THE CONFERENCE TABLE

I'm telling you, it's that damn table that's the problem, man. Don't you guys understand furniture?

Have you measured it?

Have you checked its width and height and length?

Is it made out of good wood (is there any good wood left or has it all been burned?)

It needs to take a lot of chairs. Have you got the chairs?

This table is going to take an awful lot of pounding. Is the top thick and strong?

Some of the parties will undoubtedly be carrying knuckle-dusters, nunchakas, kung-fu throwing stars, boomerangs, pangas, swords, daggers, flick-knives, butterfly knives, combat knives, bayonets, knob-kieries, spears, AK47s, assault rifles, revolvers, pistols, machine pistols, etc. etc. - exactly what kind of resilience is that table going to have?

What sort of surfacing will it have? - Classic shellac or modern synthetic varnish or high-quality bonded transparent fibreglass?

Don't tell me it's going to have a glass top, unless it's going to be made from the same glass that they use for the American presidential limosine.

Will it be wide enough for opposing parties not to be able to reach each other while brandishing Zulu spears, or narrow enough for them to strangle each other or behead each other with a garotte?

Will it be long enough to accommodate Vladimir Putin at one end and Zelensky at the other, plus all their necessary staff and security contingents? And what about Xi Jin Ping and that lunatic from North Korea? And Donald Dump?

I'm telling you, this table is a huge problem

I didn't promise that I had answers, I'm just asking.

Now I have to go and get my Black Friday specials. I'm looking for a power station.

BERT BOOMERANG

THE MIDNIGHT J/NEWS

ALLEN GINSBURG

AT ABOUT 7 THIS MORNING

At about 7 a m. this morning I woke to put out the rubbish and went back to bed for an orgy of Allen Ginsburg, reading “Howl” for the first time since my university days – after all, what did I know then and what bewilderment a thing like that caused – I mean, how can you expose the tender mind of a 16-year-old to such power? Weren’t Shakespeare and the Bible bad enough?

Ginsburg, wandering, stoned, between the skyscrapers of Manhattan, assembling this terrible Golem of a poem – what right did he have to dump this thing on the good citizens of the 20th Century (as it then was) and then to have 70 years of readers claim falsely that they had actually read it, and us knowing that that could not possibly be true or there would have been a lot more frontal lobotomy cases staring blankly at the walls in mental institutions in the lands where The Eengleesh, she is spoke.

I never read the critics. Never never never never – and while others did so I wondered the paths of Table Mountain, mostly in solitude, discovering Truth on every bend, fresh wet foliage after rain in the winter and khaki-coloured fynbos in summer heat through clouds of bees and butterflies greeting every passerby in accordance with the unspoken Mountain Code. We are the blessed, the fortunate, the free - disconnected, temporarily, from the City below, untrammelled from it’s woes and anxieties, up here where thoughts are clear and people are kind.

Ginsburg, bloody Ginsburg, you came as a shock this morning – and before breakfast, and all – and now what is an old man supposed to do with the rest of his day? Sit on his stoep, watch the birds, and wait for his pulse to settle?

Harry Friedland

Hearts and Drums 

2023 06 16

SHAKING HANDS

Do you know the origin of the practise of the handshake?

Apparently it comes from the time when men carried swords.

You shake someone’s hand by extending your dominant hand to the other person: a proof that you are not going to draw your sword (something that you could also do with your dominant hand). The other person then reciprocates by doing the same thing. Of course, a limp handshake could mean that you are going to pull your hand away and draw your sword anyway, while a good firm grip means that you ain’t gonna do that.

You will however have noticed that some men shake hands as if with the intention of inflicting pain: the really unnecessarily tight handshake which cracks tarsal and metatarsal bones, interrupts blood supply and provokes a sharp exclamation of pain from the other party. It is clearly intended to establish dominance from the get-go, and might even not be a greeting but instead, a declaration of war….

I knew an American businessman who did that to me, once – about three years ago. He’s dead now. Heart attack, I was told. I refrained from three hearty cheers but it was an effort.

So if Mr Montague encountered Mr Capulet along the waterways of Venice, and extended his dominant hand while his sword remained in it’s sheath, and Mr Capulet did likewise, peace would reign.

And what probably happened is that Shylock was eyeing these two bloody goyim, saw and figured out what they were doing, and thought, “What an excellent idea!”

And the very next shabbos after shul came out in Venice all the Jews stood outside blocking the traffic and saying:

“Good shabbos!     good shabbos!     good shabbos!        fucketh thou!     good shabbos!        mamzer!” etc. – and a great and enduring tradition was born.

BUT

They weren’t being as original as they thought they were: see the Book of Numbers 25:8. However I must say that I’m a little disappointed with Numbers 25.8 because it doesn’t bear me out as explicitly as I thought it would: my old Tanach teacher at Herzlia told us that what ACTUALLY HAPPENED was that “The Israelite” (his name is not disclosed for reasons of confidentiality) goes up to Pinchas WITH HIS RIGHT HAND EXTENDED IN GREETING, assuming that Pinchas would do the same, not knowing that Pinchas was a Southpaw (left-handed). Pinchas thus, using the element of surprise, uses his left hand, which is actually his dominant hand, to cross-draw his sword, which is sheathed on his right side to fool his enemies (obviously this is a trick which Pinchas has used many times before, with deadly effect).

The Unnamed Israelite and his bonking partner, who have already been thrown off balance by coitus interruptus, are both skewered like a sosatie with a single thrust.

God thinks this is a Really Cool Trick and Pinchas becomes Kohein Gadol.

Beware left-handed swordsmen. Or hand-shakers.

© HARRY FRIEDLAND

Hearts & Drums

2023 06 30