Letters to her majesty, Queen Elizabeth II

A year ago I re-joined Facebook under the name "Elizabeth Queen". It was a little taalul (trick) - no harm was meant to the royal family! - all I wanted was to have the queen join a party and convey her good wishes (which she did.) I haven't checked that Facebook account in a while. Apparently, the queen has made a bunch of new friends, including an Australian called Peter. These are some of the messages he sent to the queen. I feel a little bad now, but it does seem he found some comfort in knowing that the Queen of England has befriended him. I can't bring myself to break this spell...

(I omitted his full name to keep his privacy)


November 14th, 2013 

Dearest Majesty,
thank you for accepting my friend request.
Your humble and faithful servant
Peter B_____ C_______


November 27th, 2013

Dear Majesty, may I ask of your experience and unique knowledge, Do you experience a different PERSONALITY from your commonwealth countries depending on their chosen prime ministers and political parties in power or is the countries Personality more portrayed by the morals  of their citizens voicing  their desire through their elected members of parliament.

I m curious if your Majesty has power to investigate police as they swear  their oath to Your Majesty, 

I love being part of the commonwealth and your loyal subject but what becomes of my rights if Australia becomes a republic given that I m a New Zealand Citizen but permanent resident of Australia. My efforts to find my daughters are still being ignored by Deputy Prime Minister and local federal Member Warren Truss. 

I already feel like the expendable New Zealander  to hide a corrupt police officer in witness protection or some such matter of national interest, My daughters have been missing for five years despite having federal court orders for contact,  still the government won t answer questions. 

Does your Majesty have authority over the seven high court judges or are they the Republican Power of the future?  

I wrote to chief justice robert french but he replied he would not take action on my information. George Brandis  replied with a letter saying if I exposed someone in witness protection it could be I who would be locked up. 

Dearest  Majesty, It feels as if the Australian Police kidnapped my  daughters  to suit their own agenda and although I have court orders they are ignored by police and selected evidence against the other party lost to suit the police agenda... 

I have a draft letter, Addressed to Her Majesty with details which I have already sent a copy of to Hon John Key for his information as he is my representative here. Unfortunately not powerful enough your Majesty. 

I understand their is most likely little chance the Australian Judicial system can be influenced but something definitely doesn't add up.. 

My apologies for concerning you with my troubles and intruding on your valuable time.. By your command alone would I ever STOP trying to expose the corruption that kidnapped my two young daughters.. Even if they do seem to be officials? 

At least I can show them I tried every avenue to ensure they were safe.. You are my last hope for justice your Majesty. Courts are rigged  what with witness protection programs and matters of national interest etc, 

Your humble servant 

Peter B_____ C_______


December 2nd, 2013

Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the second.

My condolences to families and friends of the victims of the Clutha helicopter crash. 

Compliments to your brave citizens that rushed in to help.  Impressive stuff the English are made of. Like the teams that took a stand in WW 1 and WW2. Without those heroes I might have not even existed to be able to send my admiration to my Queen. 

Thank you  

Your humble and extremely grateful subject and servant  

Peter B_____ C_______


December 24th, 2013

Dear Queen Elizabeth

Merry Christmas to yourself and the Royal Family, 

Best wishes to those doing it hard in the terrible storm over there, thinking of them, I cancelled my Christmas plans also as my daughters are still missing. 

A very happy couple received a card for their Platinum wedding anniversary here in my area from your Majesty. 

Thank you for watching over us all. 

Blessing you 

Your loyal servant  

Peter B_____ C_______

December 26th, 2013

Dearest  Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the second, 

Thank you so much for your Christmas message,  I appreciate your guidance and suggestions and found great strength from your wisdom as I feel it is the path to solutions that I  HAD already implemented due to the situation I have found myself involved in,  A little like getting the answer correct in an examination is the feeling I have. 

Beautiful photograph of Your Majesty and  Heirs'. Prince George has his fathers and Grand fathers good looks, Not as beautiful as my Queen though, Especially Your Majesty's coronation photographs!  I love the one with Your Majesty holding the orb. So beautiful!  Movie stars must have been scared like "Cat on a hot tin roof" 

Congratulations with relation to the lovely Zara Phillips and her husband Mr Tindall on their expected new arrival, best wishes to all. 

