November's Bipolar Mantra:

"First there was the word"
"Do not mistake the pointing finger for the moon"

 RIGHT AND LEFT

 

One hopes that the ship of state tacks in the charting of its course. It tacks right when the left tack has taken it too far to the left and will tack left after its right tack has gone too far. Overshooting its mark, it continues right far beyond the needed correction, until, hubris, arrogance and foolhardy bravado unveils its radical intent. A left tack is called for and emerges to bring the ship back on course. When we look back at the political vacillations of our great country, this seems to be its operative principal.

 

What exactly are the twenty-first century compass points that define Right and Left today. Let me see if I can state the two worldviews with some kind of clarity and understanding. I am Left leaning so it is a stretch for me to give the Right a justified reason for its worldview, but let me try. The debate, after-all, happens inside each of us, as we confront the issues of our lives.

 

The Right believes that the world is a dangerous place filled with forces that are selfishly interested in their own furtherance. Virtue lies in maintaining standards, working hard, and being responsible for your own welfare. Established standards are to be found in classic works of the past, in religious traditions, and in known cultural constructs. A society is virtuous if it rewards hard work and responsibility and punishes sloth and ineptitude. Much of the resources of the world constitute a zero sum game, my gain may be your loss. Individuals and family units are free, sovereign entities competing for resources, as are towns, states and countries. History, the Right concludes, is a survival of the fittest drama showing the success of strong states and the demise of weak ones. America is represented by the eagle’s wariness, strength and high position on the food chain.

 

The Left believes that the world is a creative framework for building a just society. Justice demands an equitable distribution of resources, rights, and options. Virtue lies in furthering this project by creating new paradigms and strategies to accomplish those aims. There is mounting evidence, according to the Left, that our evolving planet shares a common destiny, and that we each are part of that common destiny. Our history, the Left believes, records civilizations movement toward societies that afford such equitable distribution. America, as leader of the modern industrialized democracies, best exemplifies a broad, well fed, well clothed, well housed and free middle class citizenry.

 

The Right, based on its world view, believes that government’s main function is to referee between competing private interests, to enforce laws concerned with ownership and security, and to represent our interests against those of other nations (towns, counties, states). The Left, based on its worldview, believes that government’s main function is to be an engine of change, leading toward the hopeful goal of abundance for all. It would like this abundance to extend to all mankind and believes such a goal is achievable. The Right calls itself realistic and calls the Left utopian. The Left calls itself progressive and calls the Right reactionary.

 

The Right believes that the bringer of abundance is the free competitive marketplace. Privately owned enterprises vying for the consumer’s dollar, will yield the greatest good for the greatest number, or, failing that, will bring the greatest good to those who most deserve it. The freedom of this marketplace reflects the citizen’s freedom, the more freedom for one the more freedom for the other.  In this view, government regulation is an impediment to the free workings of the marketplace and represents a built-in restraint and inefficiency. The less government, the better markets will work and the more abundance and freedom successful markets will bring. Get government out of the way of the economic machine, of free choice and both the machine and the people will prosper.

 

Government interference, which the Right calls “social engineering”, with “natural” human enterprise should always be suspect, having led to some of the greatest crimes against humanity in this century: Fascism and Communism. The Right discredits the striving toward humane values as “utopian” and believes their proponents to be misguided dreamers. The Right believes we cannot be smart enough, nor ever have, sufficient information, nor ever be capable of making large-scale decisions, such as those that government makes. The Right believes only the impersonal workings of free markets, the invisible hand of economic imperatives, can maximize output and abundance.

 

The Left believes that private enterprise is partly a game of greed, and if left to its own devices, would as well enrich the few as provide for the many. The Left believes that the success of America is precisely that balance of government’s humane social engineering and private entrepreneurship’s opportunities. The fledgling early twentieth century economic machine was greatly energized by FDR’s New Deal underwriting a rapidly expanding middle class society, and all the progressive, enfranchising legislation that followed for the next fifty years. Without that legislation, the U.S. might look more like a South American oligarchy, with a few very wealthy, powerful people and the rest of the population poor and partly brutalized from long hours of labor under substandard conditions, and with an economy the size of Mexico’s.

