Essay – Page 6 – Author Shlomi Harif

Body of Proof & Crazy Soldiers, Revisited

shlomi on March 1, 2013

I don’t have a television or cable, but there are several shows I watch online as “guilty pleasures.” One of them is Body of Proof on ABC. Yes, I know, I know: it’s silly beyond all beliefs; the science is bad, the procedures are insane, and the plots… Well, the plots are the source of this post.

I remember all those horrible movies in the 70’s and 80’s. Crazed Vietnam vets were a wonderful plot card to play. The first two episodes of this show were just new clothes on the old dummy: crazed vets doing crazy things because of what they endured at war, and came home unappreciated, ignored, or discriminated against.

There’s more reason now than before to not just honor, but actively assist the vets in our communities. Many survived injuries to which their counterparts from the 70’s would have succumbed. We have more treatments, and more understanding of, PTSD (from which I suffer).

While shooting scripts need to pull in the target demographics, we need not denigrate military veterans in the process. It’s time the entertainment industry took the easy joke, easy madman, easy antagonist off the eye-level shelf, and put it behind glass. Respect is harder earned, easier lost in our instantaneous communication culture. They risked their lives in their country’s service: let’s give them preferential treatment.

Returning From a Posting Hiatus

shlomi on February 21, 2013

I’ve been working a job, now a job search, and working on some cool software code that’ll debut on this site.

That’s come at the expense of writing. I’ve done precious little work on Infection (although I made some critical progress on some story arc issues to lock in the longer view). I don’t think I’ve written so few poems in this time frame.

Multi-tasking apparently gets harder as life stress levels rise. Time to take care of priorities: slow down to speed up.

Dr. Who as a Writer’s Franchise

shlomi on May 27, 2012

Forget JK, or JRR… I’d love to have something with the staying power of Dr. Who as my legacy. Well, we all have our fantasies.

Via: CableTV.com

Appearing at a Drash Pit Near You…

shlomi on May 20, 2012

I’m a regular contributor to Drash Pit, a Jewish webzine composed of snark triggered by Torah. This month’s issue was devoted to “shunning.” My poem is up there, on the DrashPit.com site.

(Oh, and if you like buttons like the one at the right, check out zazzle.co.uk.)

Progress, Embarrassment and Poetry

shlomi on May 2, 2012

Great, a P.E.P. talk.

I haven’t written a good, solid poem (first draft, of course) in literally months. I get that way: in going over my record of about 550 poems (the edited, “finished” ones, not drafts or juvenalia) I’ve had gaps of over a year at some points. This seven month gap is the longest in at least fifteen years. The draft isn’t ready for sharing, but was triggered, the day a car was rammed by a local commuter train, by the smell of creosote warming in the 90+ degree sun off the railroad ties at a train station.

Smells are said to be our strongest memory joggers. What’s irritating to me is that they job the fact that I have a memory, but I can’t remember why that smell is a trigger to remember something. Ah, the joys of incipient senior moments. The creosote was a pervasive smell where I hung out in Riverdale, down past the “jungle,” by the train tracks on the banks of the Hudson River near the NYC/Yonkers border. It was a great place for me to be daring, standing close to the trains as they whipped by: cargo, commuter, passenger… and sometimes the repair trains with their cranes. I remember when they built an overpass so people wouldn’t have to cross the tracks directly. And I remember walking over a tiny, rusted footbridge that was the only way across before it was replaced. I can’t imagine letting my kids go off and do that. And I guess I shouldn’t wonder what my kids have been doing while I haven’t been hovering overhead.

More anon. Sleep, perchance a deep dream, tonight.

Review: Triumph Cafe

shlomi on April 22, 2010

Tweeview: Triumph has no-MSG, authentic phở with all the fixings in a family atmosphere. Way fast service, great prices. Discount program rocks!

You can catch vibe in a lot of places. I get a creative vibe while driving south under the 45th street bridge on MoPac (two patents, a novel, three short stories, a bunch of business ideas; no kidding!).

I think there are vibes in places as well. I’m not a spiritualist or anything like that; analysis might focus on lighting, angles and proportions and the number of good things seen inside it. Whatever.

Triumph Cafe is an amazing little place. It’s a family business; you’re probably going to be served by the same blood that preps the food, that cooks the food, that handles the books, etc. Like all Austin joints, the Hispanic presence is there, in the back room: busing, dishwashing. But the kids bus tables too. And grandparents keep a steely eye on things and kids when they’re around.

[Full disclosure: I’m on the board of a non-profit that has used Triumph’s tables and chairs for monthly and sometimes weekly meetings, generously and freely hosted. More later…]

Phở is the currency of the place; it’s served with traditional elements like sprouts and Vietnamese (not Thai!) basil. Also what I suspect to be stand-in ingredients like and jalapeno peppers instead of whatever’s local back “East.”

