July 24, 2022, Sunday — I can taste the bubbly already. The Champagne Beach composition is pretty much done. Heady stuff, here! It’s done enough to start with first paint on Tuesday anyway. Unfortunately, I have a full day of distractions tomorrow so I have to contain myself.
I have been so struck as to the champagne color of sunset in the Santa Barbara and Santa Ynez area. The colors are so incredibly soft and bubbly, truly like a pale pink champagne. We’ll see how well I do with soft subtle colors, lol.
So hot today, a moderate 106, but my brain feels a little cooked. Not sure how witty or wonderful this blog will be. Plus, I just want to read my book now that I’m home. Get my feet up. I sure could use an afternoon stimulating drink, too, but not sure what that would be on keto. I guess a black iced tea could be attempted. Trouble is, that involves a trip to the store because I don’t have any such tea.
Book Report Time
I’ve missed a few book reports on here, so let’s catch this one before it’s finished, which is possibly tonight. But first, let me repeat myself: Champagne Beach composition. Thank you. Okay, I’m reading Exodus, by Leon Uris, published in 1958, historical fiction about the settling of what would become Israel, by the Jews following WWII. There are mixed reviews on how historically accurate the book is, but overall, the gestalt and many details are considered very accurate. The Zionist movement leading up to and following Hitler’s surrender, for the Jews to return to and reclaim their ancestral homeland is far more epic than I ever realized.
Astounding history
The will, brains, ingenuity, courage, and faith of the Jews is astounding. This despite everything, throughout history, that they have been through and how many cultures have tried to decimate them. I’ve never understood the hatred. And I certainly had no idea that the British were so far on the wrong side of history post WWII, in supporting the Arabs over the Jews, and literally holding Jews in concentration camps for many years following the war so they wouldn’t migrate to Palestine (as it was called before winning statehood of Israel). All to appease the Arabs in their colonies (the Brits had colonized practically the entire Middle East). It really took the Brits down a whole slew of pegs for me.
The Jews are so advanced and so smart, all I can figure is that jealousy is the main reason they were/are kept down. For 2000 years, they did not have a home, suffering pogram after pogram, slaughter after slaughter, forced into ghettos, almost no country welcoming them. And still they thrived and kept themselves educated in the sciences, liberal arts, morality and religion. Still they sang and danced and raised their children well. Jesus being one of them. Big surprise.
Book report continued…
I know what it’s like to be a second-class citizen (or roommate, in my wimpy case). This barest feeling of what it’s like to not have a home, and to be not particularly wanted where you are living is incredibly stressful. Honestly, those were the worst years of my life.
That the Jews have thrived under the most brutal circumstances of not having a home and not being welcome, including attempts of wholesale genocide, scientifically conceived and industrially efficient, as the worst of the worst. And this brutality over the longest period of time of any culture on earth. So, now, to finally have their homeland back, creating out of a barren desert, under constant attack by the Arabs, at ridiculously out-of-balance odds in the early years, a thriving, lush, first-world superpower, is nothing short of miraculous.
It does seem like Divine Intervention was a major ingredient. Which makes you wonder what good things will happen now that the Jews are restored to their holy land. May they finally have peace and may it rub off on the rest of us.
I went a little crazy on the is book report! But seriously, this is one of the best, most important books I’ve read in the last few years. This part of the world and the constant fighting between Arabs and Jews has been a big muddle for me and this book has brought the story to life for me.
Exodus, by Leon Uris.
Here’s a review: “Passionate summary of the inhuman treatment of the Jewish people in Europe, of the exodus in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to Palestine, and of the triumphant founding of the new Israel.”—The New York Times
On that note, I’m going to go read. But first, here’s the link to sign up to my newsletter 🙂 Oh, Champagne Beach Composition? Yep, have to throw that in, too :).
