Passing the buck...

I am occasionally asked if blogging isn't a distraction from more "worthy" writing projects, and I explain that the habit is a bit like the oil pump in a car. It keeps the writing muscles lubricated and active so that the engine is primed when it is time to produce some literary horsepower. I admit that it is sometimes a welcome distraction from other mundane tasks, doing the laundry, for instance. But rarely am I so busy with other writing that I had better not waste time blogging.

One of those times is now. I've just returned from an absurdly short trip to Haiti, organized at the last moment to cover the Ghetto Biennale, a unique cultural interchange between the sculptors of the Grand Rue, residents of a teeming Port au Prince slum, and an international coterie of visiting artists with a diverse array of site-specific projects. Almost all the visitors had their preconceptions immediately challenged, if not shattered, by their initial exposure to the difficult conditions and the level of poverty they encountered.

But because I will need to spend several days formulating my thoughts on the Biennale into numerous newspaper articles and at least one radio piece, I don't have time to tell you more about it here. Instead I would direct those of you frantic for your daily dose of travel musing to go and read my father's fascinating initial account of his recent trip to Israel.

To whet your appetite, here are a few of his delicious observations,

on Jewish celebration:

"...the ceremony of most Jewish festivities—(boils) down to three propositions:(1) They tried to kill us. 2) They failed. (3) So, let’s eat."

on food and its role in Jewish versus Christian community:

"An agnostic can have a fine time at a Shabbat meal; he is unlikely to go to High Mass for either the sociability or the gastronomy."

on the church at Bethlehem, in the West Bank:

"I didn’t have the sense of the money-changers actually having taken over the control of the temple as I did with some of the more familiar Christian sites in Jerusalem."

Enjoy.

The Coming Pistachio War

At the airport en route to Fes, Morocco I grabbed up a copy of my favorite local rag, Jeune Afrique, which is a sort of alternate reality African version of the Economist, still carrying a torch for the deceased, assassinated, corrupted and otherwise retired liberators of colonial Africa, from Kenyatta and Lumumba right through to Mugabe, who appears on the most recent cover complete with his Hitler mustache, above the headline "Should Mugabe be defended?" (Thank the good gracious Lord that even Jeune Afrique suggests that he cannot be, but boy do they tread gently down the path leading to this inevitable conclusion.)

Amongst other delightful stories is the delicious, facetious conspiracy theory that the United States wants to bring down Iran not because of its alleged nuclear warmaking ambitions, nor even because of its oppressive totalitarian ayatollahs, but rather to end Iran's domination of the international pistachio trade. Iran is the world's top producer, furnishing most of the middle east, including sworn enemies like Israel, with this very best of the world's salted nuts. They also furnish Sahadi's, on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. California is number two. At Sahadi's, the domestic pistachios, although much cheaper, are spurned by nut sophisticates.

At risk of being denounced as a terrorist, both my journalistic integrity and refined palate demand that I recognize the Iranian product as superior to the Californian, which, although plumper and more uniform in size and shape, is but a bland and mushy bean when compared with the nutty toothsomeness of its wrinkled, salty and irregular Persian cousin.

Notwithstanding, and according to Jeune Afrique, Stewart Tuttle, spokesperson for the US embassy in Tel Aviv, a proud native of the Golden State, decried the local consumption of Iran's pistachios, which arrive in Israel via the back door of Turkey, saying "I think Israel should be consuming American pistachios and not Iranian ones."

UPDATE: The only other major media running this story, besides me and JA, appears to be Haaretz, the Israeli broadsheet that rarely finds much common ground with Jeune Afrique. Their pistachio coverage, picked up off the AP wire, is here. Those who might blame me for plagiarizing will have to take my word for it that it is purely coincidental that both my and this account use the Tuttle quote as a closer.

UPDATE: Interesting case study HERE.