I'm at camp!!!!!!!! Send care packages!!!! Keep the tradition alive!!
Stuart Siegel (or Shimshon)
BIMA and Genesis at Brandeis University
415 South South Street
MS 037
Waltham, MA 02454
Just keep all snacks kosher, please, and don't send anything that won't arrive by July 31.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
781)529-8437
I am not really in the room before 9pm (busy days!!), but I will try to call people back, or email or at least send good vibes...
They're working us hard here at BIMA/Genesis @ Brandeis University. It promises to be an intense and rewarding summer. I've been here since yesterday morning. The kids arrive next Monday, and we are in full-on preparation mode.
They're working us hard here at BIMA/Genesis @ Brandeis University. It promises to be an intense and rewarding summer. I've been here since yesterday morning. The kids arrive next Monday, and we are in full-on preparation mode.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
I'm not here, I'm not queer, but maybe you should just get used to them
Gay Pride Wars 5767, Round 2
(5767= 2006-7)
I'm not around this time to smell the burning garbage, but I bet it's fun anyway. For last November's adventures, just Google these three fun terms- dumpster pride Jew- or click the link right there, you lazy.
I'm supposed to be working right now (writing environmental Torahs), but i wanted to toss this fun image at y'all before your day ends in a spiral of ennui and meaninglessness. I didn't design it, but I suggested the caption, which means, "in the image of God," 'cuz that's how ALL HUMANS are made.
Saturday, June 16, 2007
What I was thinking about the Sabbath
In a "secular" life, Friday comes around, and the excitement builds. As sundown approaches, all rules are gone, all structures come apart, time spreads out limitlessly, making no demands, dangling the promise of raucous adventures and indulgence. The goal is dissipation, letting go, forgetting the struggles of life. The whole world becomes a playground.
If you're into Shabbes, the sinking of the Friday sun imposes an inescapable structure on Time. suddenly existence has a framework far more complex than that of the week. The day demands even more focus- focus on God, focus on prayer, focus on what can and can't be done. Friday night is a time of spiritual electricity, the whole world is transformed into a palace of God.
Yes, the command is to eat amply, and to enjoy and to forget the struggles of the week, but in a way (or at least in the wanderingstu way), you are more aware of Life's challenges. Maybe the workaday is stressful, but sometimes having to face God, armed with nothing but a third helping of cholent can be rather daunting. Or at least intense. (Cholent- a meaty Shabbat stew made in a crock pot. If anyone calls me "Meaty Shabbat Stu," I will frown in their general direction.)
I didn't mean this to be a complaint about Shabbat (does it sound that way?). Not at all. I just wanted to riff on the difference between the significance of Friday evening in the different frameworks of living. Kinda like a secular bachelor party involves hookers, blow and a lot of cussing, while a frum Shabbat Chatan (the religious version of the bachelor party) involves bearded guys, cheap vodka and a lot of blessings.
Shabbat Shalom
If you're into Shabbes, the sinking of the Friday sun imposes an inescapable structure on Time. suddenly existence has a framework far more complex than that of the week. The day demands even more focus- focus on God, focus on prayer, focus on what can and can't be done. Friday night is a time of spiritual electricity, the whole world is transformed into a palace of God.
Yes, the command is to eat amply, and to enjoy and to forget the struggles of the week, but in a way (or at least in the wanderingstu way), you are more aware of Life's challenges. Maybe the workaday is stressful, but sometimes having to face God, armed with nothing but a third helping of cholent can be rather daunting. Or at least intense. (Cholent- a meaty Shabbat stew made in a crock pot. If anyone calls me "Meaty Shabbat Stu," I will frown in their general direction.)
I didn't mean this to be a complaint about Shabbat (does it sound that way?). Not at all. I just wanted to riff on the difference between the significance of Friday evening in the different frameworks of living. Kinda like a secular bachelor party involves hookers, blow and a lot of cussing, while a frum Shabbat Chatan (the religious version of the bachelor party) involves bearded guys, cheap vodka and a lot of blessings.
Shabbat Shalom
Come Friday Sundown
First of all, why are Shabbat times so late in DC? Candle lighting is 7 minutes later here than in New York, and 12 minutes later than in Boston. I thought the further north, the longer the summer days. My assumption is that the drift east as you go up the coast affects your location within the time zone. The closer to the eastern edge of the time zone, the earlier Shabbat comes in.
Yep, just did a little check, with the help of hebcal.com and mapquest. Bedford, IN, 650 miles due west of Washington DC, takes in Shabbat 38 minutes LATER than DC. They must be at the edge of the time zone.
Well, no. I just checked Washington, IN, 47 miles west of Bedford, and Shabbat there is exactly an hour earlier than Bedford, affected by nothing but the time zone change. Which makes sense, I now realize (chagrined, perhaps by my ill-considered theory above). It's not like the sun is going to set earlier in Washington, IN, than in Bedford, which is east...
Now that last paragraph makes no sense. I was being stupid, and assuming that I been stupid, but I wasn't being stupid, so IGNORE that last paragraph. I was going to erase it, but then thought that an open-source experience of my mind might be entertaining, and generate a few extra comments.
SO---> The whole Washington, Indiana thing is the POINT! Here's a chart, from East to West...
XXX You know what, I've realized that this is all more complex than I need it to be right now, but soon, barring massive reader protest (which means 2 comments), I will some day take you on a virtual journey, from Washington, DC to Leoti, Kansas, from Atlanta to Cincinnati through Bluegrass Country, and we will virtually kindle the Shabbes lights at each stop along the way. It will be virtually entertaining.
