Nobody reads books anymore

Nobody reads books anymore. We only tweet.

Still, there is the Last Book I have read. I stubbornly plowed through all of Zweig’s Beware of Pity. Made me mad as hell - being terrorized by a manipulative Jewish girl? How is that credible? A dumb young officer? But it must have been a good read, because I kept reading it.

And then I read what others wrote about it. He left his super-energetic wife for his sickly secretary, so that must have been what the book was about. In 1943 they committed suicide together someplace in South America. And this neurotic windbag was the most read writer of early 20th century?

So I asked my German Professor of Deutsche Literatur, Professor Erdmann, and he said “Zweig? Do not read him. Not worth it.” By Dec 29 I was done with Zweig. Just in time.

The Shabat Cat and Mayan Catopocalypse

Report from Jerusalem:

The End of the Mayan World we are dodging by having fled to the Land of Israel: here they use some other obsolete calendar, with no uneventful stretch between Hanukah and Tu Bishvat of year 5773.

I'm happy to report that the Rapture did not swallow Jerusalem, and from the balcony of our room at Beit Belgia the next Mayan cycle was ushered in by City on the Hill glowing golden, awash in glorious morning sunshine.

But the night at Beit Belgia was more eventful. It is sparkling shiny freshly renovated, and whoever won the the contract redid it on the cheap, so the lobby was flooded by the nights rain. We fall asleep to plaintive prayers of the Wailing Shabat Cat who got itself into the ventilation duct traversing guest rooms bathrooms. Whether it was she cat or he cat and whether she had the prayer shawl around her head and not across her shoulders (women get arrested for less at the West Wall) we could not tell, she wailed on much of the night. And in the morning I could smell (I have friends who have to eleven cats too many) the unmistakable marks of alpha cats marking off their territory in the carpeted hallway. When the happens, only thing to do is to tear down the plaster boards and rip off the carpets, and rebuild the Beit Belgia from the scratch.

Judging by the surly mug of House Speaker Boehner, the New World is still with us as well.