It’s a bit too salty for me. But the flavors of fresh ingredients and nicely cooked bánh phở (noodles) work well, and adding brown sauce certainly balances the equation (be still my straining heart).

The price is very competitive, and then it gets better. Their idea of frequent diner looks to me more like a real ‘friends and family’ sweetheart deal. Put money on one of their cards, and you get 10% added to your deposit (e.g., $50 becomes $55 when you charge up the card), and an additional 10% off the tab when you buy something. And, of course, they have the ubiquitous ‘get this card stamped ten times and then have an entree on us’ deal.

The service is equally amazing. I enjoy taking newcomers to Triumph, just to see the look in their eyes when the dish arrives almost as soon as they fill their soda glasses and find a seat. Someone do a time and motion study on these folks; they’re ridiculous!

It’s worth talking about the environment as well. The restaurant has a great patio, where smoking is discouraged (but unfortunately not enforced as city code requires). Despite that, Austinites tend to be polite folks, and I haven’t had more than a couple of cigarette issues at lunch. (I resolved it my way, but it didn’t make the news, so all’s good.)

The shot at the right (cadged from their web site) is fairly accurate, except for the lack of grackles which, like the white-tailed deer, ort some deity’s idea of humor in the guise of wildlife. You know the Monty Python routine with the liver donation and “I’m not done with it yet?” They’re like that, only with food. Yours, if you’re not keeping track of what’s going on around you.

The inside of the store reminds me of the Cuban-style bodegas in New York City. You want Phở? Covered. A nice silk tie? Office water fixture? Vietnamese coffee, freshly ground or in custom-made cans? Sure! Jewish Klezmer music occasionally displaces country, bluegrass, Asian fusion, or silence.

I’ve come in when I was the one and only, and come in to pandemonium, where two board meetings and a bible study group are meeting inside, and a book club is holding court in one end of the outside patio.

Throughout all this, the family at Triumph serves great food at GREAT prices with aplomb, a smile, and the odd tattoo and spiky ‘doo.

It’s an amazing place. The ‘vibe’ here is a comfortable, community, family establishment.Go. Eat. Enjoy! And remember to bring your stopwatch when you come: it’ll be the standard against which all other lunch and dinner restaurants will be judged.

Triumph Cafe ■ 3808 Spicewood Springs 254 ■ Austin, TX 78759 ■ (512)-343-1875

Why Pasta Fails

shlomi on December 2, 2009

I’ve been having a lot of fun with cooking and baking lately. It’s the first time in almost a year that I’ve had a real kitchen to work with, and the first time I’ve felt like I was building, instead of caretaking the destruction of a community of friends (long story, not relevant here). I’ve made soup bowl breads, spelt and oat breads, bean dishes, chilis and enough dishes for my first independent Thanksgiving to make me wonder at how much food one can create from less than $100 in ingredients. (That it’s still feeding me is yet more wonder.)

This afternoon and evening I’ve been cooking for a friend who is new to the whole “heat stuff and turn it into food” concept. It’s fun for both of us: a stretch for me to be informative and consistent in my cooking, and fun for her to learn new things. Tonight’s menu: pasta and sauce. Homemade sauce from scratch and homemade pasta. There’s little “scratch” in pasta; it’s only got three ingredients: flour, eggs and salt. Homemade sauce means blanching tomatoes, reducing them, simmering in the flavors while frying up the onions, garlic and shallots. Then jockeying it all together and finally the fine (apparently lost) art of simmering a vat ‘o stuff without burning any of it.

Complex tomato sauce from scratch, with amazing flavor and ingredients: check. Pasta from three ingredients: FAIL!

Okay, maybe I was too optimistic. I mean, with three ingredients, what can go wrong? A lot, apparently.

5 – 1/3C flour — I used organic, unbleached whole flour
4 eggs — I used organic, from a farm eggs instead of the thin watery kind in use
“a generous pinch” of salt — I used a tsp. of low-sodium salt analog

Taken one at a time, these are innocent substitutions. But did you note that I substituted 100% of the ingredients? (Well, except for the egg, but it’s the spirit I know I messed with.)

The problem with out microwave, cell phone, ADHD culture (which I am, apparently, a late member thereof) is this insane idea that doing something approximately right is like doing it right.

Note to self: almost right is like almost on target: And that only works, as I’ve been told, with horseshoes, hand grenades, and H-Bombs. None of which were ingredients.

Rubber bands. Entirely flaccid, entirely non-tasty rubber bands. A little dusty something in the middle. Elastic like gummy bears© in the sun.

They said roll it as thin as a dime. Dime thin dough turned into about two Sacajawea’s thickness worth of… well, gummy bears.

The sauce? To die for. It’s a freaking fantastic, from the hip, absolutely head on dish. Which my friend took, after I bagged, home. Sigh.

And I guess I’ll need to work on the whole pasta thing some more.

I’ll post the tomato sauce recipe, as ill-qualified as I am to speak Italian sauce recipes, when I get a chance.