Your Humble, Loyal and loving  Servant 

Peter B_____ C_______

The complete works of...

A few years ago I purchased the complete works of Bach and spent a year listening to all of them, beginning to end. It was a wonderful experience, and I found many hidden gems, surprising connections, and one truth that became apparent pretty quickly: from BWV 1 to BWV 1128, Bach displays an amazing unity of style and wit, and consistently produces high-quality, complex works. The works are not necessarily ordered by the time they were composed, which is fine: there are no early experiments, half-baked ideas, youthful duds. 155 CDs, and very few of them I found annoying (granted, it's hard to listen to 100 choir pieces, each 20 second long).

Mozart is a different story. Listening to his complete works is much more tedious. So many boring, early symphonies, divertimentos, exercises impressive for a 10 year-old but without Mozart's name they would never survive and be performed today. Yes, he wrote a lot: 170 CDs total. But if he'd deleted half of what he wrote, his legacy would have been much stronger. Still, here and there I'm finding some gems such as the trios for two clarinets and oboe. Charming, graceful pieces which I never even knew about.

In between the complete Bach and the complete Mozart editions, I spent a couple of months listening to the complete Brahms Edition. At 46 CDs, there are only mature, well-thought pieces. Brahms was well known for destroying any piece that he felt was not good enough. He wrote and deleted 20 (!) string quartets before publishing his first one (out of three). No wonder that there are no youthful exercises here: from Op. 1 (the first piano sonata) we are in genius territory.

What I mostly learned about Brahms is that he wrote a lot, and I mean A LOT of annoying vocal music: lieder, duets, trios, all kind of music that to my ears has no charm at all. At 20+ CDs of vocal music, this is almost half of his ouvre. If he only wrote another cello sonata! Or symphony! Or piano quintet! His chamber music is definitely the highlight of this set.

Next on my list: Messiaen, Ravel and Debussy editions. They're pretty short - 18 to 25 CDs each. It's amazing to see that Bach and Mozart wrote as much an order of magnitude more music than their 20th century successors.

An Israeli in Paris

All these years in the US and I'm still thrilled to see any positive depictions of Israel -- especially when I'm traveling, and especially if it's someone like, say...

this guy! The cover guy of Tetu, the local gay magazine, is an Israeli hunk, and on top of it they include a great review of gay life in Tel Aviv, which more pictures of my hometown. I had to buy the magazine, of course, and now it's yet to be seen if I'll be able to decipher the French and read those 3-4 pages.

An easier task should be to watch the film "Infiltration" that was published on every wall in every metro station (almost):

From the creators of "Yossi and Jagger", it's another gay-themed Israeli film that promises to be sexy and intriguing. I can't wait!

Go Cock Blockers!

I'm looking at my last week schedule - volleyball on Sun/Tue/Thu, yoga on Mon/Wed, weight lifting on Friday, tennis singles this morning and doubles tonight, and all day volleyball tomorrow. Makes me wonder - what happened to that kid who used to hate sport?

When I was in elementary school, PE was my worst subject. I flanked the fitness tests, I could hardly run, and I especially hated team sports. You know that feeling, when they pick up basketball teams, and the only last two people left are the obese girl with a broken arm and you? Yup, this was my life.

And then something changed - I started playing tennis. It took me forever to get a hang of it, but I started to enjoy it. What a strange feeling - to play a sport and not to suck at it!

Highschool was another turning point. Our PE, Avi Zilberman, was a mean, menacing, professional basketball player who told us upfront that we were a bunch of pussies ("choir boys") and he'd make men out of us. The chances looked slim - we had a few athletes in class, but most of us were total nerds. We had PE classes twice a week, and it was always a torture. Classes started with running, and then usually push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, etc. These exercises looked impossible to me. I could do maybe a couple of push-ups and sit-ups, but 0 chin-ups. But Avi insisted we keep trying and trying.

At the end of the year, I suddenly found myself doing 10 chin-ups with no problem. I ran 2 km in an amazing 8:15 minutes, and I was the school champion in sit-ups. I can't even begin to describe what it did to my self esteem. Yes, I was far from being a "stud", and couldn't fight my way out of a brawl, and yes, I still sucked in all team sports, but finally I achieved a level of fitness that looked impossible just a few years before.

