Chew On This

Saturday, October 1, 2022

How thoughtful of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to transport those beleaguered Venezuelan refugees out of the path of Hurricane Ian to the safety of the Holy Land.

. . .

This article discusses the plight of a South African musician, who wrote the music to what we now know as "Wimoweh" or "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" in 1939, without realizing substantial financial benefit, because of the workings of copyright law and lawyers.   https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/t-magazine/cultural-appropriation.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

I have questions about some of the story; the Weavers are never mentioned, although their 1952 recording brought "Wimoweh" to American audiences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77VUYPVMtWY

My pedantic focus, however, fell on this phrase "Copyright law (within human history, a fairly recent development)."  What is your estimate of the length of human history?  Wikipedia suggests that human history is divided into four periods, over millions of years:

• Prehistory
• Ancient History
• Post-Classical History
• Modern History

However, Modern History extends only a bit more than 700 years and that's our world for all practical purposes.  While some concepts reach back thousands of years, our daily life is almost entirely a product of the modern period.  And, sure enough, copyright law first appeared in Great Britain in 1662, arguably almost at the start of Modern History.  Just saying.

Sunday, October 2, 2022

In most American urban areas, tenacity, rather than strategy, has produced significant growth in wealth in the form of real estate appreciation.  While it is not unusual to speak of a property doubling or tripling in value, there is another way of looking at it.   

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/realestate/home-value-price-increases.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Don't just think of appreciation as a big lump sum waiting for you when you die, but rather as a daily payment, one hundred, two hundred dollars every single day.  It can give you a warm feeling.

Monday, October 3, 2022

Having suffered the agony of defeat with the Mets series in Atlanta this weekend, I thought it most appropriate that I eat Vietnamese food for lunch today.  Since I had appointments in two different buildings of the NYU medical megalith on East 38th Street, Sai Gon Dep, 719 Second Avenue around the corner, was a natural choice.  I had a good meal there on July 22nd and found the Vietnamese gracious victors.  And guess what?  It was gone.  Store for rent.  That's piling defeat upon defeat.

. . .

We were fortunate to attend a program at the New-York Historical Society tonight, where Walter Russell Mead, author of "The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People," spoke.  The New York Times called his book "A Nuanced History of the Forces Shaping U.S.-Israel Relations" and he was awfully well-informed and persuasive (and decidedly un-Jewish).    

Of the many juicy ideas that he offers, this simple one fascinates me: If the United States did not have the cruel national origins policy codified in the Immigration Act of 1924, there would be no state of Israel.  America was the destination of millions of Jews before narrow quotas were imposed, while migration to Palestine was a trickle.  "Jewish immigration to Palestine constituted only 3 percent of the  transoceanic Jewish migration during that [pre-World War I] period.  By way of comparison, of the 2,367,000 Jews who left Europe then, 2,022,000 established themselves in the US."   https://www.cjpme.org/fs_181

These Jews were fleeing pogroms and economic hardship and things certainly got worse in Europe over the next two decades.  When there was a choice, only dedicated Zionists, secular Socialists typically, sought Palestine.  America was the land of milk and honey, not the arid desert speck set among hostile neighbors.

Very religious Jews only went to Palestine to be buried in the holy soil of Jerusalem.  The large Mount of Olives cemetery dates from the 16th century.  Without the Messiah, there could be no Israel, they believed, and, therefore, no reason to live a life there.

Thursday, October 5, 2022

Having broken the fast at the bountiful table of Connie and David Goldfarb last night with lox, whitefish and pickled herring, I am primed to face this new year vigorously.  I started appropriately, in the company of 8 other members of the Boyz Club, at Wo Hop, 17 Mott Street, the Sanctum Sanctorum of Chinatown Chinese food.

The weather was mild enough and our group large enough to be seated outside in the disease-warding, curbside shed, although, infections aside, I prefer Wo Hop’s tight, claustrophobic, underground confines.  Actually, sitting in the fresh air may have improved our appetite.  We consumed fried wontons, duck chow fun, beef chow fun, honey crispy chicken, tangerine beef, mushroom egg foo young, eggplant with garlic sauce and mushroom fried rice.  It came to $17 each, with our usual generous gratuity.  

. . .

Meanwhile, I have been searching unsuccessfully for an answer to the question: "Did Gary Cohen, Howie Rose and Mike Greenberg (very successful sports broadcasters) work on Yom Kippur?"  It's important to me not as a measure of their spiritual life, an area where I am notably deficient, but as as an opportunity for them to tell the world that being Jewish still means something.  I believe that being part of the world's oldest traveling circus still means something, even if beyond my ability to explain.

Friday, October 7, 2022

Michelin has just published its latest Holy Land dining edition.  Five restaurants retain their three-star rating from last year.  I've lifted their prices from their websites.  Enjoy yourself.

• Chef's Table at Brooklyn Fare (really in Manhattan) charges $430 for its tasting menu, tax, service and wine not included.
  
• Eleven Madison Park's seasonal, plant-based tasting menu consists of 8-10 courses, served in the dining room at $365 per person.  A six-course version in the bar area is $195.
  
• Le Bernardin offers a Chef's Tasting Menu at $295, $445 with wine pairing; a four-course dinner is $195.
  
• Masa's Omakase dinner is $750 per person, not including beverage and tax.  Omakase may be translated as "Oh my god."
  
• Per Se offers a nine-course chef's tasting menu and a nine-course vegetable tasting menu.  Each menu is $325 with service, but not wine or tax.  "No single ingredient is ever repeated throughout the meal."