Cadillac DeVille in the driveway,
Plastic palm in the yard,
He's spraying green paint on the top of the palm.
Florida.
Cadillac DeVille dans l'allée,
Palmier en plastique dans la cour,
Il peint en vert le dessus du palmier.
Floride.
Cadillac DeVille en el camino de entrada,
Palmera de plástico en el patio,
Está pintando con spray verde la parte superior de la palmera.
Florida.
Cadillac DeVille na garagem,
Palmeira de plástico no quintal,
Ele está pintando com spray verde no topo da palmeira.
Florida.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
Thursday, February 13, 2020
Tuesday, February 11, 2020
Journal of a Naked Poet - VII
Well, to make a long story shorter, I dropped out of Cal in December, 1964. I immediately felt much freer, and the pressure was gone. My friend Mike, whom I had known since our "ham" radio days in high school, was tired of living in squalor in SF, and convinced me to go back to San Diego. We got jobs down there, and shared an apartment right across the street from the old, downtown campus of San Diego City College, where I had spent two years. It was there that I first met a young, bearded Lubavitcher Hasid (or Chassid, if you prefer) named John Blank (not the John Blank of Portland, OR, whom I still know). Anyway, he introduced me to the music of Shlomo Carlebach, whom I would eventually meet. That was one of those seminal experiences that I mentioned earlier. I had never met, and still have not met, a person as charismatic as Rabbi Carlebach. That was also the year when I first met Julie Savary, and we would be friends for the rest of her life (she was, unfortunately, killed in an automobile accident in Mexico in 2002). Julie's birthday was January 29. My earlier girlfriend, Cheryl, had her birthday on March 29. The birthday of my wife, Sandy, to whom I have been married for forty years, was born on July 29. Strange. Three of the most important women in my life, all with birthdays on the 29th.
While I'm on the subject of women, I must also mention Ilse "Elsa" Operschall, whom I also met in that year, after I returned to SF. We did not have an intimate relationship, but we definitely had a spiritual one.
Elsa (who later preferred to be called by her middle name, Johanna) was from Vienna, and was, like me, multilingual. Those languages, in her case German, English, and French, had landed her a job at the New York World's Fair a few years earlier. She came back in 1965 to teach German at Berlitz in San Francisco, where I was a receptionist and English teacher, We had had a few conversations, and I knew that she was half-Jewish and interested in learning about that side of her heritage (an interest that I shared, although I didn't yet know that I, too, had some of that heritage). One of my duties was to prepare the classrooms for the teachers, and one day I left a big "Shalom!" in Hebrew handwriting on her blackboard. I didn't even know if she would be able to read it. After the class, she came out to my desk in the front office, and said "Did I find a Shalom on my blackboard?" I admitted that I had left it there, and we became fast friends.
When I first arrived in SF (1963), you could ride the Muni buses and trollies for 15 cents. You could also buy a hot dog on Market Street for 18 cents, or a hamburger for 25 cents. Cheryl had introduced me to one of those hole-in-the-wall burger places, run by an older, Jewish guy named Art, whom I became friendly with, often stopping there. One day I heard Art use a Hebrew phrase, which I understood, with his assistant. As a little test, I asked him how to say "moon" in Hebrew. He said "that would be 'levanah,'" which was the correct answer. Anyway, "Elsa" and I started taking Hebrew lessons together from Art. We did a great many other things together. I remember, in particular, having lunch with her at Zim's. We ordered hamburgers, but they gave us cheeseburgers, which she sent back to the kitchen, saying "it's against our religion." I took her with me to a Shlomo Carlebach concert at the Berkeley Community Theater, where we both received " The Rebbe's Kiss," and afterward sang and danced through the streets of Berkeley, following Rabbi Carlebach on the way to the shul. I recently learned that Elsa, by then calling herself "Johanna," had become a doctor. She passed away a few years ago, from cancer. I feel her presence sometimes, as I feel that of Julie. They are out there, somewhere.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
While I'm on the subject of women, I must also mention Ilse "Elsa" Operschall, whom I also met in that year, after I returned to SF. We did not have an intimate relationship, but we definitely had a spiritual one.