 

The Left sees government as a means for pursuing the nation’s goal, even humanity’s goal, of a just, secure, multi-optioned society, a meritocracy where performance is rewarded but where all citizens share in its wealth and no one falls below a bottom line. Government pursues this goal with four devices: 1) Progressive taxation to more equitably distribute the wealth of the nation; 2) Aid to the underclass by all manner of subsidy and assistance; 3) Regulations that set humane, honest, safe and secure standards; 4) A code of law that treats all citizens equally and abhors the buying or undue influencing of justice.

 

Of course, each worldview captures a part of reality, a part of the truth. The world is a complex phenomenon and there are many truths that describe it. When change disorients and confuses us, when we are threatened, when chaotic conditions prevail we want the older verities as stable signposts, as anchors in a rough sea, we turn to the Right. When we dream of better days, when we are full of hope and faith, when we are creative and ambitious, the wind catches our sails and we want to forge ahead aiming to bring new horizons into view and we turn to the Left. It happens in each of our personal lives, this Left and Right dichotomy. We judge events and resort to strategies sometimes with a Right worldview in mind and sometimes with a Left worldview in mind. We believe the circumstances induce the appropriate responding worldview.

 

There is one more piece to this structural framework I’ve proposed. It involves an aspect of consciousness not yet addressed. We have looked at the conceptual underpinnings of the Right and Left worldviews. We have conceded that the world itself contains certain aspects that coincide best with a Right worldview, and other aspects that coincide best with a Left worldview. We say that this duality represents both a personal truth and a political truth. And we concluded that the reality evokes appropriate responses accordingly. In this scenario we are witnesses who react to the passing scene, having the choice of using varied strategies called forth by the reality being witnessed. But, in truth, we also create the scene we witness.

 

Most of the action taking place on the human scene today is created by human activity, which, in turn, is created by human thought. We live inside a cultural construct in which every view contains more of humanity’s creations than of nature’s creations. The objects of our lives, the news, sports, science, politics, nations, language, morality, concepts, theories, celebrities, are human constructs. There is no escaping the fact that we create the reality we live in. Mostly it’s the larger “we” creating a reality for the small me, but democracy insists that the small me, representing the voting public, creates the reality of the larger we.

 

We project our reality onto the malleable cultural construct called a worldview and partly determine how it looks. Personally, I determine what parts of this cultural construct I will highlight and empower. When I’m in a foul mood, the world shows me its foulness, when in a joyful mood, its joy. That being the case, we have some responsibility in this world we are witnessing. We are also actors and projectors, contributing to the way this world is actually unfolding. If this is true for me, the principal actor in my drama, how much more true for America, the principal actor on the world stage. America’s view of the world has a great influence on what the world turns out to be.

 

If we take the Right’s description of the world to be true, we create a world which fits the Right’s description of it. The same is true of the Left’s. What I am saying is that we have a choice, we are not simply reacting to reality, we are in great part creating it. That being the case, it behooves me to create the personal world I want for my individual drama, and it is up to the voting public to create the world we want to live in.

 

Do we want a dangerous world of selfish forces each vying for limited resources or do we want a world where societies cooperate to create an equitable distribution of the world’s abundance? Do we want governments to threaten one another with the force of arms as they defend or insure their turfs, investments, raw materials and labor markets, while the resources of the planet are stripped and hoarded for profit, or do we want a world where governments cooperate on a planetary scale to solve the world’s problems, to rectify injustice and to take care of the less fortunate in a way that is ecologically sound and makes long term sense?

 

It is time for the Left to state its case in no uncertain terms, without fear or shame. It is a case that is worth supporting. The Left must not allow the terms of the debate to be defined by the Right, because the definition will determine the reality. The Left must inform the voting public what it stands for and what the Right stands for. It must paint the distinction sharply. There is no time to lose.

 

I began this essay by describing how the ship of state tacks right and left to manage its course through history. It used to be that the government had the luxury of relatively slow moving historic, sociological and technical change, with a large inertial body comprising bureaucrats, rural America, and insulating oceans, insuring the extended periods that are needed to reform, overshoot the mark, create entrenched forces and reform once again by regime change.

