An Art Gallery in Israel

An art gallery in Israel, a museum, a shopping centre. Empty white walls round corners showing at first nothing. You wander up and in and over, seeking something. Past  the pillars and collonades, up the escalator to the next shiny level, sometimes you mistakenly catch the angsty eye of a customer and see sudden pain and discomfort. Then again here are the privileged kids, that stand in small knots with serious black-haired girls at their centre, or near bespectacled tall girls in earnest conversation.
Here too there are kids who look just like Americans, gloomy boys in sportsgear with light shoulderbags and ipods, with boyband hairdos above their smooth fat faces.
I think: This country is trying to be a European liberal democracy, with all that entails, carrying on as though nothing were wrong. And, as always, to know them, I look into the heart of their popular culture.
Whenever I get to a foreign country I always check out their comics. They reveal vast amounts about the psyche of the nation, in the way that old Beanos and Dandys do about the British. The Belgians had Tintin, a pink, blond, clean boy scout, in clear line, the French had Asterix and Obelix, who were sensuous, loving, and fought and feasted. I go to some lower level where the shelves are stacked with product, a cultural centre. The Israeli comics and cartoons are actually quite sophisticated, stylish, and here are bound volumes of them, set in clothcover by some artist, someone hip and trendy who knows graphic design trends.
And what images and cartoons do the Palestinians make? Dunno. Not represented.
So go to Australia and look at Australian comics. And roam uphills to bungee jumping spots from dams and bridges merely to feel the wind in your hair. The bushy green foliage, the wet droplets of dew. Reel across the highway in the southern summer, a hot fragrant wind blowing against you, unless you surrender to it and then it would seem to carry you on, merge you with the sunlight, and you would become blond, free, drunken, your spirit enlarged. And you can tell the posh backpacking girls, "I've been in Australia!"