Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Jewish people don't believe in luck...Schlimazeltov!


Maybe some people are just born unlucky? This documentary film weaves together a diverse collection of different voices from London’s Jewish community to explore the concept of “luck” or “mazel”. From lucky charms and curses to global economics and quantum physics, this humorous and philosophical piece of visual poetry navigates the boundaries between religion and superstition to ask how the invisible hand of mazel has touched us all.
Director: Christopher Thomas Allen
Producer: Andrew Hinton
Music: Malcolm Litson

Monday, September 20, 2010

Sinking in Ein Hod, Israel Pottery Always Open


We create hand made pottery:
functional stoneware pots thrown on the potter's wheel, decorated with various glazes, fired in a gas kiln to a high temperature.
Our pottery studio has been open to the public since 1982. We welcome visitors seven days a week and sell a variety of pottery: bowls, plates, casseroles, mugs (all of which can be used for cooking and serving food and drink), boxes, vases, and ocarinas(clay whistles and flutes).
We teach weekly pottery classes all year and conduct short workshops for groups and individuals during the week and on Saturdays and holidays(all ages).
We have a book shop where we sell a large selection of used and rare books in all languages.
For more information about our studio and activities and/or help in arranging visits and workshops with other artists please contact us:
Naomi and Zeev 04-9841107. zeno@netvision.net.il
נעמי וזאב ורוכבסקי קדרות עין הוד-תמיד פתוח קורס קדרות- (מגיל 13) לימוד טכניקות באובניים בחומר צביעה בגלזורות ושריפה בתנור גז סדנת שבת,חגים,ימי קיץ,ימי חול -עבודה בחומר לכל הגלאים-עבודת יד -התנסות באובניים מגיל 18 (30-40 דקות) לקבוצות -סדנת הדגמה-הסבר והדגמה באובניים והתנסות קצרה לכל משתתף (עד 25 איש, 40 דקות) -סדנה פעילה-הסבר והדגמה באובניים ועבודה לכל משתתף באובניים אישי. עד 16 משתתפים, שעה וחצי פרטים- נעמי וזאב ורכובסקי
Second hand books
At zeev Verchovsky "Pottery Always Open" #33 on the map
sink (sngk)
v. sank (sngk) or sunk (sngk), sunk, sink·ing, sinks
v.intr.
1. To descend to the bottom; submerge.
2.
a. To fall or drop to a lower level, especially to go down slowly or in stages: The water in the lake sank several feet during the long, dry summer.
b. To subside or settle gradually, as a massive or weighty structure.
3. To appear to move downward, as the sun or moon in setting.
4. To slope downward; incline.
5. To pass into a specified condition: She sank into a deep sleep.
6.
a. To deteriorate in quality or condition: The patient is sinking fast. The family sank into a state of disgrace.
b. To diminish, as in value.
7. To become weaker, quieter, or less forceful: His voice sank to a whisper.
8.
a. To drop or fall slowly, as from weakness or fatigue: The exhausted runner sank to the ground.
b. To feel great disappointment or discouragement: Her heart sank within her.
9. To seep or soak; penetrate: The water is sinking into the ground.
10. To make an impression; become felt or understood: The meaning finally sank in.
v.tr.
1. To cause to descend beneath a surface: sink a ship.
2. To cause to drop or lower: sank the bucket into the well.
3. To force into the ground: sink a piling.
4. To dig or drill (a mine or well) in the earth.
5. To occupy the full attention of; engross.
6.
a. To make weaker, quieter, or less forceful.
b. To reduce in quantity or worth.
7. To debase the nature of; degrade.
8. To bring to a low or ruined state; defeat or destroy.
9. To suppress or hide: He sank his arrogance and apologized.
10. Informal To defeat, as in a game.
11.
a. To invest: sink money into a new housing project.
b. To invest without any prospect of return.
12. To pay off (a debt).
13. Sports To get (a ball) into a hole or basket.
n.
1. A water basin fixed to a wall or floor and having a drainpipe and generally a piped supply of water.
2. A cesspool.
3. A sinkhole.
4. A natural or artificial means of absorbing or removing a substance or a form of energy from a system.
5. A place regarded as wicked and corrupt.
Idiom:
sink or swim Informal
To fail or succeed without alternative.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Спасибо Леа и ее супругу


23 августа Латгальский культурно-исторический музей посетили гости из Израиля — дочь члена довоенного общества резекненских художников Аркадия Найшлоса Леа Бронфмане с мужем Марком (на снимке).

Художник Аркадий Найшлос (1903 — 1951) родился в Даугавпилсе в семье кожевника, закончил Рижскую Академию художеств и в 1938 году женился на резекненке Нехе Гурвич, которая преподавала латинский язык в Резекненской еврейской гимназии.
Незадолго до начала Второй мировой войны в Резекне проходила большая выставка работ А. Найшлоса. В начале войны художник с женой и дочерью Леа эвакуировались в Среднюю Азию, а все его картины остались в оккупированном Резекне. Часть из них пропала. По возвращении в Латвию А. Найшлос, несмотря на свою болезнь, продолжал рисовать, но в 1951 году скончался.
Теперь картины художника хранятся в семейном архиве его детей Леа и Исаака в Израиле, в частных коллекциях, в фондах Латгальского культурно-исторического музея и др. В 60-е годы прошлого века музей получил шесть картин художника.
То, что специалисты музея интересуются жизнью и творчеством ее отца, Леа узнала в 80-е годы прошлого века, и она прислала репродукции картин отца из семейной коллекции. Она написала также биографию своего отца. Но посетить Латвию семье Леа удалось только в этом году. Во время посещения музея она подарила музею диск с материалами об А. Найшлосе.
Сотрудничество с семьей продолжится. Работники музея ждут в гости и сына художника Исаака. Спасибо Леа и ее супругу за материалы, подаренные музею!
http://rus.rv.lv/?newsid=3408

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Females who can mask their trails

The scientists have now been able to show that evolution has favoured those females who can conceal their gender identity. Females who can mask their trails copulate significantly less often than other females and thus have a greater chance of surviving.


