The Sad Days of Summer

X-Ray Menachem Av: Abq Jew has a very serious question to ask you, his loyal readers. But first, Abq Jew asks that you examine this photo very closely.

What is wrong with this photo?

Model A: Provocative and sensual

Abq Jew has a pretty fair idea of what your first response is going to be -

So here is a second photo that illustrates the same flaw. And again Abq Jew asks -

What is wrong with this photo?

Model B: Evocative and thought-provoking

This time, Abq Jew kind of expects you to maybe figure out that -

Both models - A and B - are tilting.

And why, Abq Jew hears you ask, does Abq Jew bring this up? Well, it turns out that - just like the above models, although not nearly as beautifully or as gracefully -

Abq Jew also tilts. And has for weeks now.

Which is to say - he thinks, and his body claims, that he is standing straight up.

But, when Abq Jew looks in the mirror,
he clearly sees that he is not.

This condition - whatever it turns out to be - didn't hurt when it started. But it sure hurts now. So, Abq Jew hears you ask -

Muscle problem?                           

Bone problem?

                           Brain problem?

Thus, a visit to Ye Local X-Ray Machine. Whereupon two (that Abq Jew noticed) very strange happenings happened.

1. Once Abq Jew was laid out on the table, the X-Ray Technician slid the slide from its slot and shook it vigorously a few times. This was, she said, because the entirely digital apparatus likes it when she does that.

2. Having some difficulty focusing the camera on Abq Jew's skeleton, said X-Ray Technician called over the MRI Technician from the next room to help. Said MRI Technician - a he, don't you know - banged the camera a couple times, dropping it a couple inches. The X-Ray Technician, overjoyed, announced that the banging had fixed the focusing problem.

Both happenings were illegal crossings
of the analog-digital border.

Or, perhaps, not. Abq Jew 's current lifestyle choices appear to be -

a) Painful and awake; or b) Pain-free and loopy

Therefore, Abq Jew has resolved himself to taking delightfully large doses of good old Ibuprofen (pain killer), newly accompanied by sleepily slow, low-but-steady doses of Baclofen (muscle relaxant).

So Abq Jew is, generally speaking, loopy.

Nevertheless. We are now into the Nine Days (see Consoling The Father), the saddest week-and-two-sevenths of the Hebrew Calendar. We are not supposed to be joyous or joyful, or even just happy.

And we are not supposed to do anything that will make us happy. For Abq Jew, and for many others - this suggests (there being no hard-and-fast rules) - no listening to music. But sometimes music doesn't make us happy - it makes us think (see, for example, By the Rivers of Babylon 2015).

Therefore and thusly, Abq Jew offers - for your unorthodox introspection, as we progress through the Nine Days (and Tisha b'Av)  - Western Wall, the title song of the 1999 duet album -

Western Wall: The Tuscon Sessions

Written by Rosanne Cash; performed by Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. The "spare arrangement and delicate harmonies" lend a "wonderful wistfulness" to the song, says Theresa E LaVec in her AllMusic Review.

I stand here by the Western Wall

Maybe a little of that wall stands inside of us all