Anyway, I was in Israel as a kind of cultural ambassador and there were lots of press conferences scheduled around the performances. The journalists usually started things off by asking about the avant-garde.
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö So, what's so good about new? they'd ask.
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö Well, new isÃÔÇÜÂÔǪ interesting.
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö And what, they would say, is so good about interesting?
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö Well, interesting is, you knowÃÔÇÜÂÔǪ it'sÃÔÇÜÂÔǪ interesting. It's likeÃÔÇÜÂÔǪ being awake, you know, I'm treading water now.
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö And what is so good about being awake? they'd say.
Finally I got the hang of this: never answer a question in Israel, always answer by asking another question. But the Israelis were vey curious about the Gulf War and what Americans had thought about it, and I tried to think of a good question to ask and answer to this, but what was really on my mind was that the week before I had myself been testing explosives in a parking lot in Tel Aviv. Now this happened because I had brought some small stage bombs to Israel as props for this performance and the Israeli promoter was very interested in them. And it turned out that he was on weekend duty on one of the bomb squads, and bombs were also something of a hobby during the week. So I said:
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö Look, you know, these bombs are nothing special, just, just a little smoke
And he said:
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö Well, we can get much better things for you.
And I said:
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö No really, these are fineÃÔÇÜÂÔǪ
And he said:
ÃÔÇÜÂÔÇö No but it should be big, theatrical. It should make an impression, I mean you really just the right bomb.
And so one morning he arranged to have about fifty small bombs delivered to a parking lot, and since he looked on it as a sort of special surprise favor, I couldn't really refuse, so we are on this parking lot testing the bombs,