My team sport skills remained pretty subdued over the years. I played basketball once a week during my army service, and 5 years of practice still left me with no coordination and a complete disability to get a rebound. It's funny how guys 6'' shorter than you can jump above you and take the ball. I played indoor soccer in college for a semester - it's the kind of game where there are 10-20 goals on average. I scored 0 during the entire time. But I did find my niches: tennis, squash, weight lifting.

In the last few years I found a new passion: volleyball. It's the first time I play a team sport and actually enjoy it. I'm still at the recreational level, but constantly improving. I've tried to move to Intermediate a few times already, but never made it. I hope that either they'll get tired of failing me or I finally improve enough to pass. Either way, it's a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we have the big annual tournament. I played in it for the last two years in two different teams, and yeah, I'm not the best player in the team for sure, but I can tell you one thing: my team always wins! We won the 2009 cup and 2010 cup without losing almost any game, under the name "Ball Busters". This year our team is the "Cock Blockers". At 6', I'm the shortest guy on the team - I think we're going to kick some ass! Wish us luck!

2010 winners

The Baker

More than 10 years ago I dated a baker. He had big brown eyes, a dreamy look and a constant expression of someone who's completely lost. With a past including a year in the Hari Krishna cult, attempts to hurt himself, and unclear future, he was, perhaps, lost and undateable. But he baked me a baguette with my name on it. He baked me a doggie, which stood on the window shelf in my old St Botolph apartment and watched the quiet street below with sad eyes. He baked me a wonderful cheese cake. And he disappeared one day with no explanation, a few short weeks after we met, while I was going through a nasty flu that kept me in bed for a week.

Why did I date him? Perhaps I was young and stupid. Scratch that - I wasn't that young anymore, just a bit lost myself after the end of my first and longest relationship. It hurt, but eventually I moved on, and after a few months the doggie moved on as well.

I haven't seen Joey since, but I still make his cheese cake recipe from time to time. I wrote it down while watching him making it with no recipe and no measurements. It's a wonderful recipe - easy, forgiving, and open to improvisation. Add or remove a cup of cheese or cream, or even add an egg or two - it won't make a big difference.

Here's for you, Joey, and all the other lost souls out there. Have a piece of cake!

Joey’s Cheesecake

Crust:

• 1 cup graham crackers, crushed 
• 50 gr melted butter (4 TBSP) or sour cream 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 

Filling:

• 700 gr cream cheese 
• 1.5 cups sour cream 
• 1 cup heavy cream 
• 1 cup sugar 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 2 TBSP cornstarch (not corn flour!) 
• 1 tsp baking powder 
• 1 TBSP lemon juice 

Topping:

• 2 cups blueberries 
• ¼ cup sugar 
• 1 TBSP cornstarch 

Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 350º F. 
2. Mix the crust and pad into a large round baking pan (11’’ or so). 
3. Mix the dry ingredient of the filling; mix in cheese and cream; add the rest and pour on top. 
4. Bake for an hour or more, until the top is golden brown and a little soft. 
5. Mix blueberries, sugar and cornstarch in a small pot, and cook over low flame for 10 minutes (a little more if the blueberries are frozen). 
6. After the cake cools a bit, cover it with the topping and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving.

Spring Recital, March 27 2011

Home recording, Chopin's Nocturne in D flat Op. 27 #2

Taalul update

It was time. I neglected my website, taalul.com, for too long. For a while, instead of uploading pictures I created links to facebook albums. It turns out that these public links expire after a while, and none of my recent albums were available. It took a while but I've uploaded all the pictures up to 2011.

Then there are my friends and my family pages. Some friends have expired (no, they're not dead, just not my friends any more), and one very important guy was missing. With my family, the kids grow so fast! The pictures had to be updated, and of course include the newest addition, the 2.5 years old Oded.

And having done that, I had to update the main page, and start thinking about a new music page, and more work to do... which got me tired. I guess I'll need another lazy cold snowy weekend to make more progress. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the update.

Schubert's Erlkönig

Something about this lied makes me shudder every time I hear it. Schubert's composition is complex and unrelenting, depicting the mad dash though the forest, the rain and the despair of the father holding his dying son.

