Timing

A few years ago I underwent a stress test. I was ashamed at how quickly the treadmill reduced me to a defeated lump. So I began to run each morning. I felt great except that my legs were so tight I could hardly mount or descend a flight of stairs. Did I not do a half hour of meditation and a half hour of yoga each morning on arising? To my chagrin I found out that five minutes of post running stretching is more effective than an hour of  relaxation and stretching done before.

Recently as a volunteer in a research study I was sent for a sleep lab. To my surprise I found out that I had chronic obstructive sleep apnea and it occurred when I was lying on my back. About 144 times a night my airway would collapse and I could not inhale or exhale. I had read that a tennis ball attached to the back of a night shirt could stop snoring. So I gave it a try. Wow, I began to sleep better, have far fewer night mares and no longer woke up with a headache and feeling of fatigue. I checked out the "treatment" with a specialist. She approved and sent me for another sleep lab. Almost one hundred percent improvement!

It is humbling to realize that a small action can have such huge consequences. And yet it takes me so long to find the small changes to be made.

Synchronous Trail to Gershon Iskowitz

Gershon Iskowitz  - AGO 40 year retrospective - 1982.

It is odd how a series of small events lead to a project which now occupies most of my time and thoughts. On May 1st, 2010 I was reading the National Post newspaper in the Toronto Public Library.  I read a column by Conrad Black  who casually dismissed the more than two and a half million Jews who were gassed to death in concentration camps as victims and not warriors.  This so incensed me, e.g. there were over 20,000 Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis during WWII, that I emailed a letter to the editor to the National Post wondering why Conrad Black had done so little fact checking before penning his erroneous assertion. My email was published in the National Post on May 5th.I had misspelled the name of Sir Martin Gilbert, the noted historian I had quoted to refute Mr. Black. His letter to the National Post corrected my spelling of his name and added further documented incidents of Jewish resistance to the Holocaust.

Condemned 1944-46

However, I realized that many people are not aware of European Jewish resistance to the Holocaust. So I started a blog, The Spurned Stone, to communicate the many ways that Jews resisted the Holocaust - through humour, art, literature and combat. A room mate of mine read the blog and said that he had known an artist, Gershon Iskowitz, who painted while he was interned in concentration camps. Gershon (d. 1988) actually used to live  a few blocks away from my home. I became intrigued. Gershon had two brothers and one sister as did I. His family and mine originated from the same area of Poland.

I began to research him, but found little on line. So I decided to set up a wikipedia page, Gershon Iskowitz, as a tribute to his moving art and valiant life story. It turned out that a former room mate of mine knew Gershon in the seventies. Iskowtiz's major art dealer was located a few blocks from my home. A friend of mine used to provide fine arts services to Gershon. I read everything in my library system on Iskowitz.

It Burns 1950-52, The burning of the Kielce Ghetto

Raspberry Mahogany

I dedicate this tart, sweet, nutty and gooey dessert to my old companion Raspberry Mahogany. It embodies many of his contradictions and will put a smile on your heart.

Raspberry Mahogany Smores

12 Pecan Halves
8 Graham Crackers
1 Handful Chocolate Chips
4 Marshmallows
1 Handful Raspberries

1. Put 4 graham crackers on a glass plate.
   
2. Place 3 pecans on each cracker.
3. Place a few chocolate chips on each cracker.
4. Microwave for 40 seconds.
5. Place one marshmallow on each chocolatey cracker.
6. Microwave for 40 seconds.
7. Place a few raspberries on each melted marshmallow.
8. Place a graham cracker on top of each raspberry mound.
   
9. Press gently down.
10. Serve.

Most of my adult life has been spent in rented rooms. These are often inhabited by marginalized people who almost by definition tend to be edgy. In Montreal I met an aging beatnik who called himself Raspberry Mahogany. He was a short compact man with a straggly beard usually wearing a military surplus jacket. He claimed to be a former USMC gunnery corporal.

Photo by Irvin Shizgal 1969 McGill U Campus http://plastic-roseland.ca/

A sweet and kind man who kept trying to act the wild child. He was a writer, poet and illustrator. His life was lived as if it were sketches for a drawing to be made at some later date. He was torn between emulating Allen Ginsberg and Ernest Hemingway. One minute he would be polishing up a rap. The next he would be challenging me to fight for the bedroom his younger brother took away from him decades past. Every attractive woman was greeted with a pick up line. The inevitable rejection would be followed by a self critique.
He had broken the glass top of his coffee percolator. This let the hot coffee geyser up into the air. It would run along the lid. Some would drain back into the pot and some would run down the sides onto the burner further enhancing the many aromas of his pad. Every few week

Allen Ginsberg via last.fm

s he would replenish some of the coffee grounds.

Once he bought a big turkey that didn't fit into his oven. He would carve off pieces with his pocket knife and fry them up. Unfortunately the turkey spoiled and I accompanied Raspberry up the hill to the Royal Victoria Hospital emergency ward.

He had a story for every stain on his couch and a kind word for every person that he met.

The Pet as Psychopomp

Today I sat on a bench in a park enjoying the warm sunshine and gentle breeze of an early summer day. A man with a golden Lab sat down beside me and began to eat a fried chicken sandwich. I looked at the dog and he slowly approached me. His owner said that it was all over once I made eye contact. Such a lovely feel to his fur as if I were absorbing a massage through my finger tips. Soon another dog and two humans approached. They too entered the love fest centred on the lab. A woman with her right arm in a cast approached and eagerly inquired as to the parentage of the the second dog. She asked if the lab shed continuously and then began to excitedly talk about her own dogs.

I began to see the dog as a psychopomp - from the Greek meaning "guide of souls". He had with very little effort got four random strangers to chat as if they were good friends who had known each other for years. As an introvert I marvel at how this dog was able to draw four people, even for a few moments, out of their isolation by his simple whole-hearted behaviours.

Currently I live a very isolated life style and am searching for employment as well. What valuable lessons can I glean from this generous and accomplished fellow creature? That sincere and generous actions even on a small scale can act like seed crystals in a supersaturated solution - imperceptible specks that can initiate large, beautiful and complex structures.