They Called Him Meyer July
They called him Mayer and July,
in Poland, though July became
for him quite obsolete, this name
changed into Kirschenblatt. Here’s why
we ought still to remember Mayer.
As Kirschenblatt, and born in Apt,
the place which in old age he mapped
with an artistic, frenzied fire,
he used to paint each street where he
grew up, before Apt was destroyed
by Nazis. It is not a void
today since he made sure we’d see
the place as it existed still
within his mind. More than Chagall,
he made sure it would not be null.
On paper, paint he used to spill
brought life back to the Jews we see
as if alive while in the mind
of those who have not left behind,
as he did not, their memory.
Jeffrey Shandler writes an obituary of Mayer Kirschenblatt who started painting scenes of his childhood home on his 50th wedding anniversary, at the age of 73 and lived in Canada since 1934. He recently died at the age of 93 not long after an exhibition of his art at the Jewish art, preserved in a book published in 2007, “They Called Me Mayer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust”.
12/8/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
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My Childhood Hero
Caught a glimpse of my childhood hero
As he strutted along the path today.
He created pictures from words,
Made this world come alive, with
A magic that was never matched.
As he swaggered past me today
He looked old, tired and grey
Flashes of songs, floated cross my mind,
Stirring long forgotten memories
Made by the man I saw today, long, long ago.
There was a touch of aged slowness in,
The walk of the man I called my childhood hero,
What had happened to the man I remember
As invincible and beyond question
In that childhood world of mine?
And then I saw a wink and a twinkle
A spark of dancing magic and
A mischievous glint
In the icy blueness of the eyes
Of the man I called my childhood hero.
© 2012
poem by Nick Strong
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I didn't get the degree because in my last year, for my thesis film I made a feature called Permanent Vacation and they'd given me a scholarship, the Louis B Mayer fellowship and they made a mistake.
quote by Jim Jarmusch
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Holocaust committed by the Nazis turned this country, where most of the European Jews used to live and where their culture used to flourish, into a massive grave. This is why initiatives to revive Jewish culture in Poland is so important.
quote by Marek Belka
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Jewish immigration in the 20th century was fueled by the Holocaust, which destroyed most of the European Jewish community. The migration made the United States the home of the largest Jewish population in the world.
quote by Jon Porter
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My Heart Is In July
shifting away from June's bud
to leave dandelions scattered in the yard
this dawn of July
marks the end of a lie
a lie from past season
for a strong reason
in July
robin will make herself shy
and cover her reddish breast
with her celestial hued crest
then flap her wings to fly
close against the sky
i want to kiss July
and make July
lasting forever
in beauty but not ephemeral
i will preserve July
on my canvas and with magic brush
so that she will be enthralled and blush
i will paint July
with charming colour
so that she will be captured in delight
and her soul enraptured
because my heart is in July.
poem by Niji Chrys
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It Was July
I am resurrected, after dying for want of you,
It all came down upon me in sunny July,
Where had you gone, I wish I knew,
That I care no more, should come as no surprise,
I can live without you now,
It's like I never loved you at all,
The numbness seeped in after my death,
It was in July, if you recall,
Things were fine in May and June,
I don't know what I did wrong,
But in July you sang a different tune,
And you left me all alone,
My heart once again belongs to me,
As I look back to last July,
The sunshine once again I see,
No tears to cloud my eyes,
So let me stay as you left me,
I won't even say goodbye,
You're now a fading memory,
But I'll never forget July,
poem by Vallerie Lobell
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This book, conceived in sorrow, composed in grief, and constructed at the brink of despair, contains my mind's best thoughts, and my soul's triumph over the powers of darkness.
quote by Isaac Mayer Wise
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Outsider
The many childhood memories that I have
are lonely ones of being an outsider.
I never mixed very well
and was always the last one,
other children wanted to call a friend.
I was a quiet person
who spent much of his time alone
buried deep within his own thoughts.
At classes, I always got the lowest grades,
on vacation I almost always was on my own.
