer role as part of the proceedings.

Daniel Pearl as Metaphor

The killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002 was of particular importance in reinforcing this understanding of Pakistan. A Jewish-American reporter engaged in a multiethnic marriage, Pearl's murder by Islamic militants was promoted as an iconographic instance of the clash of civilizations thesis, transposed to America’s relationship with Pakistan. The ideological tensions inherent in emphasizing Pearl as though he were the US - multicultural, liberal, interfaith - to Pakistan as uncivilized, violent, politically corrupt and religiously intolerant - ought to be clear.

Pearl represented America, and its actualization of the ideals it was promoting on the War on Terror, which Pakistan, with its tribes, its madrassas, and its fundamentalists was in conflict with. This made Pearl a martyr-equivalent to domestic neoconservatives. If Americans wanted more nuance in news coverage of the country than Pearl’s remembrance allowed, they had to seek it out from foreign news sources such as the BBC and The Guardian.

- From a report I recently wrote about south Asian news coverage in the US

We Are All Losers

Morning reading for my book research, February 2007. The Class War Federation statement on the War in Lebanon was definitely the most colorful of these four selections.

You may not agree with them, but the document's wholesale criticisms of all of the parties involved display a refreshing disenchantment with the positioning on the war that we've grown accustomed to.

I can't seem to locate the original statement. However, I've linked through to the copy that was circulated on the LBO list when it was first published during the summer of '06. 

Blast From the Past

It's finally out, and boy does it look good. Strolling through the Haight yesterday, Jennifer and I stumbled upon the brand new edition of the Punk Planet interview collection, We Owe You Nothing, at the appropriately DiY, volunteer-staffed Bound Together Books.

Featuring several new interviews conducted between 2001 and 2007, We Owe You contains six pieces I acquired for PP back in the day, including interviews with Steve Albini, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, Negativland, Team Dresch's Jody Bleyle, Outpunk's Matt Wobensmith and Black Flag.

Toronto's Eye Weekly reviewed the collection on the 9th, together with former Punk Planet Associate Publisher Anne Elizabeth Moore's excellent Unmarketable. Putting Anne's book in the mix not only was smart. It also explains why PP remains essential to understanding the zeitgeist.

An Editor's Whiteboard

The golden road to unlimited content. Beit Schalit, 2008.

Dubbing with de Gaulle

The cover of a January 1969 edition of the French weekly news periodical L'Express, featuring the face of former President Charles de Gaulle set inside a Star of David. Surrounded by an English translation of a letter de Gaulle wrote to David Ben Gurion in 1967, it's figured prominently in revisions to my book, whose 2nd draft I'm furiously working on finishing right now with my editor.

A scanned page from European Union official Francois Massoulie's idiosyncratic volume, Middle East Conflicts, the image is bordered on either side by the end of one of my own book's chapters, an open Real Audio browser loaded with a BBC page, and my most recent playlist, featuring the brilliant Sledgehammer Dub LP by the consistently overlooked roots producer, Niney the Observer.

Liberation Theology

It's just about out, and the first reviews for Righteous Indignation: A Jewish Call for Justice, are starting to filter through.

Edited by my former Tikkun colleagues Jo Ellen Green Kaiser and Or Rose, and the Kavod House's Margie Klein, this inspired collection, documenting the new American Jewish social justice movement, is already receiving the recognition that it deserves. According to this week's edition of Publisher's Weekly,

While written for progressive Jews and their communities, anyone struggling with the age-old conundrum of "…but what can I do?" should sample this wonderful buffet of ideas, replete not just with tradition, but with innovative interpretations suited to a 21st-century approach toward social action and reform.

A slimmed down version of "Everything Falls Apart", the first chapter from my forthcoming book, Israel vs Utopia, has a home in Righteous Indignation's Israel section. A representative excerpt, The New Jewish Left, was posted to Mashdown last July.

The Liberal Arts

   
Ron Nachmann is an Israeli-American journalist based in San Francisco. A close friend and colleague, we've worked together at a number of different periodicals, including Tikkun, where Ron served as music editor. Now a contributor to Zeek, his latest article, a review of Tom Segev's 1967: Israel, the War and the Year That Transformed the Middle East, was published in the December issue. It's not only a marvelous piece of writing on an incredibly complex and politically loaded book. Ron's essay is an excellent introduction to the politics of writing about Israeli history.

The appropriately-titled Continuity has finally arrived. A CD/DVD by the Tokyo-based, Polish sound artist Zbigniew Karkowski (in collaboration with Japanese videographer Atsuko Nojiri), this unorthodox career retrospective is the last project we signed when I was Asphodel's label manager. Already receiving excellent reviews in Europe from publications such as Vital Weekly, given press like this, I have the sneaking suspicion that Continuity will cement Karkowski's reputation as one of the world's most forward-thinking electronic musicians.

Publication Party

The new issue of Other is officially out. Though I'm running a little late posting this terrific postcard, (the release party took place a couple of weeks ago), we finally had the time to scan a copy.

A contributor (and sometimes contributing editor) to this great, freethinking mag since it was first launched, there's a piece in the current issue by me, about my years editing the late Punk Planet.

For the first time since 2003, when I served up a really loud noise set for a bunch of tranny friends at a local hair salon, I brought my Macbook and MIDI controller to the Other party and played DJ.

Speaking of Punk Planet, Paul M. Davis posted his article on the distribution crisis that triggered PP's collapse to the magazine's website. Click here to read his analysis. It's from the very last edition.

Changing Channels

Speaking of Al Jazeera English, if you get the chance, check out  Roger Cohen's excellent op-ed on the Qatari broadcaster in today's New York Times.

Discussing the difficulties that the service has had trying to find national distribution from America's cable and satellite providers, the Times' International-Writer-at-Large extols the network's virtues, noting, in reference to the same polarized context invoked in Friday's posting, that Al Jazeera is carried (by Yes) in Israel, where it replaced the BBC last winter.

Incidentally (and much discussed as of late) Al Jazeera English was also slated to replace CNN on Israel's largest cable service, Hot, but was outbid at the last minute by Fox News.

