Cheryl Katz

Something that not too many people know about me is that I’m a big Michael Jackson fan.  Big.  I can’t commit to using superlatives, because I am sure there are bigger and more obsessed fans than I am.  Suffice to say that I don’t talk about it a lot, and even with Ben I approach it with a level of self-effacement, because if I’m making fun of myself then his (and other people’s) dismissiveness isn’t as personal.

Nonetheless, I bought a ticket to see This Is It when they became available, and have been really looking forward to it.  As the movie was starting I had a little kick in the stomach from the realization that it would be over, the same way I do on birthday mornings and other big days – the anxiously anticipated magic has finally arrived, and every passing second brings the end of it a little closer!

Here’s the thing.

To see Michael Jackson in concert was on my short list of things to one day do, and even before he died I saw that likelihood as very small.  This movie is the closest I’d ever get to that.  I don’t imagine this is much like a typical concert experience.  Frankly it was eerie because of the finality of it, and how not final the show really was at the time of Michael’s death.  People were so grateful for their chance to be part of his show, and the unstated weight of the moment was that this great moment, the pinnacle of many lives, just never got to happen.

This film felt like something I shouldn’t get to see.  I’d almost certainly never have seen it if MJ were still alive.  It had the feeling of watching a magician perform his tricks in slow motion, somehow cheating and analyzing the sleight of hand.  And yet even viewing the rehearsals, the concert show as a work in progress, and getting a vague feel of just how it came to be that ideas were born in Michael Jackson’s head and were transformed into the huge strokes painted on a concert stage – even in the midst of this, the magic of Michael Jackson himself continued, strung between the moments, and never was trapped or explained.

I saw the magician practically dissecting his tricks, and while on one hand I feel I understand them better now, on the other hand I am certain that I completely don’t.  It’s the same way with understanding atoms.  Electrons rotate around the protons and neutrons.  This I understand.  WHY?  HOW?  No matter how minute the explanations get, there’s still a tiny jump you can’t explain – why are protons positive and electrons negative? HOW can subatomic particles have a charge? – something that boils down to, “Well, that’s just how it is.”  And it’s the foundation for everything that physically exists.

I think what astounded me most about this film is that MJ was an amazing performer, the culmination of an entire lifetime as a working performer; and while his talent was innate and based on intuition, there were several moments featured in the film that demonstrated he could also take that intuition and communicate it in practical terms who didn’t see or hear what he saw intuitively.  He understood his talent.  During an intro to “The Way You Make Me Feel,” he points out that a short silent break needs to be longer than a pause.  He doesn’t specify how long, but he explains that they need to leave the silence for a bit, “let it simmer” in his own words, and that the impact is greater when the music resumes afterward.  A second moment like this happens during “Earth Song” when a bulldozer rolls up onto the stage and clanks its blade down.  Michael instructs that, “it will have more value” if the bulldozer clomps to a rest, a pause intensifies the gravity of the statement of that noise, and the delicate piano ending picks up a few seconds later.  (Thanks, Jeffrey, for reminding me of that part.)

“Earth Song” actually was one moment whose enormity brought tears into my eyes was when a little girl about Sami’s age lays down to sleep (in a film projected during the rehearsal) in a rain forest filled with flowers and butterflies, and wakes up to find it destroyed, burning, a bulldozer about to run her and the last living plant down.  It asks, what are we leaving our children?  I cry because I see Sami in that child’s place, and I cry because that imagery was so succinct, so enormous, the finely honed point where music, film and ideas come together to be communicated.  The visual, communicative economy of that imagery was incredible – a craft combining message and media perfectly in a way that I have rarely seen.

Michael Jackson took these disparate media – dance, film, music – and used them to elevate pop music to something you had to pay attention to.  Well, probably created “pop” music out of a world where music was segregated by genre.  How can you not pay attention to the one thing that *everyone* is paying attention to?  He used those media to speak in a unique vocabulary.  This was apparent even in the original Thriller video – that’s what the big deal was in 1983, and that’s what the big deal was in This Is It.

