Celebrity Apprentice

The king of rating is dead.
The entertainment world is going through one crazy weird phase.
Like a clinical trial that started somewhere in the mid 90's, revealing its outcomes all at once. A medical research that only now beginning to show its side effects.

The deaths of two pop(culture) kings are not necessarily related. Obviously. They didn't have a lot in common but they both needed more love than they got. Both their life (and death) stories are stronger and nuttier than any movie we could have scripted.

The (still examined) dysfunction of the CCTV in Topaz's cell, despite the specific notice and past attempts, he was not watched. Not even by the security guards.
Of course it's not cameras or news papers that kill people. This was suicide, he killed himself.
The position for the new king is still open, but you should probably give it a second thought before you apply.

For the first time; a picture that was taken by a real photographer, a guest on the blog. photogandanist.

A year in retrospect

"New York New York. The city so nice they named it twice". Michel Scott.


Every Once in a while, moving away, catching some distance, can be very beneficial.
Looking at the same world, from a different perspective does wonders, even if it's only a seven minute ferry ride.
Re-discovering can be a very exciting discovery.

Ultimately, you go back to living your micro, day-to-day life, but with a few more new images and insights, for colder days to come.

Please let it be summer just a little longer than it is supposed to be. Not forever, an extra 30 days would be fine. Not necessarily consecutive - only sunny.

I, Fashion Icon.

Last Saturday I met Gil at 13th and 3rd Ave, for a Cosmic Burrito. It was 7pm and 70ish on my first trip out of the Borough that weekend.
I was still wearing my Mediterranean glow from my recent vacation, so accessorizing was unnecessary. By sun set, I had my Zen energies and a burrito in my belly. I didn’t think the evening could get any better. When he suggested I join their boy’s night out at The Jane Hotel, I turned down the offer instinctively;
A. I was dressed for Williamsburg/Tel Aviv, maybe East village, definitely not Meat Packing.
B. I don't do serious stuff like that. I'm not that committed to partying. Sleeping was tempting.
Somehow I ended up at the Jane. Underdressed and curious but self-confident the way I always am on a warm night. I think it was Jim Carry's "Yes Man" I saw earlier that made me just say yes. That - and the proximity of the fancy bar to the L train.

Twins

So we did get in. It was early. I was the only girl without a cocktail-dress or a modeling contract. I was having fun though. After all, not everyday one gets a chance to perform an anthropological research. Not even in Manhattan.
As the evening progressed, I trying harder to make the best out of being The girl with the cutoff jeans and a white oxford shirt. Knowing I have, for a change, a cute dress waiting to be worn at home made it more difficult.
An hour of drinking and outfits inspection later, I spotted my savior. A girl with the same items- my long lost fashion twin in this unfamiliar planet. She was wearing neither heels nor blings. Very low key. Like me.
Her jeans were shorter and her shirt way less buttoned, but it was still overall a casual shorts-and- white shirt look.
Luckily, she set on the couch facing us so I could point her to my friends. It was then that I recognized, being the hard core "Full House" fan that I am, Mary-Kate Olsen.

I rest my case and head back to the burg. Two beliefs were reinforced; Jim Carry is still awesome, and, I don't have to upgrade my styling, especially not as long as it's summer.

Toying with Geopolitics

Some of you may have already heard me talk
about this before. If you've been to my room, you
must have noticed this map and heard me voluntarily elaborate about my special interest in this ordinary image.

I have always used this as an example of how BIG a differences lays between my two nationalities; Of why size actually does matter. Although Israel is practically the 51st state, there’s still a world of difference.

Be There or Be Square
I was putting together a jigsaw puzzle for ages 3 and up, of "The map of the United States" when the realization struck me. It made me laugh and not because I was successfully completing an infantile cardboard game. I was looking at
Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. All perfectly cut squares states. Are these actual states? geometrically shaped countries were a strange concept to me in more than one way. aren't there mountains or rivers or population to determine borders? ; it seemed big, spacious and very contemporary. As if the founding mothers had said: Hey, how do we want to divide our new place?... let's just cut it in squares! As if talking about Lasagna.

Meanwhile, in Europe, squares were being beaten and eaten or drawn by a very drunk shaky hand. A much more complicated puzzle for sure. For Hundreds of years Europe has continued to dissect - and didn't say the last word yet. Every year, in the Eurovision song contest, there are more new formed countries and the contest goes on longer and becomes more bizarre, but that's for a different post.
So is the bigger the better? does extra space make people crazier, more violent or insanely polite?
Not only does the big fat boxes states demonstrate the imaginable frontier Americans grew up with, it also makes you think of how new, recent, this great state is. How lovely. No fighting, no bloody wars and so much room for everyone. Wait, was it really big and roomy when the first 'Coloradoins' got there?

On that note, without being petty, it is funny that the 51st state is just a 1/30 the size of Texas.

So here I was, with my foreign thoughts, at 9 am on a Monday morning, while a woman's hair was in my face, some boy's loud bad ipod music in the background, ice coffees dripping and newspapers filling the limited air remaining on the train. I smelled a dash of irony, remembering how, when my mom asked me on my recent visit, what I miss the most in New York. She actually knew before I answered.
"The space".

abnormal post

I was going to write about myself again. About summer in New York, about going back to school and about the Container Store. Something happened though, and changed my plans. While realizing it's not in the best interest of the blog, writing about something sad, serious and "local", I cannot write about anything else and I really feel like writing tonight.

Something very unusual happened to me an hour ago. I was crying from reading the news.
I can’t remember how long it's been since news had made me that sad. I have developed, like all of us really, a very thick epidermis and cynical gaze for the current events. Regardless of what side of the news I am, writing or reading; I never get too emotionally attached anymore.
However

An hour ago, I read about two young people, Liz and Nir, who were murdered in the heart of Tel Aviv yesterday, simply because they were gay.
I'm trying to think, since I read about their funerals, what made me weeping.
2 is not such a dramatic number. Not when you grow up in the Middle East. Disasters happen all the time. Planes crash, Tsunamis occur. It's not the scope of the tragedy.
It's not because it's Israel, not even because it happened a few blocks from my old apartment. Unfortunately we’ve experienced suicide bombers everywhere all through the 90’s.
It's not because they’re two beautiful, smart or innocent people. I didn't cry when young beautiful bright 20 year old boys died in the war. They're innocent as well.

I guess i'm thrown by how evil stupidity can get. In that sense, living in New York or Tel Aviv, makes no difference at all. I’m scared and I know it could have happened here just as easily. Today I’m not happier I’m here; I don’t feel more blessed or safer like I did after Israel’s elections as oppose to America’s. America is more religious, conservative and ignorant than Israel. Electing a black president was huge - but even he, the amazing Obama can’t formally support gay rights.
I am scared when people are killed because of idiocy and hypocrisy. For god’s sake. Alek*.

I hope that someone in power will act now. First to educate and then to grant people with the right to equally live their lives as peacefully as they can in the 21^st century, in a democratic country of their choice.

* yea right.