Covering the Coverage

His curiosity piqued by a recent article in Haaretz discussing the relative merits of the New York Times' coverage of Israel, a colleague asked me if I could point him to what I think are the best studies of Western media reporting on the Arab-Israeli conflict. For those who understand the subtext of such inquiries,  the editor couldn't have asked a more loaded question. To make such a request in today's environment means that you first have to ask why the question is important, and second, for whom.

Since September 11th, domestic coverage of the Middle East has obviously become more significant. Not just because the attacks on New York and Washington signaled the beginning of a conflict  between America and West Asian Islamists. But, also because of how it placed far more editorial requirements on a news media already struggling - and, in the US, largely failing - to meet the complex cultural demands already required of Mideast coverage by the country's Jewish and Muslim Diaspora communities.

US news agencies haven't done the best job of striking this balance yet either. However, there is more English-language, Mideast-based media to rely on than ever before to make up for it. Take for example, Israeli publications like the English edition of Haaretz on the one hand, and Al Jazeera's English broadcasting service on the other, not to mention all of the translated editions of regional sources in between. Americans now have every opportunity to read news that's potentially more informative.

Though "local" is not always a synonym for "better", irrespective of partisanship and the limitations international media inevitably find themselves subject to, in comparison, few domestic sources, including the ethnic press, deliver the same quality goods.  Does that mean that American periodicals should hang up their hats? No. Because of this country's obvious ties to the region - economic, cultural, and military, to name a few - US news outlets are morally obligated to continue reporting on the Mideast.

The question is how. Obviously, one answer would be to create content that was complementary with a foreign reporting that is better privileged for information. Another angle would be to concentrate on commissioning work on the numerous ways in which Americans deliberate about their involvement in a particular country's affairs. Thus, you emphasize domestic political discussions at, say the State Department, or, amongst Americans with cultural ties to said state, instead of the other way around.

As many editors at American news periodicals will tell you, the two biggest complaints about Mideast coverage are always that its either anti-Semitic, or similarly compromised by a desire to satisfy special interest groups. The problem with such criticisms is that they're not only frequently incorrect. But, most importantly, that they help divert editorial attention away from very real ethical problems, like learning how to properly tailor international news for a cosmopolitan, multicultural readership - during wartime.   

- From my notebook, Nov 1.

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

One of the most pronounced themes in my book is an expressed concern with the way Israel gets 'constructed' by its proponents in America. Without explicitly specifying it as such, I continually press against the versions of Israel I encounter here, as though there is something alien about them,  continuously wondering whether they have anything to do with me, or are merely the stuff of fantasy. I feel oppressed by this experience, oftentimes suffocated, to the point of wondering whether this was the country my family failed to create. As though they were admonishing us, new pioneers have come to conjure something different, something that ignores 'the natives', in much the same way that the original settlers saw Ottoman Palestine as a wild and empty place.

Thus, I was reminded, as I listened to a sixty something New Yorker explain the good he thought Israel had achieved through its seizure of Arab lands in June 1967. The Six Day War improved the lot of American Jewry, he argued, because it completed the process of Jewish integration, helping us secure the truly remarkable level of equality we live with in this country today. Suggesting that the war's fruits outweighed its failings, this gentleman's argument was truly curious, as though he were inferring that it's social achievements in the US were sincerely worth the last four decades worth of displacement and terrorism the occupation has gifted both Israelis and Palestinians. Though I did not ask the guy whether he believed that the occupation ought to continue for said purpose, I still ask myself whether he might believe such.

It is for reasons like these that I am increasingly uneasy about the ways in which fellow progressives tend to rationalize ongoing Diaspora support for the occupation. Traditionally inclined to see such dispositions as being products of a fundamentalist or reactionary approach to Judaism, I am concerned that such arguments have obscured the prevalence of equally common secular positions like these. Specifically, in terms of whether one can ascribe right-wing Diaspora support to the present Israeli status quo on the grounds that it's never-ending violence is the only guarantee of Jewish equality in multiethnic societies. If that is truly the case, no wonder it feels as though Israel is continuously ignored. Because it's not Israel that matters in the end, but the Diaspora.

Download Me

Between the fall of 1999 and the summer of 2001, I spent an untold number of hours capturing field recordings of anti-capitalist demonstrators from around the world. Posted to an assortment of websites ranging from Indymedia to the BBC, once I'd start playing a file, I'd record it in real time to a Phillips 765 CD-R dubbing deck.

The best example of these recordings is a montage I pieced together of a demonstration in front of the IMF HQ in Washington DC, in April 2000. Cut and sequenced manually, and then placed over a heavily edited hip-hop percussion track, the song, What's Your Badge Number?, ended up on the first Elders of Zion record, Dawn Refuses to Rise.

Today, at the request of a listener, a community radio DJ posted the piece to her blog. Click here to read the entry and download the track.

America or Europe? (Redux)

Israeli progressives look to Europe for the ideological and financial support they do not get from the United States. Though liberal American Jewish organizations such as the New Israel Fund are making enormous efforts to redress such deficits, despite their numerous philanthropically funded social assistance, worker training and educational programs, the perception is that when it comes to Israel, Europeans have a monopoly on liberalism.

Just look at the coverage accorded to Israel boycott initiatives by British university instructors to understand why. Whereas the United States is identified by the UK press with Christian Zionists who love Israel to theological death, the United Kingdom is conversely identified by many American and Israeli periodicals as the home of a growing anti-Semitic left, eager to punish Israeli educators in order to protest Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

This is why the increasing intimacy between Israel and the EU over the course of the past several years has been fascinating. Coming to a head with the large-scale deployment of European peacekeeping forces in Lebanon after 2006’s conflict with Hezbollah, the European commitment of troops came at a time that two of the same countries providing forces were withdrawing from Iraq out of disagreement with US policy.

Excerpted from Israel vs Utopia

Anarcho-Kibbutzniks

Believe it or not, the kibbutz movement is not dead. So argues James Horrox in the October issue of Zeek. Excerpted from a book I am currently editing for AK Press, this young British political analyst shines a new light on Israel's troubled left.

Left of the Middle East

From an unpublished conversation with a Jewish magazine editor

We have a terrible disjuncture at present, where the critical coverage that we increasingly rely on in this country comes from progressive sources that aren’t as discriminating in their approach to the Middle East as they should be. Being rightly committed to criticizing imperialism and colonialism, they frequently make the mistake of seeing all of the disparate crises afflicting the region as being different versions of the same political problem. It’s like saying that all Jews or Arabs are identical.

