BEING THE FINAL LOCATION OF NUMEROUS LISTS OF THINGS MY BROTHER TAUGHT ME + June 9, 1999

1. The French invaded and conquered England in 1066, installing Harold as King. Thereafter, the court spoke French while the ‘natives’ continued their harsher, blunter Anglo-Saxon, Celtic, or Tutonic tongues. Thus, the cattlemen raised “cows” in the field, but the lords ate their “beef” (boeuf). Other examples abound, such as the “F” word. “English” became a mixture of the original earthy, pithy, native words, with an overlay of the more elegant French, whose grammar and much of whose vocabulary had been Romanized. French words are melodious to the ear and more capable of abstraction.
2. But the French borrowed from the English as well, in such expressions as “W.C.” (Doublevey Cey -- “Water Closet”) and Redingote (Riding Coat). This reflects the Englishman’s attention to toilet matters and his interest in fox hunting. Incidentally, this latter may be the origin of the tale, “Little Red Riding Hood.”
3. Also, the story of “Cinderella,” contains a really bad mistake,. In the original French, the Prince gave Cinderella slippers made of squirrel fur. The word for squirrel in French is “vare,” but it was mis-translated as its similar-sounding , “verre,” or glass.
4. This attention to words stimulated me to pick apart English, which I believe to be a mixture of 25% Anglo words, 25% Saxon words, 25% Romanized French, 20% Tutonic (or German), 20% Greek, 15% Scandinavian plus 10% Spanish, 10% Italian, and 5% Chinese, 5% East Indian and, in the case of American-English, 15% Native American words. This analysis explains, in part, why English as such an enormous vocabulary. Allan used to say that Shakespeare used 40,000 words.
5. Until the 14th Century, mountains were nothing more than a harsh, dangerous difficulty for the traveler to get over as quickly as possible. But in 1330, Petrarch crossed the Alps in a carriage (or, climbed Mount Ventoux in southern France), and, delighted, wrote up his wondrous reactions and perceptions. The understanding of mountains and natural landscapes was forever changed for Western man, who has gloried ever since in the spectacular views of and from these majestic heights.
6. If ever a Frenchman scoffs at you while you are enjoying mint jelly with your lamb, shocked that you can put something sweet on meat, just point out that he eats “Duck a l’Orange” and then proceed to ignore him.
7. Gorillas (from whom we are descended) have longer arms than legs, and consequently walk on their knuckles.
8. We swing our arms as we walk: left arm with right foot, right arm with left foot. This is a residual instinct, or mechanism, from the time when humans walked on all fours!
9. When the human fetous [fetus] is developing within the womb, it goes through stages like the eveloution of animals: first we resemble one celled animals; they more complicated creatures that live in the sea; next we have gills, like a fish; then feet like things that crawl and we never completely lose a vestigal tail. Embryology replicates Phylalogy. [ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny] In fact, the doctor’s had to cut off yours, Fiji, in the hospital.
10. The earth is a closed ecological system, which we can recreate in a test tube. Allan showed me a sealed glass test tube, containing water, air, a small piece of plant (Ellidea) and there, a tiny, dark snail. When you place this in sunlight, the plant grows and gives off oxygen. The snail eats some of the excess plant, and returned carbon dioxide into the air, for the plant. The “waste” which the snail excretes become the “food” and “fertilizer” for the [plant. And so it goes. If you select the right size snail and plant, you will create a “balanced aquarium.” One such is the planet earth.
11. In a conversation with Ducky Firnberg, nee Yarrin c, 1949, they both agreed on the costumes for Broadway musicals: namely, that skimpy ‘girl’s’ costumes were not the sexiest -- costumes were sexier by what then covered up, not merely by what they revealed.
12. It was also Allan’s opinion that Gypsy Rose Lee (?) was very sexy, projected through a cool detachment. He imitated the song, “ZIP!,” from a then-current musical. “Hell’s a’ Popping.” ? She played a stripper, over-dressed in various clothes, held together with zippers, the modern, 20th Century fascinating fastener. (S)he would sing a line (according to Allan) and then ZIP !, pull off an article of clothing. With great poise and looking sidewise condescendingly, he would talk/sing the song: “I was reading Schopenhauer -- all night -- Zip !” (Off would come one long, black imaginary glove) “And I decided that Schopenhauer -- was right -- Zip !”
13. And it was my brother who told me about one of our Aunts, was it Belle? who was able to peel an apple around and around, in a modulated spiral, so carefully that she produced an ever-growing single strand of red and white strand of peeling, measuring below her knees. It wasn’t until years later that the true meaning of this sill became fully manifest in me.
14. Allan would take me to the Museum of Modern Art and lecture on the merits of, say "White on White," or Ives Tangurey's beach full of stones and pebbled. He loved "Spring," showing the ruins of modern Rome, with Mussolini’s bright green head popping up like a Jack-in-the-box, but his favorite was, "Hide and seek," seemingly a child’s head by composed of thousands of smaller images, not unlike contemporary computer-generated images, or the mystical works or artists from Zfat, Israel.
15. He also decanted (?) Chauser, "The Canterbury Tales," to be exact. And led me to understand what, "Wan that Aprille, with its shouwers Sweater, the Drought of Marche hast piecced to the roote,"? and so forth. Perhaps the a first poem I ever (partially) memorized.
16. May 26, 2001 Watching me trying to cut through a through piece of meat, Allan exclaimed, that, “Don’t use your knife as a saw, with a back-and-forth motion. A knife slices neatly through what it is itnnded to cut.” Perhaps he did not realize how hard that was for me: either the meat was too tough or the knife too dull.
17. He told me that when he was living at the Hickory Ridge School,in Vermont, the boys would have ‘pissing contests.’ Not only would they see who could ‘do it’ the longest, but they would also see who could back off the farthest from the toilet bowl. I didn’t know whether to be intrigued, appalled or just ignore this, but when he said one kid backed out the door of the boy’s bathroom, still hitting in the bowl, then down the hall,, then around a corner, I began to question the whole idea.
18. Another story was that the snow would pile up in the winter months maybe four, five, six feet high. When a new snowfall would occur, the boys would rush out the first day, while the snow was still soft, and build a huge snow fort. They would pile up the snow as high as it would go. [Or, they would find where the snow plows pilled it up very high.] They would hollow it out like a cave, making windows, places to look over, and so forth. Them, next day, the afternoon sun would melt the top layer, which, at night, would freeze. Next morning, why, they would have the strongest fort, whose outside layer was protected by a thin layer of ice, great protection against snowballs.
19. According to Allan, girls threw baseballs differently NOT because they were not athletic, but because their are were put on differently. They looked awkward, because their are bones fit into their sockets at a different angle from boy’s/ similarly, their pelvic were wider and their leg bones inserted into the hip pocket differently. This permits them to open their leg wider than men, such that they could put both knees on or near the a bed when lying on their back. This, Allan said, was becaaaayuse of their role in childbearing. This opening of the legs benefits both ends of the reproduction process: ease of conception and ease of delivery.
20. August 28, 2001 There was a children’s book which Allan read as a teenager, and may even have read to me ? about a group of starving people desperate and near death, who came across a field of mushrooms: and were saved ! A phrase, which they may have sang, and which he taught me through repetition was: “Thirty-four pounds of edible mushrooms Saved a people: created a nation.” This couplet, which may have been a reference to the Mormons, or, to Israel, amused him muchly.
21. Allan told me [have I noted this already?] that scenery and mountains were regarded as harsh, and unattractive, until Ruskin [or, was it Dante?} traveled by carriage through the Alps, and found some to write home about. This was intended to demonstrate to me the effect or value of our perceptions on what we value. Or, the value of what we affect on our perceptions? More recently, I have learned that Dante [or Ruskin] was very familiar with the Chumash, and the Psalms, several of which glorify the natural scenery, the mountains, the sea, the sky and all .Irving things.
22. Allan knew Dr. Ruth through Rick Tiger. In December, 2003, I met Dr. Ruth and sent this:

    December  10,  2003
    Ruth K. Westheimer, Ed.D.
    The Lexington Professional Center
    133 East 73 Street
    New York  NY  10021
    
    Dear Dr. Ruth
    It was such a warm pleasure speaking with you Sunday, following the showing of ‘Nowhere 
    in Africa’ at the Museum of Jewish Heritage.  Your kind words for my brother, 
    Allan, were sincerely touching:  yes, he was a knowledgeable and impressive figure. 
      I think of him, and his positive affect on me, often.  After all, I was his first pupil !
    
    
    The closing lines of the poem ‘Sneezles,’  by A.A. Milne, was quoted as 
    his by-line in his High School Yearbook.   They are so appropriate, and go as follows:
    
    
    And the look in his eye
    Seemed to say to the sky,
    “Now, how to amuse them today ?”
    
    The rest of the poem, which I had not read for many, many years, has also taken on a 
    special meaning, seemingly not inappropriate, all things considered.
    
    
    Thank you for your interest in my mosaic-tile work.   I work with cut and broken 
    industrial tiles to form mosaic images appropriate to the specific project.   
    Projects include murals, sculptured forms and decorative flat pieces, such as trivets,
     picture frames and inserts for kitchen or bath.   I am one of several artists of the
     major mosaic-tile bench project at the General Grant National Monument, 123rd Street
     and Riverside Drive.
    
    I have also run community-based workshops in New York, Newark, N.J. and for ORT, 
    in Johannesburg, S. A.    Enclosed,  find some illustrative material, which may also 
    be seen on the Web at:  http://danzig.jct.ac.il/phil/
    
    
    With special thanks to you for the fine and inexhaustible work you are doing to help
     repair the world,
    Sincerely