We spent the day with DAM in Lod, a mixed city. We walked around the ruins and ghetto areas, and ended up in an area where the Israeli government spent approximately $60,000 to have boulders brought in to an area where they razed the buildings. No one can build there now. Some of the rocks were painted, but mostly, the area was strewn with garbage.

DAM did some interesting free-styling in response to questions. Their show in Haifa for a community center was full of rambunctious kids, who all seem to adore them.

:) melissa

We interviewed Rami, a member of the Family Circle, an organization for Israelis and Palestinians who’ve lost loved ones to war and terrorism. They meet to heal, to teach in schools about the devastation of violence, to remember, and to move forward positively. This is a terribly simplistic explanation of what they do. Being in Rami’s presence, hearing his story, was another lesson for me personally. The director and the producer took his interview to heart.

The next day, we met Ram’s friend Khallid, who is also a member of the Family Circle. Both men have lost family to the violence in Israel. They met at a talk Rami was giving several years ago. Khallid is a quiet, reflective man. Both men. one Israeli Jewish, one Palestinian Muslim, have great respect and affection for each other, and mutually agree the violence must stop.

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I woke up very late and wandered downtown, searching for wireless. I found it at Cafe Rimon. Hours later, chatting online with my sister and other friends, I found I cannot update my blog because port 21 is blocked. Free wireless but no ftp. I’ll just have to wait until we get somewhere more net friendly. The free wireless - its wonderful. HINT HINT NYC!!! (oh how i wish)

The city is lovely and hilly. It reminds me a bit of San Francisco with its hilliness. Almost everyone speaks English. I heard a lot of American accents along with the middle eastern strum of Hebrew and Arabic.

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Can I describe the smell of the desert? How does bleach, ammonia, paint thinner, and Draino sound? (my nose hairs are burning).

I saw how the desert has become industrialized. How Bedouin populations are forced to live in prescribed reservations to receive tax paying services. Its complex - I don’t understand it all, but I saw, and smelled, enough to make me ill.

Despite the nauseating smells of progress, the chance to shoot Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, the desert, the Dead Sea and the cliffs of Masada from a helicopter was thrilling. And breathtaking, literally and figuratively. I don’t know nearly enough about this region (thank goodness Nirah is an anthropologist and Jessica has been researching for this movie for over a year). I am learning directly, viscerally. With us was a jewel of a man who will teach us to sing. I’ll write more about him then. And, of course, the pilot - a family friend of Nirah’s, who gave us more than an ariel tour - he gave us history and another perspective to consider.

More soon.

:) melissa

Steve Sabella

Visiting a photographer who prints on rocks was a treat. His entire frenetic being was lovely. His home, his family, his work, his creative drive. He is one to watch - his eye is subtle, ghostly, colorful and at times stark in raw beauty.

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I’m in Israel now - been here for a couple of days. We’ve done one interview and one concert shoot so far. Its so similar and so much different at the same time. The stories I am hearing are changing me. I heard in detail about an honor killing of a young Muslim woman in a few towns not far from Jerusalem, where I am staying. It was so hard to hear, to comprehend that an unmarried woman, who got pregnant, was okay to kill. Her family killed her and buried her, without a death certificate. The family told the local authorities and doctors not to get involved. They never confirmed who the man was who got the girl pregnant but accused the man who employed her. He and 14 other houses were burned down by the town’s population. They literally came as a mob and threw Molotov cocktails through windows. The Israeli police would not let the Palestinian authority (this happened in the West Bank area) through for 3 hours and a woman who is working on this film almost lost her house and family’s business. Much of the destruction could have been stopped if not for bullshit.

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Arrived safe and sound. Cameras ready and shooting begins already. So many new sounds, smells, voices, faces. And Home Depot.

So different, so similar, and I feel the flurry here deeper, more profoundly. Kittens outside our door, feral, terribly hungry, unable to understand play. Surviving. Scratching together a meager, mean life, as disposable creatures. There are levels of class and privilege here, based on more than money. Many feel this is home for them, spiritually. I feel spiritually burdened here. The trappings of man desperately gripping some measure of control over life, death, meaning. Jew, Muslim, Christian. All capital letters here. I, the pagan, the child of nature, see the twisting so obvious here - the writhe against. Against - the entirety of against. Not simply against death, each other, the Arab world, the growing disapproval of Western Nations, the occupation, the settlers, the armed and disarmed, the repression of sexuality, of compassion. I ache, I shoot, I witness and am saddened. I know my ever-present outsider view, a mixed blessing, makes me an ultimate enemy and a possible ally. My eyes confirm, see the conforming shapes of America, confuse the Arab and Jew as the same Mediterranean hued human beings, see no difference except in who has clean water, who has a swimming pool.

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Its the middle of the night in NYC. Its early morning in Western Europe. I’m flying to Frankfurt and then to Tel Aviv. I’m so excited. I’m shooting a documentary - “Art and Apathy”. The director, Jessica Habie, has been in Israel for over a month now, preparing. I’ll be staying in Jerusalem for 5 weeks. Breakfast just came so I’m keeping this short.

I am sore from the 5 hours of this six hour flight. Got lots of sleep. Gratefully slept through “Fever Pitch”. Gotta pack up the laptop now. More from the Frankfurt airport. Sore butt…

:) melissa