We do not have such luxury today. Change is rapid, civil service is being defanged, there is no “rural” population, the oceans no longer insulate. The atmosphere is degrading, temperatures are rising, the ozone layer is vanishing, means of mass destruction are proliferating, poverty is everywhere and growing, disease vectors are worldwide.

 

On the other side of the equation: Information and communication systems are connecting us all; Our monitoring of our home, planet earth, and its populations are increasing in sophistication and accuracy; Our technological prowess allows for solutions never before possible; And we are forming planet-wide bodies that consult, advise and cooperate on a scale never before attempted.

 

These global forces make the distance between decisions and effects shorter and shorter. This means that we do not have the luxury of overshooting the marks we aim at, the luxury of waiting for effects that will initiate reform, and the luxury of letting time show us the exaggerations and mistakes that radical or unopposed policies produce. The distance between our vision of the future and the future itself is becoming shorter and shorter. Take heed.

 

We’ve been discussing the conceptual underpinnings of the Right and Left. Let’s examine the manifestations that such concepts result in. Here’s a comparison between things of the Right and things of the Left:

 

POSITION   Peace Government Taxation Power Social work Safety net Guns Security Authority Abortion Assistance Regulation Ecology Economics Liability Health care Risk Support Cars Energy

RIGHT   Armed forces Smaller Straight-line to the wealthy Minimum None Armed citizenry Strong police Religious Anti abortion Government subsidies Laissez-faire Insensitive Trickle down Corporate limits Profit-making Business risks insured Business support SUVs The oil industry

LEFT   U.N. and treaties Powerful Progressive to the people Welfare programs Strong safety net Gun control Privacy, rights Humanist, secular Pro choice Social services Strong regulations Sensitive High minimum wage Class action suits Universal affordable Unemployment ins. Family support Hybrid vehicles Renewable energy

You make the choice.

 Morty Breier, Kailua-Kona Hawaii, Feb.12, 2003  

SIX MUSICIANS BY Tomas Belsky.... www.tomasbelsky.com

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The following article appears in the DINING AND WINE section of the Feb. 5th edition of the New York Times. 

