Pubs - a comparative study

Pubs in the US have a very different feel to them than to those in the UK. For some reason, here they like them long and narrow, with a long bar taking up most of the space in front. Perhaps that's why US pubs I think could better be labeled as bars. UK pubs are in general more spacious, less noisy, and have much funkier names. In UK pubs carpets, sofas and armchairs are a common feature, making the place feel warm and cosy, a bit like home.
In my estimate, the selection of beverages on offer is more or less the same in the two countries, except perhaps for the fact that US pubs stock European beer, even on draught, whereas in pubs in the UK most American beers are totally unknown. In the US, the bartender is Irish. In the UK, he's from Poland.

Still not

I look up from my book as the bus is leaving town, driving across the GW Bridge. I'm struck by the magnificent view of the Manhattan skyline and I still can't believe my eyes - that this is really it, that I really am here, in the Manhattan of images, posters and movies, the dream city that everyone thinks of as the height of metropolitan vibrancy. Yet when you are living there, amidst those tall pencils of buildings, it doesn't feel like a movie or a dream any more. No glamour, just the dirty streets with grotty buildings squatting among the glass palaces. I still don't get this place. I don't feel it, I don't love it. But we get on OK :-)

Milarepa

He was green. Literally. He lived on nothing but nettles for a while and his skin turned green. And not only that but he was, I think, the quirkiest hippest figure in the Buddhist canon (not that I know too much about the others...). A poet and vagabond, hermit and teacher, master of the Path.
Like Resh Lakish in the Jewish tradition, Milarepa also started out as a criminal, until he encountered the Buddha's teaching. Because he had been such a bad boy, legend has it, he had no choice but to achieve enlightenment in a single lifetime. And he did!
Here are my favourite lines by him that I carry with me wherever I go. If you believe one should have an ideal in life, something to strive towards, this is what mine is:

'I do not seek wisdom in books - content to leave my mind alone
nor seek to better myself through talking - content to leave my mouth alone
nor know how to cheat and lie - content to leave the world alone
nor proudly scratch for fame - content when no one speaks of me
any place I stay is all right - whatever happens I am happy'

Ecstasy

I saw a play about junkies (The Connection), altogether a rubbish production I would say, but not a complete waste of three hours !!! of your life as the performance is enhanced by first-class live jazz music.
It tried to address the question of ecstasy, and how different people long for it in different ways. It made me think of those who attend certain types of synagogue or other religious services where they can get driven away by the singing, the meditative prayers or the community spirit. I had to realize that I wasn't an ecstasy person. I may have been at some point in the past, but not any more. I've come to the conclusion that it is something that some people need and some people are totally happy without. It is not the only valid form of religious experience, not the ultimate goal. I sought it as a teenager and couldn't ever really find it - and then my desire for it waned away. Perhaps it was the teenager in me that waned away and that keeps living on in all those others?

Hannah Senesh

I've had role models before, and they included Sherlock Holmes, Nikita the government killer agent and the Bride from Kill Bill. But now I've found someone real. Really real. And she was even Jewish, and Hungarian! Watching a movie about the life of Hannah Senesh (nee Szenes Aniko) inspired me more than anything else for a long time. Over the past weeks I've been reading her diary, letters and poems. She was meant for something great but had to die at the age of 23. She fell in love with Israel as a young adult and suddenly realised what her mission in life was. Zionism was her religion, her every breath, her only true love. She died without ever having kissed a man. She was extraordinarily smart, bubbly, sociable, community oriented, a real leader - but always felt alone. She only lived for her vision, and never allowed temporary dissatisfaction to blur the glory of the ultimate goal: living and dying for the welfare of the Land and the People that gave her an ideal but not a single friend.

Trader Joe's

Have you ever had to queue in the street in front of a supermarket? I would have thought this was an eastern European phenomenon that had died out in the late 80's with the last breath of communism. But, as we have learnt earlier, America is a country of endless possibilities and so I had a chance to experience first-hand what it's like when you want to do your grocery shopping but have to wait in line to get into the store.
And it's all because I'm a poor student. I have to find the cheapest shop in town. But I've had to realize that a life of limited budgets was a life still well lived. It's surprising how many things one can do without having any money. My dietary needs are very basic: even if I had lots of money, I would still be living on pasta and bulgur wheat. For fitness, one can go running outdoors, and no exclusive gym can parallel the splendid views along the Hudson river or the charm of Central Park. For books and movies, there's the public library where membership is free. If you want higher culture, Lincoln Centre's Juillard School offers free tickets for concerts and other performances. What more do you need when you spend 80 percent of your time in school anyway?

The brown door

There's many ways to spend a Thursday night in Manhattan. You can see a fantastic and lavish production of La Traviata at the Met or go to the Israel Film Festival. Or meet up with new friends who take you to very unusual and very real places - the kind of places you wouldn't have known existed because they have no websites and when you pass them by in the street, all you see is an open brown door. But you won't see the brown door because it will never even occur to you to look up and notice the building when you're so busy being fascinated by the tacky neon lights of Times Square lighting up the whole neighbourhood.

Behind the brown door hides a synagogue. It reminds me of those grotty buildings in England where you can go upstairs and play pool late into the night. Here, you could go upstairs and find yourself in the Cholent: a club-like establishment for young Jewish people who have turned their backs on their communities or certain aspects of their culture, or the Jewish religion altogether. The dropouts club. They bring their guitars and their shisha pipes, someone makes a huge pot of cholent, and they hang out. The paint is peeling off the walls and the room stinks of the smoke of cigarettes and grass. One of the young men runs a survey for his psychology course. Another one with long curly payes (sidelocks) starts singing Carlebach tunes. Others just sit around the table and talk over a bottle of beer.

It's so comfortable and peaceful here. No one demands anything of you. No expectations, no pressure to conform. They all understand where the others are coming from. Physically, Williamsburg or Boro Park, the major ultra-Orthodox centres of New York. I wonder what they're all up to during the day; how they cope with the confusion, negation, rebellion, and confrontation that's been such a central part of their lives. But when they're at the Cholent, abnormality becomes the norm and nothing's too crazy. At the same time, they can be as Jewish as they want to be - and no doubt, these young people are and will remain very Jewish in their own ways. They need to get away from the stifling and claustrophobic world they grew up in but do not even try to pretend that they can live without it.