{"id":1789,"date":"2018-07-30T22:11:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-30T22:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1789"},"modified":"2018-07-30T22:11:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-30T22:11:00","slug":"ring-them-dubrovnik-bells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/?p=1789","title":{"rendered":"Ring Them Dubrovnik Bells"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the ’70s my parents had Liza Minnelli on heavy rotation, and that\u2019s Dubrovnik first lodged in my head.\u00a0 Across a<\/span>ll that time, Dubrovnik – exotic and homely, worldly and worldweary, embedded with lessons of travel – has stayed with me. \u00a0Through all the hoops of irony and wit, I got a culture lesson which wasn’t wasted when I visited.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the set-up of \u201cRing them Bells”:\u00a0Liza Minnelli sings of Shirley Devore who goes capital hopping looking for a husband.\u00a0 <\/span>Not a looker, she strikes out all over Europe – London, Madrid, Mallorca, Berlin.\u00a0 <\/span>Someone says, \u201cTry Dubrovnik, dear, before you go home!\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>First day\u00a0 <\/span>she met a guy on the beach who took her reason away.\u00a0 <\/span>They introduce themselves: she\u2019s Shirl Devore, he\u2019s Norm Saperstein.\u00a0 <\/span>Not only are they Jewish New Yorkers, it turns out they live next door to each other on Riverside Drive!\u00a0 <\/span>She had to go to borrow a thou\u2019 and go to Yugoslavia to meet a lover next door.\u00a0 <\/span>It was all delivered with broadest accent and humor.<\/p>\n

On a mission, Shirley heads straight for the guys in Dubrovnik, never talking about the beauty of the fortified city, polished stones, swimming off rocky cliffs into azure blue waters.\u00a0 <\/span>What does she care about sea powers like Venice that challenged it; Napoleon\u2019s betrayal; certainly not Croatia\u2019s Nazi collaboration!\u00a0 <\/span>(Shirley visited in the \u201870s; Yugoslavia was intact, so no need to think about the \u201cWar of Independence.\u201d) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In that way, she was somewhat like the tourists of today with their selfie sticks.\u00a0 <\/span>The medieval town, church, monasteries are but backdrop for their faces; at least Shirley was looking for love, they\u2019re into self-love!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As much as Dubrovnik was a prop for this theatrical song, I gathered from it\u00a0something of the old world Jewish consciousness, at once cosmopolitan and provincial, realist and wise.\u00a0 <\/span>Do what you\u2019ve gotta do, wherever you are.\u00a0 <\/span>Time is short.\u00a0 <\/span>Don\u2019t expect too much of life – you\u2019ll be disappointed.\u00a0 <\/span>Age-old Dubrovnik, worn-at-the-edges, brocade and Ottoman, seemed to share this.\u00a0 <\/span>Small countries, like minorities, have to keep their heads down, move cautiously while still doing what they do.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t forget – the travel changed Shirley entirely.\u00a0 <\/span>She had to leave home to discover what she wanted.\u00a0 <\/span>The wry moral of the song is: Girls, don\u2019t stay in your apartments, step\u00a0<\/span>into the hall!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the ’70s my parents had Liza Minnelli on heavy rotation, and that\u2019s Dubrovnik first lodged in my head.\u00a0 Across all that time, Dubrovnik – exotic and homely, worldly and worldweary, embedded with lessons of travel – has stayed with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[746,748,749,747,750,745],"class_list":["post-1789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dubrovnik","tag-fred-ebb","tag-john-kander","tag-liza-minnelli","tag-ring-them-bells","tag-yugoslavia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4D5qU-sR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1790,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789\/revisions\/1790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.jillpearlman.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}