Archive for category Scatterbrained Posts
Segue – really.
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on October 28th, 2009
Okay, it’s been a heck o
f a long time since I’ve really blogged.
I’ve moved hundreds of miles, and really haven’t moved at all. I think that my progression (read: evolution, devolution, or whatever the next phase of my life might be retroactively dubbed) demands my blogging to take place underground – incognito, y’know? So here I go.
Nether Zone
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on May 24th, 2009
It’s honestly not that easy for me to post while I’m in the nether zone, something I’ll hopefully be out of by month’s end.
It Was Not Swine-Flu…
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on May 6th, 2009
…but it was still kind of awful. Thank G-d for Zpac, which helped me to get back in the swing of things. Speaking of swines (or the lack thereof), some time ago I went with someone to a (swine-less) kosher farm in upstate New York for a Shabbos – a really cool experience. Turns out that the ‘farmer’ is a massive talmid chachom who blew my mind with all sorts of interesting words of Torah [1] interspersed throughout the Shabbos meals and some one-on-one chats. I’m very much looking forward to hearing more from him in the future [2].
On the seasonal nature of the Jewish Calender
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on April 29th, 2009
When seasons change I often give some thought to the nature of the cyclical Jewish year’s makeup. Something on this subject struck me when I was taking a walk the other day in pitch-perfect eighty-degree weather. All of our happy holidays occur during times of year when the climate is not much better than borderline-miserable, and all the depressing or solemn ones fall out when nature is really buzzing. I guess that there might be a yin/yang thing that goes along with that. Yiddishkeit holds onto us tightly during the seasons that we might be predisposed to being overly-ebullient, and perhaps do things that are not in our ‘best interests’, while instilling a sense of intrinsic joy within us during the calender’s dark and brisk period, when we are more susceptible to despondency.
Posting Hiatus
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on April 21st, 2009
Yes, I know, I have not posted nor commented on the blogs of others in a while. I think that this is due to a perfect storm of reasons, which I will call the ‘Funk.’
Elaboration of said Funk:
A. Pesach got in the way, y’know?
B. I got really sick on the last day of Pesach – at a hotel, no less. I’m still recouping.
C. I think I have reached something of a crossroads w/r/t what this blog is all about. I have finished a couple stories that I am allowed to keep up -of the unfinished ones, one is in indefinitive limbo, and the other (The Kollel Guy) is, well, it’s at the end of Season One so to say (Season Two will soon arrive, with a couple twists on its horizon). But my first nonfiction serial posting (In a Previous Life) really does display to me that the blog is heading in more of a direction that I’m going to be more comfortable with on the whole (assuming that I can keep blogging).
Last Days of Pesach 2009
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on April 17th, 2009
So I spent the last days of Pesach at a hotel, and couldn’t get passed the striking resemblance between many of the vacationers and the humans from the film Wall-E. Seriously. I got to join the eat, sleep, rinse & repeat Borg, but not for long enough to look any less emaciated than I always look.
On Conservatives and Liberals (Part 2); Acharon Shel Pesach
Posted by Talmudist in D'var Torah, Politics, Scatterbrained Posts, Thought on April 14th, 2009
When a more conservative government is in power, government tends to grow smaller, squeezing the populous into a position where they must answer for themselves to a greater degree. This pressure promotes a counter force in the ‘individual’ to strive for personal greatness. Such an attitude is contagious, causing families to stick together, strengthening their values (important to note: Some form of religious devotion often runs concurrently with this), and tends to harbor a nourishing incubatory atmosphere in the home for the appreciation of education.
To be baldly (and quite probably badly) reductionistic about it: There is an inverse relationship between the size of government and improvement in the infrastructure of our nation’s educational and academic paradigm.
On Cell Phones & (totally unrelated) Other Things
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts, Sports, Thought on April 13th, 2009
In deferation to Chol Hamoed, I am going pictureless, at least for today (ya, I know, that makes absolutely no sense – if anything I should put up a pic and not post any text, but I won’t relent just because I don’t make sense).
The Limbo of it all *
Posted by Talmudist in D'var Torah, Scatterbrained Posts, Sports, Uncategorized on April 11th, 2009
So I’m supposed to be working on an article for a more ‘choshuv‘ publication than the ones that I have already been featured in, but it’s an uphill climb – for me. There are so many ways to view just what it is that I’m (supposed to be?) writing about w/r/t the particular subject matter at hand - so many seemingly conflicting ambiguities are involved (just how is it possible to have a truly objective POV on just about, well, just about anything…that is, at least when writing a piece of investigative journalism?), and seemingly unending fact-checking responsibilities float around the project’s background…
The calender has not been much of a friend in my endeavors either, what with ‘no-work’ Pesach days cramming up prime workweek real estate. But there’s nothing one can do but keep pushing.
The option of throwing in the towel does not exist. ‘Shevah yee’pol tzaddik v’kom;’ my friend. (”Get busy living or get busy dying,” etc.).
I heard an interview recently between Terry Gross and the comedian Russell Brand which is, I think, pretty ‘on point’ (no intention for punnery was latent there, seriously).
Upper West Side Shabbos
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on April 8th, 2009
Being that I had to be in the UWS before Shabbos this past Fri., I did not have much chance of leaving The Island after my meeting in time for Shabbos. There was some amount of guilt involved. I missed my bro’s kid’s Shalom Zachor in Jersey. Bernie, I was most definitely with you in spirit.
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