A Confession

I miss the New York Times. There, I've said it. I'm not proud of myself… but there it is. For most of my adult life I've had a love/hate relationship with the 'Gray Lady'.

Starting with my first subscription when I was in University, I loved certain aspects of the paper… and hated others with equal fervor. Although doing the times crossword puzzle in ink over breakfast in the school cafeteria was considered an obvious bit of showing off… back before the Times had figured out a way to better fix their inks to the paper, it was considered a genuine mark of erudition among the intellectual set to show up to the breakfast table with ones fingers smudged with printer's ink.

Just seeing those small smudges on someone's fingertips would indicate who was likely to offer the most lively and well-informed conversation… even if it did include the inevitably wrong-headed coverage of Israel.

After university I changed apartments too often to justify arranging home delivery of the Times, but I made sure to pick up a copy a few times a week… and always took pains to make sure a copy of the weekend edition was laid in for lazy Sunday morning reading.

But looking back, I realize that the love/hate nature of my relationship with the times was (and is) truly only skin deep. You see my feelings towards the paper were almost entirely based on the political content of the front (news) page and back (editorial). Their coverage of the Middle East has been nothing short of infuriating over the years… causing me to cancel my subscription several times during fits of pique. However what existed inside the paper (and in the myriad sections & supplements throughout the week) were consistently informative and entertaining.

While we still lived in Connecticut, I can't count the number of Sunday mornings that Zahava and I took the kids to my parent's place for brunch. After the meal everyone would retreat to different parts of the house with their favorite section of the Times. Periodically someone might emerge to seek out a family member in order to exchange a section of the paper or share an interesting tidbit… but inevitably they would retreat to cozy solitude.

I also recall a particularly fancy Saturday night affair I once played with my band at the Waldorf Astoria that went into the wee hours of Sunday morning. As the tired guests trickled out of the ballroom and collected their coats, they were met by a pleasant parting token that had been arranged by their thoughtful host; There, near the top of the curved staircases that lead down to the lobby were bags of fresh H & H bagels… and neatly stacked copies of the Sunday New York Times!

Since moving to Israel I have found that I am less well informed about world events than I once was. This is because, even after digesting several Israeli news sources, one is left with a sense of tunnel vision… meaning everything here is seen through the 'fish-eye' lens of 'how does it affect Israel?'

So for all its aggravating liberalness in hard news coverage, and its maddening tendency to embrace editorial viewpoints antagonistic to many of the things I hold dear, I miss the Times.

I miss the feel of it in my fingers and I miss the well-informed feeling I had when I would finally set it aside. I miss reading David Pogue's latest take on technology, and I miss looking for hidden 'Ninas' in Al Hirschfeld's fabulous caricatures.

I have a long weekend visit to the states scheduled for mid-August. I will be staying at the family compound on the beach in Connecticut and catching up on some long-overdue family time. But one of the small pleasures I am especially looking forward to during my stay is an honest-to-goodness free Sunday… curled up in the morning sun in my favorite Adirondack chair with the Gray Lady.