Arnon Grunberg's Blog, page 467

Not

Kidding

I had a conversation with my English translator about the idiomatic expression: “I kid you not.”
According to him such an expression was typical for the salesman: “This is the best deal in town. I kid you not.”

Sweet

Inn

My English translator is also innkeeper, his lovely wife does the excellent cooking, but he is responsible for the vegetable garden. Presently I’m his guest. I realized that the other guests are not aware of the fact that the innkeeper is an award-winning translator as well. A double life can be so sweet.

Freedom

Culture

David Brooks in Wednesday’s Herald Tribune:

“But, in her fascinating new book, “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin posits a different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.
This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social position. When there’s big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to cling to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They’re going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.
Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are flooding into new jobs and new opportunities — going back to college, pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs that left and are never coming back. They are strangely immune to new options. In the Auburn-Opelika region, the median female income is 140 percent of the median male income.
Rosin also reports from college campuses where women are pioneering new social arrangements. The usual story is that men are exploiting the new campus hookup culture in order to get plenty of sex without romantic commitments. Rosin argues that, in fact, women support the hookup culture. It allows them to have sex and fun without any time-consuming distractions from their careers. Like new immigrants, women are desperate to rise, and they embrace social and sexual rules that give them the freedom to focus on their professional lives.”

(Read the complete article here.)

Women are better at adapting, according to David Brooks; men are trapped in the masculinity fall. I’m sympathetic to this opinion/argument.

But I’m wondering whether women in the US are better at “pioneering new social arrangements” than women in Europe.

While teaching at several different universities in the Netherlands I never got the feeling that my female students were interested in new social arrangements.
Probably “my” students were not representative for the average Dutch student.

And we have a beautiful defense of the hookup culture, it’s not about lust, it’s about women (and men) focusing on their professional lives.

Disease

Oblivion

This morning I was embedded with a general practitioner in a suburb of Amsterdam.
It was an enlightening experience. On of the things it taught me that it is often better not to know what kind of disease you have.
Being healthy is living in oblivion.

Far

Solution

Shani Boianjiu in Monday’s Herald Tribune:

“During my first year of service, I spent about a week certifying agroup of religious soldiers on grenade launchers. On the second day I brought one to the classroom, so I could point to different parts as I was demonstrating how to use them. The moment I touched the weapon, one of the soldiers got up from his chair and left. Soon, the room was filled with the sound of scraping chairs. I proceeded with my lesson plan until I was left alone with one bespectacled soldier, who had been furiously taking notes. It was only when I stopped talking that he looked up, horrified to find that the two of us were alone.
My commander later explained to me that while these particular religious soldiers had no problem being instructed by a woman holding erasable markers and pointing at posters, their doctrine prevented them from seeing a woman touch a weapon. Something to do with a line written somewhere that mentioned women and instruments of war and said the two didn’t go together. I never heard of it before or after, and still don’t quite understand it.
AS a secular Jewish girl who never went to temple, I didn’t interact socially with Orthodox Jews when I was growing up. Everyone at school was like me; the few deeply religious families that lived in my small town sent their children to religious schools. When I visited cities like Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, the religious people I saw on the bus or on the street, dressed in black hats and jackets, seemed very far from anything I knew.”

(Read the complete article here.)

Probably this is what a two-state solution should look like:

One state for secular Israelis and Palestinians and another state for religious Israelis and Palestinians.

Nanny

New low

A friend alerted me to this article by Mark Wolfe:

‘The youngest of my three daughters was born around the same time I became a card-carrying medical cannabis patient. Even though I was only 44, I’d been suffering from occasional back pain. I also suffered bouts of stress, compounded by anxiety. The causes were unknown, but there seemed to be a correlation with work deadlines and flying coach with three children under the age of 5. Sometimes it got so bad I had trouble falling asleep at night, leaving me groggy and irritable.
So, in 2010, I resolved to seek medical help. I received a thorough physical examination from my CannaMed doctor, who checked not only my pulse but my blood pressure as well. Examining the results, he concluded that I would benefit enormously from a cannabis-based treatment regimen and recommended that I use a brownie-based form of the drug to avoid the lung irritation associated with other modes of dose administration. I soon had in my possession a shiny, state-sanctioned medical marijuana ID card, gaining me free access to the city’s expanding array of quasi-legal cannabis dispensaries.
After two years of treatment, I can state unequivocally that I feel much better about pretty much everything. Sure, my back still hurts, but I’m cool with it.
But the best part is an amazing off-label benefit I call Parental Attention Surplus Syndrome.
Before beginning treatment, I was a dutiful if not particularly enthusiastic father. Workaday parental obligations were a necessary, unfortunate chore. I was so stressed out by the end of the day that bedtime, with its interminable pleas for more stories, songs, sips of water and potty breaks, felt like a labor to be endured and dispatched as quickly as possible.
Here is what a typical weekday evening exchange between me and my oldest daughter once looked like:
Child: Daddy, can you show me how to make a Q?
Father: (sipping bourbon and soda, not looking up from iPad) Just make a circle and put a little squiggle at the bottom.
Child: No, show me!
Father: Sweetie, not now, O.K.? Daddy’s tired.
It’s different now:
Child: Daddy, can you show me how to make a Q?
Father: (getting down on the floor) Here, I’ll hold your hand while you hold the pen and we’ll make one together. There! We made a Q! Isn’t it fantastic?
Child: Thanks, Daddy!
Father: Don’t you just love the shape of this pen?’