February 5, 2003 Bagels in Paradise, Kona Nova With a Schmear By ALEX WITCHEL AILUA-KONA, Hawaii "SHALOHA!" And they're not kidding. Yes, this is the greeting among Jews here — Shalom and Aloha, get it? — but it is also the title of a new cookbook, published by Congregation Kona Beth Shalom, as well as the name of two local businesses: Shaloha Weddings, whose ads read, "Jewish Wedding Ceremonies Hawaiian Style: Have Huppah, Will Travel!" and Shaloha Music, whose new CD, by Hawaii's Own Klezmer Music Ensemble, is titled "Shaloha, Oy." No, still not kidding. One impresario of the Shaloha lifestyle — peace and love for all — is Morty Breier, a Bronx-born, City College graduate now retired from his own engineering consulting firm in Greenwich, Conn. Mr. Breier, 68, is also a joke teller extraordinaire who, on a recent morning, sported a flapping Hawaiian shirt and a double strand of love beads. In the 14 years he has lived here on Hawaii — the largest of the islands, with a population of only 130,000 — he has made quite a contribution to Jewish life among the coffee beans, Kona's biggest export. He lives on Hualalai Mountain, an inactive volcano, with his wife of six years, Karen, 54, who enjoys referring to herself as a "shiksa goddess." Mrs. Breier, a deeply tanned beauty with snow white hair, runs a lime orchard that supplies local bars and restaurants, while her husband, as she says, "is on his computer all day." Among his efforts is the Web site www.konabethshalom.org, which has information about this congregation of 45 families living so far west that it is one of the last to light the Sabbath candles as the sun sets before it crosses the international dateline. The congregation is unaffiliated and does not have its own rabbi. Services are led on the last Friday night and Saturday morning of every month by the synagogue's president, Dr. Barry Blum, an orthopedic surgeon, who was born in Brooklyn. He and his wife, Gloria, run Shaloha Weddings, and he runs the klezmer band, for which Mr. Breier plays conga drums. It was Mrs. Breier, however, who was the force behind the cookbook, whose sales she wants to use to augment the almost $100,000 they have already raised for a building fund. She pulled into the parking lot at the Ohana Keauhou Beach Resort, where Kona Beth Shalom holds its services, on Friday nights in its Kalanikai Pavilion, a patio dining area where the Breiers were married, and on Saturday mornings, on a patch of lawn surrounded by palm trees near the tennis courts. Services are open to tourists — ads run in the local newspaper, West Hawaii Today, though, Mr. Breier noted, "There's no Today on Saturdays, it must be owned by Jews." On Friday nights, services are followed by a potluck dinner for which Mrs. Breier bakes the challahs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Friday nights draw more people, usually 30, a bigger turnout by half than Saturday morning. "Potluck is a Hawaiian tradition," Mrs. Breier said. "And Jewish potluck is generally very nice. Everyone is trying to outdo the other." Having grown up in Long Beach, Calif., in a family that was part of the Brethren, which she describes as "a Christian sect, one step off the Amish," Mrs. Breier was used to a diet of pork chops and macaroni and cheese. Since divorcing her first husband, whom she calls "my wasband," and marrying Mr. Breier, she seems to have adapted quite easily to teaching challah-baking classes, making her own lox and lighting Sabbath candles every Friday night. "The shiksas rule in this congregation," she said, half jokingly, back in the car. "It's an intentional community that we have. You don't drift here. And you give up things to be here. Family, for one. In the middle of the ocean, you select your own, so you get to choose who you spend your holidays with. Also, shopping. If you want anything that doesn't have hibiscus on it, you have to get it somewhere else." The Breiers travel to the mainland a few times a year to see their three grandchildren, two of whom live in Connecticut. Mrs. Breier sends cartons back from Trader Joe's and Hay Day filled with vinegars, mustards, olives and pickled herring. As for bagels, they're not that lucky. "The Safeway here occasionally has them, but it's difficult," she said. "Chocolate chip and blueberry don't always go with lox." The cookbook includes traditional Jewish recipes, newfangled notions, like Passover trail mix made with matzo farfel, and Hawaiian adaptations, like gefilte fish made with mahi-mahi. It also has anecdotes from its contributors about their families and, occasionally, Mr. Breier's specialty, jokes. But only about food. Here's one: The greenhorn in the Automat fed nickel after nickel into the apple pie slot. His friend exclaimed: "Are you crazy? You already have 15 pies!" Said the greenhorn, "Why should it bother you if I keep winning?" His joke-telling has distinguished him in the congregation, Mr. Breier said. "We have members from California and Chicago," he went on, "but New York is still the mother lode of Jewishness." He laughed. "I was raised by atheists and never attended services until I came here. My father was a proofreader on a Yiddish newspaper. When a famous person would make a mistake, he loved finding it." Was his mother a good cook? He shook his head. "She was a Socialist," he said. "They don't make good cooks. She was a shop steward with the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She had more important things on her mind." The Breiers arrived at their home, a dome-shaped structure on three acres, surrounded by the lime orchard, a vegetable garden and coffee trees. Mrs. Breier also grows bananas, pineapples and papayas. En route, though, the roads had been bordered by miles of what they call moonscape, volcanic rock as far as the eye can see. There has been an active volcano on the island that has been spewing for 20 years, they said, and when the wind shifts, you can smell its sulfuric odor. Not inside their house, however, which was a cozy mix of Pelham Parkway (tchotchkes on parade) and new age multiculturalism — a Buddhist shrine in the living room. A hot tub and wind chimes sat outside, and Mrs. Breier served lunch on the deck. She had baked a challah and made her Kona nova, which she sliced and served in leaves of endive. It tasted remarkably good, somewhere between well-bred gravlax and street-smart lox. There was also a green salad with honey mustard dressing, vegetarian chopped liver and herring salad, then homemade baklava and organic Kona coffee for dessert. With the exception of string beans masquerading as liver, everything was delicious, if slightly exotic, as if Grandma had skipped the bungalow colony and headed straight for the surf. Mr. Breier started blasting the klezmer band on the stereo. "That's Gloria singing, Barry's wife!" he called out, before Mrs. Breier got up and turned down the volume, barely missing a beat in her conversation. "I had to learn how to bake challahs because no one here does," she said. "Our bakery, Buns in the Sun, won't do it, and I tried once to custom-order 12 honey cakes for Passover from another baker, but when I went to pick them up, he told me he had forgotten to make them." At least no one at Kona Beth Shalom is trying to keep kosher. In Honolulu, on the island of Oahu, Bernice Littman, the president of Congregation Sof Ma'arav, a Conservative synagogue with 60 families, says about a dozen of them do. "The Costco gets Empire chickens," she said, "and the local supermarkets generally carry a limited supply of Passover items. But two years ago, the shipment didn't come in on time, and the Reform temple, Emanu-El, started a program called Got Matzo? Now we place mail orders and pick them up at the temple." The relative isolation of Kona doesn't bother the Breiers. "It's about making your own culture here," Mr. Breier said. "You piece together fragments, and there's no rabbi to shake a finger and tell you what not to do." Mrs. Breier got up to clear the table. Does Mr. Breier ever miss New York? "I miss fast talk and good arguments," he said. "But you trade convenience for the Shaloha spirit. Everybody here knows they're in paradise. Once you reach a certain age, you no longer have to prove yourself." He grinned. "We have a saying, `If you can't make it in Kona, you can't make it anywhere.' It's the opposite of New York. Here, you can relax." The breezes blew, the wind chimes sang, and surrounded by lava and limes, Mr. Breier started telling jokes. This one is in the cookbook: An Italian, a Frenchman and a Jew are talking about what great lovers they are. The Italian says, "Last night, I covered my wife with olive oil and made passionate love to her. She screamed for 20 minutes." The Frenchman says, "Last night, I covered my wife with butter and made passionate love to her. She screamed for half an hour." The Jewish man says, "Last night I covered my wife in chicken fat, and made passionate love to her. She screamed for two hours." The other men were incredulous. "She screamed for two hours?" they said. "How did you do that?" "I wiped my hands on the drapes," the Jewish man replied. Some jokes really travel. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy

