But other movies keep spinning in my mind, and I'll give them some awards as they tumble out of my head. Let's call them the "Vanwallies."

Best movie with unexpected casting: "Unleashed." I have great respect for martial arts star Jet Li and old pros Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins, but I never imagined a movie that would bring all of them together. Unleashed does that, in a great mash-up of butt-kicking action, sentiment and a harrowing plot concept. I've never seen a Bob Hoskins movie I didn't thoroughly enjoy, and this is no exception. Runnerup in the Hoskins film favorites: "Ruby Blue," in the blossoming genre of movies involving pidgeon breeding, mob violence and transgender issues.

It recently closed the submission period for its seventh "Guest Interpretator Challenge." In this, members of the art-astute public were invited to submit a title and an intepretation for a new acquisition of MOBA. Always being up for a challenge, I looked at this vibrant canvas from every possible angle. After consulting many serious tomes on philosophy, artistic technique and cross-cultural ramifications, I created this submission, of which I am justifiably proud:

Worlds in Collision: When Karl Met Carrot Top

Pointless psychosexual and meteorological tensions permeate this tour de force, depicting an imagined meeting of European fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and American comedian Carrot Top as a youth. The negative space between the two captures the historic conflict between Europe and America. Sartorially sinister Lagerfeld, embodying the Old World’s dark perspective and penchant for donning sunglasses at night, leers at virginal Carrot Top, the naïve but spunkily practical symbol of America. By placing Lagerfeld on an inexplicable red platform, the confused artist adds either an ominous neo-fascist tonality or suggests that Lagerfeld is a space alien standing on the transporter that beamed him down from the mothership. Behind Lagerfeld, the calm sea, sunset and twinkling stars connote either a peaceful summer evening or a stormy, tragic meditation on the fin de siècle hopelessness of Lagerfeld’s fashion and art weltanschauung. In either case, the painting’s je ne sais quoi remains elusive.

As a former member of the press, I've been around journalism enough to know that many mainstream reporters are rejoicing over the victory of Scott Brown -- NOT because they like conservatives or oppose President Obama, but because journalists love drama. A Brown victory is catnip for journalists. On TV and in print, they get to think deep thoughts about the end of hope and change, the fears of the health-care reformers, the civil rights of terrorists, and whether the Obama presidency is doomed. Should he just resign now and let Joe Biden assume the chore of cleaning up the messes left by the previous President?

And what about Sarah Palin? Will Brown outflank her as the new golden boy of the misunderstood guns-and-hymnals demographic?

One article especially unsettled me, and I'm trying to fathom why: "Ethnic Cosmetic Surgery: From Cultural Anonymity to Cultural Beauty." An excerpt from an upcoming book by Dr. Frederick Lukash, it outlined the kinds of plastic surgery most common by ethnic group. Lukash writes,

Individuals seeking surgery are not denying a heritage but responding to the shift standards of beauty. Beauty has become a hybrid mix -- people want the best of everything!

The article breaks down the cosmetic surgery most common among different ethnic groups. Among Middle Eastern/Mediterrranean types, rhinoplasty is most common since, as those raised in Jewish angst and comic stereotypes, "peoples from this background can have very defining noses." Asians, African-Americans and Hispanics also get the run-down as body parts get sliced, diced, reduced and enlarged.

In fairness, the article leavens its cheerleading tone with some words on the physical and psychological risks of cosmetic surgery. Still, the article left me shaking my head at the quest for some evanescent standard of beauty. It's not just women (and men, to judge from the horror stories on Awful Plastic Surgery) who want tightening after childbirth or massive weight loss, or relief from aching backs. It's the force that crosses cultures to drive people to go under the knife.

People make their own decisions, and if plastic surgery makes them happy, I can't condemn their actions. I prefer to hit the gym, but that's my take on my reality. Still, the idea of people around the world turning to plastic surgery as a path to happiness makes me wonder -- what happens 10 years after the surgery? More surgery? Where does it stop?

I developed a sneaking affection for left-wing publications, a real-world supplement to the Marx I read in history classes at Princeton. I don't see them any more on New York newsstands; either they're not being published or they've been pushed out of circulation.

Lately, however, I've been picking up copies of one of the gritty survivors, Workers World, the paper of the Workers World Party, which proudly proclaims on its front page, "Workers and oppressed people of the world unite!" Well, that's the real deal for fans of left-wing cant, sterner stuff than "We are the change we believe in." Some clever soul is slipping copies of the paper into news boxes in midtown Manhattan, in the slots for free distribution papers. Whenever I see one, I immediately grab it to check out the latest perspective of the extreme left (slightly to the left of NPR and the New York Times).

