Calatrava Bridge from the Light Rail

Looking out the window of a light rail car gave me the second view of the Calatrava bridge that was not ridiculous. From the street level it is so out of place that it either makes you laugh or (especially if you are local) makes you angry. From the train the harp's strings unfold, rather dizzying.

Also dizzying for some people is the screen that announces the stops, because the direction reverses as the languages cycle through Hebrew, English and Arabic. I am going to try to learn to sound out written Arabic, practicing by listening to the spoken announcements.

The other satisfying view of the Calatrava bridge is reflected in Anish Kapoor's sculpture at the Israel Museum.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Page Turner

At the Etnakhta concert intermission, when the radio mike had been turned off, the presenter said, "There are about 300 music lovers in the hall. Surely one of you can turn pages for the pianist in the next selection." I'm guessing about half those 300 understood Hebrew too poorly to know what she was saying, but there was a volunteer.

Why do pianists get pages turned for them while all the other musicians manage their own music?

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Loose bow

I've watched violinists tighten their bows, rosin them, test the tension. I expect violists, cellists, and players of the huge contra-bass do the same.

At the second maqam concert I noticed that the fiddler used a loose bow. He pulled the horsehair (if that's what it is) tight as he worked the bow back and forth. The original bows were probably taut, like a bow that shoots arrows. I wonder what the advantage is of a loose bow.

Copyright Jane S. Fox

Mameluk Buildings in Jerusalem

Saturday's walking tour took us to Mameluk buildings within the Jerusalem walls. What is it like to live in a 700 year old building whose walls are adorned with gorgeous stone carvings and whose ground floor holds old graves?

We had a guide both knowledgeable and articulate. "I'm not a babysitter," she declared when participants fell behind in the straight but narrow alleys of the souk, but she went back to find seven or eight who missed one sharp turn into a quieter alley when a hard rain obscured the view of her multicolored umbrella among all the other umbrellas.

In and out of the oldest souk we went, through a dark, covered passage to a quiet lane where the householder came out to say hello to a very wet group. We ended up at the "Kotel Katan," a short stretch of the same retaining wall that is the "Western Wall." Later I looked on a map. It's not hard to find at all if you walk straight through the souk for the Jaffa gate and then turn left.

Returning on our own and not at all sure at the time of which way to turn) we passed three other groups taking walking tours in the rain. These seemed to be short-term tourists. If they stayed out of the rain, they'd miss their only opportunity for such a tour.

But the citizens of Jerusalem are hardy, and are willing to follow a guide through cold rain to admire old beauties of the city.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Organization Outweighs Provenance

What the collection at Jerusalem's Bible Lands Museum lacks in provenance it makes up for with coherence. Maps, groupings, and explanatory material make cultural interaction possible to understand.

Each time I've taken the tour (three times in Hebrew and once in English) it's been led by a different docent, and each time I've learned something new. Yesterday one new bit was that leap months go back to Sumer.

Both at this museum and at the Israel Museum across the street, I'm always amazed by how far back so much goes.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Maimonides' Kiosk

Some time during the last ten months the kiosk in the park strip along the center of Ben Maimon st opened as a coffee bar. Nice amenity.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Photographs from Yemen

Somewhere in the depths of the L. A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem( http://www.islamicart.co.il/en/ ) is a curator with a wonderful eye for photographic exhibits. The current one on Yemen is superb, managing to dazzle with images of people and architecture both. I no longer wonder why tourists go to Yemen.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Archaeology and the Bar Kokhba Rebellion

Tuesday's lecture at Beit Shmuel on the contribution of archaeology to to research into the Bar Kokhba rebellion, reminded me both of the contribution of coins to our knowledge of the past and of the difficulty of interpreting the meaning of the presence of any artifact in a particular place.

For dates after the invention of coins, they can be better than pottery for dating a location. That coin showing Hadrian's likeness didn't get there before Hadrian became emperor.

But coins are easier than pottery to carry from place to place. The presence of a Bar Kokhba coin in Hungary does not make anyone think that the rebellion spread that far. I suppose you could write an article about the likelihood of a Roman soldier carrying the coin there versus the possibility that a string of itinerant traders brought it there. Or even that a refugee carried it as a reminder of the hope that faded in so few years.

This makes it difficult to interpret the four Bar Kikhba coins found in the north of Israel as a sign that the rebellion spread that far.

Here in Jerusalem, even in a popular lecture on archaeology you hear of very new findings. Tuesday we heard about a village in the north that showed the same signs of destruction at about the same date as the places the Romans definitely destroyed farther south as they put down the rebellion.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Last minute tickets

For Sunday night's Andalusian Orchestra of Ashdod ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HidnXlZbooQ&feature=related ) concert we bought last=minute tickets at about a third of the published price.

Wonderful energizing concert with a guest singer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H9e1lnsdOg -- go about 50 seconds in ) as well

Our seats were at the top of the Henry Crowne auditorium in the Jersualem Theater -- up above the control booth. We heard everything but were a bit too far away to see the words projected behind the players. We had a great view of the musician playing the zither-like instrument, though. The only real drawback to the seats was not feeling part of the audience when they joined in with rhythmic clapping and sometimes singing along at the invitation of the vocalists.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. fox

Woodwinds

Yesterday's Etnakhta concert featured the Tel Aviv Woodwind Quintet. I am trying to figure out how a horn is a woodwind.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Rain Tour

Rain paused while Saturday morning's walking tour started. Returned in a drizzle, paused, turned to sleet. A sliver of blue sky appeared. Now wind, not thunder, so we heard our hardy guide and continued to walk and look.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Outside the PM's

How empty the sidewalk looks when first seen after the Shalits removed their tent, mission accomplished. The turn of the wall and the widening of the pavement soon seems normal once more.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Makam

Yesterday's concert at Beit Avikhai was enjoyable in everything but the seats. From remarkably uncomfortable chairs in a small room seven levels down in the parking garage, we heard an introduction to makam ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makam ), a musical system of ACAentral Asia and the Near East. The particular makam of last night's performance was the nava, played on the tar, kamancha, and sez, with Neeman Kihan on the santur; and also sung. Rabbi David Menahem explained the place of this melodic system in Jewish Iraqi music.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox

Cheese emporium renovation

Bashar's is now easier to get in and out of and has added a second floor. Somehow it seems narrower, though the cheese selection seems as wide.

Copyright 2012 Jane S. Fox