Musical Roots

It is true that a rose is a rose is a rose, but why is it a rose? The answer to that is like Tolstoy’s description of an unhappy marriage: each one has its own story.  Music styles have come and gone, leaving behind a rich and forgotten history of how that style got is name.

Some are easier than others.  For example, ragtime music, currently most represented by the songs of Scott Joplin, comes from the word ragged.  According to the Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragtime, composers took a standard 2/4 or 4/4 rhythm and made it ragged, i.e. put the emphasis on the offbeat. There was even a gerund form describing the process of taking a standard 4/4 song and make it ragtime: ragging.  There is one amazing historical note in many senses: in 1895, Earnest Hogan, an African American no less, published and sold ONE MILLLION of copies of the first known sheet music of a rag, called (I am not making this up): "All Coons Look Alike to Me." I don’t know what is more amazing, the million copies at the time or the social commentary.  I am glad times have changed.

In other cases, the key is the sound.  For example, the origin of reggae, once again according to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reggae, is probably an attempt to express the offbeat emphasis of its rhythm, possibly working off an existing Creole word, streggae, a loose woman. Other explanations, more academic exist, but intuitively it sounds quite probable.  Slightly more obscurely, the term hip hop, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop_music, apparently comes from a musician making fun of a friend that had just enlisted in the army.  The phase was used with the sting being how you have to “hip hop” in the army. He (and we) got quite an earful.

The most obscure word origin I have ever heard regards a wonderful form of Cajun music and dancing (I really enjoy watching the dancing: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFVBghVUSwk) called Zydeco.  According to the usual source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zydeco, the name comes from the French phrase Les haricots ne sont pas salés, meaning the snap beans are not salty, whatever that means, with theories not lacking.  The music and instruments are not sophisticated but very homey. I strongly believe that 97 out of 100 people anywhere except in Louisiana have no idea what Zydeco music is, let alone the origin of the term. Ignorance is not bliss.

Feel free to send me any wonderfully obscure musical origins so I can add a post-post, accent on the first beat.

Regionalization in the Galilee

I have lived for almost 30 years in Karmiel in the Galilee. A recent shopping trip brought into focus a major change in the area: it is become an economic region, not the sum of a series of small towns and villages.

To demonstrate, my wife was looking for a dress for her daughter’s wedding. Searching on the Internet, she found some interesting dresses on a site for a store in a nearby Arab village. We went there and found a store that in terms of size has nothing to be ashamed of even if it were in Tel Aviv or Haifa.  At least half of the customers were Jewish.  Likewise, a few years ago, I needed some urgent tests on my heart. I was sent to a fully-equipped clinic staffed by a hospital cardiologist in an Arab village. 

This phenomenon is occurring throughout the Galilee. Beit Jann, once famous for providing recruits to the police and military, now specializes in cultural tourism, marketing its Druze heritage to tourists in Israel and abroad. Arab village businesses, whether restaurants or building supply stores, depend on Jewish customers.  Likewise, clothes stores in Karmiel, a “Jewish” town, cater to the local Arab taste in terms of color and style. A high percentage of the sales people are also local Arabs.  There is even a glatt (high level) kosher restaurant attached to a major Arab shopping center. This type of marketing attests to the wide customer base of all Galilee businesses.

The reasons for this economic linking include greater population, income and mobility.  The population of the Galilee has grown rapidly due to immigration and a high birth rate among Arabs. As education has improved in the area, so has income, allowing people to purchase more and fueling the regional economy.  Cars and drivers licenses are simply much more common. Owning is a car is now much more affordable than it was in the past. Moreover, Arab women are now getting drivers licenses, allowing them to expand their shopping base from outside their home villages.

The process in the Galilee is not “apartheid” as those ignorant critics accuse Israel, but unprecedented integration, which has created economic interdependence. I don’t expect this trend to stop in the foreseeable future.

What do you do for a living??

Work is work, everywhere in the world.  For most people, it means showing up somewhere at a given time, fulfilling doing specified duties and getting paid more or less money for the pleasure.  However, the name for a given job description varies from place to place and language to language.  Some professional titles are understandable only to the locals.

For examples, if you are employed in an American office as a gofer, you do not make holes in the floor.  Instead, you are a low paid employee, often the offspring of a regular employee, whose jobs is to bring items from one place to another, i.e. go for this and go for that.  For young people with proper legs and sufficient energy, it is not a bad way to make some money.  By contrast, if you are a sanitation engineer, the work involves waking up early, lifting weights and dealing with foul smelling items.  In simple terms, the person is a garbage man, an admittedly less attractive title.  At least in compensation, thanks to strong local union, such engineers do earn a nice salary even without the formal education.