February 5, 2003 Recipe: Kona Nova dapted from Karen Breier Time: 10 minutes, plus four days' marinating 1 large bunch fresh dill, stems removed 1 1/2 cup brown sugar 1 1/2 cup kosher salt 1 3-pound salmon fillet 1 cup Lapsong souchong tea, brewed 1 1/2 tablespoons pure maple syrup. 1. In a pan large enough to hold fish flat, cover bottom with a thick layer of dill. Mix sugar and salt, and spread over dill. Lay salmon over mixture. Mix tea and maple syrup, and pour over top. Cover fish with plastic wrap. Place a pan on top of fish, and weigh down with cans or bricks. 2. Cover and refrigerate for three or four days, turning once every day. After three or four days, cut off a small piece, rinse, and taste. When it is to your liking, remove from dish, and rinse for about three minutes to remove remaining salt. Slice, and serve on endive or on bagels with cream cheese. Yield: 15 to 20 appetizer servings. Note: Water mixed with a tablespoon or two of Cognac, other brandy or liquid smoke extract may be used as a substitute for tea. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Permissions | Privacy Policy

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S A G E   R E M A R K S

TO DO OR TO BE

 

My friend Davy has an apartment whose walls are covered in hand lettered and framed quotations one of which reads as follows: “To be or not to be: Shakespeare. To do is to be: Rimbaud. Do be do be do: Sinatra.” The spiritual discourse, with or without humor, continues.

 

The “East” preaches the doctrine “to be.” I am a human being not a human doing. Stripped of all encumbrances, I essentially “am,” along with the universe I am immersed in and a part of. The goal of my spiritual life is to strip away all encumbrances and realize this essential and unadorned truth. All else is illusion. Thoughts are puffs of clouds that soon dissolve when witnessed dispassionately. Words are pointing fingers and not the moon. All mental constructs are barriers to direct perception. I am me when I cast off all my stories, my history, my desires and aversions, when I become my Buddha-nature.