The stories are quite readable and give, if nothing else, a focused perspective on the news, be it climate change, the economy, the need to revive the class struggle, military issues, labor and that old, old favorite, "Justice for Mumia." Articles on Latin America also catch my attention. My politics differ from Workers World, but I have to give the paper's supporters credit for their plucky and successful guerrilla marketing campaign to get a very serious paper in front of New Yorkers. It adds some fiber to my reading diet.

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure much. May you have only happy thoughts and memories when opening this album.

I use the album as a special diary in which I write on only two days each year: My birthday and New Year's Day, two and and a half months apart. The book gives a snapshot of how I view my life, the year past and the year ahead. I dubbed it "The Book of LIfe" with the first entry on October 16, 1986, at a time when I was a freelance writer living in New York's neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. I have not missed an entry since then.

My entry for January 1, 1987 was this:

I'm well into carrying out my exciting program for 1987, called REVELATION-REVOLUTION '87. This consists of DAILY:

1. Flossing
2. Excercising (including occasional jogging)
3. Disciplined writing
4. Apt. upgrading
5. Surfin' safaris to exotic climes, preferably with an assignment.
6. A romantic involvement that feels right, where I go for her as much as she goes for me. Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it! I want to love.
7. At .least $25,000 in billings, with more efficient output.
8. Cut back on sugar -- it works for Melissa [a friend in Brooklyn].

I read a book that gives excellent details about the difficulties of individuals who leave the from world: "Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels," by Hella Winston, whose name may sound familiar to readers of New York's Jewish Week from her coverage of sexual abuse in Orthodox communities.

The book provides a lot to think about, in how communities control members, how people accept or bridle at these highly structured societies, and difficulty of getting beneath the surface appearance of Chasidic communities. One passage I found particularly fascinating involves sexual abuse. I've never understood how Jewish communities can deny or hush up such behavior against its most helpless members. I know it happens everywhere but the wall of silence that Winston has written about in her journalism always disturbed me greatly. The book provides an explanation:

Indeed, while it is unclear whether or not such abuse exists to a greater degree than it does in the general population, some have theorized that Jewish communities' historical antipathy toward informers has likely played some role in keeping such abuse quiet, when it occurs. The Yiddish word 'moser' is used to describe those who betray the community to outside authorities (historically, the authorities of tsarist Russia or medieval Europe). 'Messira,' or the act of informing, was once punishable by death, and remains a serious sin to this day.

When I read that passage, I thought not only of the pressures on frum young people to accept abuse (or frum approaches to "dealing" with it, as effective as the Catholic Church's past approaches to dealing with pedophile priests), but also of financial scandals. Were the crimes of Bernard Madoff aided, to any degree, by people who had suspicions but didn't want to be a moser? I don't know, but the idea of community standards backfiring in a horrible way came to mind.

Anyway, if you're looking for a worthy group for an end-of-year donation, consider Footsteps. How's this for an endorsement: I sent the group a check.

Restlessness

As I write this essay, I can look out the window onto the field between the school building and the street. I've looked out this window a thousand times and I will look through it again 10,000 times. The clouds keep rolling by with the wind, where from or where to or what for I cannot even guess.

Along the street seven cars, one truck camper and a single station wagon are parked. Again. I have no idea to whom they might belong.

So many things I do not know, and so many things that I see only on the surface. I go to school with 1,800 others. How many of them do I not know, or should know? Behind every face is a story, a long, unique story. How many of those stories do I know? How many know my story? I pass by people, like two fish in the ocean. Like the clouds drifting outside the window we neither know where to or where from or what for about each other, or even ourselves.

Thursday, August 14, was progressing nicely. I got an excellent year-end review, raising hopes for continuing employment and (be still my heart) a bonus and a raise. I was looking forward to my vacation the next week.

In retrospect, signs abounded that Something Was About To Happen. Just before 3 pm, I pondered my American Express bill. Should I pay it online Thursday, or Friday, when I got my direct deposit? Did it matter? Which would hit my checking account first (given the perilous state of my finances, such timing is a major concern). I could wait, I could act, I could wait until later in the day. Finally, with the madcap abandon that so often marks my actions, I decided to pay on Thursday and at 3:01 pm I pushed the button to send American Express its latest cup of blood. Done.