In France, a verbicruciste plays an important role in society. S/he helps hundreds of thousands of people pass the empty moments of life in buses, trains, toilets and doctors’ waiting room, to name just a few, by writing crossword puzzles for their entertainment.   No doubt, every country has such selected public servants, but not many give them such a wonderful title. 

In Israel, every large organization, especially kibbutzim, must have a pkak.  Literally meaning a cork, such person must be a jack of all trades and master of none.  If he were the latter, he would not be a pkak. The job description is extremely wide and varied and can best be defined as doing anything that has to be done that is not specifically assigned to anybody or whose designated employee is not available for any reason.  In other words, the pkak does any job that has to be done now but for which there is no person to do it.  Having once worked as a pkak, I can say with certainty that the job is varied and appreciated.  In baseball, he would be called a utility infielder.

I would be interested in hearing about other unique professional titles in any language.

All in the family

I recently attended a festive occasion arranged by my wife’s family.  They celebrated the aunt’s 90^th birthday, her daughter 60^th birthday and the birth of three grandchildren during that month.  The atmosphere was joyful, accented by homemade food, specially written poems and a presentation of the aunt’s rich life. Experiencing the gathering as an outsider, three major themes of Israeli family life stuck out, especially in comparison with too many American families.

First, all five of the aunt’s children attended and talked with each other.  In other words, whatever disagreements they may have, communication is maintained.  The willingness to forgive if not forget is typical of many if not most Israeli families. 

Second, three of the five children and many of the grandchildren lived close to the aunt.  Two of the daughters lived within walking distance.  From what I overheard, many of the grandchildren had lunch and did their homework with the grandparents.  Thus, the generational connection goes beyond formal bounds.  This binding of multiple generations leads to emotional connections.

Last, based on the stories that were told, the aunt and uncle did not buy their respect.  They did not have much money when they were raising their children.  However, they invested time and energy in their children, instilling them with their values and ambitions. These are not latch key children.  In the West, good parenting often seems to be equivalent to having a good income. The reality is truly quite different.

In short, I thoroughly enjoyed the good feeling of the birthday celebration. I admit that I felt some envy, not for the first time, watching the warm relations between the people there.  However, to make myself very clear, I heartfully wish them and everybody many such events.  They make life worth living until the age of 90, at least.

Summer Dreams and Nightmares

Students and teachers are often sure that the best season of the year is the summer. The former believe so because they can sleep late and not go to school while the latter get paid of doing nothing, at least in theory.  Yet, for some parents, summer vacation is a three month period of service as entertainment director, ATM and community police officer.  No wonder, most parents view September 1 as the real independence day.

Geography also plays a part in seasonal feelings.  Residents of countries in the far northern and southern hemispheres, such as the Scandinavian countries, as well as those with long rainy winters, notably Oregon and Washington where I lived, long for the bright sun of long summer days. Such people spend every possible minute outside soaking in the rays.  By contrast, in Israel, where I live now, and other hot places, the summer means that you can only be outside for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening due to the grueling temperatures.  Like those suffering parents, we long for the coming of the autumn, when air conditioning and three showers a day are no longer necessary.

Sentiment regarding to the summer is also affected by one’s profession.  To work year round, a person would have to be both a ski instructor and life guard.  Farmers and hotels make hay in the summer, sometimes literally.  By contrast, all that coat and boot producers can do is hope for a cool fall and winter.  Firefighters must have similar feelings.

Age confuses the issue.  Almost nobody remembers being too hot as a child.  Whether this lack of recollection is because summers were less hot, people’s memory are short or kids don’t suffer from weather, I don’t know.  By contrast, the older we get, the more the temperature seems to affect us, both cold and heat.  This sensitivity is quite sad, but apparently unavoidable.

Finally, there are those for whom it makes no difference.  People with jobs in malls and offices exist in controlled temperatures whose work load is basically unaffected by the outside world.   This is the exact opposite of police in the street and construction people of any kind, who are intimate with their daily weather.

So, if beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, so is our perception of the summer.

Middle Eastern Languages

National languages seem like inevitable facts. The language of your country is like your dominant hand. You don’t choose it.  However, the modern Middle East shows how that seeming passiveness is an illusion.  Due to the area serving as a corridor between Asia, Europe and Africa, the Middle East has been host to countless empires, each imposing its own language.  To choose to speak a language different from your occupiers is a political statement.

