Blog salad

 Linda and her husband picked up her completed tallit on Tuesday.

Tying tzizit is just a lovely thing to do together. We know one another for so long. We have supported one another through pregnancies and births and deaths and everything in between. We used to see one another in synagogue every week but now we see one another only once in a while. 

Linda mastered the slightly more complicated, yet much lovelier way to tie tzitzit.

Linda is so skilled in so many areas. Tying the tzitzit is hard for her. Despite it being a bit of a challenge at first, she had mastered the skill after not very long.

I love making a piece that is so completely specific for one human being.

I am fortunate to be able to do this work.

Yesterday I went into the local thrift store.

I saw this on the wall.

I immediately knew who the artist was.

He is the hyper Jewish version of Bob Ross. Both use the act of their painting as a kind of entertainment. Bob Ross is soothing.  Morris Katz used to set up in a booth at Jewish-oriented conventions and conferences and boast about how he could paint a complete painting in ten minutes. He kibbitzed with his audience as he created his paintings with a palette knife and bits of toilet paper. He had a studio right near the old Balducci's.

You can see more of his work here. They are paintings on masonite. Notice I didn't call them art because they aren't art---they are the output of an entertainer. I looked at the painting and could hear his patter and the sound of the palette knife scraping against the masonite board. As I looked at this paint-covered masonite board I was transported to a corridor at the Concord Hotel standing with my sisters watching the shtick-filled banter of Morris Katz as he smashed oils into the board and made terrible jokes. 

This has been a hard week. We are all still reeling from the death of our friend Mike. We attended his funeral on Monday. In his eulogy, our rabbi described mike as being inwardly, a Bratslav Chassid. I lay on the couch, exhausted, Monday evening. I slowly became aware of singing coming up from the street. A group of people was singing a Bratslav niggun.

I listened to the people singing six flights below and thought about Mike.

I did cook for Shabbat today. We are even having in-person company but I need a nap right now and will stop writing.

Shabbat Shalom!