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Sunday, June 1, 2014

Today's Tel Aviv has become San Francisco in 1968

The wise and lovely Miranda Frum used to be a Chase Producer for the wise but not quite as lovely Micheal Coren at Sun News Network.  It was always a joy to speak with her prior to my semi-frequent appearances with Michael. Now Miranda is in Tel Aviv, doing some very different work as both a model and a writer. Her new piece for Tower Magazine describes how Tel Aviv has, at least from the description she provides, morphed into California in the late 1960's:


I'm sitting in a small room with a very high ceiling. There isn’t much light or natural air, the one window surrounded by the corpses of out-of-date electronics. There isn’t much of anything, really, just a few couches and an obtrusive square coffee table. The couches are filthy, covered with sad, dusty-looking quilted blankets. On the walls: a few ugly paintings made by the apartment’s previous inhabitants, which remained up because the new renters felt guilty throwing “art” in the trash.
I’m with a guy named Dave—not entirely sure where he is from. Some mix of English speaker and Israeli heritage. Maybe his parents are Israeli and he was born in the UK. Point is: now he lives in Tel Aviv. Dave dresses like a Tel Avivian—a t-shirt with the original sleeves and collars cut off, made into a tank top. Levis jeans, also altered, now shorts. No shoes. Lots of rope bracelets—souvenirs from a spiritual quest in India.

Dave has just come back from a nature party—Israeli kids love nature parties. A nature party is exactly what it sounds like, a party in nature. Israelis and their friends carpool out to some remote location (which is discovered only by calling a certain number and following instructions from one of the event planners) in either the desert or a forest. They arrive and construct a small city of tents, and then the party begins. DJs play for hours, MDMA and acid are dropped, peyote and marijuana are sparked. The sounds of trance music mixes with excited shrieks and yells and dissolves into the air. Sometimes a party is just 24 hours, sometimes three days. Adults paint their faces to look like fairies, new friendships are formed, and peace, love and magic enter the physical realm.

These parties aren’t my scene—the one time I went to a nature party someone accidentally broke my Jawbone speakers. I never recovered. I also hate trance music....

3 comments:

rick mcginnis said...

Fantastic. They may have finally found a way to destroy Israel from within.

Richard K said...

Ehh, neo-hippies are pretty harmless compared to the masses of useful idiots that they've had there for decades and and the Haaretz-reading constituency

rick mcginnis said...

I know, but the useful idiots have been there forever, as you say. This lot might just tip things into critical mass - look what they did here!!