The front page of Schubert's lied, his Opus 1, as it turns out, cannot convey how much emotion is embedded in it.

I recently found this amazing animated version, with the wonderful Ian Bostridge (his Boston recital was one of the best concerts of my life.) The quality is not the best, but stay with it - it's a haunting experience.

The Five Seconds Rule

Outsiders often think of us as a bunch of rude people, especially on the road. "Massholes" is the common term. Local drivers often ignore traffic signs, lanes (if they're marked at all), and especially traffic lights. Even in Israel, home of the macho "I will not let you pass me even if it kills me" driver, traffic lights are strictly obeyed. Not here.

But I've come to realize that there's a plausible explanation for this phenomenon. We're not crazy, we're not reckless - we just have an acute sense of justice. Which brings me to the Five Seconds Rule:

If a driver approaching an intersection would be able to cross it safely and legally, but, through no fault of his own, is barred from doing it, for example since the driver in front of him is too slow, or since pedestrians are crossing in red, or since he was busy sending an important text message, in this case his right of way is extended by 5 seconds from the moment the light turned red.

Check it out the next time someone runs a red light in front of you and you'll see it makes perfect sense.

Investment, Demystified

I started today a new blog: Investment, Demystified. After spending the last 10 years reading about it, arguing about it, making money, losing money and trying to figure the math behind it, I think I know enough to share a bit of the wisdom I learned. I hope you enjoy it too!

Pool Night Math

Every Monday night I meet with three friends for a game of pool at Diesel, the Lesbian-owned coffee shop at Davis square. This has become a tradition, in spite of overpriced drinks and under-maintained pool tables. It's a fun place, and it's always interesting to notice the cute boys and how they turn into cute butch girls when they turn around ("a Diesel moment"). But I digress.

We usually play 3 matches, mixing and matching the pairs. This exhausts all the combinations, of course. We noticed something interesting - the last match always creates a team of someone who lost twice with someone who won twice. Thus, after the 3^rd game we'd always have either "the biggest winner" (if this team wins) or "the biggest loser" (if this team lost) - someone who either won or lost all 3 games.

How does this happen? Having 3 mathematician out of 4 players meant it would be a fun exercise to figure it out.

Looking at the first two matches, let's check the 4 possibilities for the outcome of the games. First notice that there's exactly one common player between any couple in the first round and any couple in the second round. This is the case since if there were two common players it would mean we played the same combination twice, and if there were no common players it would mean that the other team would be identical to the players in question - again, meaning the same combination was played a second time.

In other words, each team from round one intersects with each team from round two with exactly one player.
Looking at the teams that won in both rounds, it means there's exactly one player who won twice. Similarly, looking at the teams that lost in both rounds, it means there's exactly one player who lost twice.

These players have not played together yet - otherwise, the guy who won twice would have lost when he played with the guy who lost twice. Hence they must be the next and final combination.

And now we can see that the outcome of the last round would show whether one of them is the Biggest Winner (winning all three rounds), or the other guy is the Biggest Loser (losing all three rounds).

QED.

Prosopagnosia

I'm going to Camp Camp in a couple of weeks for my 3rd week of Adult Camping. I can't even begin to describe how much fun this is. (As a side note, it seems that not everyone shares this view: I'm yet to convince a single person to join me for a week of pure indulgence, but this is for another post.)

The one thing I fear about camp is what most others are looking for: meeting again their 200+ pals from last year. The reason: I'm not going to recognize most of them. Or if I do (vaguely), there's no chance I'll remember their name. I'm really bad in that kind of stuff. I've therefore published the following apology in the camp newsletter. I received a lot of positive feedback (obviously, I didn't recognize any of the senders.)

You approach me with a big smile. "Hi David", how are you? You get a weird stare in response. "Don't remember me? After all the time we spent together? The hike in the woods? Sailing together? Not to mention that quality time in the hot tub?"

No, I don't. I've self-diagnosed myself with Prosopagnosia: I'm really really bad in recognizing faces. I've worked at the same place for 13 years, and there are people who I see all the time and still can't recall who they are. Most chances are it will be worse in camp, with 200 people I see once a year. I promise to study the 2009 pics, but knowing myself, I'm going to f**k up sooner or later.