"It is beneficial for males to mate as often as possible, since this is the only way in which they can influence the number of offspring they father. But it is costly for the females to mate often, and this is important for them in surviving during the period they are carrying offspring."
The females of most species of snail excrete a substance in their mucous trails that enables males to find them more easily, since they can distinguish between trails from females and those from other males. The males follow the mucous trails laid down by females in order to find a partner for mating. However, the females of one of the species studied (Littorina saxatilis) have stopped labelling their mucous trails.
(read more...)

Monday, September 13, 2010

She decided to settle in the artists' village in Ein Hod...

in 1968 Lia (or Lea) Schubert arrived in Israel, after having served for eleven years as Artistic Director of the Ballet Academy in Stockholm. She decided to settle in the artists' village in Ein Hod establishing a school as well as a dance company in Haifa. The school attracted many students, young people and adults, dance fans and professionals, dancers and artists of various fields


In 1968, after having served for11 years as the Artistic director of the Ballet Academy in Stockholm, Lia arrived in Israel. In the first year of her stay in Israel she taught ballet at the Batsheva Ensemble, Bat-Dor Dance Company, the Music and Dance Academy in Jerusalem and at the Inbal Dance Theatre where she also served as the rehearsal director. In 1969 Lia established, together with the dancer Kaj Lutman (called Selling in Sweden), the major dancer at the Swedish Royal Opera who had international reputation, the Haifa Dance Center school and the Dance troupe Bimat Harakdanim (The dancers' stage) at the Rothschild Center in Haifa, based on a group of dancers that Oshra Elkayam-Ronen established already in 1967 (Eshel, 1993). Basing the aforementioned on two reputable and rich stage-experienced dance artists constituted a promise for the future.

In 1974, after a generation of classical dancers grew and matured at their school, Schubert and Lutman decided to concentrate on the ballet genre and established the Haifa Ballet Piccolo, supported by the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education and Haifa Municipality. The troupe provided stage- experience opportunity for young dancers, the school graduates, and fostered their artistic personality. The dancing troupe performed in Haifa, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem as well as on several television programs. Among the dances Schubert created for the group: Cinderella (1974), Coppélia (1974) and the Hoopoe Legend (1976).
read more...

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Dunbar's number


Evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar expands on "Dunbar's number," his theory that the maximum number of stable relationships a person can maintain is approximately 150. Time to delete a few hundred Facebook friends?
We are the product of our evolutionary history, and that history colors our experience of everyday life -- from the number of friends we have to how religious we are. Renowned evolutionary anthropologist Professor Robin Dunbar visits the RSA to explain how the very distant past underpins all of our current behaviors, and how we can best utilize that knowledge.
Did you know that you have just 150 friends, acquaintances and relatives? And that this is a natural size for villages all over the world? Now known as "Dunbar's Number," it defines the feasible boundaries of our social lives. Dunbar's investigations show us that we inherited the social side of our brains from our mother, and the emotional side from our father; why many women see the world in four or even five different colors, but men only ever have the conventional red, green and blue; and why facial symmetry has everything to do with voter choices in elections. - RSA
Robin Ian MacDonald Dunbar is a British anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, specializing in primate behavior. He is best known for formulating Dunbar's number, roughly 150, a measurement of the "cognitive limit to the number of individuals with whom any one person can maintain stable relationships".

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

84 Charing Cross Road ...


Helene Hanff's book 84 Charing Cross Road had previously been a TV program and a stage play before it was converted into this 1986 film. The scene is New York, 1949: Anne Bancroft plays a struggling writer and passionate bibliophile, who answers an advertisement from a rare-volumes bookshop at 84 Charing Cross Road in London.

Thus begins a two-decade romance by correspondence between Bancroft and Briton Anthony Hopkins, the man in charge of the overseas department of Marks and Company. Though several meetings are arranged, Bancroft and Hopkins never come face to face thanks to mitigating circumstances. But Anne finally makes it to London, and finds that much has changed. 84 Charing Cross Road was produced by Mel Brooks, the husband of star Anne Bancroft

Saturday, September 4, 2010

The best thing that you could possibly buy... Amen


Lame Duck Books, a mainstay of Cambridge, Massachusetts' Harvard Square, will close its doors on September 25, 2010.
John W. Wronoski, who opened Lame Duck originally in Philadelphia in 1984, told the Harvard Crimson that the business was "hemorrhaging" money, "destroyed" by online competition.
"Nowadays people like myself who've devoted...50 years to this world have no means of competing again," he said.
"It was a way of earning an income without actually doing something that I considered odious, like work," he continued. "Not that you don't work an enormous amount in this, but it's completely pleasure."
Wronoski, who does not consider himself a bibliophile because he rejects a personal relationship with books, defined the role of rare booksellers as guardians:
"I maintain custody of these fabulous objects until the right person comes along to relieve me of them," he said. "For me, money is so much less interesting than these objects. I'm selling the best thing that you could possibly buy."
Link