 

The “West” preaches the doctrine “to do.” I am what I do. We live in a phenomenological universe and we are part of its phenomenon. I act in the world. My thoughts shape my action. My thoughts, my story, my history, my likes and dislikes are me. I am born of a universe that has produced me through a creative process of imagining ever more complex entities, and I carry on the tradition. Thoughts translated into words are the ways I attempt to create a better reality, interact with my fellow human beings and the way we accumulate our wisdom as a species. I am my story line. I am me when I am doing Morty in full.

 

The East says that clarifying the mind by stripping it of its chatter will lead me to be able to apply it, when necessary, to whatever task it is presented with, with precision and focus. I will be a much better doer in the world if I can eliminate all the superfluous demands made constantly on my attention. The East wants me to harmonize with my reality, to flow like water and, like water, to conform to the shape of whatever container I find myself in. Although change is a natural feature of the phenomenal world, changelessness is the natural feature of spirit. The goal of spiritual practice is to come to rest on the changeless foundations from which all change sprouts. Spirit is the great void, the causal matrix, the still point within.

 

The West says that doing good deeds, being a righteous actor in the world, will calm the mind and allow it to rest, unprovoked by the chatter of a guilty conscience and an unfulfilled potential. My mind, a powerful tool, applied to worthwhile causes, will promote action that will benefit me, my community, humankind, and contribute to my unfolding story line and to humankind’s unfolding story line. The West wants me to participate in a project that has been in the making since the Big Bang, a project that humanity labels as its history and that I label as the story of my life. The goal of spiritual practice is to fulfill the destiny, the potential, that is uniquely mine as a student, teacher and mostly, as an actor, in the drama of my life. Spirit is unfolding story, the timeline of a work in progress.

 

The East, it seems to me, fastens onto the cyclic nature of our universe, where conformance is the successful strategy. In your battle with the world, bet on the world is a famous Kafka quote. Your best bet, however, is to stop battling with the world. Surrendering to such cosmic and immutable forces is the only workable alternative. Let go and let God. When mating with the universe, can you take the female part? Learning to collaborate with the inevitable. Change is inevitable, repetitive, and unyielding. My goal is to synchronize my breadth, my cycles, with the cosmic breadth, the cosmic cycles. I join with it when I, as an I, disappear from view. The unique “I” dissolves in universal consciousness, Buddha nature, Brahman, as a drop dissolves in the ocean.

 

The West, it seems to me, fastens onto the vectorial nature of our universe, where contribution is the successful strategy. The world is yours to alter, correct, refine and remake. Tikkun Olem, the duty of every human to heal or fix the world, to give the profane pieces of the world meaning, words, so as to raise them into the sacred world of logos. The messiah was sent, or will be sent, to fulfill creation’s potential. We are a work in progress, I am a work in progress and I set my sights on bettering me as a person and on bettering the world I find myself in, my relationships, my work, my home, my community and the world at large. At birth I inherit what was done by the universe to get from the Big Bang to a human being, what was done by humankind to get from a cave dweller to a middle class American, and what was done by my ancestors to produce a Morty Breier. My life is a continuation of this creative project.

 

When put in these terms, both viewpoints have merit, since the universe indeed is comprised of both cycles and vectors. I think the proper response is to embrace both doctrines and their accompanying skillful means, and to learn to use them in combination or individually in appropriate circumstances. The response not to take is to honor any one by giving it an exclusive provenance on fundamental truth. It seems to me to be best summarized as follows:

 

A universe was created, and/or God created a universe, and/or we are birthed by a universe, and/or the universe in which we exist, was posited with two realities:

 

One a harmony of co-existing features that is ultimately perfect, absolutely lawful and forever in balance, cycling forces that are unchallengeable and immutable.

 

Two a story line that is played out in time where its features are developing entities, among which our own features over time define a journey from randomness, fragmentation and chance to order, complexity and intent.

 

It behooves me, therefore, to recognize this dual nature and to apply my wisdom to recognizing its aspects in the world in which I live. I also endeavor to learn the techniques used by masters who have specialized in each, so that I might become adept at recognizing, honoring, being grateful and understanding the forces at work and in which I manifest. That is one of the reasons I am a multi-faith human being.

