it works!

86 issues ago, when our subscriber list looked like a pack of raisins, we would answer the phone with the joy of the poor: ”Architecture of Israel - the best architectural magazine in north Tel Aviv”. As fate so desired, and with no little effort, the magazine became an influential agent, and there’s not even one scholar in the country who doesn’t read it. And indeed, when we write about a social problem, we know there’ll be swift and appropriate response.

Well - I’m not speaking about the successful cottage cheese protest, but matters of less prestigious buildings - absolutely yes.

Examples? A half a year ago we asked Bibi to remind Fisher that to lower the price of apartments you don’t have to increase the mortgage price, but rather to increase the amount of available apartments. To make sure he fully understood - we reminded him that although in this country only he, the president and a few thousand prisoners enjoy public housing, in more derelict countries like Holland, England and Sweden - every person, even students, may rent a house from the municipality at the monthly cost of Haaretz subscription. To our surprise, the response was swift, and today you can get a tent at a good location on Rothschild Blvd. in return for a justified protest.

Accidental? Absolutely not. In the previous issue we wrote about the distress of the foreign workers and then too, the response was prompt. South Sudan achieved independence, and within 24 hours a cleaner at a prestigious Tel Aviv hotel bought a suit at the central bus station, and crowned himself the first ambassador in Israel who had entered the country through a barrage of gunfire on the (so called) open border with Egypt. 

Still within a statistical deviation?... Not long ago we promised one of the partners of the Baruch-Salomon office that if he managed to remain Chairman of the Architects’ Association for more than three months, we’d double his name. Today he is pleased to be called no less than Baruch Baruch. A few issues ago, we wrote about the Regional Appeal Committee, manned by wax figures that learned to automatically approve the decisions of the chairman, who goes around with the look of a high court judge. Today the chairman is utterly convinced he’s a high court judge. 

We wrote about the judging panels of architectural competitions who used to conceal any connection with the competitors - today they don’t give a fig about their mom, because the “scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” has become an accepted norm, proving numerous times that prizes can be obtained as well for plagiarism that cry afar of their origins.

Encouraged by the paper’s success in solving the problems of the poor, we decided to open a new service for architects and their families (even if they’re students), and as from today, anyone having problems with the authorities, income tax, the wife or children can write to us, even anonymously - in any case, in the as-if facebook era, names or titles have no meaning.

Indeed, very often when I identify myself by name when answering the phone after four - since there’s no one here by then - I get the answer on the other side, “Excuse me but how come the editor is answering the phone?” It's a fact.

And so that no one says we didn’t warn about the social danger of the facebook era, here’s a real story I heard from my daughter: An 85-year-old adolescent shows off to his room-mate at the home for the elderly that he had just met a 22-year-old girl. “What do you say…I only hope you remember that a person can die of too much sex”, says the mate,  envy mixed with concern. “Sure”, answers the facebooker, “That’s life, man - if she dies, I’ll find another.”

And believe it or not, he did.