Valuations

shlomi on July 13, 2007

In the American business world time is money. In Iraq, time is blood. In Israel, time is, among other things, honor.

The sand is running out of the upper chamber, honor-wise. Unlike the primitive, craven tribal activities of Middle Eastern tribes’ idea of honor (which usually involves women being killed by stupid men), I’m speaking of the honor that gives Israeli statesman and stateswomen the ability to walk with their heads high while conducting State business.

Israeli taxpayer funds are used to shore up extremist religious schools. They’re being used to subsidize the kind of ‘pork’ American politicians would well understand. They’re being used for military idiocies instead of focusing on the things that will ensure that there is a next generation of Israelis: environment, education, medical care and investment in Israel’s brain trust.

This might be the generation cursed to see Israel’s water supply poisoned, it’s land corrupted by pollution to the point of no return, and its children’s education reduced to a shadow of its former self. Already the smart Israelis are making homes for themselves in Europe and the United States. Already the ‘dumb’ Israeli is the altruistic Israeli. Already the value of ‘giving as one can, and receiving as one needs’ has been diminished to almost zero.

This is the curse of Bal’am. Our economy is great: for the top 1%. Our military strength is great — for increasingly limited effectiveness, and increasingly not involving the former 1%. Our (former) president, our prime minister, our ministers, our members of parliament are coming under question, indictment and conviction. The taint of easy living, easy decisions and easy consequences is taking its toll, and the Jewish, the Israeli people, are beginning to live the consequences.

I hope my children, with their optimism, energy and the view imbued by their parents, can effect change against the inertia of corruption, pollution and institutional arrogance.

The TSA’s Nightmare Commercial

shlomi on June 17, 2007

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. Here two need no words.

This first is credited to AP, and it’s either a posed photo, or someone in the journalism crew has figured that a neutered terrorist is a terrorist that at least won’t breed, and conned the guy into sitting still for the portrait. (Note the little idiot warning on the right side above the Einstein with the gun: no people.)

Ooh, scary terrorist. Coming out of the baggage check. The perfect poster for the US’ TSA. (3 oz. liquid in a 4 oz. bottle? Toss it, men!).

The Jerusalem post put these two photos together. Ehud Barak, easily our least effective prime minister until Ehud Olmert, has a shot at running the amy as defense minister after botching up his job as Chief of Staff. I’m sure he wasn’t sitting low in baggage claim with the picture was snapped, but if you just put a little ‘thought bubble’ around the cute terrorist, you’ll get the idea.

Life will get interesting in Hamastan and Fatahland. Each will consolidate their turf. Fatah has to make a stand in the West Bank, or it will fall to radical organizations like Hamas. Hamas, unlike Fatah, has figured out how to rally their people beyond the clan level. That’s dangerous, because the fundamental way of life for Fatah is the clan (and pitting clan against clan to achieve a higher goal).

This internecine squabbling is what helped Arafat look so incompetent at times; he could bring his boys to a battle, but couldn’t steer the peace because, effectively, the best he could do is try and co-opt the direction of the current most powerful clan at that time, for that issue.

The losers, predictably, will continue to be civilians. Sderot, Kiriat Shmona, (G)Aza and the “Palestinian street.” While attacking Gaza will now be easier (if the person has a weapon, kill them), the West Bank, which helped bring Hamas to power and therefore has a strong constituency, will be energized to repeat their victorious operations in Gaza. This means more bullets flying in marketplaces, more gunmen using human shields, and more tragedy and horror to mar the next generation of a people with little hope.

When the international community is ready and willing to take action again a terrorist force that they themselves have designated, and engage in a multinational action against a true evil threat to all democracies, then Israel might have a chance to come to the table, with its international allies, as part of a real solution to Gaza and the West Bank. Until then Israel will be the great distractor used by Wahabist controllers in one of Israel’s neighbors, and Shi’ite fanatics ruling another.

Be Careful in What you Authorize

shlomi on May 26, 2007

The Lebanese Cabinet seems to be giving the Lebanese Army carte blanche to get rid of the Islamic extremists. As someone whose government has been on the receiving end of these pronouncements, I suggest that Lebanese generals move cautiously.

Sure, the Fatah al-Islam folks are causing a problem for the Lebanese. But don’t expect that if the Lebanese army takes American ammo that they’ll do the cleanup the Americans expect. The relationship between the Palestinians in exile and “native” Lebanese is complex and frangible (to say nothing of malleable). The US helping Lebanon may bring as much excoriation as if the US was helping the Palestinian (Al Queda) forces. Or the corrupt Lebanese against the innocent Palestinians (despite Abbas’ stance).

The cancer of the “Pan Islamic Republic” has burst from the theoretical shell of the Wahhabi extremism to the blunt reality of the here and now. Pointing irrelevant fingers as Palestinian gripes about 60+ year old expulsions is as important in 2007 as the American Idol winner. A good photo opp, but functionally irrelevant.