Take a look at how the occupation of Iraq has impacted a lot of progressive reporting on Israel: As the occupation has worsened, it has increasingly conditioned a way of covering the country that has assimilated Israel's conflict with the Palestinians with the situation created by the Americans in Iraq. The problem is that if this is the general disposition of the left press in covering the region, it therefore makes it difficult to explain the very real differences that distinguish the Iraqi refugee crisis from the Palestinian, Kurdish, or Armenian refugee crises which preceded it.

The Middle East is a very big place. Even within the space of short distances, such as that which exists between Gaza and Ramallah, the cultural and political distinctions can be extraordinary. The irony is that this is partially a product of territorial divisions first introduced by Europeans to the area. We ought to encourage the journalists we work with to strike a better balance between understanding the Middle Eastern experience of the West with the domestic differences that the outside world seems so oblivious towards.

A Different Kind of Closet

In Walk on Water’s closing scene, we find Eyal walking up to a crib to care for a crying baby, in a house, which, as the camera traces his movements, is one he now shares on a kibbutz with Pia, his new German wife. Axel, however, is never very far away. Sitting down at his laptop with a cup of hot tea after pacifying his newborn child, blanket draped over his shoulders, a domesticated Eyal composes an email to Axel, in which he tells his brother-in-law of a fantasy he had about the two of them defying gravity by walking together across the Sea of Galilee.

Obviously, whatever feelings Eyal held for Axel have not only not gone away, but, more significantly have become a subject of acknowledgement, perhaps even dialogue, between the two men. As welcome as the remarkable changes the former Mossad agent has made to his life appear to certainly be, he is still clearly closeted. Settling down with the blonde haired and blue-eyed granddaughter of a Nazi on a kibbutz may represent a dramatic step forward. Nevertheless, it is Eyal’s unrequited desire for Pia’s brother that represents a yearning for something even greater.

Ideologically speaking, Walk on Water is anything but simple. Could Eyal’s inability to fully come out be a sexual metaphor for a future peace between Palestinians and Israelis that’s correspondingly incomplete? A two state as opposed to a one state solution, where Jews may have made their peace with Europe but not, quite fully, with the Palestinians? Fox is appropriately unclear, as his message should be. Nevertheless, sexual liberation, of the kind that Walk on Water embraces, has profound political corollaries that lie far beyond the liberation of desire.

-From IvU, Chapter 7

The Ice Age is Here

Speaking of the golden oldies, in today's Guardian, there's an absolutely terrific article on the continuing relevance of The Clash's 1979 LP, London Calling. Penned by Joe Queenan, this is the kind of exquisitely written, politically-charged music criticism glaringly absent from most US news periodicals.

Part of an ongoing series of articles commemorating the 30th anniversary of the first punk explosion, The Guardian's special focus on '77 contrasts sharply with the near-exclusive emphasis placed on remembering 1967's Summer of Love in the arts sections of numerous American dailies over the past few months.

None of this is to say that similarly high quality, big picture music writing can't be found here. I've worked with countless first class writers for whom this kind of journalism is second nature. The problem is a resistance to commissioning such pieces outside of indie music magazines and alternative weeklies.

From Here to Epitome

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

In July, we started to receive a complimentary 'subscription' to The San Francisco Examiner. By featuring musicians like Nick Cave and Yo La Tengo on its cover, this historically conservative (and now free) tabloid appears to be intent on capturing my specific demographic: post-punk professionals who came of age in the early 1990s. In other words, the Nirvana generation.

I find such explicit overtures annoying because American news periodicals always over-emphasize their music coverage when they don't know who their readership is. I can't tell you how many editorial meetings I've attended over the years where an editor has asked the staff to "up" the coverage of cool bands when they're worried that they're not reaching a younger audience.

Just look at the headlines above to see what I mean. Fifty-year old Nick Cave "Gets Rowdy", fourty something Yo La Tengo "Still Has It." Its the kind of self-conscious headline writing that speaks reams about what the editors are really worried about: the vitality and worth of their newspaper.

Metal Health

During my last year at Asphodel (2003-4), I spent most of my time helping the label's owners acquire new projects. From traveling to Europe to meet artists, to endlessly redrafting new recording and distribution contracts, I frequently forget how many CD and DVD deals we eventually landed.

By the end of 2007, with the exception of one DVD, nearly all of the projects we worked on signing during that period will have finally come out. Of special note are two album-length works by the Berlin-based, new music group, Zeitkratzer ("Timescratcher") due out in September.

Consisting of an orchestral cover of Lou Reed's legendary 1975 album Metal Machine Music (a 2xLP of guitar feedback), and an additional CD/DVD of Iannis Xenakis-inspired works (cheekily referencing a classic Kiss title,)  Xenakis [Alive], I feel particularly sentimental about the impending release of these recordings.

The product of bandleader Reinhold Friedl's playful imagination, I'll never forget the amazing dinner we had together in a restored Cologne rail depot in August 2003. I'm not sure whether it was the food (pasta) or the setting (subterranean). Needless to say, its nice to see the albums we discussed then finally seeing the light of day.

The New Jewish Left

Israel has become 'normalized' within Diaspora identity, (as it is for Israelis) even though the country may no longer be considered central to what it means to be religiously Jewish. From this context stems the freedom to adopt the progressive positions espoused by peace and justice oriented Israel advocacy organizations such as Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and Jewish Voice for Peace.

Along with this normalization of pro-Israel identity for Diaspora Jews has come an increasing unwillingness to refrain from criticizing the Jewish state. Where Diaspora critics of Israeli policies were once silenced by accusations that they were self-hating Jews, they now fight back by referencing the lively debate on the same policies in Israel itself. 

- Excerpted From "Everything Falls Apart", my contribution to the forthcoming anthology of new Jewish progressive writings, Righteous Indignation. (Jewish Lights, 2008.)

Book Report

A short excerpt from "Changing Partners: America or Europe?", the fifth chapter of my forthcoming book, Israel vs Utopia:

To many Jews and Israelis, however ideologically inclined, the charge of colonialism became a symptom of a much larger European about face that expressed itself in a deepening of both east and western European relations with the Arab world, an increase in Muslim immigration to France and the United Kingdom, and the routinization of Europe as the number one foreign site of Palestinian revolutionary violence.