He took a medium (dance) that isn’t popular in the mainstream way of popular music, and brought it into his music in a way that made it impossible to ignore.  An entire stage full of dancers, featured in the first few minutes of the film, who cite Michael Jackson as their inspiration for aspiring to express themselves through dance.  Imagine millions of people, across all ages, races, educational and cultural backgrounds, citing Mikhail Baryshnikov as the inspiration for their dreams; I find this laughable, a brilliant, improbable dream. His dance may be awesome, but his range of appeal is limited.  Of course, the comparison of classical and popular art is a topic for another day.  My point is that Michael Jackson made people care about dance, and made it an integral element of the “product” of Michael Jackson.

Talking about the film today briefly with my friend Jeffrey Paul Bobrick (you all should check him out – he’s a wonderful singer/songwriter based in NYC as well as my fellow MJ fan), he pointed out that if this film were about any other performer, it may well have been boring.  I truthfully can’t think of a performer with the reputation for perfectionism that MJ had, or the unquantifiable thing I described above.  I’m pretty sure this sort of film experience was uniquely positive because it was Michael Jackson.  Because he was both human and superhuman; he moved his arms just like all the other dancers did, and yet when he did it it had something extra.  But mostly I think that how MJ worked was a topic of intense fascination, as if, like above, we SHOULD have been able to identify what he did.  That’s why The Making of Thriller video was the bestselling home video release of all time.  It’s riveting not just to watch the end product of Michael Jackson – the work in progress is a spectacle all its own.

I was struck by how much, under stage lighting, you could see that his features, basic facial structure, were the same over the years.  So much is made of the plastic surgery, the results of which were not insignificant, but I think many reports were exaggerated, just based now on having seen real, recent moving pictures of Michael Jackson.  I was also struck by how human he was, under all the magic. He wasn’t shy about critiquing the work of others, but he wasn’t unkind.  He didn’t appear to be self-aggrandizing at all, seemed to consider himself an element in the production in the same way that he viewed the other dancers and singers (even as he sort of meta-processed it all, and offered tweaks to improve things from his creative perspective.)  He seemed to thoroughly enjoy the teamwork of it all, and the screen chemistry between MJ and any of the other players was intense; not just the women, as in “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” or “The Way You Make Me Feel,” but also the men as in “Beat It.”

Amid all this wonder about Jackson himself, I should leave out that what Kenny Ortega did in directing this film, constructed out of footage never shot nor intended for this purpose, is no small feat.  Having produced some visual media myself, I can personally appreciate how hard it is to construct a meaningful piece even with footage one shot purposefully.  How much harder must it be to go through some ungodly number of hours of tape looking for nothing specific – just stuff to use – cull it down and put it together to create a cohesive narrative?  Cheers to the creativity, eye for great moments, and the talent and skill to put it together well.

But the filmmaking wasn’t what the movie was about, which is why I didn’t spend this whole post critiquing it.  This Is It was a film about how the Michael Jackson operation was coming into focus.  It’s been widely reported that he undertook the tour to show his children what he did for a living, since they have now come to an age where they can appreciate it.  The film is a fortunate artifact of that undertaking, so that we unintended recipients can also understand “what he did” a little better.

I came out of the movie appreciating not only Michael Jackson’s work, but its relationship with the life he lived.  Growing up in show business is not typical, but then he didn’t grow up to be a “typical” performer.  It’s a very chicken-and-egg thing – he ended up in music and performance because he demonstrated talent early on, but then his talent was concentrated and developed by that lifetime spent rehearsing and learning from masters in the field, until he was one himself.

Ultimately I came out thinking, everyone has greatness in them.  MJ had the fortune of a family already exploring music which made his greatness apparent.  Many, many people don’t ever discover what it is about them that makes them truly shine.  I believe it has to be true, we all have something to give.

So, I’ll never be a rock star, household name and multimillionaire who supports numerous charities with my name, star power or money.  (Or maybe I could, but I’m not trying very hard.)  What am I bringing to the great potluck of life?  I think it would suffice to feed my family, raise a good kid and always know what to do with the leftovers, but I think I’m capable of more than that.  I still have time to find out, though truth be told, I feel like I’m getting a little old.

Still, a lot of what I post about here, bound up in the minutiae of parenthood and housekeeping, is starting with myself to make changes that I think will improve the world.  Starting with the “Man in the Mirror,” if you will.  If I’ve taken one thing home from This Is It, it’s that life is so short.  How will I spend my last day?  I – anyone – can all start now to make it count.