Elsa (who later preferred to be called by her middle name, Johanna) was from Vienna, and was, like me, multilingual. Those languages, in her case German, English, and French, had landed her a job at the New York World's Fair a few years earlier. She came back in 1965 to teach German at Berlitz in San Francisco, where I was a receptionist and English teacher, We had had a few conversations, and I knew that she was half-Jewish and interested in learning about that side of her heritage (an interest that I shared, although I didn't yet know that I, too, had some of that heritage). One of my duties was to prepare the classrooms for the teachers, and one day I left a big "Shalom!" in Hebrew handwriting on her blackboard. I didn't even know if she would be able to read it. After the class, she came out to my desk in the front office, and said "Did I find a Shalom on my blackboard?" I admitted that I had left it there, and we became fast friends.
When I first arrived in SF (1963), you could ride the Muni buses and trollies for 15 cents. You could also buy a hot dog on Market Street for 18 cents, or a hamburger for 25 cents. Cheryl had introduced me to one of those hole-in-the-wall burger places, run by an older, Jewish guy named Art, whom I became friendly with, often stopping there. One day I heard Art use a Hebrew phrase, which I understood, with his assistant. As a little test, I asked him how to say "moon" in Hebrew. He said "that would be 'levanah,'" which was the correct answer. Anyway, "Elsa" and I started taking Hebrew lessons together from Art. We did a great many other things together. I remember, in particular, having lunch with her at Zim's. We ordered hamburgers, but they gave us cheeseburgers, which she sent back to the kitchen, saying "it's against our religion." I took her with me to a Shlomo Carlebach concert at the Berkeley Community Theater, where we both received " The Rebbe's Kiss," and afterward sang and danced through the streets of Berkeley, following Rabbi Carlebach on the way to the shul. I recently learned that Elsa, by then calling herself "Johanna," had become a doctor. She passed away a few years ago, from cancer. I feel her presence sometimes, as I feel that of Julie. They are out there, somewhere.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
Commentary on the Teachings of Rabbi Yeshua VIII - Mt. 5:6, 7, 8
The Beatitudes in verses six and seven are not present in any of the nine mss. of Shem Tob's Hebrew Matthew examined by Professor Howard. In the Greek tradition, they read as follows:
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Verse six has a weak parallel in Luke 6:21: Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Verse seven is not paralleled in Luke at all.
If these sayings were added late to Matthew, then verse six must be the older of the two, because Luke does not seem to have been aware of verse seven at all. Verse seven is one of my favorites, and it seems too important to ignore.
Luke has reduced verse seven to something that sounds more like a campaign promise than a spiritual teaching. To go back to our earlier criterion, "righteousness" (צדקה) is a personal virtue; "hunger" is not.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Verse six has a weak parallel in Luke 6:21: Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Verse seven is not paralleled in Luke at all.
If these sayings were added late to Matthew, then verse six must be the older of the two, because Luke does not seem to have been aware of verse seven at all. Verse seven is one of my favorites, and it seems too important to ignore.
Luke has reduced verse seven to something that sounds more like a campaign promise than a spiritual teaching. To go back to our earlier criterion, "righteousness" (צדקה) is a personal virtue; "hunger" is not.
אַשְׁרֵי זַכִי הַלֵב וְהֵמָה יִרְאוּ אֲלֹקִים׃
The above is the Shem-Tob Hebrew version of verse eight. It reads, "Happy are the pure of heart, for they shall see God."
This saying is probably a relatively late one, as it was not picked up by Luke. There is not much to say about it, but there is a great deal to say about the verses that follow.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
This saying is probably a relatively late one, as it was not picked up by Luke. There is not much to say about it, but there is a great deal to say about the verses that follow.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
Monday, February 10, 2020
Commentary on the Teachings of Rabbi Yeshua VII - Third Matthaean Beatitude
אַשְׁרֵי הָעֲנָוִים שְׁהֶם יִרְשׁוּ אָרֶץ׃
Translation: Happy are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. The pointing of the Hebrew is mine, so errors are possible (any corrections will be welcomed).