Transpiring to the backdrop of the previous decades’ final regional colonial divestitures by France and the United Kingdom, and Europe thus becomes the right-wing Jewish caricature that it is portrayed to be today: the primary breeding ground of “Islamo-left” anti-Semitism, irrefutable proof that outside of Israel, America is the only place a Jew can truly be safe, if not call, however uncomfortably, home.

Back to School Special

For the last three years, I've been the owner of a satellite radio. Early adopters, we both installed them in our cars because of the access it gave us to non-American news services and genre-based music channels.  (I was immediately sold on the idea of a 24/7 death metal station.) Given what poor reception the radio received in my twenty year-old Volvo, and how long my commute to work was (an hour and fifteen minutes either way) for the first few months, my new radio was an enormously refreshing change of pace.

Unfortunately, Sirius' allure ran out rather quickly. Each one of its channels - even when they weren't run by the host company, such as the BBC's World Service - sounded far too disciplined. Everything came across as being so thoroughly programmed that if an announcer so much as made a pronunciation error, you'd fear for their careers. (The word 'cautious' always came to mind.) The lack of ads was great, but the absence of spontaneity was even more noticeable.

Perhaps the worst aspect of our Sirius experience was the alternative music station, Left of Center. At times sounding like it was programmed by the editors of London music tabloid NME, the endless repetition of throwaway British bands like Starsailor seemed like a very curious choice given how ill-fitting such groups sound in domestic indie context. What about a band like Spoon? Totally beige, but less obvious. Equally awkward was the fratboy-friendly vibe of Sirius' reggae station.

Driving our new, satellite radio-free car home today (we couldn't afford the option), I turned on KUSF and heard an absolutely iconographic, mixed-genre set of electronica, post-punk and hip-hop. Sometimes the DJ spoke too softly. Sometimes he segued a little too quickly. Nevertheless, it sounded like manna had descended from radio heaven. Moving from the great new Zeph and Azeem record to the Slits' classic New Town, listening to our local college station was like running into a cherished old friend you'd mistakenly assumed dead or disappeared.

Persepolis Revisited

Writing about Fatah's allegations concerning Iran's involvement in Gaza this morning, I was reminded that today is something of an anniversary. It was five years ago (to the day) that I completed the pre-release work on one of my favorite musical projects of all time.

Serving as the label manager of Asphodel LTD, the electronic music imprint best known for its turntablist records (DJ Spooky, the Invisbl Skratch Piklz, etc,) I'd been given the responsibility for putting together a highly iconoclastic production: An unreleased mix of Greek composer Iannis Xenakis' Persepolis, together with an accompanying disc of remixes by noiseniks like Francisco Lopez and Merzbow.

Unlike any of the other records I worked on at Asphodel, this project was absolutely loaded with explicit political signifiers. Originally commissioned by the Shah of Iran to celebrate the 2500th anniversary of modern Iran's founding by Cyrus the Great, Xenakis' work was meant to be the defining cultural moment in the Shah's campaign to secularize the historically devout, Muslim country.

Debuted at the 1971 Shiraz festival amidst the ruins of the ancient Persian capital of Persepolis, being reissued a year after September 11th,  this melodramatic, 59 minute composition took on an entirely new meaning. In context, Persepolis' noisy, dystopian mood anticipated the Shah's defeat (and that of Xenakis' own Communist-tutored vision of secularism) at the hands of Shi'ite revolutionaries seven years later.

Writing the liner notes-cum-press release, and directing the design of the CD's packaging (together with my employer and memorably-named friend, Naut Humon,) I told the story of the work's commissioning and its contemporary political significance, juxtaposed against the colorized image of a decaying palace, photographed in Persepolis by British archaeologists in the early 1920s.

For a double CD, the record actually sold quite well. Even more interesting was the fact that Persepolis received an unexpected level of interest from mainstream periodicals in the US and Europe. Needless to say, given the political circumstances of the time, I found it all incredibly encouraging. If you can get your hands on it, the February 2003 issue of UK mag The Wire ran what I still think is the best review copy.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

June 1967: The endless remix.

This is the Modern World

For anyone who watches BBC America with any degree of regularity, I'm sure you've seen the New York Times ad that runs towards the end of every week. A pitch for The Weekender, a Friday-Sunday discount subscription package, the presentation is truly seductive. Featuring a multiethnic array of attractive, hip adults (ages 27-40, I'd wager), even though the background music is annoying, the commercial makes an excellent case for buying a three day subscription to the 'Times.  Despite the fact that I've seen it over a hundred times, it still leaves me feeling positively predisposed towards the newspaper.

That is, until I read the Saturday edition. As Jennifer has noted time and time again, its always a little too thin. Nine times out of ten, compared to the rest of the week,  there's rarely a feature story that holds our interest. Looking over today's paper, I had to agree with her. Even though there was one or two pieces that briefly caught my eye, nothing quite grabbed my attention as compared to the Sunday edition, which while like any news periodical, can be inconsistent, is always a bit more compelling.

Part of this I chalk up to the fact that there's only so many days in a week that a daily newspaper can be half-way reasonable. And, part of this I attribute to the fact that American news media tends to focus on Sunday as its "big" day, when, as someone who has lived a fair amount of their life abroad, I am used to Friday and Saturday newspapers being the Sunday-equivalent for said periodical mass. Thus, for example, if I could buy the print edition of Friday's Haaretz here in the US, I probably would. I'd read that well into Saturday, and likewise follow it up with Saturday's edition of The Guardian. Sunday would be 'Times day.

Though I could seek my fix out online every Saturday morning, my solution to this problem is to mix things up. Drinking my first cup of coffee, I watch a half-hour's broadcast of the BBC news, followed by another thirty minutes of Mosaic, the daily aggregation of Middle Eastern television news offered by Link TV. Then, I follow it up with an initial perusal of the new issue of The Economist, which we receive in the mail every Friday afternoon. Between these media, I get the equivalent of a foreign weekend paper, and, for all intents and purposes, a respectable alternative to Saturday's New York Times.