I’ve finally cleared all the sick people out of my house!

Ben was home for most of last week, and Sami was home for the latter half and again yesterday, but it seems that the Katz clan has been restored to full health and vigor.

I’m celebrating with three dryers full of laundry, a sink of handwashed dishes, some tidying, organization and thoughts toward planning a reorganization, and a haircut.

I’d have a picture, but it appears that along with the giant crack in the side of my computer’s case (thinking maybe Sami knocked it down and/or jumped on it while I wasn’t looking), the camera now can mysteriously “not be found.”

Sigh. Skype isn’t an integral life function, but I sure will miss it.

Back to my celebratory housework. You think I’m kidding… but it’s really nice not to have the “help” of an overly energetic but nonetheless touchy sick kid. I’m loving every tiny accomplishment right now.

I’m posting this largely for the benefit of @noirbettie, but figured it might be of interest to others as well!  When I want brownies and find myself without any of the usual suspects for making brownies (unsweetened chocolate, cocoa powder, etc), the Butterscotch Brownies recipe in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything is a go-to indulgence. I almost always have all of the required ingredients.

This happened the other night, thanks to what I consider just about the only shortcoming of HtCE : there is no recipe for oatmeal cookies.  Period.  Barring that, and finding myself woefully out of cocoa powder for brownies or oatmeal for the cookies anyway, I happened across this page and wound up making the Blondies (their subtitle) instead.  I tossed in the handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips I had on hand to get my chocolate fix.

Butterscotch Brownies
makes 1-2 dozen

Time: 30 to 40 minutes

Maybe you’re allergic to chocolate, or don’t like it, or are out of it.  Maybe you just feel like a change.  These will fix you right up.  Add one cup of chocolate chips to the batter if you want to hedge a little; nuts, or any of the other ideas above [not included here], are also good.

8 Tbsp (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened, plus a little for greasing the pan
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract or 1/2 tsp almond extract
Pinch salt
1 cup (4 1/2 oz.) all-purpose flour

1.  Preheat the oven to 350˚F.  Grease an 8-inch square baking pan [N.B. I used a heart-shaped one, but who's counting?], or line it with aluminum foil and grease the foil.

2.  Melt the butter over low heat.  Transfer to a bowl and use an electric mixer to beat in the sugar until very smooth, then beat in the egg and vanilla, stirring down the sides of the bowl every now and then.

3.  Add the salt, then gently stir in the flour.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake 20 to 25 minutes, or until just barely set in the middle.  It’s better to underbake brownies than to overbake them.  Cool on a rack before cutting.  Store, covered and at room temperature, for no longer than a day.

Imagine wanting brownies if you don’t like chocolate!  Sigh.  What a depressing thought.  In any case, I sort of bungled the ending of mine on Thursday when I didn’t wait quite long enough for the pan to cool, and the soft, gooey middle dripped out.  It had come to a perfectly brownie-like consistency not ten minutes later.  (P.S.  It was delicious despite the mess anyway.)  So patience is the order of the day… don’t make these if you wanted chocolate yesterday.

I’m starting culinary school in November! How excited am I about this? Let me count the ways:

1. Knife skills, knife skills, knife skills. I’m handy with a knife now, though as my brother in law Adam can attest, I’m sometimes slow, inefficient and excessively cautious. Soon I will be as fast as my food processor, but prettier.

2. Getting out of my comfort zone. I’m pretty adventurous on my own, but I have to admit that I will avoid very complicated things because I kind of would like to watch someone do them who already knows how. Clearly, this is a preference I have overcome in the past and am willing to challenge in the future, but I am excited to learn brand new things I’ve never tried before!

3. Growing the food encyclopedia in my head. Training and exposure will add to what I will have in my head. Don’t get me wrong. I love new cookbooks. But I love being able to whip things up based on what I have on hand, and what I know.