Mrs. Ex-Wallach called me around 4:10 pm. She had driven our son and a friend to the Science Museum in Queens, a good summer vacation activity. We were chatting when the lights in my office suddenly died. My computer stayed on via battery power but everything else just stopped. The room stayed light because of sunlight from nearby windows. “Gee,” I said, “The power just went out.” In a matter of seconds I realized Mrs. Ex-Wallach had vanished, remaining only as a cellphone number frozen on the display of my office phone.

I've wondered what would have happened had the atomic bomb been available a year earlier; would Roosevelt have dropped it on Berlin, or Dresden, or Hamburg and brought the war to an earlier end? What would Germany have done? Japan?

After the war, Jews sought justice in various ways, and bagged the biggest fish with the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.

But the problem with revenge is it cannot be a controlled exercise. Once the bloodshed begins against enemies, the slaughter picks up a momentum of its own and can consume the executioners who started the process.

Consider this: Are some forms of revenge acceptable, and others not? We don't need the fantasies of Tarantino to show the relevance of that question. The Red Army in World War II provides the starkest example of revenge impulses gone berserk.

The offices were filled with citizens searching through files. Reading by candlelight, men and women thumbed through the information stored about them. Watching many of them cry, Leo didn't need the documents translated. The files contained the names of family and friends who'd denounced them, the words spoken against them. Like a hundred mirrors dropped on the floor, all around he saw faith in mankind shattering.

Wow.

Without further ado, with lyric selections:

1. Carnivália, Tribalistas
2. Já Sei Namorar, Tribalistas
3. Amor Pra Recomeçar, Roberto Frejat
4. Dois Pra Lá, Dois Pra Cá, Elis Regina
5. Encontros e Despedidas, Maria Rita
6. Nena, Malo
7. Viva Tirado, El Chicano
8. Mr. Brightside, the Killers ("It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?")
9. Panic Switch, Silversun Pickups
10. New World Man, Rush ("He's old enough to know what's right and young enough not to do it")
11. Time Changes Everything, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys ("You've gone your way and I'll go mine, 'cause time changes everything")
12. Willin’, Little Feat ("I stayed on the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed")
13. Glamorous Life, Sheila E.
14. Closing Time, Semisonic ("Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end")
15. Long Distance Call, Muddy Waters ("There's another mule kickin' in your stall")
16. One of These Nights, the Eagles
17. The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys, Traffic ("Take me for a ride, strip me of everything including my pride")
18. Gringo Honeymoon, Robert Earl Keen
19. Possession Obsession, Hall and Oates
20. Not a Day Goes By, Bernadette Peters
21. Blue Train, John Coltrane
22. Lush Life, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
23. Stranded in Your Love, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (with the great line, “Is it romance or circumstance?”)
24. New World Symphony, Antonín Dvořák
25. Remember, Micky and the Motorcars

“Why are you going?” the security guard at JFK International Airport asked me in a flat voice before I checked my luggage for a summer flight to Israel.

“Me?” I pointed at myself, surprised by this after the expected questions about packing and destinations. “You mean, why am I going to Israel for my vacation?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, because I’m a Jew. I want to see what it’s like.”

“But aren’t you afraid?”

“No. I’ll probably feel safer there than in New York.”

For the first time she smiled and wished me a good trip.

I thank Mrs. Walsh for this. Mrs. Walsh held swimming classes every summer at the pool of the Fontana Motor Hotel in Mission, my home town in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The pool reeked of chlorine, which clung to me and wafted around the whole complex. I could even smell it in the Fontana’s lobby, where I wandered after class.

Ever the curious reader, I checked out the magazines in the lobby’s gift shop. There I found Playboy. Golly, I thought, this is a change from Hot Rod and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Even then, I knew an 11-year-old shouldn’t really scan Playboy, so I slipped the magazine into another one – male readers know this drill. I flipped through the issue, trying to look nonchalant. But Misses June and July dazzled me with their undraped allure and bubbly smiles.

Case in point: I still swoon for July 1969 cover girl Barbie Benton, a/k/a Barbara Klein. In the unpainted passageways of my brain, the Fontana’s chlorinic aroma mixed with this vision of Barbie on the beach. A whiff of chlorine returns me to July 1969 – those eyes, those shoulders, Barbie’s brown hair tumbling down her curving waterslide of a back. In a flash I’m back in the Fontana’s lobby, where Mrs. Walsh’s class ended and my introduction to another wet side of life began.