This is why, when fellow editors bemoan the falling circulation rates of established periodicals like the 'Times, ("They're all fleeing for the web!" or so the refrain goes) I tend to bristle. People aren't necessarily fleeing any specific medium. For one reason or another (think of my rather exaggerated example here), they're simply diversifying how they get their news and culture. With so many new choices, online, on TV, and in print (like the  increasing US availability of UK periodicals), can you blame them?

I Heart Ms. Dynamite: Illa State Records Presents A Little Darker

On the Radio

On Thursday, May 3rd, I'll be a guest on Doug Henwood's weekly show on New York's WBAI, Behind the News. Christopher Hitchens is supposed to be on board too.

The subject will be the current fighting between right and left over Israel in the American Jewish community. If you're in the New York area, tune in between 5 and 6 PM.

Jerusalem Calling

CBS Records, 1967

With last week's news of Jennifer's grandmother's death, it seems as though all of the sudden, there's many places to travel. To LA on Wednesday, for Dorothy's funeral. And then to Manhattan, next Monday, for Jennifer to begin an impromptu six to eight week stay on behalf of her firm. If we can afford it, before the end of the month, I'll try and join her for a weekend.

All of this talk of traveling is also an important reminder that I am leaving for Israel at the end of this month, and have to start putting my own professional house in order. Flying out there together with Vance, we'll be spending two weeks conducting interviews and making field recordings for both my book, and our new album. My parents will, of course, be hosting us.

We'll be arriving a week before the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, and the ensuing occupation. That will of course add its own hue to the proceedings. I've been giving much thought to how we might commemorate this occasion in audio format, by reviewing numerous old documentary LPs I have, commemorating such things as Israel's capture of east Jerusalem.

Part of me thinks it would be an interesting exercise to simply "cover" one of these records, like one would an older musical recording. Another option, of course, would be to make a facsimile, only with slight differences to indicate the 40 year change in time, as refracted through our own distinct political orientations. We'll see. Clearly, we have a lot of work to do.

Field Recordings

From an essay in progress

Turn to any progressive periodical in the United States today, and in all likelihood, you'll find at least one article about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. From large circulation monthlies such as Z Magazine, and the American Prospect, to weeklies like The Nation and online dailies such as Counterpunch and Salon, reporting on the region tends to reflexively match events on the ground, either in the form of investigative articles or opinion editorials. 

Coverage of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by America’s left press has traditionally focused on the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule. This emphasis was sharpened during the course of the two intifadas (1987-1991 and 2000-2005) and the peace process of the 1990s, when settlement building actually increased, and the Israel Defense Forces inaugurated its policy of geographical bisections and closures in the 'territories.

Since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, this area of coverage has expanded to include analyses of Israel’s relationship with the United States, with a specific emphasis on the role of the “Israel Lobby” in formulating US foreign policy towards the Islamic world. Reflecting ongoing concerns about Israel’s purported impact on the US decision to go to war with Iraq, in the eyes of many progressive magazine editors, Israel is no longer just an occupying power, but an inordinately influential, and frequently manipulative party to US efforts to dominate the Middle East.

When it comes to domestic Israeli politics, progressive periodicals pay little attention to it, except when it holds importance for the country’s peace prospects. Thus, when trade unionist Amir Peretz was elected head of Israel’s Labor Party in November 2005, progressive periodicals welcomed his appointment, hoping that, given Peretz’ leftwing background, he would reinvigorate the peace process. Similarly, when Israel Beitenu chief Avigdor Lieberman was appointed 'Minister of Strategic Threats' in 2006, given his ultra-nationalist politics, Lieberman's appointment was heralded as a threat to peace.

[For my outgoing editor's take on how Tikkun covered Israel, click here.]

Editorial Notes

From a conference paper I've been working on

The Crisis of Progressive Periodical Publishing

You've heard it all before. Print periodicals are in deep crisis. Whether they be newspapers, magazines or home-produced ‘zines, each year, the circulation for nearly all American print media continues to decline. With increasing self-righteousness, analysts predictably respond to this situation with an “I told you so” kind of smugness, proclaiming this change to be part of a larger, evolutionary process that publishers must either adapt to or die.

Thirteen years after the web first emerged as a viable publishing platform, no one questions this wisdom. In every sphere of the publishing industry, the question is not “when?” but “how?” Do we simply recreate our print editions online, or are we to innovate a wholly new form of periodical that commissions every kind of media for publication? If we do so, can we still call what we’re doing a magazine or a newspaper, or are we all now television stations like Justin.TV? No one quite knows yet.

Unfortunately, its uncertain as to whether there will ever be a comparable level of revenue generated online as there once was by print fulfillment and advertising charges. For example, the Internet’s flagship periodicals – Salon and Slate – despite increasingly successful ad policies, still struggle towards profitability, while only one newspaper – the Wall Street Journal – has generated a discernible profit offering online-only subscriptions.

Clearly, despite the immense number of schemes being toyed with to raise money, most are not working yet. So why do pundits continue to make such a convincing fuss about a medium that has yet to prove itself? Is it that we’re still in a ramp-up period prior to the emergence of a new set of mechanisms to accrue revenue? Or is all of the hope expressed by the move online a reflection of how publishing is losing its economic value, and that most periodicals are increasingly supported by patronage, not sales?

Lets assume the worst: that the push to move online is because it’s a cheaper and easier place to publish, which, under present circumstances requires less staff, less marketing, and thus less investment. Just a one time-set up fee for a technologist, a design team, the creation of a posting script, and enough capital to cover minor, ongoing design work and a small commission for authors. Like print, the test of the magazine’s success remains squarely on its content, and how it’s subsequently ranked and circulated.

Tanya Reinhart RIP

I just received word that Tanya Reinhart passed away this weekend in New York. She was sixty-three. What a terrible tragedy. My condolences go out to her family and friends. It was only today that I learned she'd moved to Manhattan towards the end of last year, in order to assume a teaching position at NYU.

Though I didn't agree with all of her positions, Reinhart's tireless efforts to end the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are worthy of the utmost respect. In the last issue of Tikkun that I edited (Jan/Feb 2007), Jerome Slater wrote an absolutely outstanding meditation on Reinhart's most recent book, The Road Map to Nowhere. You can read it here.

