Backstage Article!

Hey Yous

So the article is posted online now with the cover shot. Alas, it's missing some pictures, but you can at least read if you wish:

http://www.backstage.com/bso/news_reviews/features/feature_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003721186

Yay- My Backstage Cover Story!

If anyone can check it out, this week's Backstage's cover story is about actors who immigrated to the US. Interesting article, and you can see my pix and read what I have to say.
It's nice to have my picture on the cover, kinda weird seeing myself peeking from newstands....

Yay! I'm so excited!

My Own Private Snow

Snow. Dust and flakes and a thick comforting carpet of white.

The pink sky is shedding countless magical balls. There is something so regal about the way they move. They seem like they’re having fun together. Their short lives have a mission, one united mission. Orchestrated so gracefully. I feel blessed threading through the white, looking down and up, watching the relaxed coconut flakes joyfully crashing into my coat.

It’s not as cold as it was just yesterday. I feel cozy walking in the snow storm. Go figure. For a minute, or an hour or two, it feels nice, before the guys come to take it all away so we don’t slip. It’s peaceful out, serenely quiet, not dangerously icy yet. I soak it all in and give myself a big relished mental smile.

It hasn't always been like this… God I remember my first winters outside of Israel, i.e. New York… Yes, Israel is not very experienced in the snow department. Back there… it’s more like…Southern California weather, I should say.

So how should I convey this…Every time it snowed during my first winters here, my mind automatically and uncontrollably traveled to World War II, and please allow me to be specific, the Holocaust.

Ok, maybe I am the only person in this world with this strange association, maybe not. But that’s how it was, Holocaust movies frantically running inside my mind; Nazis and trains, loud shouts in German..

I should probably say now that I lived near a train station back then (where the train is above ground, not under…), so my gloomy visions engulfed me every time it snowed and the train station was at sight. That meant- when leaving home and coming home. Doesn’t sound very pleasant, I know. Dreadful, more like it. I saw so many Holocaust movies growing up in Israel, especially being a descendant to a Holocaust surviving family. I don’t know why, but trains in the snow and Nazis screaming had become a chilling memory of those movies and documentations of the Holocaust. It felt personal, it became a gruesome sensation that I could not control. Those pictures felt more like personal memories.

At some point I was able to shake them off completely.

Snow flakes have become my joyful and cozy allies.

Thank you for reading a glimpse of my “snow-graphy”.

Don’t forget to play in the snow.

Doris Lessing's Nobel Acceptance Speech-- what has the internet done to us...?

Just had to share this with you. The British writer Doris Lessing has just received the Nobel prize for literature and some of her acceptance words have really touched me. And made me think a lot about how much I used to read. As a little girl I would "swallow books" (as we say in Hebrew), and now, nothing. Almost nothing (and when I do read, it's plays and scripts..). I am not proud of it, there is actually shame involved. But I fully acknowledge it. And the following words make me want to investigate this further for myself. Is it over? Or will I go back to reading? I would love to hear what you think.

Here is a quote:

"We are in a fragmenting culture, where our certainties of even a few decades ago are questioned and where it is common for young men and women, who have had years of education, to know nothing of the world, to have read nothing, knowing only some speciality or other, for instance, computers.

What has happened to us is an amazing invention - computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution. This is not the first revolution the human race has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, transformed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked: "What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?" In the same way, we never thought to ask, "How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?"

Very recently, anyone even mildly educated would respect learning, education and our great store of literature. Of course we all know that when this happy state was with us, people would pretend to read, would pretend respect for learning. But it is on record that working men and women longed for books, evidenced by the founding of working-men's libraries, institutes, and the colleges of the 18th and 19th centuries. Reading, books, used to be part of a general education. Older people, talking to young ones, must understand just how much of an education reading was, because the young ones know so much less.

We all know this sad story. But we do not know the end of it. We think of the old adage, "Reading maketh a full man" - reading makes a woman and a man full of information, of history, of all kinds of knowledge".

Happy Thanksgiving (Warning: a bit spiritual-cheeezzzy)

I love this day.

Just to say Thank You for everything that we have

I feel blessed and grateful for what I have.

And this is also a day to stop and kick ourselves in the ass if we tend to TAKE THINGS FOR GRANTED.
I try to make it one of my mottos in life: to appreciate everything that I've got. Acknowledging that makes you more grounded, content and at peace. You know how when you win something or get really good news you jump up and down but in seconds forget about it? I try to keep the jumping up and down as long as I can. (And on the same token, I try to keep the dwelling on the shit that happens to a minimum. TRY I say..).
It works. Trust me! Makes your soul smile more often.

I will stop now, in case the sarcastic have to run and throw up.

Happy Happy Thanksgiving, eat lots of yummy holiday food, cuz it's the best!!! (and don't throw up).

My Visitor

I have just spent intense 10 days with my dear childhood friend from Israel.
It's amazing how much you can learn in such a short time about yourself, about where you come from and where you're going. This was her first adult visit to NY, first time she came to visit me here. The cultural differences adding up throughout the years have smacked us on the face. It was strange. We grew up in the same place and yet it feels like I've always been here in NY. I've realized that more than ever during her visit with me. I can't help it, my identity has changed a lot throughout the years. It's actually fascinating to me every time I realize that. For the first time in my life I am accepting the fluidity of my identity, and that is a very rewarding sensation. To know who you are and to accept that. Even if it's a bit complicated on the cultural level. Being born and raised in Israel. Spending all of my adult life in New York City.

Anyway, my very dear friend got sucked into the shopping hysteria here and there was nothing I could do to pull her out. Hours and hours of running around (and not finding anything to buy most of the time- Go figure! New York's vast selection was not sufficient for her...), overwhelmed by the huge crowds, the noise and the insanity of New York City, but not letting it stop her. I got flustered by it, I stopped joining her on her shopping missions. It worked for both of us...

I wanted to take her to the calm places, to the Cloisters, to all the beautiful parks, to walk by the Hudson, one of my favorite things to do here.
But no, most of it didn't happen. I only got to share with her a small percentage of my NY, and her visit is over already.
She's leaving tomorrow. Oh, yes, I did share my New York night life with her. At least that.

So now we have to wait for next time. Hopefully then I'll be able to squeeze in the real magic of New York City, its enchanting vicinity and the best kept secrets of the best town in the world.

Kickbox it all Out!

Good morning Friday. I am heading out to the gym soon. This is my kickboxing day.

It’s a tradition. I let it all out! Aggressions, frustrations, and just plain old fury. Well, actually, fury makes me sound somewhat violent and that’s not true. But life tends to attract toxins and negative energy, so once a week, if I haven’t managed to naturally do so, I kick and punch the hell out of anything, and anybody that wishes to stop me, without risking anybody’s life, of course. It’s the closest thing to meditation. I’m not very good at “immobile” meditation, but I can certainly enter “the zone” while repeating dozens of roundhouse kicks…

And then- I’m clean; I take a deep breath, and have a sense of center, of inner strength, of clarity, potency (not to say- omnipotence). I am ready for the world, and the world is ready for me.

Last night I saw a movie that ended with “There is no way to Peace- Peace IS the way!”. It had to do with cultural and social battles, but it can be translated to inner peace too.

Kickboxing, then, is my peace. It also makes me feel hot and sexy.