 

Morty Breier, October 19, 2002

Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

 

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Kona's Traveling Jewish Wedding Band

An album of photos taken by Larry Kane during a band rehearsal in late January 2002

Musicians in order of appearance:

Barry Blum: contrabass balalaika    Joel Gimpel: violin    Matt Binder: guitar

Gloria Blum: vocals, dumbek    Roz Cohen: vocals, keyboard    Orrin Olson: French horn   

Morty Breier: congas   Ola Kolind (guest artist): domra, clarinet    

This E-Zine of sorts is being started with no expectations. I need not earn a living so my time is my own and I elect to play with some of that time by launching this MONTHLY MISSIVE. It is a creative act inspired by Rabbi Zalman Schechter-Shalomi, my guru once removed, who said "It's time to download our wisdom on the hard drive of humanity." He was speaking to those of us who prefer sageing to ageing.

The idea is to get a bunch of hip contributors, secret sages,  to comment on the passing scene, to offer creative work and to wax philosophical about perennial issues.  The tribe's elders, and I count myself among them, need a forum and at least this is a start. To begin with, I hope that my dear friends become this E-Zine's regular contributors. The trouble is that they are, as is perfectly appropriate for this mission, iconoclasts to the core and getting them to cooperate is like hearding cats.

And that's just the part that tries filling these electronic pages... trying to get readers is an entirely different proposition. I remember an actor telling me that it's better to be in a play with a large cast because then all the family and friends of the cast are at least sure to help fill the seats. The start of this E-Zine readership will be like that. Friends have friends and family. And who better to make contact with than our friends and family.

Even though we now have had only three other contributors, my cousin and dear friend Marcus Uzilevsky, my old buddy, the wonderful poet Rose', and posthumously, the legendary Tony Price, the rest being my stuff, I hope these pages might inspire others to join in. I will be sending email messages to those I particularly want to contribute but everyone is welcome to try their hand. I hope to have several different views on a particular topic that needs addressing and I'll let you know each month what those topics are.

Feel free, of course, to submit anything you want. I would like your submittal to be accompanied by your photo and an autobiographical piece. I can read attachments in Microsoft Word or in Corel WordPerfect and I prefer JPEG formatted images. My email address is morty@aloha.net. Let's see what we can do together. Remember:

POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
SHALOHA
MORTY BREIER, Editor

Marcus Uzilevsky: We are proud to have as a contributor distinguished California artist and musician Marcus Uzilevsky. Talk about hip, he's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, for his 1965-68 group The Third Bardo, (he jammed with Dylan in the Cafe Wah). Under his present name Uzca, he has two world music CDs Slice of Light and Gypsy Dreams, this last he calls Nouveau Klezmer. Klezmer, the Jewish music of Eastern Europe with its weeping and laughing clarinets and violins has always been in Uzca's heart and soul and his latest CD blends Gypsy guitars, African talking drums, Middle Eastern belly dancing rythms, Klezmer violin and clarinet and hypnotic vocals in his intuitive universal language. We are invited to join in the dance of life to celebrate our common humanity. As an artist Marcus is well hung in permanent collections and 50 one man shows, selling over a half million lithographs. Born in Brooklyn, migrating to California in the late sixties he is now esconsed in an old railroad building on the fringes of Marin. Uzilevsky has long been a spiritual journeyer, creating his poetry in both the visual and musical arts. The man is out there and be here to tune in on his poetic offerings..

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Rose': Rose' was born deep in the Bronx in 1934. He began crafting his poetry attending a number of colleges during the 50's. After a stint in the army he bounced around working as a lifeguard, masseur and astrology writer. He saw his heaviest combat duty teaching High School English in New York. In the early sixties he assiduously pursued Ancient Greek while dining on Mexican beaches, toping in European cafes and slumming in Moroccan dives. Between a stint of acting, including the movie "The Edge", he published a book of drawings and launched skin diving trips throughout the Yucatan and the Florida Keys. His "School of the Night" specialized in occult classes and his "Liquid Wedge Gallery" made media history with sculptor Tony Price's first "Atomic Art Show" in NYC in 1969. Struck with what he calls his "Man-o-pause", Rose' started his epic poem "The Pearl in the Crown", still a grand work in progress. He performs as a stand-up poet in salons, homes, theatres, clubs, sushi bars, on radio and television in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Santa Fe. Rose' now lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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Tony Price, 1937-2000: Thomas Anthony Price wa born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1937. He began his art career in the Marine Corps, painting sixty-foot murals and portraits of generals. After his stint in the marines, 1955-57, he painted and illustrated books, poetry and magazines in New York City and Mexico. Price then worked from 1962-3 as an art director and set designer in films and television for Studio 30 in New York and Brazil. In 1963 Price left for Paris and Rome to paint. His European work is held by collectors in Italy, France, Holland, Germany and Spain. In 1964 he returned to New York and began sculpting in stone, metal and electronic materials. Since his move to New Mexico in 1965, Price has worked with nuclear scrap materials exclusively from Los Alamos from which he has created icons of world religions. Tony died in early 2000 after a yearlong battle with a stroke that had left him partially paralyzed.