(Read the complete article here.)

My friend called this “a new low" in parenting.

Perhaps.

But the parents of one of my best friends in high school were potheads.

If you can play with your kids after two glasses of wine you can play with your kids after a joint. At least that’s what I assume. I don’t smoke.

Of course the best thing to do is to invite the nanny first and then take the drugs. No drugs might be even better, but unfortunately being clean is not a guarantee for being a good parent.

And if you want to take your children to a swingers club, wait until they are 21.
Be reasonable, be responsible.

Reason

Ziel

Tonight is the last performance of “Am Ziel”. A relief and at the same time another reason for Weltschmerz. But of course Weltschmerz is also a relief.

This winter

This year

More on the Iranian poker game:

‘Here is a less speculative assessment: In the Iranian poker game, which they are playing primarily against Washington, Netanyahu and Barak raised the stakes a few weeks ago. From Haaretz's interview with "the decision maker," aka Barak, to the leaks of classified information regarding the dialogue with the United States, Netanyahu and Barak have been ratcheting up the pressure. But they appear to have overplayed their hand.
The result has been a tougher American stance that has led Israel to calm down a bit, as reflected in recent reports that Barak has changed his mind and now opposes attacking at this time. Thus many officials now believe an attack is not as inevitable as it previously seemed.
Yet the disagreement between Jerusalem and Washington over Iran has become even more fraught, and the issue of American support for Israel has consequently gained prominence in the U.S. presidential campaign. Over the long run, this is liable to be a serious mistake.’

(Read the complete article in Ha'aretz here.)

My bet: no war with Iran this year.

In other words, it’s safe to go skiing in Iran this winter.

Rösti

Sync

The third performance of “Am Ziel” in Amsterdam.
It was the first evening I ate at the theater. I hate to say this, but the food was disappointing. The fish was almost tasteless, the rösti was cold and a dessert was nowhere to be found. But perhaps I’m spoiled.
On the other hand one of the actresses is fond of saying: “I never imagined that the artist’s life would be like this.”
If I say that there is nothing but disappointment I’m in sync with Thomas Bernhard’s play.

Uncountable

Understatements

Harper’s Magazine published some insightful e-mails from Mr. Assad’s translator:

‘From emails sent last year, purportedly to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, by Lamis Omar, a Ph.D. student working as his translator. The emails were among hundreds recovered by WikiLeaks and released in July.
“It is my land by all means: legal, political, and national. Sooner or later, it has to go back.” The use of the phrasal verb “to go back” literally means “to return,” but its use depends on the subject of the sentence, the object, and the verb used. Look at the following examples. “Jews should go back to their country of origin.” “The Palestinians have to go back to their occupied land.” “Our land should come back to us.”
A “muted statement” is a synonym of an “understatement,” which is defined as “an incomplete statement, representing something less strongly than what the facts would justify.” The Western media, whose content is unfortunately imported unrefined into our media, is very skilled in using “understatements” such as “war on terrorism” for “invasion.”
(…)

There is a common mistake in the use of the definite article “the” with uncountable nouns such as “war,” “peace,” “love,” “joy,” “poetry,” “friendship,” etc. We modify uncountable nouns only if we are talking about a “defined” case of the general noun. Example: “I believe in the democracy and the freedom.” The correct use is “I believe in democracy and freedom” or “I believe in the democracy that gives justice for all and the freedom that liberates the minds of the people.”’

(Read the complete article here.)

Many Dutch (or American) politicians probably believe in the freedom that liberates the minds of the people.

I myself am a great believer in the liberation of the minds of the people.

Consumption is fighting for freedom.