I’m sure there are many more ways in which I’m totally stoked about this next phase in my life. (I’m also anxious about the prospect of cooking non-Kosher food, as I posted over here.)  I’ve got my chef-shoes (Dansko clogs, which I was going to buy anyway, for the win!) and everything else that’s required is provided by the program.  Other than tuition arrangements (made) and child care arrangements (also made – class hours are entirely during Sami’s school/aftercare hours) there’s nothing left to me.  Mostly I’m just riding the mounting excitement, and if we didn’t have a vacation road trip planned for early November, I’d wish Day 1 of school were already here!

I’m sure that I will need eaters in my personal test kitchen, so do let me know if you want to be in the loop on that.  :)

Yesterday I spent the morning at IKEA comparing items to my measurements so that I could get a big gigantic bookcase and some filing/shelving for the kitchen nook.

I got out of the store without getting to the point where I want to stab myself with one of their stylized plastic forks.

I came home exhausted from walking around their circus circuit for two hours, then piling extremely heavy boxes on a flatbed that wound up weighing about 450 lbs (no kidding, that’s what the home delivery slip calculated it as!) and wheeling it around to the checkout and then to the home delivery booth.

All the components of my items were delivered safe and sound last night, and I spent two hours assembling the bookcase. I then spent another 45 minutes attempting to drive the last screw into the frame, and have thus far been unsuccessful.  It is now sprawled expansively on most of the existing floor space in our home office.

Insert picture here, once taken.

I’m giving up for the day, completely exhausted, and hope to make that last step tomorrow. Then I can start moving things to that shelf in an effort at organizing/clearing out the whatnot that is cluttering my kitchen nook area, which will make it easier to then install the filing and shelving stuff.

Oh yes, thrilling times in the Katz household.

I have to hand it to IKEA.  Even though it’s a pain and a half to navigate their warehouse store, and it’s a lot of work to lug things to checkout, I am impressed with how little waste is generated by the purchase of their furniture.  In the entirety of the 3-box bookcase, I only got about 12 cubic inches of styrofoam.  The boards were all packed flat, lined with very thin paper (which will become Sami-tracing paper) and wrapped in one sheet of cardboard.  Except for that very small amount of styrofoam, all packing materials are reusable/recyclable.  I’m trying to think of things to make out of the rest of the cardboard boxes, but I am lacking creativity since I spent a lot of my day screwing furniture together, and I am now drained.

In other news, it sounds like both Ben and Sami may be home from work/school tomorrow thanks to a fun bug that sounds like it’s going around. That means I’ll be home too, not getting any more furniture assembly or organization done for the time being. Oh well, I think by tomorrow morning I will come to appreciate that even I have earned a rest.

I’m reading The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon.  Another interesting fictional look at Jewish history with a sort of “what would’ve happened if…” twist on it.  Jews saturating Alaska?  How interesting!

Several times already (i’m less than halfway through) I’ve had to stop and read a phrase or a short paragraph out loud just to feel it again. This writer has an amazing gift for flipping words around and unleashing their awesome back on themselves.

Case in point (p. 163):

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she says with that flawless hardpan accent of hers. It is an expression that strikes Landsman as curious, or at least as something that he would pay money to see.

Not only an unexpected twist on what you’d expect to come at the end of that line, but right up my personal humor alley.  Sometimes writers completely bypass the phase where they inspire me to write my best, and jump directly to the phase wherein I wish I WERE THEM.

A few days ago I finished reading Those Who Save Us,  a novel that examines the gray areas between the victims of the Holocaust and the active perpetrators of the violence and atrocities.

The book is a well-crafted story about a young German woman, mother of a baby whose father is Jewish, who is forced with choices like the ones I described above as she struggles to protect her daughter.  It is also the parallel story of the grown child, who struggles herself with the shame and guilt over the SS officer she believes to be her birth father, and what this in turn means for her mother’s actions during the war.

The way the Holocaust is presented in history classes might lead one to believe that it was a direct clash between active evildoers and helpless victims.  I don’t feel that I had ever really considered before what it might have been like for someone who didn’t necessarily believe in what Hitler’s government was doing, but who felt intimidated by the massive military forces and didn’t know what to do to fight the powers or help the victims.

It is all too easy to think that, in the shoes of an average German citizen, one would always “do the right thing.”  I like to think that when asked to be complicit in a government conspiracy to kill millions of my neighbors, that I would stand up and do something to fight it, too.