And now for the next post-
Yep, just did a little check, with the help of hebcal.com and mapquest. Bedford, IN, 650 miles due west of Washington DC, takes in Shabbat 38 minutes LATER than DC. They must be at the edge of the time zone.
Well, no. I just checked Washington, IN, 47 miles west of Bedford, and Shabbat there is exactly an hour earlier than Bedford, affected by nothing but the time zone change. Which makes sense, I now realize (chagrined, perhaps by my ill-considered theory above). It's not like the sun is going to set earlier in Washington, IN, than in Bedford, which is east...
Now that last paragraph makes no sense. I was being stupid, and assuming that I been stupid, but I wasn't being stupid, so IGNORE that last paragraph. I was going to erase it, but then thought that an open-source experience of my mind might be entertaining, and generate a few extra comments.
SO---> The whole Washington, Indiana thing is the POINT! Here's a chart, from East to West...
XXX You know what, I've realized that this is all more complex than I need it to be right now, but soon, barring massive reader protest (which means 2 comments), I will some day take you on a virtual journey, from Washington, DC to Leoti, Kansas, from Atlanta to Cincinnati through Bluegrass Country, and we will virtually kindle the Shabbes lights at each stop along the way. It will be virtually entertaining.
And now for the next post-
Friday, June 15, 2007
DC Casual
I'm sitting here in a cafe/grocery store, a refreshingly bright and pleasant space in this kinda run-down neighborhood. It's called, fittingly, Windows Cafe, and it has free wi-fi, for Windows or OS X. The place is run by Ethiopians, and they only charge $1.50 for a big ol' muffin.
A young gent, tall and skinny in a Snoop Dogg sorta way, just walked in and shouted, "y'all got some lettuce?" The girl behind the counter noticed he was limping and asked what happened. With the same verve with which he asked for lettuce, he smiled and said, "I got shot!"
A young gent, tall and skinny in a Snoop Dogg sorta way, just walked in and shouted, "y'all got some lettuce?" The girl behind the counter noticed he was limping and asked what happened. With the same verve with which he asked for lettuce, he smiled and said, "I got shot!"
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
what are you doing
It is Tuesday morning in Washington, DC. Yesterday I went to a temp agency and took some aptitude tests. I missed 2 questions on the Microsoft Excel test, otherwise, I got them all right. I test well. Huh. They used to think that would get me somewhere.
I am in DC for a few weeks with Patrick, hopefully doing a little temping to fill the pockets, and working on a few pieces for my yeshiva-mate Jonathan Neril's Environmental Parsha Initiative. I did a nice solid hour of writing while Patrick and his law firm pals played softball on the Mall, between the Reflecting Pool and the Korean War Memorial. An hour of solid work! More than I've done in years.
--- right now i am in Patrick's new apartment, waiting for the various people to come and set up the various things-- gas, satellite TV, AC... The AC repair people just arrived. I heard someone yank on the locked front door, then the doorbell rang twice, urgently. Opening the door, I find two middle-aged chinese men in snazzy short-sleeved button down shirts. One of them is wearing a pork-pie hat, and has a long, kung-fu beard growing from the middle of his chin. They look more like a jazz-duo than the air conditioning team. The hatless guy mumbles a few words to me about the AC, then cruises in, followed by his associate, who nods once at me and says a word under his breath. The first gent has some sort of gauge and rubber tubing apparatus in his hand. He pauses by the thermostat, says, "Seventy-five; gone down," to his partner, then they're gone out the back door.
I was going to blog here about lonliness and stifling of harmful appetites and facing the extreme opulence of the DC lawyer world and blogs where girls talk about their sex lives and dreams and love and art and thought and achievement and situps and squats and indolence,
but those Chinese guys distracted me, and now i'm going to move towards doing what I should be starting to do before I do what I came here to do anyhow.
I am in DC for a few weeks with Patrick, hopefully doing a little temping to fill the pockets, and working on a few pieces for my yeshiva-mate Jonathan Neril's Environmental Parsha Initiative. I did a nice solid hour of writing while Patrick and his law firm pals played softball on the Mall, between the Reflecting Pool and the Korean War Memorial. An hour of solid work! More than I've done in years.
--- right now i am in Patrick's new apartment, waiting for the various people to come and set up the various things-- gas, satellite TV, AC... The AC repair people just arrived. I heard someone yank on the locked front door, then the doorbell rang twice, urgently. Opening the door, I find two middle-aged chinese men in snazzy short-sleeved button down shirts. One of them is wearing a pork-pie hat, and has a long, kung-fu beard growing from the middle of his chin. They look more like a jazz-duo than the air conditioning team. The hatless guy mumbles a few words to me about the AC, then cruises in, followed by his associate, who nods once at me and says a word under his breath. The first gent has some sort of gauge and rubber tubing apparatus in his hand. He pauses by the thermostat, says, "Seventy-five; gone down," to his partner, then they're gone out the back door.
I was going to blog here about lonliness and stifling of harmful appetites and facing the extreme opulence of the DC lawyer world and blogs where girls talk about their sex lives and dreams and love and art and thought and achievement and situps and squats and indolence,
but those Chinese guys distracted me, and now i'm going to move towards doing what I should be starting to do before I do what I came here to do anyhow.
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