The above is Mt. 5:5 according to ms. A of Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew.The other eight mss. examined by Professor Howard do not have this verse at all.
It is also missing from Luke. This is not surprising, since, according to my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, Luke borrowed from an older layer of Matthew than that which was the original source of the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew.
It may be of interest that the order of verses four and five is reversed in the Latin tradition, right up through the Vulgate. One Old Syriac witness (the newer one by a century, Syr-c) also has the verse, and in the Latin order, as does Tatian's Diatessaron (ca. 172 CE). Within the Greek tradition, it is mss. of the older, "Western" (Syro-Latin) tradition that have the Latin order. It now appears, though, that the verse was absent from the (still older) Hebrew tradition, since eight of nine mss. do not have it. The one ms. (A) that does have it, is known to have gone through a lot of revision to bring it more into line with the canonical Latin and Greek texts.
Does this saying sound like the same guy who drove the money-changers from the Temple with a whip? It is not Rabbi Yeshua's voice. Neither does it, in my opinion, speak to a personal virtue, as the two preceding ones did, at least in the Hebrew tradition.
I have never liked this saying, which might even be construed as a cynical reference to the grave. I consider this saying to be a late addition to the Greek tradition, and not authentic.
Humility and patience are both virtues; meekness is not.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
The above is Mt. 5:5 according to ms. A of Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew.The other eight mss. examined by Professor Howard do not have this verse at all.
It is also missing from Luke. This is not surprising, since, according to my Layered Matthew Hypothesis, Luke borrowed from an older layer of Matthew than that which was the original source of the Shem-Tob Hebrew Matthew.
It may be of interest that the order of verses four and five is reversed in the Latin tradition, right up through the Vulgate. One Old Syriac witness (the newer one by a century, Syr-c) also has the verse, and in the Latin order, as does Tatian's Diatessaron (ca. 172 CE). Within the Greek tradition, it is mss. of the older, "Western" (Syro-Latin) tradition that have the Latin order. It now appears, though, that the verse was absent from the (still older) Hebrew tradition, since eight of nine mss. do not have it. The one ms. (A) that does have it, is known to have gone through a lot of revision to bring it more into line with the canonical Latin and Greek texts.
Does this saying sound like the same guy who drove the money-changers from the Temple with a whip? It is not Rabbi Yeshua's voice. Neither does it, in my opinion, speak to a personal virtue, as the two preceding ones did, at least in the Hebrew tradition.
I have never liked this saying, which might even be construed as a cynical reference to the grave. I consider this saying to be a late addition to the Greek tradition, and not authentic.
Humility and patience are both virtues; meekness is not.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Journal of a Naked Poet - VI
In the summer of 1964 I applied to the University of California at Berkeley, and was accepted. I had to take a placement test for the Spanish language, and placed in the top ten out of two thousand students taking the test. But when I registered, I did a really stupid thing: I signed up for a full fifteen units, although I had to commute from SF by taking two buses, and had to work every day after school and on Saturday. To make things worse, my first class was at 8:00 a.m. Meanwhile, my paltry savings account was going down and down.
One day, while rushing from my linguistics class to my Shakespeare class with a heavy book briefcase, I walked smack into a glass door, which knocked me even sillier than I already was. This caused me to take stock and question the wisdom of what I was doing. But before that, something just as unexpected came along
It was the Free Speech Movement, the first of many such major protests on university campuses that would sweep across the U.S. Whole books have been written about it, but what I can tell you is this: it was very compelling, and I came to consider it more important than anything that was going on in the classrooms. Maybe it was, but I already had too many problems to be skipping classes.
