Publication!

So much of what I have posted has been from the road, that I have duly neglected the other side of this adventure: writing.
On 11-11-11 I got published for the very first time in a newspaper, and will be paid for said publication.
It is a small sign, but one none the less, of validation.
Though I am still mostly gripped with fear at the thought of submitting my work anywhere at all, this has gone far in lessening that fear.
Their request for a subsequent article, and the praise from a number of authors, has done even more.
Below is the piece as it was printed in the American Jewish World.

The Frumkisses of Toronto

The Frumkiss Family Business, by Michael Wex, Random House, 384 pages, paperback, $17.95.

Reviewed by ALEXANDER TOLCHINSKY

Yiddish, a language spoken by fewer and fewer people, in which almost no books or plays are written anymore, may seem like a relic from the last century.

It is hard to find relevance in a language that cannot be used for most conversations about the modern world. And yet, the magic of Yiddish lies in the very fact that it can be used to describe and relate the finest and most subtle details of the human experience.

(Michael Wex to speak at Twin Cities Jewish Book Fair)

An odd blend of German, Hebrew and Slavic, it captures the pathos of the Jews living all over Europe and America. Its words and phrases can often express grief and joy, pain and triumph, love and sarcasm in single words. Its turns of phrase are comical and yet laden with the sorrow of those oppressed.

In Yiddish you can tell a story or put on a play that embodies satire, scorn and hate — with scenes and dialogue that cut to the very bone of those who tormented the Jews, and yet to them (even if they could understand the language) it would seem like any other everyday performance.

Such is the glory of Yiddish nuance! That comedy could always be present, no matter the circumstances, speaks of the incredible ability of the Jews to survive, and not only survive but retain their traditions all the while.

Michael Wex has managed to continue the revival of this beautiful tradition in The Frumkiss Family Business. Though in his book there are only Yiddish words and phrases, with occasional sentences in Yiddish, he still captures the language’s ability to thinly veil mockery, use allegory, and make remarks that will leave you laughing and crying and all together verklempt.

Wex does a wonderful job of putting into English some of Yiddish’s finer intonations, making it accessible to all readers regardless of graduation status from Hebrew day school. His language is direct and expressive; it takes the form of the speaker’s meaning without the filter that would dilute its impact. This makes for an honest telling of the depths that human baseness, perseverance, humor and reason can take.

Wex treats the characters with a truthful and unbiased light — illuminating their strengths along with their weaknesses; he makes us think twice about each one, even after we think we understand them. There are heroes and villains, but he gives us reason to love and hate each one, so that reading the story becomes a process of evaluation of our own beliefs and predispositions.

The book takes us over the course of almost 100 years as we discover Faktor, the quintessential yidishlech mentsh, and his progeny. Each of the characters is both typical and abnormal, loveable and detestable, relatable and yet with at least one part of each of their personalities at some extreme.

Faktor, or Der Mazik, embodies Yiddish wit and humor, as he lives through the time of pogroms, the Yiddish Golden Age, Hitler and immigration. Something that so many of our grandparents and parents went through — we feel we know him as we see our forbears in him. However, he is born wealthy and manages to safeguard that wealth during the purges and thefts of the Nazis.

He works as a journalist, a writer and playwright in the Yiddish theater. But he lives a bohemian life and has countless affairs until he finds love. His idea of a good time is playing practical jokes on people and ridiculing those around him, and yet he is a caring father and good husband. He is outrageous, but that part of him is somehow tempered and focused by his second wife, Chana.

She too is wealthy, but she created her wealth by her ingenuity and perseverance. She represents the greater Jewish woman in her ability to take dust and turn it into sculpture, and to be patient when facing powerful forces that would destroy her family, livelihood and stability.

Wex goes a step further with Faktor and Chana’s offspring and grandchildren: it seems each receives a blessing and a curse. They are brilliant but disturbed, beautiful but malicious, kind but unlucky. It’s almost as if they represent the duality of the Jewish existence (staying true to tradition and being part of the larger social context), and the hidden meaning behind so many Yiddish stories.

