When Life Hands You Lemons, Make Vodka Martinis for Your Friends

    Last July when Cold Steel Renegade (the San Francisco air guitar champion also known as M. Feldstein) was in town for the USAG Nationals, we took a trip down to the Museum of Jewish Heritage and one area of the exhibit really stood out to me: a display case containing intricate gifts that camp prisoners had fashioned from scavenged materials to give one another.  I was impressed by the ingenuity and craftsmanship and quite humbled by the thought that the human spirit could endure under such dire circumstances.

     While it may be a cliche that the process is just as important as the outcome, for an individual to express their creativity with so few resources then have the products of their labor preserved for future generations to understand on their own is, in my opinion, the mark of a true artist.  Each and every clueless politician who wants to cut funding to the arts should read the message that a tiny copper-wire tea set in its context conveys; periodic works of art in many forms have long been profound symbols and vital records of human civilization that should not only be remembered but also continued to be made, no matter the cost.

    Lechaim!