I was one of the students who, practically in unison, dropped into a sitting position on the Sproul Plaza pavement around the campus police car that now held a fellow student, preventing the car from leaving. We sat around the car in shifts, and that night, after a Joan Baez concert in the Greek Theater, I came back again. It was dangerous in several ways. The campus police had been bolstered by the un-academied Oakland police. As we sat around the campus police car in a tangle of legs, the protesters passed around that it was Gandhi's birthday. It wasn't, but it gave us something inspiring to think about. We eventually went home, after the University administration agreed to a settlement (which they later reneged on).
By day, I would listen to Mario Savio, Bettina Aptheker, and others, sometimes wearing an armband. I sometimes trudged in a circle in front of Sproul Hall in my trench coat, carrying that heavy book bag that included the complete works of Shakespeare (I had to be dressed for work at Berlitz), while FBI agents took pictures of us from the Sproul steps. In the late afternoons I went straight to work, getting off around 9:15 p.m. and walking through the dark streets of the Tenderloin to get to my apartment. I often carried an umbrella (for possible use as a weapon). One night a menacing type started to approach me from across the street, and I pulled a screwdriver out of my trench coat pocket, knowing that in the light from the streetlight it would look like a knife. He crossed back over to the other side.
One day I signed a petition in support of the civil disobedience of the student protesters, which earned me a threatening letter from the Dean (I'll post it below if I can find it). I was always tired, and worse, I had no time to study. Finally, I decided that I had had enough.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
One day, while rushing from my linguistics class to my Shakespeare class with a heavy book briefcase, I walked smack into a glass door, which knocked me even sillier than I already was. This caused me to take stock and question the wisdom of what I was doing. But before that, something just as unexpected came along
It was the Free Speech Movement, the first of many such major protests on university campuses that would sweep across the U.S. Whole books have been written about it, but what I can tell you is this: it was very compelling, and I came to consider it more important than anything that was going on in the classrooms. Maybe it was, but I already had too many problems to be skipping classes.
I was one of the students who, practically in unison, dropped into a sitting position on the Sproul Plaza pavement around the campus police car that now held a fellow student, preventing the car from leaving. We sat around the car in shifts, and that night, after a Joan Baez concert in the Greek Theater, I came back again. It was dangerous in several ways. The campus police had been bolstered by the un-academied Oakland police. As we sat around the campus police car in a tangle of legs, the protesters passed around that it was Gandhi's birthday. It wasn't, but it gave us something inspiring to think about. We eventually went home, after the University administration agreed to a settlement (which they later reneged on).
By day, I would listen to Mario Savio, Bettina Aptheker, and others, sometimes wearing an armband. I sometimes trudged in a circle in front of Sproul Hall in my trench coat, carrying that heavy book bag that included the complete works of Shakespeare (I had to be dressed for work at Berlitz), while FBI agents took pictures of us from the Sproul steps. In the late afternoons I went straight to work, getting off around 9:15 p.m. and walking through the dark streets of the Tenderloin to get to my apartment. I often carried an umbrella (for possible use as a weapon). One night a menacing type started to approach me from across the street, and I pulled a screwdriver out of my trench coat pocket, knowing that in the light from the streetlight it would look like a knife. He crossed back over to the other side.
One day I signed a petition in support of the civil disobedience of the student protesters, which earned me a threatening letter from the Dean (I'll post it below if I can find it). I was always tired, and worse, I had no time to study. Finally, I decided that I had had enough.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
Journal of a Naked Poet - V
The Sixties were important and seminal, in some ways life-changing, for me. The decade started out with my decision to leave the Jesuit novitiate. After a couple of years at San Diego City College, I moved to San Francisco. At the beginning of 1964 I got a studio apartment in the Tenderloin with a bed that unfolded out of the wall. It cost seventy dollars a month, and had steam heat. I moved there mainly for health reasons (the flat on Andover had unvented gas wall heaters that filled the place with humidity, and I had visions of ending up with TB, like my grandmothers brothers in Ireland had). That studio apartment reminds me of the song from My Fair Lady, "All I want is a room somewhere, with one great, enormous chair--oh wouldn't it be loverly . . ." I had that enormous chair, and it was exceedingly comfortable. The neighborhood, though, was another story. On Easter Sunday, 1964, I stepped out of my apartment building to see a man lying on the sidewalk in a pool of blood. He had been stabbed by another man, in a fight over a floozy from one of the bars across the street, The Round Table and The Square Chair. Another man was killed in my building. After that, the frail and emphysemad old apartment manager from Chula Vista had to give up that job. He was replaced by a man from Tennessee who liked to sit on the front steps of the building with a shotgun across his lap. That settled things down.
