Throwin'

I always feel the need to clarify this. In ceramics, the term "throwing pots" does not mean we're all chucking vases at the walls; it means we're making clay pots on the pottery wheel. Just making sure everyone knows.

This week I'm attending Afternoon Ceramics at the art center nearby. I skipped it on Monday in favor of a day at the beach with my friend but yesterday I arrived for class in clothes made for turning brown with clay stains.

I have attended something at the art center for at least one summer or vacation per year since fourth grade, except for last summer, when I did a five-week intensive dance program instead. But in any case, the teachers know me.

So I arrived about ten minutes early to find one of my former teachers digging in the recycled clay bin and slopping it onto boards to make it dry into clay that's fit for working with instead of just muddy slip. I offered to help because I love getting dirty in this way, and I needed to get my clean clothes flecked with clay already. "You grew a lot," she says.

While doing that I realized that someone who had been with me in the pottery classes I'd attended two years ago was in my class again. We reacquainted ourselves with each other and remembered our jokes. Since we've both been to Israel it was mostly about the messed-up-ness of security and terrorists in airports and trying to drag pottery wheels into the airport. It's probably the best time I've had in an organized class in a while.

I'd really forgotten how much fun it is to go somewhere with the intention of making art, to come with a group of people and get your hands so very dirty. I don't know if anybody else does this, but my friend and I start talking to the clay in the middle of conversations. Like, one minute we're talking about depression and then he says to the mug he's making, "Don't flop over, I'll kill you if you do," and we're talking about television. That doesn't happen without the occasional lunatic talking to random objects.

Today I'll go back and throw a few more pots. Ah, pottery. The most fun I've had in a while.

Neve Tzedek

Yesterday after school, my mom, my brother, and I took a bus to Neve Tzedek.

Neve Tzedek is one of the oldest neighborhoods in Tel Aviv. It's got a kind of small-town feel to it in a way, but the taller buildings are always looming in the background.

We went for lunch at a place called Suzanna, but it was a bit rushed because we had to get to a show (which admittedly was in the building across the street, but still). It was a dance performance called Oyster, which is still going after ten years and is celebrating its anniversary at the Suzanne Dellal Center, which is one of the celebrated dance theaters in the country.

Oyster is unconventional, to say the least. All the dancers wear wigs (I'm still wondering how they didn't fall off) and have their faces painted white. The show is presented kind of like a carnival sideshow event, with one short piece after another. One piece includes dancers with rods connecting their hands and feet, and another has an extra-tall man pushed around by a ballerina with a stool attached to her behind. There's one where a dancer is hanging from a pulley, and one with "armless" men. I thought it was amazing, the way that they folded themselves and fell and stretched. And I suppose the weirdness of it was what made it amazing. It makes you want to do something not-so-normal because you can.

After that we went for gelato and went home. I studied some French. It was brilliant.

Fresh Bread

I went to a bakery today and bought a baguette.

It tastes SO MUCH BETTER than supermarket bread. Now, I suppose that would go without saying, but I sort of forgot how good a fresh bakery baguette is. Last time I ate one of these was a few months ago at least. Perhaps not since Boston.

So, here are a few steps to the location of one subspecies of Afternoonus Awesomus:

1. Go to a bakery.

2. Buy a fresh baguette.

3. Eat it while wasting time on YouTube and Facebook or watching Doctor Who.

Cheers!