yesterday on my way home from spanish class my neighbour called me over to see some strange change to the semi abandonned street rubish tip.. his street is being gentrified soon so no one cares too much about the state of disrepair..
except his next door neighbour..
who decided to stage an impromptu play and decorate the tip.. or frog - as these big rubbish boxes are known to be called here in israel..
the street (once a totally jewish neighbourhood) is inhabited by both jews and arabs.. anyhow - this eccentric heavily accented artist proceeded to usher people to the back of his installation and sat a collection of the neighbourhood's finest on fold out chairs that seemed to just keep on flowing..
i admit i want in the mood to stick around.. its was hot and smelly and i couldnt be bothered.. in all honesty.. but my friend paid his neighbour the respect and went the distance..
apparently the one man band act proceeded to delve into thick and soggy zionist narrative.. about how we came and how we did this and how we did that.. semi hyde park milk crete style.. but at some stage then dove into a statement describing how in yaffo arabs and jews live together as good neighbours at which point an arab in the audience gave an ovation..
the act was filmed by a friend of the creator's and at some stage i suppose the micro crowd of probably not much more than 15 disbursed..
how strange is my town..
later last night we drove to jerusalem to a birthday party of a friend's girlfriend.. i met that friend at another friend's birthday dinner at hotel jerusalem.. the girlfriend is european - the other two are palestinians both of which have israeli passports.. it was an interesting night filled with great food and great company and cool music and a stack of political discussions emanating from the many NGO reps that were around..
having said that it was very casual and comfortable.. basically just a bunch of friends catching up for a friday night bbq..
i did learn from one of them (who has an office in gaza) that last week we only had two mortar shells thrown from gaza into israel and that there were no or three incursions only with no deaths directly related to the conflict.. and that hamas have apparently clamped down like crazy on renegade groups seeking to disturb the ceasefire in their bid to be taken seriously by the world..
שבת שלום