BTW, the condition does have its advantages. I recently biked across the Charles river, when I noticed a tall handsome blond guy jogging towards me. While I was wondering who this cutie is, he approached me and smiled. I was thinking how lucky I am! this guy is into me! Then I remembered I have a boyfriend, Clint. Then I noticed it was Clint.

I call these moments Deja-Clint. It happened to me a few months ago on the plane back from Mexico. I was taking a nap on an empty 3-seat row, only to wake up and see from the corner of my eyes a gorgeous guy looking at me and smiling. You can guess how it ended. I'm glad Clint is not taking it personally; after all, I fall for him every time the way I did the first time we met.

To sum up: please wear your badges, and pretend you don't notice when I try to read your name before saying hello. Sorry! And see you all soon!

A Walk Through the Clouds

Published by fellow blogger Barry Burke, but the text is mine. Check it out!

$6.66

From the Fail blog

Espresso for your blog

I'm at EMC World today, in Orlando. The city is dreary, the weather is dreary (non-stop rain), the food is reasonable, but the coffee, oh the coffee... I can't stand this brown tasteless watery stuff they deliver here as coffee.

But then, when I passed through the Solutions Pavilion today (yes, this is how it's called, I swear), I saw an espresso machine. A real one, chrome-plated, Italian made. With a barrista standing next to it, happy to serve coffee. There was only one condition - you have to be a blogger! Turned out that the coffee maker was stationed inside the "bloggers lounge".

To make a long story short, thanks to this blog I got a wonderful, highly-satisfying, perfectly made double cappuccino. It made me happy for the rest of the day!



The conference itself is a hundred times better with my double cappuccino. If you're not here you're missing on a lot of nifty storage technology!

Mendelssohn on Music

I love this quote:

People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words. These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words. The thoughts which are expressed to me by music that I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.

The full quote is below.

Yes we can

I saw a lot of wet eyes last night, when Obama carried his victory speech. The part that touched me most, and - what the hell, I'll admit it - made my eyes wet, follows.



This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.
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This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Jasper Johns' America

I visited yesterday MOMA, my favorite museum in NYC. I've been there plenty of times - with some paintings it's a bit like meeting old friends. Of course, they don't change or age, but sometimes I see them differently.

One of my favorite works there is Jasper Johns' American flag. Painted in 1954, it always makes me think about what makes us a nation - and this is true not only for the US, but also for my native country, Israel.

For me, Johns' flag shows how a country is the sum of all the people who make it. It's not some ideal red/white/blue set of stars and banners that we should conform to. His flag is not clean and pretty - but life is not either. The stars are a little stained with red, the stripes are not even. The idea they form is not necessarily coherent - different pieces "pull" the piece to different directions. In a sense, this is an anti-fascist statement. You can also see how much work he put into creating this piece. Just painting a banner with colors is not enough to unite a nation - but maybe giving everyone the chance to contribute his own piece and own shade can do it.

Tomorrow I'm going to vote for the first time for the president. I'm excited to be part of it, and excited to finally have a president that represents me. I believe Obama believes in this tapestry called America - after all, his personal biography is anything but homogeneous. Even with all the economic turmoil of the last months, I feel things can dramatically change for the better with him. Run, Obama, run!

The Last Racist Law in MA: 1913-2008

 

The Massachusetts House voted Tuesday to repeal a law that had prohibited out-of-state gay couples from legally marrying in the Bay State.

 

By a margin of 118-35, legislators voted down the 1913 law, which nullified any marriage performed in Massachusetts that was not legal in a couple's home state. The state Senate approved repeal earlier this month and the bill is likely to reach Gov. Deval Patrick, who has pledged to sign it, within a week.

 

I thought this is a good opportunity to recall the wonderful events of the night of May 17th, 2004, when gay marriage became legal for the first time in Massachusetts. Moreover, the first place in the state that opened its gates to same-sex couples was just 2 blocks from me, namely, Cambridge city hall. At midnight, after a long celebration outside, the first couple got married.

 

Danny and Tao Kai had to wait until 4am that night to get their marriage license, but we all celebrated a few weeks later at their marriage.





For more pictures from these eventful nights, check my web site, taalul.com.

Yossi and Jagger, in Spanish