I would sit for hours just pondering on my thoughts.
I never grew out of being an outsider,
different from the rest.
My early life was over shadowed
by younger sister whom my parents adored.
Every achievement that I made
my sister could do it better.
Not only was I an outsider at school,
but also at home a well.
In 1959, I left the shores
of the place I called home
to go back to the place of my birth.
Not until forty-two years later
would, I set foot on that soil again.
Things in the world had changed,
but not so much for me
as I was still a stranger
in the land I called my home.
13 November 2008
poem by David Harris
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Day of the Refugios
In Mexico and Latin America, celebrating one's
Saint's day instead of one's birthday is common.
I was born in Nogales, Arizona,
On the border between
Mexico and the United States.
The places in between places
They are like little countries
Themselves, with their own holidays
Taken a little from everywhere.
My Fourth of July is from childhood,
Childhood itself a kind of country, too.
It's a place that's far from me now,
A place I'd like to visit again.
The Fourth of July takes me there.
In that childhood place and border place
The Fourth of July, like everything else,
It meant more than just one thing.
In the United States the Fourth of July
It was the United States.
In Mexico it was the día de los Refugios,
The saint's day of people named Refugio.
I come from a family of people with names,
Real names, not-afraid names, with colors
Like the fireworks: Refugio,
Margarito, Matilde, Alvaro, Consuelo,
Humberto, Olga, Celina, Gilberto.
Names that take a moment to say,
Names you have to practice.
These were the names of saints, serious ones,
And it was right to take a moment with them.
I guess that's what my family thought.
The connection to saints was strong:
Mu grandmother's name--here it comes--
Her name was Refugio,
And my great-grandmother's name was Refugio,
And my mother-in-law's name now,
It's another Refugio, Refugios everywhere,
Refugios and shrimp cocktails and sodas.
Fourth of July was a birthday party
For all the women in my family
Going way back, a party
For everything Mexico, where they came from,
For the other words and the green
Tinted glasses my great-grandmother wore.
These women were me,
What I was before me,
So that birthday fireworks in the evening,
All for them,
This seemed right.
In that way the fireworks were for me, too.
Still, we were in the United States now,
And the Fourth of July,
Well, it was the Fourth of July.
But just what that meant,
In this border place and time,
it was a matter of opinion in my family.
poem by Alberto Ríos
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The world's a small place and people are watching; and, you know, somebody disappears, the family knows and their colleagues know, and so eventually, these things do get out.
quote by Jane Mayer
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I need some kind of emotional stake in it to write my lyrics, assuming that place. It might just be an emotion I understand but am not currently experiencing necessarily.
quote by John Mayer
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I was born at the age of twelve on a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lot.
Judy Garland in The Observer (1951)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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People want to see musicians sing things that come from their own mind and own heart in real time, responding to the moment for them.
quote by John Mayer
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I mean, The New York Times actually had an interesting case recently where they described a detainee who was afraid of the dark, and so he was purposely kept very much in the dark.
quote by Jane Mayer
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July....
July is the month where the families get the barbeque grills fired up.
July is the month where the night sky is light up with fire works.
July is the month where many families go out of town to be with family.
July is the month where many kids are dreary because it’s a month away for school.
July is the month where America gets to celebrate its independence from England.
July is the month where many people are dying of the heat of the summer.
July is my favorite month because it’s the time that I get to be myself around my family.
poem by Natasha Ligons
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I remember when I first walked into Mayer's cavernous office. You had to walk 50 yards to get to him, and in that time he could really study everything about you.
quote by Esther Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What you want, when you want it. As opposed to everything you could ever want, even when you don't.
quote by Marissa Mayer
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The nations of antiquity rolled away in the current of ages, Israel alone remained one indestructible edifice of gray antiquity... preserved by an internal and marvelous power.
quote by Isaac Mayer Wise
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Everybody is just a stranger, but that's the danger in going my own way.
quote by John Mayer
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Be smart, but never show it.
quote by Louis B. Mayer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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