Pause to Wonder

Seems like such an simple and obvious idea… why don’t we do this more often? I’d love to see this in Paris. We could use a little more wildlife. This city doesn’t even have squirrels! (A bar of fine Parisian chocolate to the first one who can tell me the story behind that one!) Anyhow, have a gander at a video of city-worker goats doing their job in LA.

If only we could get them to gather autumn leaves, too. Those leaf blowers are evil. They pollute (the ones I’ve seen belch out a black cloud of pollution), they shatter the peace with a horrible amount of noise and ergonomically I’ve heard they’re very bad for the workers who use them.

Now if I can just get some goats to help me with the housework… who am I kidding? They’d just eat my throw rugs and scare the bejeezus out of the cats with their rectangular pupils.

“My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a ‘lone traveler’ and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude…”

Here’s a nice little abridged version to whet your appetite.

I can’t believe I didn’t know about the connections between Yidish and jazz! Very, very cool.

I’ve always loved Yiddish. It has a wonderful onomatopœia quality and each word is like a little poem capturing the essence of something.

Here’s the full radio interview, an online Yiddish/English/Hebrew dictionary and, not to be missed, the Yiddish Radio Project. Enjoy!

Added next day: Here’s a short but very interesting factual outline of the Yiddish language. הנאה האָבן!