Steven kleinman MHDC April 2009

The other night we had our third Writing Group.  It was very small as most of the regulars had to cancel for differing reasons.  Bummer.  Hopefully with more work we'll get a larger crowd next month as this is one of my favorite events.  Anyway, Allan Scott came out from MHSS and while the two of us were left to our own devices, we had this wonderful conversation about being a Jewish writer, Jewish writing, and writing around the Holocaust.  There were lots of great things talked about, but I don't want to misrepresent Allan or our time together so I will just send out some highlights just in case anyone is interested in reading some wonderful poems surrounding being Jewish post Holocaust. 

The best of the poems as far as I'm concerned is "In the Midst of life" by Tadeusz Rozewicz. Others include just about everything from Paul Celan, "After Auschwitz" by C.K. Williams, lots of poems by Czeslaw Milosz but in particular there is a poem where he stares into a gheto as a small child.  It's a wonderful poem.  Google that.  And I guess that was mostly what we talked about as far as poems surrounding issues of moving past the Holocaust, but now that I'm thinking about it Steve Olsen has a great book about being a Jewish American, and Ilya Kaminsky wrote a wonderfull book on being a Ukranian Jew during the fall of the Soviet Union.  Hope you have a chance to check out any of these poems.

o, Hai Moishe hauses of the world

October is okay, November is better. I'll tell you why. First of all, as fun as Halloween may be, there are two things wrong with it. One is that you don't get time off, and by the time you get home from work you've already missed all the kids with their costumes, which leads to two, which is when you then go out and there are a lot of awesome, fun costumes. Costumes people put a lot of work into, a lot thought into, or at least they are funny, like Seymore from Little Shop of Horrors or a dirty laundry basket or Marie Antoinette, or whatever, those were just some I saw. Then there are the store bought costumes that are as uncreative as possible, like the french nurse, school girl, beerbox suit man, or dick in a box guy. I mean, come on.
Also, the weather can't decide whether to be warm or cold. I bike to work in a shirt and freeze on the way home or the other way around. At least in November you know what you're going to getting, and thanksgiving is dope. Keep your eyes out for the enormous turkey pot pie I am going to make after Thanksgiving.
Also, fall is beautiful and the cold is invigorating, and makes hot apple cider and whiskey so much more enjoyable.
This past month I did two things i've been wanting to for a long time. The first was I went to a police auction (not an event, just a few people). Nothing much to report about it, but it is pretty interesting. First of all to see all the crap people buy, like a vacuum packed bag of random woman's clothing, or three pairs of the same shoes all different sizes, but everything is also real cheap, and auctions are fun. We also went to second Fridays in Pilson (this was a house event), which is when all the galleries in the mostly Mexican neighborhood on the south side open their doors for people to come eat cheese and wine and meet the artist. It is totally unpretentious and refreshing. Probably my favorite event of the month. Afterwards we had some amazing Mexican food, hearing what sounded like an entire marching band the entire time we ate (around 11:00pm). When we left the restaurant we went to look for the music, and I'm pretty sure it was coming out of an apartment. It really sounded like a full brass band, and you could hear it for blocks, but the entire thing was inside of an apartment. Crazy.

And now a question for the readers who live in other houses: How much focus do your houses put on Tikkun Olam and what does that entail?