For some reason, I must have thought I needed to be exposed to the seamy side of life. The neighborhood was full of prostitutes, boozers, and transvestites. The police constantly busted the hookers, especially the transvestites, but did little to make the neighborhood safe.
It was in that Tenderloin apartment that I first read TALES OF THE BAAL SHEM TOV, and TALES OF THE HASIDIM, vols. 1 and 2. This was formative for my spiritual outlook. I had a poster of Chagall's "Rabbi of Vitebsk" on the wall. I drew a large, decorative "shalom" (the Shin looked like a boat) on the shade that covered the unsightly light well.
At that time I was teaching English at the Berlitz school in San Francisco. One of my students, Miss Matsushita, was the daughter of the owner of the largest electrical company in Japan. It rankled me that she would soon be entering the University of California. I knew exactly how much English she could speak, since I was teaching her, and she was in no way ready. It was her father's money, and nothing else, that would get her in. I had always intended to go to Cal myself, and was certain that I would be admitted, though I had little in the way of funds. I decided to apply.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
For some reason, I must have thought I needed to be exposed to the seamy side of life. The neighborhood was full of prostitutes, boozers, and transvestites. The police constantly busted the hookers, especially the transvestites, but did little to make the neighborhood safe.
It was in that Tenderloin apartment that I first read TALES OF THE BAAL SHEM TOV, and TALES OF THE HASIDIM, vols. 1 and 2. This was formative for my spiritual outlook. I had a poster of Chagall's "Rabbi of Vitebsk" on the wall. I drew a large, decorative "shalom" (the Shin looked like a boat) on the shade that covered the unsightly light well.
At that time I was teaching English at the Berlitz school in San Francisco. One of my students, Miss Matsushita, was the daughter of the owner of the largest electrical company in Japan. It rankled me that she would soon be entering the University of California. I knew exactly how much English she could speak, since I was teaching her, and she was in no way ready. It was her father's money, and nothing else, that would get her in. I had always intended to go to Cal myself, and was certain that I would be admitted, though I had little in the way of funds. I decided to apply.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.
Saturday, February 8, 2020
Commentary on the Teachings of Rabbi Yeshua VI - Second Matthaean Beatitude
אַשְׁרֵי הַחִוכִּים שְׁיְנוּחָמוּ׃
The above is the second Matthaean Beatitude, Mt. 5:4, according to Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew, pointed as well as I was able. It reads, "Happy are those who wait, for they shall be comforted." This differs, of course, from the canonical "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."
Professor Howard tried to explain (p. 226 of his 1995 edition, footnote 104) mourn/wait as a translation variant. Maybe it is, somehow, but his explanation seemed like a stretch to me.
In some ms. traditions, this saying appears as verse 5, coming after "the meek," which appears in only one of the nine texts that Howard examined. The reversed verse order is found in the older, "Western" (Syro-Latin) tradition, and in the Vulgate.
I cannot explain why the Greek tradition has "mourn," while Shem-Tob's Hebrew Matthew has "wait." It seems to me, though, that "wait" fits in well here, coming after a verse about humility. Humility and patience are both personal virtues, while mourning is not. It would seem, thus, that Rabbi Yeshua intended this set of sayings to teach personal virtues.
As to the other verse, "the meek," I have never liked it, and to me it does not sound like Rabbi Yeshua's voice. Most of the mss. of Hebrew Matthew do not have it, nor does Luke. My view is that "the meek" is probably not original.
Text © 2020 by Donald Jacobson Traxler.