However, this book phrases the question in more realistic terms.  Would I, if staring down the barrel of a gun or worse, seeing a gun pointed at my child, hide and aid an active officer of death?  In my heart, I would never align myself with murderers.  In reality, I would do whatever it takes to keep myself and my child alive, doing what I can to aid victims without putting lives at risk.

This is a sad fact, and one I hate to admit out loud.

Nonetheless, Those Who Save Us is an interesting, seemingly well researched and thoughtful look at what life was like for the non-victims.  It is structred in flashbacks between the present-day struggles of the adult daughter, and the 1940s story of her mother and her baby self and their struggle for survival.  Frankly, I found that the modern struggles with German identity and guilt paled in comparison with the historical struggle to literally stay alive; that said, each story lent perspective to the other and the juxtaposition and intertwining of the stories was an addition and not a subtraction from the story.

It was neat to get to explore the past and the present side by side, the way that early childhood memories played out for the modern protagonist when she was older.  As it turned out, the modern character was also an historian of WWII Germany with a focus on critical women’s issues, which allowed for the modern scenes to offer a parsing of the past scenes.

I could not put this book down.  It hooked me in both narratives and in the more meta- areas of building an identity in relation to Judaism and the Holocaust, and my interest in gender studies.

I know that there isn’t generally such a thing as being half-Jewish – in conventional wisdom, as far as I can tell, whether inside or outside Judaism people are either Jewish, or not.  Typically this thought process applies to people with only one Jewish parent, though I am considering this entirely differently.  I sometimes consider myself half-Jewish in the sense that I have a whole pre-established identity separate from the idea of Judaism (though of course even that identity was informed by the presence of Jews in areas of my life… but perhaps this is an aside to be discussed another day), and then a line in the sand after which I began laying the foundations of a Jewish identity that I am building for myself day by day.  I have the fortune of being able to choose what I want to be part of my identity, and what is important to me that I want to incorporate into my personal history, but on the other hand this identity-building enterprise is a lot of work and can be overwhelming sometimes.

This work of identity building and self discovery has led to a lot of good things, a lot of research and exploration, and not, I presume, unsurprisingly, the undertaking of a lot of Jewish-themed fiction reading.  Reading fiction about the entire spectrum of Jews out there, from the most Reform to the most Orthodox, is at least allowing me some perspective about where my personal beliefs lie and in general a vague idea of what makes people tick.

I read another book recently wherein several supporting characters were Reform Jews, the wife having converted “for the wedding.”  This is a common stereotype, but I found that reading this fictional account of a woman who was nearly completely apathetic about Judaism after having actively chosen it, and having it be ‘in name only,’ I found myself feeling very angry.

I should explain.  I don’t look down on Jews (hah! like my husband) who are less religious than I am.  My position tends to be, “well, who am I to judge?”  When I start judging others, I am inviting others to judge me, or at least I am within my own head.  But it does irk me to think that there are people who undertake the business of converting to Judaism who don’t value the rich tapestry of heritage to which they have made themselves heirs.  It really irks me, even as I refuse to look down on anyone.

In any case, not having all this cultural background in my life, I’m finding this through fiction and forward experiences.  I fully recognize that life imitates art imitates life, and I don’t confuse reading for reality.  Though it does pass time quite enjoyably, and give my brains a workout.

Well, the Thing on Which I was Working has been completed. I promise more on that later. I feel confident about results but not so confident that I want to risk jinxing myself by talking about it just yet.

In other news, Sami and I baked cookies last night. I was out of butter, and couldn’t find the Olive Oil Cake recipe someone had posted on facebook about six months ago, and nearly scrapped the whole baking idea entirely.

Our day was saved when I realized I had precisely 8 ounces of coconut oil – a fat which is solid at room temperature but melts much more easily than butter. Our cookies were a little snappier than the butter variety would have been, and had the added bonus of a hint of coconut essence.

Baking with Sami is always fun, if I arrange us well in the kitchen. She likes to stand on a stool right in front of the low cupboard where the oil, salt, and other whatnot are stored, so I have to remember to take out everything we need first. Then, she likes to help with the “measuring,” which to her just means dumping the measuring cups and spoons into the big mixing bowl. She especially loves mixing, and more than anything, loves rolling cookie dough into the misshapen balls and lining them up in wavy, crooked lines on the baking sheet.

