Bat Melech

2006-12-20T10:56:00.000-05:00

Wanted:

AP History textbook.

Do you have your old high school history textbook lying around? May I borrow it?

Thanks!

2006-12-19T10:12:00.000-05:00

So far so good:

My Hanukah Haul:

raspberry tunic top

deeeeelicious neuhaus chocolates (the way to my heart is certainly through refined, expensive, imported elitsit belgian chocolates..

clicky clacky earrings

DVF dress....on its way...yay!

2006-12-19T10:10:00.000-05:00

Hanuka Sameach!

2006-12-14T10:49:00.000-05:00

Academic Gatekeeping

I had a run in with a Jobsworth yesterday that made me steam. I was giving a presentation in class on a fairly under-researched novel Secret History by Leonora Sansay, and wanted to pick it up from the archival maintained here at NYU in the Fales Library. So I put on my polite face (which as we know, is usually irrestible.
S: Hi, I'm giving a presentation today in Bryan's class. (Subtext: your friend Bryan whom you love)
Jobsworth: Er, No. I'm not going to let you have the book. Is it integral to your presentation?
S: Um, yes. I'm talking about the circulation and the rarity of the first edition.
J: Still no. I don't think that's an appropriate use of the text, you know, as a prop for your presentation.
S increduously: So, I'm talking about a book, and you're not going to let me have that book? Even though my presentation is about exactly that? When would you let me have the book?
Jobsworth: Well, if you had looked at it before, perhaps. But just to look at it for the sake of looking, no, I really don't think that's appropriate.
S: Ah. Interesting. So, if I had looked at it twice even though that means handling twice, and potentially (gasp) using it up that would be better?

Note to the librarians of the world. God knows I love you, and I love books, but this is a Library. I am a Patron. And Books are there for Patrons to Look At. A Library does not exist for there to be a Library. A Library exists for housing books. To Be Studied. And Looked At. And TOUCHED if we want. Otherwise what's the point of an archive.

Reason 3,045 why I cannot leave this world fast enough.

2006-12-07T12:18:00.000-05:00

"This is not about beauty"

2006-12-07T11:46:00.000-05:00

Let's just listen to some really really great music to take our mind off the bad stuff. I challenge you to not sing along, really loudly. Don't you wish you could sit in some smokey basement bar drinking delicious martinis and listening to stuff like this

Fantasising about not being in the midst of finals much?

And guess what people, she's a M.O.T. too...

2006-12-07T11:40:00.000-05:00

Depressing news

Other depressing news

2006-12-07T10:14:00.000-05:00

Wordsmithery

We had our second 'workshop' Journalism class yesterday. This was moderately more interesting than last time, although I'd rather have Steve's input than anyone else. Still, returning to my English class yesterday afternoon, I was thinking about the nature of wordsmithing - my father always called me a wordsmith, but actually I think the academic track is less about writing as a craft and more as vehicle. There's something strange about the assumption in the English department (in my experience) that one is writing well by definition. There's very little discussion about the craft of writing, but rather the argument, and the content of one's writing. I know I take great care over my diction and syntax in my papers - and I'm sure I'm not alone, but there's this feeling that you write well as an inherent talent - drafting and editing are a process by which the innate skill floats to the surface. It was refreshing to hear Steve talk yesterday about writing as a strategy, a skill that can be a)l earnt, and b) improved upon. It's certainly not a talent that can be accessed in media res without potential development.

And with that, I'll move to my paper for Gravity - "This Book Weighs Heavily on Me: A Manifesto for a Principia of Literary Study".

2006-11-30T12:10:00.000-05:00

Politics aside, I love the quicksand metaphor in the second paragraph. Take that, sarcasm-challenged Americans.

2006-11-29T16:24:00.000-05:00

WWJD

2006-11-29T16:10:00.000-05:00

Shiksas and Goyim

I was at a party last night, well, a small gathering of really smart people, with the bias towards women rather than men. We're eating kosher food, made with love my a WIMP that I adore for many reasons.

