The Future

Recently at work I had the least triggering conversation with co-workers in a long time. Each was showing pictures of their nieces and the baby fever was ignited. One wanted to supress the baby fever because she wanted to go to graduate school. Finally . Normal conversation. No politics, no disease talk. Just normal speak that could be discussed in any generation . I have hope for the future. Literally.....

Time Passages

Lately I have run into a lot of older people that I haven't seen in a few years and I have noticed how much they have aged. Some are losing their memoriesa , others have aquired difffernt disablitiles. It makes me realize how fleeting life is and how much it is important to appreciate what we do have when we have it . Sadly its hard to internalize because often we don't focus on a particular gift of human functioning until we lose it. I suppose general gratitude is in order, kind of like the simple morning prayers we say when we wake up. Its kind of crazy that we don't always internalize gratitude for ones general health until experience more of life, but better late than never.

Nostalgia

During all of the shutdowns of the past few years I have had a lot of time to peruse nostalgia groups on Facebook that look back at the 70's ,80's and 90's. They are a lot of fun to take part in . Random people post their old photos. It can be a guilty pleasure, but just for a little while. After a while it becomes a little depressing. Its fun to look back but not to just look back. A lot of the difficultly of the past few years is that so many people have been afraid to move forward with life. Life is full of change and as much as its important to appreciate and remember the past its so important to live in the moment and make more memories. Happy Thanksgiving 2022! Here's to making more memories and enjoying the present!

THREE MINUTES - A LENGTHENING [Official Trailer]

Several years ago I saw the documentary Three Minutes in Poland and read the book by Glenn Kurtz. Three minutes in Poland is a three minute home movie Glenn Kurtz's grandfather took when he and Kurtz's grandmother went on a European vacation in the summer o 1938 . I also have watched various YouTube videos about Kurtz meeting one of the people who was in this three minute film. Now there is a longer film about this home movie. When I heard that there was another documentary about this movie and that the producer and Kurtz would be at the showing for Q& A I quickly bought a ticket. I wasn't sure how much more there was to be added to the story but I was willing to check it out. So often when I see footage like this I feel like it spins so quickly and I am not quite able to take enough of it in. This new documentary makes sure that the viewer is able to take it all in and more. David Kurtz , the man who took this film was not a filmmaker . He had just bought the home movie camera a few weeks before his trip and he brought some color kodachrome film with him. As a result this is one of the few color films of its kind and the only one of its kind of the village of Nasielsk, Poland. What makes this film so beautiful is that you see the joie de vivre of these people. The film captures their personalities. Many of the kids who are filmed act really goofy which as it turns out was rather poignant. There is a woman chiding her daughter. There is what looks like a brother sister having a spat. Everyone seemed excited to see a video camera . There were touching moments between fathers and sons. The film played over so many times that I feel like I got to know these people. I got to see part of a world that was destroyed . There are a lot of unknowns about those in this film but there are also a lot of clues that can be revealed by what is shown . I have always thought that that G-d leaves us answers to so much in this world that can be figured out if one knows how to read the clues one is given. This film leaves more clues than first meets the eye. This documentary as well as the original 3 minutes of footage is a living memorial to the people in this film whose names we may never know . Often people remember faces better than names which is fortunate. These faces won't be forgotten .

Time

The world is so strange. A person is born into one era with parents,grandparents, siblings etc. And then time passes. Slowly grandparents pass on , neighbors pass on and the world slowly changes. The people who were once such large parts of our lives are no longer around and we are forced to live in a new reality a new world that some of our friends and family will never know and will never be a part of. Slowly the celebrities who had been so much of the culture age and others become the culture. Slowly the cultural icons pass on . New technologies emerge and one forgets that there was a way of life before these innovations. Sometimes when I think back to different times in my life and then for a moment I realize that not only are those times gone so are many people who were part of that memory. I could never go back to that time not just because time has past but also because those who were part of that memory have passed as well. As I get older it seems like there are fewer and fewer who remember the different worlds I have known throughout my life. Of course this is how life is. It is ever changing. Worlds are ending and worlds are emerging. Sometimes I wish time could slow down a bit so I can savor the good moments in life and spend more time with the people that I love. No one can stop the change of the worlds. All we can do is make the best of each world we get to participate in and know.

Voices Of America - Hands Across America (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

I admit that I haven't thought about Hands Across America in decades until today when I watched the Harry Chapin documentary . Harry Chapin was of a time when celebrities actually stood for causes that were real , like world hunger instead of worrying about the what pronoun to use . Apparently he was an activist for preventing world hunger. He was the inspiration for Live Aid and Hands Across America in the mid 1980's. Watching this documentary made me so sad . How could our country have lost its way so much in the the past thirty six years and how can we possibly go back to those more unified days? If they tried doing this now people would not want to hold hands with someone who was not of the same political party or if someone wasn't vaccinated enough. I really have no answers, but I think that sharing my thoughts as well as this video might be a start. Maybe it could wake a few people up.It really was a much better world when people at least attempted to get along.

Julia Haart and her Unorthodox Life

HMMM.... Where do I start? I just watched the new Netflix series MY UNORTHODOX LIFE. I wanted to hate it but I did not. In case you are living under a rock there is a a new Netflix series about a formerly yeshivish woman who became a VERY rich fashion designer married to a very rich goy who owns Elite World and La Perla to name drop a little . I follow Modi Rosenfeld on Instagram and he summed it up best in his Instagram story. "Nebach, she had to go OTD to get a Netflix special".And after reading this pearl it hit me. Julia Haart has the life every kid who wants to go off the derech thinks their life would be if they were not frum. They would be a rich CEO , they would have a rich goyishe spouse who does their bidding more than their former yiddishe one would . There would be rainbows and unicorns. Julia Haart has an awesome life now and even she admits in her show that she is very fortunate that her kids still talk to her and her husband isn't forbidding her to see their fourteen year old son. Most people who go OTD do not have famiial support and they also do not have the drive to succeed that Julia does. That said, though her life is pretty rad, her life is very 1999. If she didn't have the OTD stuff this would not be a very cool show. Her children are not very wild, even the one who is questioning her sexual preferences is pretty vanilla in terms of 2021. Yes if Julia Haart was not OTD, this series would not even be a thing. Of course Julia denigrates the frum lifestyle, but I did not find Julia herself to be all that admirable as a person so it kind of weakens her denigration. She meddles too much with her adult children and their sex lives as well as being too pushy about how non-religious she would like them to be. Haart is so over the top that her frum ex husband who does appear in the series comes off as a saint. This is why I do not hate this series. No matter how much she denigrates frumkiet she does not totally trash her ex husband. The series ends with her family celebrating her ex husband's impending engagement to his girlfriend and Julia being genuinely happy for him. The other thing that this series does is that it uses a lot of frum words and terms and explains them . I have never seen a mainstream series do this ever. Of course Julia mostly was negative about these the Jewish concepts, but it does incidently give people an introduction to Judaism one may not have had before. MY UNORTHDOOX LIFE is very stylish and fun to watch but I really do not know why people beside me would like it. I understand why so many hate the show, she insults frum Judaism and she has some real gripes . Then again, being frum isn't for everyone and if she had her gripes at least she left and is living the life she wants. If nothing else, maybe it will help those of us who remain frum to fix some of the issues that Julia complained about and help those who question find reasons to love Judaism and stay religious even though some aspects of frum life are flawed.