WWII

"I don't smell it, I sell it." That's what a literary agents says in the latest "Poets and Writers." Like many things lately, that statement makes me sad.

Peter Frampton's said it, so have many others. Artists that work at their art improve in their craft. In a recent interview Robert Klein has said that he feels he's gotten better at what he does. And having seen some of his recent work, despite my nostalgia for his early routines, I agree. And yet talent and success don't go together only sometimes. I heard David Brenner in once describing his trying to explain to an agent that chocolate and vanilla are always good, despite what the flavor of the month may be. But the people running the business are interested in what will sell, not in what's good. As a senior yeshiva administrator looked a gifted teacher friend of mine in the eye recently, smiled, and said, "Rabbi X, it's a consumer driven business."

I've recently fallen off the weight watchers wagon . From what clothing fits my waistline I still seem to be around the baseline of my summer's work. But that didn't stop the same person who once asked me "You love singing so much, why didn't G-d give you a nice voice?" from commenting that I look like a pregnant woman.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - what's great about WW is the process, the talk, the mussar. It's not about points in the sense of numbers but more about points in the sense of ideas. And those ideas can float from the heart so easily. Which reminds me of the observation that despite man's ability to fly to the Moon mankind has yet to solve the mystery of how to travel the seemingly short distance from head to heart.

The Kotzker Rebbe is reported to have said that we need to put important ideas on our heart so that when the heart one day opens they will be there and go right in. This, he says, is the meaning of the statement in Shma to put devarim haeilaeh (these words/things) al levavchem (on your heart), rather than bilevavchem (in your heart).

I've written before and now I write it again - I used to keep a diary. And blogging is a continuation of that diary. I might tone it down a bit sometimes. I might and I might not. I can't say I fully get what blogging is or why I do it. I could write more and free-er, sometimes I hold back. I could hold back totally and every now and then I do, just to show that I can. Which reminds me...

When I was young and back from Part I of my Learning In Israel Experience I was watching the new TV show Breaking Away, based on the movie. It was up to its climactic ending and with a few minutes left, much to my parents' shock, I walked out. I didn't explain, but in my mind it was to show that I wasn't attached too much to the TV.

"A mark for your own gimick," Freddie Blassie uses that phrase in his book to describe how "bad" wrestlers started to become that way in real life, and the same with the "good guys." This phrase has wide applications, getting stuck in what you set up as your image...

A little over a week ago I had a peformance that I neglected to post about - sorry for those who would have liked to have seen it posted in a timely manner (Mom and Dad). Here's the blurb:

Rabbi Fleischmann, Orthodox Rabbi and Stand up Comedian Jackie Mason, move over! Rabbi Neil Fleischmann holds the title of Stand Up New York’s “Funnies Rabbi in New York.” He has played a wide array of venues and when not on stage, he teaches Jewish studies and public speaking in New Jersey. Sit back, relax, and laugh to your heart’s content. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14 1:00 PM M FREE, NM $5

So much to blog, so little time. My bed calls, so does my head, so too my thoughts and so many aughts. Then I let go or try to real slow, let go of the day in my own awkward way as I type, overripe for sleep, suddenly yearning to write deep words, to retell all that I've heard and recall, the rises and falls of the empire I seek, the world I observe, every dot and curve...

I will end with three haiku written on a recent school morning:

First there is breakfast
a meal of prayer, a chance to
reconnect with G-d.

When a speaker speaks
we ask ourselves deep inside:
do I trust this man?

The movie The End
has a line that stayed with me
"Just You and me G-d."