Aside from a brief email exchange we'd had in the Spring of 2005, the last time I talked to Reinhart was almost exactly three years ago, when I interviewed her for LiP Magazine. An eight hundred word excerpt ended up running in the Summer 2004 issue. I just found a copy of the unedited transcript, and thought these following words would be good to remember Reinhart by:

LiP: Is there an Israeli left at this point?

Reinhart: What’s been extremely encouraging – my ray of light in these bleak days – is to observe that in the young generation there is a movement of resistance that is completely new and courageous. It’s the same generation that got its roots in the anti-WTO demonstrations in Seattle. You first noticed it with the draft resistance movement, which is now bigger than it ever was.

Another amazing new development is that there is a whole new popular resistance movement initiated by Palestinian farmers along the line of the new fence whose land is being stolen by Israelis for the fence. Along that line, in village after village, you’ll find the entire village sitting on the ground in front of the bulldozers. Together with them you’ll find young Israelis.

For the first time in the history of the Occupation, you’ll find the Israeli army facing Palestinians and Israelis together sitting together defending Palestinian land. For me, it’s a big source of hope.

This blog entry can also be found on Alternet.

Authors, Friends

The nicest thing about being an editor are the relationships you forge with authors. By no means the first time I was reminded of this, (but definitely the first since I left Tikkun,) my former film editor decided to pay me a visit on Monday. The first time we'd actually met (after nearly three years of exchanging email and phone calls), Shai Ginsburg was out here on a brief break, determined to finally get together.

One of the best critics of Israeli film writing in English (in fact, the top right now), Shai added the kind of depth to our Israel coverage at Tikkun, which, in the form of film reviews, helped me obviate the magazine's never-ending problems with being deemed too 'anti-colonialist' (to quote a right-wing friend of mine), in its historical emphasis on the occupation, to the exclusion of other forms of Israel analysis.

Much to my delight, as Shai and I walked down to San Francisco's best Middle Eastern joint, the Old Jerusalem Restaurant, we ran into one of my longtime contributors, Other publisher and Choir Boy author Charlie Anders, whose work I've printed in both Punk Planet and Tikkun, as well as The Anti-Capitalism Reader. Strolling quickly by on Mission Street in one of her signature outfits, we almost missed her.

Thankfully, Charlie noticed us, and flagged me down. Introducing her to Shai, I explained that Charlie was the author of one of the more controversial religious pieces I commissioned at Tikkun, an article on transgendered Jews. Long in the making, Charlie's piece was a terrific read, and had a kind of secular quality to it which is so lacking in most Jewish periodical coverage of the new queer spirituality scene.

Speaking of Tikkun, the magazine's webmasters were kind enough to consolidate my infrequent blog entries into one URL. Not exactly god's gift to the blogosphere, there's still some stuff of interest. My last entry was in late December, when, despite my crazy schedule, I attempted to jot down some final thoughts on our Israel/Palestine coverage. Check it out. I'm sure I'll be writing more on this greater subject in the future.

Bring the Noise: Drunks with Guns: Second Verses (Intellectual Convulsion, 1990)

Eretz Manhattan

A piece of the Berlin Wall, midtown.

The editorial meetings which brought me to New York are now over. After a ten hour-long session that began with a tasty Indian lunch on 96th street and Amsterdam avenue, I'm free to enjoy my last two days here. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it. On the agenda is lunch at a small hummus place around the corner, a stop at my favorite local record store, Other Music, and then a short walk up to 12th and Broadway to meet my family for dinner.

The nice thing about this trip is that it's introduced me to a part of the city I overlooked as a child, when my father and I lived here in the early '80s. After fifteen years in the suburbs, my brother sold his home, and bought a place on the border between Chinatown and Little Italy last summer. A beautiful, two bedroom apartment in a brand new, four story building, David's pad looks out at three Italian restaurants, and is a stone's throw away from the best Malaysian restaurant and tacqueria in the city. On nearly every nearby block, there's a deli replete with cans of Lavazza espresso and freshly baked breads on display in the window.

Before going into yesterday's meetings, I went to the new MOMA for the first time with my former Tikkun co-editor, Jo Ellen. Though we did not have too much time to spare, we saw a few photographs by Gerhard Richter, which were spectacular, as well as a small exhibit of Emigre magazine covers.  As magazine editors, this was perhaps the most interesting of everything we looked at. Design-wise the most influential periodical of the first wave of "desktop-publishing," Emigre's influence remains vast and under-appreciated. Thus, it was incredibly gratifying to see the periodical on display at an institution like the MOMA.

The only problem with this trip is how little time it has afforded Jennifer to relax. Hard at work at her company's Manhattan office, she slaved away until eight last night, and then hung out here with my brother until I came in at eleven. Nevertheless, it was immensely cool to see how comfortable both she and David were with each other when I walked through the door. Their second time meeting each other (their first and last meeting to date was at our wedding party last year), the two of them seem to have found much in common with each other very quickly.

Because my family is so spread out - in Israel, France, New York and Maine - I've always lamented how difficult it's been to facilitate this kind of intimacy. But, given  moments like this, its clear that we're all learning how to overcome the geographies that separate us. Whereas in the past, I would go up to four years at a time without seeing my parents, over the course of the past sixteen months, Jennifer and I have been to Israel twice to see them, and they've returned the gesture with two visits to the US. Now, with David in the same loop, things could not be better.

Longtail Music Appreciation Moment: Can: Future Days (1973)

On the Road

Reading flyer, Portland, Oregon, November 2002.

Source Material

Not the best time writing-wise this past week. I've been finishing the bibliographical work that I've needed to complete for my book, and have spent a lot of time gathering together any remaining news articles I can find in order to bring myself totally up-to-date. I feel pretty good about what I've pulled together so far, though, as with other book projects I've worked on (this is my fifth), I've had to set severe limits to my source material so I don't find myself overwhelmed.

As a rule of thumb, once I've acquired everything I need to start writing, I focus on covering only the most representative instances of my subject matter and comment on them until there's hopefully nothing left to discuss. If I have material left over that I might find useful later, voila, its always there. I hold on to everything. I can't tell you how many times over the years that I've found myself grateful for my packrat habits. Sometimes I wish I'd become a librarian.

