I know most of you look to this blog to provide upbeat, inspirational news to counteract all the bad news we are surrounded with these days. And that is definitely my intention. But sometimes I feel compelled to add something that I think is important to share even though it is not a happy story. As in the documentary below which tells the story of the Hungarian Jews during World War II in the words of five survivors.

We in America are on the brink of losing our democracy and I just can't always be silent about that...With the rise of white supremacy and resurgence of anti-Semitism around the world, I think we need to be reminded how fascism can arise much more easily than we think and how it takes the silence of good people to allow it to occur...And as illustrated in the film, look how easily and quickly the Hungarian people turned against their Jewish neighbors. I never thought it could happen here and I hope I am right, but I now definitely have my doubts...

three things we love

Abraham Verghese Cutting for Stone

Physician Author Abraham Verghese (photo courtesy Lithub)

Abraham Verghese Illustration by @emmabaker.art

Sometimes a book just hits you and it stays with you. Abraham Verghese's book Cutting for Stone is one of those books. I read it many many years ago and if you haven't read it already, I highly recommend it. If you have read it, you might be interested in Verghese as a humanitarian--hear one of his Ted Talk's here.

Cutting For Stone is an epic novel that follows the lives of brothers Marion and Shiva Stone, born out of a secretive relationship between an Indian nun and a brash British surgeon in Ethiopia on the brink of revolution. The compassion filled story, based partially on the life of the author himself, is "a family saga that crosses continents and cultures" from Addis Ababa to New York City and ambitiously explores, in the words of NPR's Lynn Neary, the themes of "family, politics, history, culture and love against a backdrop of life in and near hospitals." Verghese, in the true tradition of writer/doctor, gives us a detailed insider look at the workings of the world of medicine and all the human emotions that surround that world.
I not only fell in love with this book but also what I perceive as the deep understanding of humanity and caring of the physician author Abraham Verghese. I have also read his other two books and I recommend them too: The Tennis Partner and My Own Country. Dr. Verghese is currently Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School and Senior Associate Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine. He received a National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama in 2016. Verghese recently wrote the foreward to the book When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi which I also plan on reading soon.

Eyes as Big as Plates Collaboration

My friend, graphic designer and interior designer par excellence Jill Korostoff of JakDesign, has impeccable taste and sends out periodic emails with inspirational tidbits that I always enjoy seeing. I share a recent one with you here that definitely caught my eye...
Finnish artist Riitta Ikonen and Norwegian photographer Karoline Hjorth are on a journey together focusing on older people; reimagining them as powerful figures from lore and legend. They have titled their project "Eyes as Big as Plates" and in their own words, "this ongoing collaboration started out as a play on characters from Nordic folklore. It has evolved into a continual search for modern human’s belonging to nature. The series is produced in collaboration with retired farmers, fishermen, zoologists, plumbers, opera singers, housewives, artists, academics and ninety year old parachutists. Since 2011 the artist duo has portrayed seniors in Norway, Finland, France, US, UK, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Sweden, South Korea, Czech Republic, Japan, Senegal, Outer Hebrides, Tasmania and Greenland.
Each image in the series presents a solitary figure in a landscape, dressed in elements from surroundings that indicate neither time nor place. Here nature acts as both content and context: characters literally inhabit the landscape wearing sculptures they create in collaboration with the artists.
As active participants in our contemporary society, these seniors encourage the rediscovery of a demographic group too often labelled as marginalized or even as a stereotypical cliché. It is in this light that the project aims to generate new perspectives on who we are and where we belong."
The first book Eyes as Big as Plates is sold out. However, you can preorder their second book due to release in 2022 by preordering it from their website here.

Hungary and the Nazis

Hungarian Jews forced to wear Yellow Stars

The Nazis invaded Hungary in March of 1944.

The International Raul Wallenberg Foundation

I grew up with the history of the Holocaust ever present in our household. It is not that my mother, a German Jewish refugee, shoved it down my throat or talked about it all the time, but it was definitely a presence and as I got older, I asked more and more questions of her about that time in her life and the history around it. She told me stories of how her family's furniture factory was destroyed during Kristallnacht and how she had to stop attending school, how some of her so-called friends stopped talking to her, and how her 16 year old life was torn out from under her. She showed me her Jewish star that she was forced to wear on her coat and had saved a piece of schrapnel that rained down on London during the blitz, where she ended up before coming to America. My sister Judy took that piece of bomb to school for show and tell and managed to lose it somewhere on the playground (don't worry, it was okay)...But like many children of survivors of the Shoah, I have always been obsessed with the subject--in search of trying to understand how something like that could happen. Nowadays and very sadly, it seems a lot less far fetched.

I watched the documentary The Last Days on Netflix this past weekend about Hitler's 1944 invasion and occupation of Hungary and the deportation of over 437,000 Hungarian Jews, primarily to Auschwitz. The film tells the story of five Hungarian Jews during this time in their own words. They all believed themselves to be patriotic Hungarians first, much like the German Jews. These survivors all lived to tell their stories, eventually ending up in the United States after being liberated by the Americans from the death camps. One of them, Tom Lantos, even became a U.S. Congressman from the State of California. Amidst all the horror described in the film and I warn you that it contains many graphic and horrific images, there are a few glimmers. Like Swedish architect, diplomat and humanitarian hero Raoul Wallenberg, who single-handedly saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews by renting safe houses for them and issuing them Swedish passports so they could be disguised and flee. (I coincidentally walked by a plaque commemorating him just yesterday on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.) And the message of inspiration comes too from the survivors in the film: Bill Basch, Irene Zisblatt, Renée Firestone, Alice Lok Cahana, Tom Lantos, Dario Gabbai, and Randolph Braham--they did indeed survive against all odds and they have lived to tell their tale. Directed by James Moll and produced by June Beallor and Kenneth Lipper The Last Days came out in 1998 and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature--it has just been remastered and released again in 2021 on Netflix.

Charity of the Week:
Southern Poverty Law Center

Product of the Week
New Yoga Mats

New ! Yoga Mats—contact me for more information…

About The Author

New York City based contemporary artist, Pam Smilow created the creative lifestyle blog “things we love” in an effort to foster a sense of community during times of isolation and reflection. To read more about her and her art, visit her website and check out the essay written by the Hammond Museum's Frank Matheis entitled The Sophisticated Innocence of Pam Smilow.. And by the way, let me know in the comment section what you think of the new haircut...