Micro Book Group Guide No. 2

Tailored to the time-starved readership. No need to organize a group. Pull in a companion only if you want to.

1) Read the passage below. 2) Resolve the subsequent problem. 3) Deal with the rest of your day.

On a distant soil hostages are taken by militants. The bargaining, stalled.

   A lack of urgency. Captives forsaken. People reassigned by their elected guardians as a tolerable loss. More important, the annihilative vengeance exacted on the territory where the hostages are held. In an American video stream a cerebral persona says listen you have to take the long view.

Something like that. A clip in your feed. An animated internet moment. A celeb opining from his studio couch. Hosting a TV phenom of your youth, this is what catches your eye. A sitcom enjoying international success, a hit in Israel too.

An Israeli teen of the 1980’s enjoys a comedy centered on American teens whose banter is facilitated by Hebrew subtitles. The comedic star was a streetwise Italo-American heartthrob.

Today, an old actor enlisted in a political debate. An Ashkenazi Jewish American man. A grandfatherly figure tending confused, a visitor to the studio of a celebrity intellect.

A comedic heartthrob. Tune into an American show, hankering for his walk-in part. In a video clip of the digital age he is there from the get-go, sitting. Old. Still appealing. A relatable soul. An old guy mindblown by his host’s legitimation of hostage abandonment. Floored by a host considering a genocidal campaign so worthwhile as to justify the forfeiture of hostages.

An elderly heartthrob, a likable guy. A disappointment that he sits on that couch. A disappointment that he is desperate for some point of agreement with a perpetuator of grotesque opinion.

The old man’s agitation relieved by a measure of hope. Well we can agree on one thing, he says. The food in Israel is remarkably good.

An olive branch swatted away. A contemptuous host. Jewish food, bleh.

An American standup comedian turned pundit. A celeb citing the week or so he spent in Jerusalem filming whatever. Scorn for the cookeries of all world Jewries persisting in Jerusalem? More likely oblivious.

An old heartthrob at a loss for words.

A destabilizing anchorman, a disruptive skill in evidence. His basic tool, the thick air of smugness.

A vapid indifference spiked with impatience. The fitful performance of a cowing knowledge. Rattling off the deets of other genocidal campaigns to which he ascribes an indisputable worth.

(From Outpatient, a novel by Naama Goldstein)

Resolve this statement: This reading leaves me…

1) Wanting to know more about the character viewing a disturbing video clip.

2) Sensing the parallels between my context and that of people navigating other circumstances. Inclined to imagine that my own life’s movements tie into the universal human struggle.

3) All of the above.

4) None of the above. The reading was a waste of my time.

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