Despite this self-congratulatory pat on the back, there are two standout occasions in which I've failed to live up to my archivist's ethos. The first was during high school, when my then-classmate John Whitson gave me his only copy of a live soundboard tape of a Husker Du show in Walla Walla, Washington. Unmarked, I recorded over the cassette, thinking that it was a blank. Talk about stupid. Even then, in the spring of '86, I knew I'd committed a horrible mistake.

The second time was equally profound. In the fall of 2005, director Julien Temple contacted me, explaining that he was making a documentary about the life and times of his old friend, Joe Strummer. He wanted to know if I could give him a copy of a recording of an interview I'd done with Joe, which had been the cover story of the January/February 2000 edition of Punk Planet, (and had just been reprinted in Let Fury Have the Hour, an anthology of writings about the late Clash frontman edited by Antonino D'Ambrosio.) Temple explained that he wanted to use the recording in his film, and was hoping I would allow him to do so.

Several hours later, as I searched through boxes of cassettes in my basement looking for the interview, I found the tape. Unfortunately, along with a number of recordings of my old radio shows at my alma mater, Reed College, the cassette had been damaged by water, and was in an advanced state of deterioration. Even though Temple's crew kindly offered to try to restore it, the recording engineer that I am knew that the tape was beyond repair.

Clearly, I should have known better. It would have been great to have been able to give the Strummer interview its proper due. It was a terrific recording, and Joe was in absolutely marvelous form. As much as I like the written transcription of the interview, nothing comes close to how charming and witty he sounded on the phone. Even Strummer's coughs (was there a bong nearby?) were hilarious.

Nevermind the Clichés

The last time I devoted a serious amount of mental energy to Adrian Sherwood was a typically cold summer night in San Francisco in 2004. Prior to a gig at the Elbo Room in support of his first solo album, Never Trust a Hippy, together with a couple of close friends, I managed to get myself admitted to the venue's dressing room. There stood the surprisingly tall, fifty year old producer, sweat pouring down his bald head as he shook hands with his guests, discussing the production work he'd done on the then-forthcoming Asian Dub Foundation record, Tank.

It was one of those moments when I didn't feel like I had anything to say. Having met dozens of my favorite artists over the years, I'd thought that I'd gotten over feeling star-struck. As it so turned out, this specific evening turned out to be an exception to the rule. Having produced some of the most influential records of the past generation - by Dub Syndicate, Creation Rebel, the New Age Steppers, and countless others - for his own legendary On-U Sound label (whose creative A&R work served as the inspiration for the label I managed, Asphodel) - I felt like I was in the presence of the Creator.

Unfortunately, this experience  proved to be all-too brief. Not long afterwards, as I sat behind the stage watching Sherwood mix his set, I started to feel queasy. In fact, nauseous. DJ'ing decidedly psychedelic, fast-paced material (according to my friend Ron, consisting of unreleased African Head Charge material, if I remember correctly), after twenty minutes, I decided that I had to leave. Could it have been what I'd had to drink that night, I wondered as I stumbled down the club's crowded stairs, hoping to be relieved by the cool night air. What a lightweight. I'd only had three beers.

Thus, I approached listening to Sherwood's new album, Becoming a Cliche/Dub Cliche, with a little bit of trepidation. So far only released in the UK by Real World, import copies have been slowly trickling into the US since the record's release last November. Picking up a copy yesterday after having breakfast with the same two friends I'd gone to the Sherwood gig with, I took the disc home, and spent most of yesterday afternoon giving it a good listen.

Though I'm not prepared to do a serious critical take quite yet, I'm not exactly feeling speechless this time out either. Very much in the vein of his last solo record, Becoming a Cliche is a dense, drum and bass and ragga-influenced album every bit as rewarding as Sherwood's last record. Boasting the vocal talents of longtime collaborators Lee Scratch Perry, Mark Stewart and the late Bim Sherman, it almost sounds like an updated Pay It All Back-era On-U Sound anthology.

In a November review  in the Guardian, critic Dave Simpson inconclusively asked whether Sherwood was still creating work as groundbreaking as his past achievements - particularly given how many producers have assimilated his style over the years. I'd say yes. However, I'd qualify that judgement by saying that Sherwood is doing so by refining his work rather than introducing new musical idioms. Artistically, though far less dramatic, that's of equal significance.

Instant Community

Yours truly with my old friend Eric Zassenhaus, at the Bitch mag going away party on Wednesday night. Eric is an editor of the terrific local literary journal, Instant City.

Photo courtesy of Bitch publisher Debbie Rasmussen. Really sad to see them leave the Bay Area, but their new home - Portland, Oregon - is about as good as it gets outside of these here parts.

Knowing Portland's publishing scene extremely well, Bitch is going to be an excellent addition to the community. Its been a while since PDX hosted a national magazine of Bitch's stature.

Today's work songs: Boxcutter, Oneiric (Planet Mu)

Turn on the News

Two years ago, I saw a colleague of mine on the German news program, Journal.  A frequent guest on the show, he always provided the Israeli view whenever there was an important event to comment on in the Middle East. After sending Robert an email to let him know I'd seen him on TV, surprised, he asked what I was doing watching German television. "Television news stinks here in the US," I remember writing back to him. "The offerings are nowhere near as good as what you get in Israel. We try and watch as many European news programs as we can."

Eating dinner last night, I recalled my conversation with Robert as I watched our latest local news import, Russia Today. Hosted by local public television station Channel 32, RT provides an amusing Russian take on international news. Viewing two segments - one on the debate about the establishment of US anti-missile bases in the Czech Republic, the other, the Venezuelan government's granting of sweeping new powers to President Hugo Chavez - I was immediately struck by how nostalgic RT was for the Cold War. Speaking to Czech opponents of the American initiative and Venezuelan supporters of Chavez, Russia Today's reporters made no bones about their biases. Anything that irritated the US was fine by them.

As someone who spent their teens in the US during the 1980s, to have imagined watching a Russian program on American television would have been unthinkable. Let alone, a Russian news broadcaster supportively reporting on the progress an arch-enemy was making in consolidating their revolution. By no means a politically progressive show, (witness RT's endless profiles of successful Russian entrepeneurs) it was still a hoot taking this aspect of Russia's political temperature as I switched back and forth between RT, Larry King Live, and yet another annoying Benny Hill rerun on the BBC.

