I got all types of moves

Au Lecteur

TOI reader, mon frère:

I have yielded to the trend and modernity and created a substack. Having been baited, I find myself an odd fish between a boatload of internet anglers, fly-casting for attention. It has, however, its attractions; Not least of its commendable qualities, Substack provides a platform on which one can well post anything, about anything, one likes, free from the esurient shears of editors, or the categorical limitations of niche-specific magazines. (I might say this of Times of Israel, they have been quite liberal in what they allow me to publish under their “The Blogs” title, and, bar an offending word or gnomic construction here and there, have left my texts virtually, so to speak, untouched.)

I have chosen The Garland for the banner title. (For a more flowery description of the reasons behind that name, pluck this leaf.) Food, wine, travel, language, art and literature, music, geopolitics (including notes from Ukraine), culture generally, all the stuff of life delicious and bitter, will be plated here. The weekly column might be said to be about things one can raise with one’s hand: one may raise a glass, one may raise a pistol, one may raise a baton. One may raise a pacifists placard or a pugilist’s fist.

Those articles related or relevant to Israel will be continued to be laid down then put up here: I may write of and from many world coordinates, but I find myself–in feeling if not always in fact–ever between Holy City (Jerusalem) and Sin City (Tel Aviv): and at moments when the diaspora becomes exaspora, it is a solace to know that I can always return to the crushing embrace of our small and wide dysfunctional family.

Haim.

The Garland