The topic turned, as it always does, to dating, and less predicably to the topic of dating non-jewish men. Now, I'm not saying that this doesn't occur, but I always was assured that no matter what levels of frei one reached on the pathways up and down the mountain of Judaism, that was really the last level. I'm not so sure anymore. These women despite any temporary blocks on their activity as Jews, are firm in their identity and certain of their future as part of the people, yet every single woman in that room had a past (or current, but no one was talking about that) typically extended, somwhat serious, relationship with a non Jewish man.

I put it to you, that in this room of five spiritual, smart, funny and talented young women, not one had been able to date a Jewish man in the same way. What's going on with our tribe? What have we been doing for the last 25 years when it comes to our men? What next? Factory style conversions? Dunking in the mikva in turn? We're losing ourselves, everyone.

I've said this before, and I will say it again. I consider myself an optimist when it comes to people, and especially men. I've been blessed in my life right from the beginng with relationships with the male sort, starting with my primary school best friend, Dean, right until now. And I know this was no sociology experiment complete with guards against participant influence and double blinds, but does this not strike you as strange? Such cool women, and I use cool in non-ironic, genuine mode and yet not a glimmer of hope for their male equivalents. So, I know you guys are out there...where are you hiding? Its not JDate, because you might look good with your shirt off but you can't hold a candle to these women when it comes to intellect. And you're not on Frumster, because these women are much more together and sure of themselves than you on there. And you're not at shul, because neither are these women. And you're not at the Shabbat table because I can't remember the last time I sat at Shabbat table and heard any man talk about anything other than fighting the war in Lebanon from their armchair, the latest stringency put out by the Orthodox Union or the impossibilty of finding a girl under the age of 28 on the UWS who wants to date you. So come on, prove me wrong. Show me you're here, because otherwise, we're starting with the goyim.

2006-11-29T16:02:00.001-05:00

I know that stories like this are fodder for everyone from the right to the left, and that England has its fair share of nutjobs and wingnuts whose idea of fun is exagerrating irrelevancies for effect and tabloid inches...but honestly people, don't you have anything better to do with your time?

2006-11-21T10:39:00.001-05:00

2006-11-19T17:21:00.000-05:00

A Woman Important to My Heart (WIMP) said to me Motzei Shabbat that making her kitchen kosher felt similar to the endeavour of Pesach. We're told that the removal of chometz from one's house at Pesach is symbolic of removing one's ego. Our enslavement meant we had no autonomy, and were completely subject to the will of others. We clean to remove our ego, to remember that we were taken with "outstretched arm" from Egypt. There's more than just activity akin to with koshering one's new kitchen? This WIMP suggests that really, its "not meant to be this hard. You're not supposed to clean and broil and scrape and scrub and shelp on your own. When you set up your house its supposed to be with someone else. Your partner."

Except I think she's wrong. I think to rely on the end-result of being partnered as necessary to conduct one's mitzvaot is weakening, and terribly, terribly sad. Just because you are still One and not Two-in-One, doesn't mean that your efforts, love, attention, intention are worth any less to Hashem. If anything, then I think this is our challenge. Sure, we are meant to build a Beit Neeman, but at the same time, we are also intended to struggle. Struggling as a single, young Jewess today does not, thank G-d, mean wondering if you will have something for supper, if you have a clean skirt to wear, or even if you will see your brother again in your lifetime. It means that the struggle is rather, to be exactly that: a young, female, SINGLE, Jewish woman. This is our challenge my friends. Not the physical struggle of survival, but the reimagining of sacred space and incumbent duties as ours. Let's make Shabbat for each other. Buy those beautiful candlesticks before your marriage. Even before you go on a date. Love G-d and love yourself as his representative. Because while we're busy making our faith real, and loving it, the end result will be manifest.