Egypt, for example, was technically part of the Ottoman Empire for several centuries until World War I.  Its administrators were Turkish, often Kurds.  Thus, Turkish was the official language of communication in Egypt.  It was only in the 19^th century that a few intrepid Egyptians starting publishing newspapers in Arabic.  The Turks gave Arabic the same status as the French have given French Creole, a bastard language at best.  As part of the nationalist movement in Egypt, Arabic was used as a way of expressing Egyptian pride. So, the fact that Arabic is the official language of Egypt is an act of will.

That will is even more evident in the status of Hebrew in Israel.  Hebrew was a hibernating language for 2000 years, maintained only as in its written form.  Variants of Yiddish and Ladino were the lingua franca of Diaspora Jews in addition to the official language of the land.  The revival of Hebrew as an active language was an explicitly political act to create a Jewish identity and part of the overall program to create a Jewish state, a wild dream in the 19^th and early 20^th century.  The Turks, followed by the Brits, ruled this area until 1948, imposing their language for administrative purposes.  To learn and speak Hebrew in the 1920 and 1930’s was a statement of identity.  Later, the imposition of Hebrew became part of the plan of creation of the New Israeli (as compared to the Diaspora Jew),  a Jew whose cultural and linguistic past was cut off.  For practical purposes, to be Israeli meant and means that you try to speak Hebrew.  Accent and accuracy are irrelevant – listen how many of the Israeli’s early leaders spoke – as long as a person showed the intention to “fit in.” Still, the reality for the early generations of Israelis was quite different.  To demonstrate, in the Technion, there was a serious proposal to make German the language of instruction as most of the professors were German. Today, even Moslem, Christian and Druze Israeli, who daily language is Arabic, all speak Hebrew to the point that their Arabic has many Hebrew words inserted into it. The choice to make Hebrew the daily language was a conscious use of a language to establish identity, which was successful.

So, as people shape the physical world around them, they also influence their linguistic space.  There is nothing inevitable about it, especially in the Middle East.

Heads of state

An alien arriving on our planet would have a hard time understanding who the boss is in the countries of the world.  Titles and powers seem to have no consistency and are completely dependent on the country and year.

For example, the United Unites has a president and a vice president but no prime minister.  The president has all of the executive powers but delegates funeral visits in foreign countries to the vice-president, probably in application of the principle of out of sight, out of mind. Following the long reign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a president is limited to two terms of four years, i.e. eight years of power, which is much healthier for the president and the country.

By contrast, France has a president and a prime minister, but the president has all the powers and changes the prime minister like many women change their hair stylist.  After all, someone must be responsible for the high employment and taxes.  Designed for the larage ego of General de Gaulle, the term of the presidency is six years and limited to two times, i.e. 12 years, 50% more than in the U.S. As a result of this long exposure to toxic power, most French presidents start believing they are Napoleon.  At least, the French president does go to the funerals of foreign leaders, at least most of the time.

England has a prime minister and a royal figure, generally a queen in the last two centuries.  The former is the true political leader of the country while the latter mainly handles ceremonial details and provides sufficient material to the tabloids so that the government can do its business without undue interference from the media.  This system seems to be more stable than the opposite system used in many European countries until World War I whereby the royal figure had the power and the prime minister was a bit of an errand boy.  Granted, Bismarck and Metternich were rather efficient gofers for Prussia and Austria but that was not the rule.

Israel, like France, has a president and prime minister but has the opposite relation. The Prime Minister has the power while the president goes on fun trips abroad and entertains the foreign diplomats.  Alas, Israeli presidents in recent decades been very deficient in distracting media attention from the government.  On average, elections occur every two years or so.   On the other hand, Israel tends to stick with the same prime minister for many years.  Apparently, the devil you know is preferable. By contrast, the news generated by the presidents has been less than flattering to Israel.  From Ezer Weizman’s politically incorrect comments about various groups in society to Katzav’s conviction for rape, the situation has gone from bad to worse.  Fortunately, the current president is humorously irrelevant, a clear improvement.  At least, he says the right things.

The confusion gets really thick in Turkey and Russia, where there are presidents that used to be prime ministers. They both had to resign from the latter role because of constitutional terms limits and then got themselves elected as presidents.  The situation would be much simpler, if not better, if they just did like many African presidents, elect themselves for life.  That way, we all could now who really runs the show.

So, the variations in nomenclature for the 1^st citizen of a country are numerous and puzzling. For that matter, we humans seem to like it that way.  What difference does it make?  There are no visiting aliens anyway, right?