The Rabbi's Cat and A Blast from the Past
Oct. 29th, 2005 05:43 amThe Rabbi's Cat
by Joann Sfar
This one was good for me. Sfar is a French author with a humorous approach to serious things [Tatsumi's The Push Man had left me in bad place for a tad too long. Which goes to prove, again, that those people who say comics don't grab you emotionally the way films do are full of it.]. You can read this for the humour and/or you can read it for the commentary on Jewish culture. I read it because S. from Comic Relief in Berkeley told me to. The last part of the book with its Chateauneuf-du-Pape drinking and the cultural shock of meeting the secular in laws? Truly priceless.
=#=
I went out to dinner with somebody I hadn't seen in 10+ years.
I have to be honest and say that on the way there I wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea and the awkwardness of our first hellos didn't assuage my fears [We got caught in the whole do we hug, shake hands, air kiss thing. What can I say? I don't do the whole touching thing easily.]. I shouldn't have worried though, because it quickly became clear that we could still talk to each other about everything and nothing for hours.
There are some people who have known you for so long [30+ years] that you can't 'hide' and for somebody like me, who has spent a life hiding, it was a delicious respite. It was also interesting to note how much he's changed and how dissimilar we've become when, once upon a time, we undoubtedly belonged to the same tribe.
Still, it was an easy and pleasant evening and when we parted I had no problem hugging him good-bye.