Book of Days: asher553

To those no longer with us, thank you for your sacrifice.

You are not forgotten.

It was only this afternoon that I learned, via Instapundit, that large parts of the Portland area have been experiencing a prolonged power outage.

https://www.kgw.com/article/weather/severe-weather/portland-oregon-power-outage-winter-snow-ice-storm/283-fd3a5a75-2b21-4b0e-a288-e41b16acb425

https://www.kgw.com/article/weather/severe-weather/pge-worst-case-scenario-some-could-be-without-power-for-10-days/283-bf53d3f5-0e4c-40c2-861b-196fe27026dd

I'm fortunate that my area in Hillsboro seems to have been entirely spared.

The new job is going well, one month on. More money and less stress than my last gig, I could get used to this.

I've been carless for the last two years or so now, but that might change in the near future. I'm filling out financing applications and making appointments for test drives.

In the news, Rush Limbaugh has left us. Tammy Bruce's tribute is here:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1362128126273347586.html

I had the pleasure of meeting David Ehrlich once in his Jerusalem cafe/bookstore. He was a close friend of my longtime friend Professor Michael Weingrad.

He is remembered by Michael here:
https://www.pdx.edu/judaic/news/david-ehrlich-memoriam

'David Ehrlich - In Memoriam
Author: Michael Weingrad
Posted: March 24, 2020

It is with great sorrow that we announce the passing of David Ehrlich (1959-2020), father, writer, founder of Jerusalem's legendary literary cafe Tmol Shilshom, and the 2009 Schusterman Israeli Artist-in-Residence at Portland State University's Judaic Studies department.

David was the author of three collections of short stories in Hebrew, as well as the collection in English translation Who Will Die Last: Stories of Life in Israel (Syracuse University Press, 2013).

David's residency at PSU was widely appreciated by students and community members. A number of PSU students decided to visit Israel for the first time after taking a course on Israeli literature with David. Portland's Jewish Theatre Collaborative created and performed a dramatic reading of his stories, and David spoke to audiences in Portland, Seattle, and Eugene about literature, gay identity in Israel, and the challenges of keeping a cafe open during the Intifada. He valued spending time in Oregon with the late Alter Wiener, a Holocaust survivor who was a childhood friend of David's father, also a Holocaust survivor from Poland. David spoke frequently of how much he loved his time in Portland, and frequently sported his PSU baseball cap on the streets of Jerusalem.

Tmol Shilshom, a Jerusalem cultural institution, first opened in 1994 and is a favorite destination for its countless visitors over the years, a warm and welcoming haven for a diverse cross-section of Jerusalem's population. Tmol has long been known as an LGBTQ-friendly place (David served on the board of Jerusalem's LGBTQ community center) as well as a popular choice for young religious Jews on a first date. The cafe's rich schedule of readings by Israel's foremost writers was launched with a poetry reading by David's friend Yehuda Amichai, and continues today with poetry slams, book launches, and musical performances. All this reflected David's warmth of personality, love of books, and openness to people.

David was a beloved friend to many in Israel, the United States, and throughout the world, a true portion of the beauty Jerusalem is said to have been granted from on high. He is survived by his parents, his sister, his two 12 year old children, and his friend Tamar Baum with whom he co-parented their twins. May his memory be a blessing...'

Follow the link for a picture, and links in the original.

At the Forward, David is remembered by writers and others who knew him:
https://forward.com/news/israel/442313/longing-for-yesterday-a-tribute-to-the-late-david-ehrlich-of-tmol-shilshom/

May his memory be for a blessing. Blessed is the Righteous Judge.

Don't know how I missed it at the time, but Richard Hatch - a veteran of both iterations of 'Battlestar Galactica' - passed on last February. He was Captain Apollo in the original series, and terrorist Tom Zarake in Ron Moore's 2003 remake.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/tv-shows/richard-hatch-dead/index.html

'Hatch died at around 1:30 p.m. in Santa Clarita, California, with his son, Paul, by his side, Kaliski said. The 71-year-old actor had been battling pancreatic cancer, according to a statement from his family.
In the original "Battlestar Galactica" series that ran from 1978-1979, he played Captain Apollo and in the 2003 remake, he played Tom Zarek. He received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in the first series.

"In my case, 'Battlestar Galactica' was a milestone," he wrote on his personal website. "It afforded me the opportunity to live out my childhood dreams and fantasies. Hurtling through space with reckless abandon, playing the dashing hero, battling Cylons, monsters and super-villains -- what more could a man want?" ...'

Hatch led an unsuccessful attempt to revive the original series, and even after being cast in a major role in the RDM remake, remained critical of the new version.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Hatch_(actor)#Battlestar_Galactica_revival_attempt

'In 2004, he stated to Sci-Fi Pulse that he had felt resentment over the failure of his planned Galactica continuation and was left "exhausted and sick ... I had, over the past several years, bonded deeply with the original characters and story ... writing the novels and the comic books and really campaigning to bring back the show."[13]

Despite his resentment, Hatch developed a respect for Ronald D. Moore, the remake show's head writer and producer, when Moore appeared as a featured guest at Galacticon (the Battlestar Galactica 25th anniversary convention, hosted by Hatch) and answered questions posed by a very hostile audience.[13] Later, in 2004, Hatch was offered a recurring role in the new Battlestar Galactica series, which he accepted. He acted out Tom Zarek, a terrorist turned politician who spent twenty years in prison for blowing up a government building. After Zarek's death, Hatch commented that "never did I play this character as a villain nor did I think he was one and I still feel that way," and that he considered the character to be a principled figure who is driven to violence after being "blocked in every way possible" by Roslin and Adama.[14] "Zarek, Adama and Roslin all wanted power for the same reason, to make a positive difference."[14]

Even so, Hatch remained harshly critical of Moore's remake of Battlestar Galactica.'

So his career was a remarkable case of both an actor and his character having a radically different vision of a fictional world - and thus playing the role of antagonist both in the story and in life.