"I hear that we're going to be getting better programming in the near future," I remember telling Robert in Tel Aviv as we sat together in his apartment watching live footage of Saddam Hussein's trial. " I sure hope so," he replied, pointing to his TV and laughing. "Imagine if you could watch events like this. Its totally unprecedented to see such things, even here, in Israel."

Given the eclecticism of contemporary Israeli media consumption, that, I'm sure of. For example, in December, the Guardian reported that Israel's largest sattelite TV provider, Yes, had dropped BBC World from its roster in favor of the new al-Jazeera English network. Say what? Despite all of the criticisms levelled at the BBC's Israeli coverage in recent years,  an Arab broadcaster beat out a longstanding British news outlet for sattelite television subscribers. How's that for counter-intuitive.

When asked to comment on this, an Israeli relative of mine told me, "All the right-wingers are saying its Arab Israelis who demanded this change. Honestly, I think it was Jews. How else would the Ashkenazim who don't speak Arabic know what the Arab world is thinking?"

Back on the home front in San Francisco, our viewing preference remains BBC World. Every morning, Jennifer and I sit in bed and watch a full hour's broadcast while we drink our coffee and read the newspaper. Even though its only an hour long (and only in the morning,) between this, Deutsche Welle, and even Russia Today, its still a hell of a lot better than relying solely on CNN. Nevertheless, we hear from our cable provider that they'll be adding a dedicated BBC World news channel very soon.

Pimping Product

One of the many responsibilities I ended up assuming at Tikkun was writing six 100 word book reviews which we always printed on the interior back page of each new issue. Titled Tikkun Recommends (my last TR can be found in the present edition - Jan/Feb 2007) the purpose of the section was to promote books and publishers that we felt ought to receive special consideration, above and beyond the publications we'd review in the Books section of the magazine.

I particularly enjoyed writing these reviews, because, as Tikkun's culture editor,  there were always books I wanted to cover which we neither had the room nor the writers to tackle. As one of those many editors who wished they had more time to write, penning these short pieces always gave me something of an outlet for this frustrated desire. Having written numerous book reviews over the years - for the San Francisco Bay Guardian's Lit supplement and Punk Planet - this also allowed me to keep my review writing chops somewhat fresh.

The reason I mention all of this is because yesterday I wrote my first TR-style reviews for Zeek, the periodical that I recently joined as a contributing editor. As burnt out as I still am, it was nice to re-inhabit this style of writing, and push a few books which deserve attention. If you were to ask me precisely why I like to do these things, that pretty much nails it. There is so much excellent culture being produced right now - by writers, musicians, film directors, software designers , the works - that it feels almost like a categorical imperative to continue to support it all somehow.

This was always the modus operandi we worked with in terms of the bands and writers we covered when I was Punk Planet's associate editor. As a culture magazine, we channelled this ideological sensibility religiously, to a point that we treated our cultural coverage as though it were a political endeavor. By pointing our readers to productions that we felt were important, like many punks, we genuinely believed that we were creating some kind of cultural front out of which a better politics would emerge.

Upon sending out my reviews late yesterday afternoon, I recalled this political impulse and asked myself whether, ten years later, I still believed in it.  "Yes," I muttered to myself, giggling. "If only because I'm still being asked to write the same things I've always written."  Wondering if I was talking to them (and not myself), our two dogs got up from the carpet and started nuzzling my knees with their small furry heads, thinking that I was telling them it was time for dinner.

Currently in Rotation: Various Artists, Tectonic Plates (Tectonic Recordings/Baked Goods)

My New Job(s)

Its been nine days since I left Tikkun. Unwinding has not been easy. As I imagined, there would be email and calls to answer, and loose ends to help the accountant and staff sew up. I'd wager that at least three days were devoted to helping the office out, which is actually less time than I anticipated would be the case. Having spent six weeks at the office after resigning on November 22nd, I dedicated myself to wrapping up as much as humanly possible. I'm sure that there will be more calls and emails in the future. But for now, until the magazine hires a new managing editor, its my assumption that my major post-Tikkun work is complete.

Every time I find myself growing impatient with my inability to get going on my next projects faster - a book, a record and two essays - I always look back at my "To Do" list for December to remind myself of why I'm so damn beat. (That does not include the fatigue accumulated from having worked six days a week for two and a half years.) Ranging from IT, distribution and general business tasks to editorial planning, writing, updating the website and employee training, the six week period during which I undertook my concluding work sums up everything that made my former job so draining. I'm really grateful for the experience, but I'm also extremely relieved to be moving on.

The best part about being home is how comfortable it is to write in. Ever since we moved into our new house in San Francisco's Bernal Heights neighborhood two years ago, unfortunately, given my work schedule, I've had a devil of a time finding any real occasion to spend time here. Every weekday morning, when I'd get up to make coffee before work, I'd stare into my beautiful office, wondering whether I'd ever get a chance to enjoy the space and take advantage of what it ideally could afford me. Lined with books and vinyl LPs, and a large desk bearing my home studio set-up, sitting in my decrepit Berkeley office, I'd frequently find myself daydreaming about importing old records bought at foreign flea markets into my rapidly aging computer.

Now that I'm truly here, I can't say enough good things about it. The sun shines through my window for the better part of the day, giving my room some of the best light of any spot in the house. Sitting in my father's old office chair, typing away while my favorite BBC shows stream through my Mac and my two dogs chill on the floor beside me, I can't quite recall a time that I felt so at home. Really, anywhere. Though this definitely will not last forever -  essentially five months from today - it feels like I won the lottery. And I don't feel the least bit guilty about this opportunity either.

As much as this all might seem like its about finally doing what one really wants to do, that's not quite it. It's about having a decent quality of life, and the time to take care of the kinds of things that we ignore, delay, or put off when we work sixty hours a week. Like spending time with one's family, paying bills promptly, returning phone calls from friends (the same day, as opposed to two weeks later), and doing laundry.  And, most importantly, cooking dinner for my wife.  Seeing the smile on Jennifer's face as she sat down to a freshly-grilled flank steak last night summed up exactly why this was one of the best decisions I've ever made. All I can say in response is "Sweetie, there's a lot more meat where that came from."