Yesterday’s Gone, Yesterday’s Gone: Facing Tomorrow One More Time
I have been thinking about tomorrow, and not just because they told me not to stop. Actually, as historian Niall Ferguson noted at Jerusalem’s recent Presidential Conference (already discussed heavily on these pages),…
Three Rabbis Walked Into a Bar…
Is there a “mitzvah†to be environmentally aware? Are Internet affairs the same as regular ones, in the Jewish view? How’s a Jew supposed to talk about Israel with non-Jews, especially if s/he…
TEDx Talpiot (Or: Very Smart People Doing Something Huge for the World)
A world renowned physicist, a brilliant bio-tech founder, and a celebrated science biographer walk into a Hillel house… and raise the bar. The recent TEDx ‘Talpiot’ event in Jerusalem (read more about the…
Wanted: Your Small Change
It’s a funny thing about sarcasm and writers / artists: Often it’s only on paper. Meaning, razor edged wit is a weapon of choice, but watch that creative communicator in off-duty moments and…
Change the Conversation
It’s time we changed the conversation, like Bret Stephens does in this great clip. (HT: Elie Klein.) While I am proud to be part of such a complex tribe, sometimes our messages are…
Get the Hell Out of…My Face
Here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about poor Helen Thomas, who IÂ believe was probably just saying what everyone thinks and has therefore been made a scapegoat. Not that I really care, because we…
We are the World (in Blue and White)
Prof. Linda Allen contacted Shlock Rock’s Lenny Solomon’s at the beginning of last year. She had heard his original composition, Ani Yehudi (lit: “I Am a Jew”), and felt it was “the best…
Shmini
I know this isn’t supposed to be an artsy poetry blog. I am meant to be irreverant and hip, or as much of those as I can muster from between suburban loads of…
Psalm for the Sabbath, 2.0
Just in case you missed it on Twitter or Facebook, tomorrow (March 20th) has been declared the National Day of Unplugging by Reboot, a “a growing network of thought-leaders and tastemakers who work toward…
Stressing re: Cross-Dressing
“Please: Do *not* send pix. Really.” It’s been about a week since Purim, but I am still thinking about my broad shouldered and hairy (male) neighbors who, although upstanding citizens in general, year after…
Big in J.A.P.an
(Cross-posted at my blog) (…Tx for teaching me protocol, V.) Travel literature (or film), when boiled down to its essence, is almost always about some combination of the 3E’s: Escape, Expunge, Expand. The protagonist…
On J.A.P.s, Journeys, Maccabees, and Cable TV
I just finished reading a great and entertaining memoir by Lisa Fineberg Cook, a self-aware, spoiled, very smart and funny Jewish girl from LA who marries a world-traveling educator / adventurer and spends…
Suburbadox Paradox: Something Larger, Tiny Place
Months ago, I e-mailed a friend (let’s call him Earl) about who-remembers-what. Earl is also a writer, and in addition, works in photography, film, and music. He is waiting for his Big Break,…
In the Beginning…There was Fall.
Now the year gets serious. And stays that way for about 5 months. In Israel, The Day After Sukkot, until about Purim, is the window during which things – if they are going…
To Do (Tomorrow): Have a Happy New Year
The New Year’s wishes fill my inbox and the apple crumble is cooling, but I’m not that ready, and I’m not that into it. A time for introspection, repentance, and resolutions? A day…
Summer Prayer of a Hebrew Redneck Wannabe
Every summer, right in the hot, soft belly of July/August, I’m hit with it in the head, like the skillet of an angry housewife: the urge to play Alan Jackson loud with the…
Bad Energy, and Soup in a Tupperware
Heeeey there. It’s been more than a month (closer to two) since I’ve blogged. The reason can be distilled into one intense truth: I will never have more time than I have…right…NOW. (Or, as my brother likes to say, later is later.) Or, if you will, a Carrie Bradshaw question: When you multitask, are you doing everything, or are you doing nothing?
Leaving that aside…on to my actual post.
Who believes in bad energy clusters? Raise your hand. It seems we (as a people) are about to commemorate one tonight and tomorrow, whether that’s what we want to call it or not. For the uninitiated (or the only slightly initiated) Tisha B’Av, a fast day second in seriousness only to Yom Kippur, starts tonight, culminating a three-week morning period which began with the fast of 17 Tammuz. 9 Av marks the day that BOTH temples in Jerusalem were destroyed, in addition to many other terrible things to befall the Jewish people over the years. (17 Tammuz has its own laundry list.)
If the baddies throughout history were anything like the bored hooligans in my neighborhood, it does not surprise me that stuff was burned down and smashed and people killed and chased during the summer. Riots seem to proliferate in the heat, and I seem to remember that it’s just not in Israel. I’d riot too if I didn’t have A/C. But that doesn’t account for all of it…there’s seems to be something simply unlucky going on.
So back to the bad energy….
9 Things I Learned at Affilicon ’09
Kudos to Itay Paz and his Affilicon crew. That was one well-oiled (well-coffeed?) machine of a conference. My favorite thing (seriously, I’m sentimental this way): A charging station for laptops / Blackberries, complete with orange t-shirt…
God’s Top Ten – and Mine…
Have you ever considered WWYHDTM (What Would You Hand Down the Mountain?) I had some thoughts on the matter in honor of Shavuot… http://the-word-well.com/gods-top-ten-wwyhdtm.html Those are my Top Ten. What are yours?
Mug Shot
(ck says: Jump right in, no need to introduce yourself.) …So: The Pope. Again. I have just one more thing to say about it: I’m really jealous of him. Nope, not the chic jewelry or the…