Their ultimate battle comes when they face the very meaning of being Jewish. This is something very familiar to us, but again Wex presents the cause of their struggle on an almost absurd level. He sculpts the issue with the details and magnitude of Michelangelo’s David: a human like each of us, and yet so much more — that is the magic of The Frumkiss Family Business.

***

As part of the closing celebration of the 2011 Twin Cities Jewish Book Fair, on Saturday, Nov. 19, Michael Wex will talk about The Frumkiss Family Business at the St. Paul JCC.

(American Jewish World, 11.11.11)

WE are the Truth of the Nation

Second biggest country in the world: done and done!


The road offers many gifts. One of the greatest is the house cleaning it performs on your grey mass. We are so often blinded by the dust we raise as we teem in the midst of modern society. Always in a hurry and never observant of the realities that surround us and the messages those realities send by which we are effected but of which we are unaware.
The following couple of posts will include reflections that could only come after a person has removed themselves from the havoc for a prolonged period, and then re-entered with fresh eyes and a sensitive awareness to what is antithetical to our greater nature.

This is a poem about the general state:


WE are the Truth of the Nation

I am not a slave to your false sensibility,
I will not work for a sense of false security.
I am not sensitive to your solutions,
I seek truth only in my sensations.

You give me false hope with your society,
You want me to believe in my own notoriety.
You try to make me believe in your sensationalism,
You wish I could forget the right of my naturism.

I want to see the outcome of my forced sacrifice,
You wish you could hide your own lack of reliability.
I want to see for what you wish I would die,
You would rather I not, and blind me with your lie.

You want my vote and support and obedience,
I cannot give to you when I see your reality.
You make it so murky and light it on fire,
I am left to rebel, to deny you is my dearest desire.

We scream of the papers that give us our rights,
We yell for a time that exists in our dreams on warm nights.
We long for what never existed yet was spread as the truth,
We conquer our perception and logic and claim it’s good for the youth.

There is no us in your eyes that is whole,
There can be only right, that you’ll protect with your might,
There will come a day though when your falsehood will unfurl,
There can only be hope when your might will be revealed as smoke.

We are, we are, we stand we scream,
We are not only the youth, we are more than a dream.
We are the now and tomorrow and then,
We do not even know with what power we teem.

I believe that our ignorance does have an end,
I believe that the future is not beyond mend.
I believe that respect is the seed of it all,
I believe that the truth, no matter how hard, will save us from the deadly final fall.

Poems From the Road

THE CHASE – (dedicated to my students)
--------------------------------------
From coast to coast
The sun I chase,
O’er peaks and valleys,
Blinded by my haste.

From Glacial ruins,
To fields of golden grain,
Past sea-like lakes,
Through thunder, wind and rain.

I see my end, as it’s contained
Within the rise and fall of our sky’s flame.

I smell the firs, the fruit and sea,
And find my end in what will never be.




LYING STILL
--------------
Death becomes me
Lying still,
Devoid of thought,
With nothing left to feel.

A new release
Found on my brow,
Carefree in nothing --
No pain to handle now.

What sorrow brought
In day to day,
Is now exhaled
And fades away.

No lust to fan
The flames of loins,
There is no fear
In where I’m going.

To sacrifice the draw of breath,
To choose, and love, and be loved back,
Comes with rewards beyond the thrill,
No hurt to heal – when lying deathly still.


OUR ROAD – (dedicated to Dionne Hartunian and Jay Lazerwitz)
-----------------------------------------------------------
The road forgives
Our use and wear,
She grips us tight
When death we dare.

She listens closely
To our wail,
She bares with patience
as we emerge from city’s laiR

When we are lost
She helps us find the way,
She may be tough
But with her we will stay.

Though sometimes barely there,
And often filled with ruts,
We seek her still,
And take the wisdom of her bumps.

When on her
The going may be slow,
But when she’s gone
There’s no where left for us to go.

And if we sit
Too long in place,
We lose our selves
And are like holes in time and space

So always forward we will ride,
And throw the throttle back a nigh.
And let the wind make clear our head,
And let the road our suff’ring mend.