Sightseeing in the Mindfields
Current Events 2: The Ship
January 19, 2018
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It was in Budapest that HL and I met our ship, the M/S River Aria. HL had arranged in advance for a cab to convey us from the airport to the dock on the Danube, which bisects the city into Buda and Pest. The Aria was anchored below the hilly, Buda side, where the palace and its cathedral are situated. All of the cities along The Danube seem to have...
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Clapping for Tinkerbell
January 17, 2018
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I was a small girl in New York when my mother took me to a children's matinee performance of Peter Pan. It was my first time in a theater. I was enthralled by the actors on the stage, their costumes, their voices, and their general magnificence. One of the principal characters, however, appeared only as a moving light and a pealing of bells. That w...
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Current Events: My Cruise on the Lower Danube River
January 16, 2018
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I made my first trip to Europe with Miri, when she and I were still in our teens. We worked and wheedled to get the funds and, even more crucially, t he freedom to wander through Western Europe for an entire Summer. It was not until fifty years later that Miri and I could travel together again on the Continent. By then, she was a veteran of several...
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The Nightmare Chair
January 16, 2018
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After forty years, I am back in the Nightmare Chair. My first time was in Long Island Jewish Hospital in August, 1977, when my two-year-old daughter K. was diagnosed with leukemia. After an initial bout of chemotherapy, her disease went into remission. The treatment continued for three years, and K. became one of the success stories in the pediatri...
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The Dinosaur at The Kremlin
December 30, 2017
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I had a double purpose in drawing this year's Hanukkah dinosaur. It was to accompany my best wishes for the holiday, as well as announce my intention to write a travelogue about our trip to Russia. Before I begin that, account, I shall regale you with my completed travelogue about The Balkans. You can find it as a serial here over the next few week...
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The Roller Coaster
December 21, 2016
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There is only one roller coaster left on The Strip in Las Vegas. It stands atop the New York, New York hotel-casino. There used to be one at The Stratosphere, but it has been replaced by several contraptions designed to dangle one over the edge of the roof. We stayed at New York, New York in late November. We had never lodged there before, though m...
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The Eastern Wall
July 05, 2016
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There was no mizrach in my childhood home or, more properly, in any of the three New York apartments that my parents rented during my first sixteen years. We hung no special decoration on whichever wall was closest to Jerusalem. We needed nothing to indicate the direction to face when we prayed, because we did not pray. We were secular Jews whose i...
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The Persistence of Pluto
June 23, 2016
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Despite my surfeit of stamps, I ordered more first-class domestic postage last month. Views of Our Planets was a series that I could not resist. In my opinion, the set of eight images is an exemplar of philatelic art. The eight digitally enhanced planetary portraits fit neatly into a block of stamps. So it might appear that the postal service did n...
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Black Fire
June 14, 2016
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The Torah is written in black fire on white fire.
-- Midrash Tanhuma, Genesis 1
The Jewish holiday of Shavuot just ended. There is little debate about its origin as an agricultural festival. One of its names is The Feast of First Fruits. It is also The Feast of Weeks, starting the count of seven weeks at Passover. It is another of the holiday...
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Retrieving Wonder: On Being a Tourist in Town
June 07, 2016
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I have wearied my friends with my complaints about my current environment, and for that I apologize. Those unacquainted with my reasons for relocating to such an uncongenial place need not read about them here. They may not even be relevant any longer, as I have been at my current address for several years. What has not changed is the benighted soc...
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© Star Arts by Tamar