The Warbler Books

I Jumped Out of a Plane

March 5, 2012 4 Comments

I suppose I’ve always wanted to go skydiving, but never went out of my way to arrange it. It seemed like the kind of thing that would be difficult to forget. Turns out I was right about that; since I’ve gone I’ve been able to talk about little else, though more often than not I find it hard to accurately describe the experience. It’s just too difficult to express the complete experience. I will, however, attempt to do so in today’s edition of the Warbler. The great thing about tandem skydiving (and 99% of the reason I was able to feel calm about the process beforehand) is just that: it is tandem. Because of this our job as first-time jumpers is limited to simply enjoying the experience. A trained individual whose profession is to safely jump out of planes with people that are way, way more frightened than you are. That’s what I

Recent Readings

February 28, 2012 2 Comments

I’ve been reading a bit. Not as much as I’d like, sure, but definitely no small amount. Some of the things I read recently blew my mind, some others not so much, but c’est la vie. What a wonderful life I live, that I get to read my to my heart’s content. I’m still reading a few books, but having just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I felt I couldn’t wait any longer and jot down my thoughts so that you, dear friend, might read them. So, without further fluff or embellished warbling I present to you, dear reader, my thoughts on these four books. Wildwood It comes as no secret to many of you that I have something of a passion for The Decemberists, accompanied by a voracious thirst for any gleanings from the delightful mind of Mr. Colin Meloy. Naturally, when I’d heard that

Photos from Birthright!

February 8, 2012 No Comments

Friends, I have not forgotten you! I have several warblings planned for the near(ish) future, but I must finish the books I aim to review before reviewing them, foolish as it may seem. I took some 1500 photos while in Israel on Birthright, most of which didn’t make the album I uploaded to flickr today. There are 394 of them online; I hope you enjoy them. Please view the album here.

Captcha Exercises

January 14, 2012 No Comments

It shouldn’t surprise you, dear reader, to learn that I enjoy writing. One of the reasons this blog exists is to begin sharing what I write with my friends and family. A natural response to that sentence would be, I suppose: “Haven’t you been doing that already, Elan?” The answer is yes, of course, but I’m referring to experiments in fiction. Several of my friends write, with professional aspirations or for pleasure, and I happen to believe they are quite talented. One of these individuals, Tony, introduced me to a writing exercise called “Captcha Quickies,” in which you load a Captcha of two words and write something–anything–to do with it. I’ve found this to be an excellent exercise. I’ve only done a few of them, but the ones I’ve done have lead to an in-progress comic book script (working with Dan, my old roommate), another in-progress short story, and several

The Second Half / What 13 Years Can Do

January 9, 2012 5 Comments

Hopefully, friend, the last posts were to your liking. This one will be slightly different, as the experience of traveling alone in Israel was fairly different from being taken around from place to place in a bus. Both experiences were completely valid and wonderful in their own ways. A sizable group from the birthright trip extended their trips, most of us planning to head straight for Tel-Aviv, so a pile of us got on the train at Ben-Gurion and headed to the city. I was getting fairly sick by this point (some food poisoning I believe, but I’ll spare you the details) so I spent the next couple of days in a hostel, trying to sleep off the sickness. Once I was up for it, I bid my fellow birthrighters adieu and took the train north, where I intended to spend the next 3 days in my old village, visiting

Welcome Home

January 5, 2012 No Comments

On a cross country flight At the end of an international journey At my eleven o’clock In a Deere Tractor hat Vest designed to hold spare ammo One of those neck-bound sensitive document holders Watched the O’Reilly factor Pulling out exclusively non-apple gadgets Tap-tap-tapping away at photos of Blond haired blue eyed children We enter California from the west Promptly pulling out your radiation meter Snapping photos at 2.6 2.4 0.9 0.2 (January 6th 2012, 12:14 am EST, flying over california)

Birthright: redux / “Be Ready for the Longest Post Yet”

January 5, 2012 6 Comments

Indeed, dear reader. The previous entry, nigh on half-completed, was lost. The lord of shadowed things saw fit to rob me of my work and by extension you, dear reader, of the enjoyment of reading it. May his days be numbered, that we might again enjoy bloggéd things in the freedom of open sunlight. Alright, enough of that. Back to the topic at hand. Birthright! Wow. What an experience! Birthright ended up being amazing. A time I won’t ever forget. I hope the friends of mine preparing to embark on their own birthright trips have experiences as wonderful as mine. Before getting into it though, I should like to open with an admission: I did not go into birthright totally open-minded. I assumed I wouldn’t connect to the experience or to my traveling companions, and that my purpose in going was to travel to Israel on a free ticket, with

In the interim…

December 27, 2011 No Comments

My apologies for the lapse in communication, but I seem to have hit a technical snag (read: for some reason the WordPress app on my iPad stopped working and my whole entry about birthright might be lost.) I will do what I can to get the entry back, but of I lost it, c’est la vie. I’ll just write a new one. Brief update/summary: Birthright ended up being a fantastic experience. I am incredibly grateful to have been a part of that group, and glad even more for the opportunity to talk about issues that matter to me with thoughtful people. Seeing my Grandmother in Shave Zion has been both wonderful and slightly difficult. She is truly an amazing woman, and it is an honor and a privilege to get to spend this time with her. I’ve got just about a week left in the motherland…

A Return to the Motherland / An Open Letter to the Woman Who Sat Next to Me on the Plane

December 13, 2011 17 Comments

It is almost 10:30 PM here in Kibbutz Farod, due southwest of Tzfat in Israel. I’m back in the motherland. I’ll get to the time leading up to this moment, but I have to get something off my chest before I start. I was somewhat nervous about taking this trip. I felt unprepared and unsure about it. Arriving in Ben-Gurion, hopping on the bus and seeing Israel through the windows, it all melted away. I love Israel. It feels like home. The first step of the journey was the red-eye I took to New York on Saturday. Getting a chance to spend time with Amira and Steve is always a pleasure, and this time was no different, though it was a little difficult arriving and feeling like this. Amira was busy in the morning so I got a chance to hang out with Steve and discuss some philosophical matters over

Thanksgiving / 36 Arguments

November 27, 2011 1 Comment

Visiting my parents in southern California used to give me a strange paranoia. Returning to LA, for whatever reason, made me feel like I was regressing. (That is, of course, ridiculous.) Since college, however, Santa Monica has been a source of some much-needed emotional recharging and re-invigoration of my inspirado. I count myself among the very fortunate for having such an open, loving, supportive, hilarious family. Thanksgiving seems to me to be a necessarily stressful time, what with family, food, drink and close-quarters, but we manage to pull it off year after year. I display a certain level of unease at the whole process, but by the end it’s usually all smiles and sad goodbyes. This time around it was particularly hard leaving my sister–she and I are very close and New York is very far away. Being with my brother, sister-in-law and my nephews is always a pleasure (did you

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