The Stars Our Destination I

Someday the earth will be like one of those towns on the South Shore of Long Island, like Long Beach or like Broad Channel in the Rockaways which have been hit one time too many. It will be the result either of some external force like the asteroids which caused the ice age or the problems will emanate because of the way carbon emissions in the upper atmosphere and the consequent Green House effect have caused a catastrophic shift in our weather profiles. Someday the inhabitants of the earth will be in the position of the German Jews at the time of Hitler. There were those who couldn’t believe in the prospect of annihilation and those who escaped with a few possessions just before the gauntlet was lowered. But how will the migration take place and what will be the latter day vessel, the Noah’s Ark, into which people and animals will escape? And where will civilization go? The only mildly hospitable planet in the solar system is Mars. The others are either too hot or too cold and even Mars is a trek. If we talk about going further out into our galaxy of the Milky Way, we are talking about some kind of migration taking place over generations. It would be biblical in scope. But the forty days and nights would probably be changed to light years and many life times would be spent in travel to the new found land. The science fiction writer Alfred Bester’s famous tome is The Stars My Destination. The question is: when it’s time to move, which one will we shoot for?

Diasporic Dining XXXI: The Unbearable Lightness of Corned Beef

Matt Dillon starred in The Flamingo Kid (1984), a coming of age movie which takes place on Atlantic Beach in the 60’s. Like Atlantic Beach, Lido Beach leads right into Long Beach a more modest community on the South Shore of Long Island that’s famed for its boardwalk, from whose berth
 a generation of old Jewish pensioners overlooked a monumental expanse of sand leading to the Atlantic. It’s from Lido Beach that the Lido Kosher Deli gets its name. East Park Avenue is one of the main thoroughfares that runs parallel to the ocean and the deli. The take out menu describes the Lido as being “Sandwiched between Neptune & Roosevelt Blvd. at 641 -1/2 East Park Avenue."  The Lido could have played a cameo in the Dillon movie, as it hearkens back to an era in which people actually talked about the real things in life over an overstuffed Pastrami sandwich, no matter that the denouement in The Flamingo Kid occurs Larry’s Fish House whose motto is “Any Fish You Wish.” Speaking of conversation, no can give lip to the Lido's tongue which is the best in the world. If all tongue was like the one served at the Lido Kosher Deli, we’d be at a loss for words, since this tongue literally melts in your mouth. The Irish pride themselves on their corned beef and cabbage as well as their great poetry, but the corned beef at the Lido is a form of kosher poetry that’s in a class all by itself, a fundamentally heavy food that defies gravity. Milan Kundera should write a sequel to The Unbearable Lightness of Being centered around the Lido Beach Kosher Deli’s corned beef, called The Unbearable Lightness of Corned Beef.