little israel

i skipped a couple of days, this is from wednesday night:
i had a date with an israeli friend tonight, we met at floyd world music festival a year and a half ago (our bands were the only middle-eastern type music there). we've kept in sporadic touch, but is the first time that we've hung out. the evening was an exploration of israeli New York. there's something very appealing about the israeli manner to me, it feels very relaxed and open while still being intense and engaged.

we ate at an israeli-run restaurant in the village, a little hole on the wall place with great hoummous and a nice atmosphere. then we went to joe's pub to see an amazing django reinhardt-esque guitarest named stephane wrembel. he was playing with a fantastic french fiddler, a drumset, bassist, and another percussionits who had a steel pan that he'd constructed with various percussive attachments. he played it by tapping with metal thimbles on his fingertips. the place was absolutely packed, and the show was amazing. this dude can play! he whipped out these crazy beautiful jazzy melodies and solos at breakneak speed. the band was very tight, playing off each other musically and throwing on sorts of sharp breaks and stops.

after the show, we walked through the blistery cold wind and rain to another israeli hangout, called the cupping room. a bar/restaurant with a live band playing middle eastern music, this place was also packed with israeli's. there was a little dance space in front of the band, which folks took advantage of to belly dance, line dance, circle dance, and just generally get their groove on. why are israeli's so beautiful?