Ok, not more than anything. More than anything, she loves to eat the cookies. It requires a monumental effort of patience from Sami to wait not only for the cookies to bake, but then for them to cool for 5 minutes on the rack before they are cool enough to touch.

My favorite part is the Sami chocolate-face. We have so much fun baking together.

I’m working on writing an essay that is an important part of something I want to do. I sent my 972nd draft to my husband to proof, and he had some specific practical notes but his overarching criticism was along these lines:

You write about boring stuff on your blog all the time, and yet all of it is more readable than this. (He actually thinks my blog is pretty fantastic, even at times when I think it’s meh.)

And I’d be upset, but the truth is that he’s right. Turn the pressure on, and suddenly fascinating material becomes about as clear as a fourth-grader’s How I Spent My Summer essay.

I’m also a little stressed because I don’t yet have another important element of the Thing On Which I’m Working, which I don’t particularly want to specify here for mostly superstitious reasons.

Sigh. It’s like ten thousand spoons when all I need is a knife! (No, really it’s more like “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”) Can I please draw on a little of my own skill and sparkle, right now when it would serve a specific purpose?

It wasn’t a hundred bazillion degrees in my house today, so I also cooked a pretty awesome dinner.  I made a pan-fried salmon with chard and onions and seared polenta cake, all topped with an orange-mustard sauce.  I’m pretty modest about my cooking, but I sort of blew myself away on this one.

Most amazingly, it didn’t take all that long to make.  My one cheat was that I started with pre-cooked store bought polenta in a roll.  I spied it while I was at the market picking up fish, and since I hadn’t actually thought out my meal plan, it struck me as a simple element to finish up the salmon and chard.  Oh, but this was one of my favorite cooking experiments of late, and I was probably only actively cooking for about half an hour, plus a separate 15 minutes to decide on what to put in, and then to make, the sauce.  It wasn’t a Julia Child recipe, in that I didn’t use a recipe at all, but I’m pretty sure I did her proud.

The best thing was being able to use butter, since I was cooking fish.  I can’t use butter with meat and still be kosher.

Like I said, it was a thoroughly reasonable temperature outside today.  In fact, it was so downright comfortable that if the weather holds, I may go for a lengthy run tomorrow morning.

I am technically training for the Las Vegas Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon on December 6th, but I have some challenges.  I’m a few weeks behind where I should be in training owing to 1) having taken the month of August almost completely off and 2) trying to avoid running when it is too hot and sunny out.  Now that the temperature is taking a nose dive, I may be able to get somewhat vaguely reasonably on track.  If I get up to a 19-mile training run at least 2 weeks before the marathon, I will consider myself prepared to run it.  I’ll be able to finish, even if I don’t finish fast.  If I don’t get to 19 miles, I will scale back to the half marathon, which I already know I’d be ready for.

Until recently, I had a never-say-die attitude about this marathon, but the cloud of potential injury is hanging over my head, so I am somewhat forced to accept reality.  I’m sticking to a reasonable training program and also getting all my practical responsibilities covered, and so what will be, will be in this case.

In other miraculous news, Sami napped yesterday.  Not for super long, maybe 45 minutes, but the new leaf in this story is that I told her:  you don’t have to sleep, but you do have to rest quietly.  Every time I come in here and you are not trying to rest, I am taking a toy away.

Toy #1 she thought was a joke.  Toy #2 she stood at her door crying, “My toys… my toys!” for about 15 minutes.  Toy #3, she threw a raging tantrum, and Toy #4 resulted in actual attempts at resting quietly.  I didn’t hold my breath, but when I checked on her about 20 minutes later, she was out cold.

Huzzah!  I found my method!  I know it worked because Mel, who watched her while Ben and I went to Yom Kippur concluding services last night, told me the following story.  She asked Sami to start picking up toys from her bed and the floor to put them away.  Sami flung toys one by one onto the floor, adding dramatically, “It doesn’t matter.  I’m bad, so mommy’s going to take them away anyway.”

I was guilt-ridden for about 30 seconds before I realized… that meant it worked.

Who says an old mom can’t learn a new trick or two?