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HOLIT BAT-EDIT.   The term that I made up, SPIRITUAL BIVOUAKING could be seen as a “conceit” — that is, each word has the opposite meaning. This is not my intention. For me the meaning is that I have found both a safe and nurturing place to be/live.
    It has taken me 55 years to arrive! First I had to acknowledge that the ancient rites or customs of my tribe could seep through to me over thousands of years - and that was hard to conceive. My tribe wandered around the middle east, then got exiled into Europe, Asia, Africa and the Northern Hemisphere taking us through different customs, different colors, different foods and different languages — it certainly rubbed off on me and my family. I spent nearly half a life time, trying to return to the metropolitan desert of unleavened bricks (Israel, Greece, Egypt) and then, the second part, trying to spiritual bivouak here on the Pacific Rim of the Big Island.
    At the beginning of the 90’s, I landed on the Big Island, and with just a few escapes back to my roots in the middle east, I have bern sinking healthy roots into this rock.
    Luckily I have crossed paths with a Hawaiian woman sage — The Messenger-Mahealani. Many spirits here have visited, tested and frightened me at the beginning. Semi-conscious, I went through some ceremonies, perhaps they were initiations of which I knew nothing; of seeing marchers go by, of having animal guardians that I was too ignorant of understanding and accepting. Sometimes I tried not to see it negatively and just to interpret it as wild, dramatic and inexplicable!
    Ultimately I crossed Pele on her own summit — Kilauea, and she gave me a lesson that I still shudder to remember. I was thrown flat into a deep crevice of newly dried lava one night. When I was helped up by a friend, I was unscathed, not one scratch! We screamed with surprise that I wasn’t bloody. Mahealani explained to me later what I had done and how Pele taught me a lesson and she did!
    Humbled by my actions, starting to feel how I fit into this powerful place. I know this as a warrior — biivouak is a fitting word. For me it means: finding a place to protect myself, while also nurturing myself with the spirit of Pele, her people and her island.

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Joel W. Cohen      Mr. Cohen was born and bread in Brooklyn . His early life was spent planning his escape to Connecticut . For most of his life he has been self-employed usually working on secret projects. By agreements with his partners he is unable to disclose the nature of these projects.

    Mr. Cohen was high-schooled as a scientist, colleged as an engineer and graduate-schooled as a computer-scientist.  As a result he is totally incapable of empathizing with artists and those that are spiritually motivated. Nevertheless he is known to engage people in long and potentially intimidating conversations with almost anyone on any topic much to their dismay. 

    As a young man in college Mr. Cohen performed as a free-lance hypnotist usually against the will of his subjects, a technique which he subsequently found useful during the 1980’s when he founded, developed and sold a high tech networking company.

     During the madness of the Internet Era of the last millennium Mr. Cohen jointly founded an Internet company called Takes.com. This company was approved for a public offering by the SEC after which the SEC issued a cease and desist order regarding activating the web site on the Internet.  His partner will only allow him to disclose that this web site did not involve sex, gambling or in any way cater to the seven deadly sins, excluding greed of course. 

    Mr. Cohen has often been described as a madman and for the last three years he has been institutionalized in his home office or more properly he has turned his home office into an institution.  When asked what he does he describes himself as a consultant though he rarely consults with anyone. None of Mr. Cohen’s poetry or prose has ever been published nor are their currently plans to do so.

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