Primrose Road

The rabbi promised us he'd find an appropriate poem to read at yesterday's funeral service, and he did.

After My Death, by Chaim Nachman Bialik, trans. Ruth Nevo

There was a man – and look, he is no more.
He died before his time.
The music of his life suddenly stopped.
A pity! There was another song in him.
Now it is lost
forever.

A great pity! He had a violin,
a living, speaking soul
to which he uttered
the secrets of his heart,
making all its strings vibrate,
save one he kept inviolate.
Back and forth his supple fingers danced,
one string alone remained entranced
still unheard.

A pity!
All its life that string quivered
silently shook,
yearned for its song, its mate,
as a heart saddens before its fate.
Despite delay it waited daily
mutely beseeching its saviour lover
who lingered, loitered, tarried ever,
and did not come.

Great is the pain!
There was a man – and look, he is no more.
The music of his life suddenly stopped.
There was another song in him.
Now it is lost
forever.

Early yesterday morning, my father died of a massive heart attack. He was healthy and had no pre-existing medical problems.
There is no rhyme or reason or sense to anything in this world.



He taught me how to dance the Lindy, play poker, engage almost anyone from anywhere in the world in conversation, and tell stories. The world is a very different place now.

I tell my students at the beginning of the term that they get three *free* absences for classes that meet twice a week; after the fourth, a student's grade will be lowered by a full letter. The reason for the *free* absences? I don't want to hear dumb excuses.

Of course, some students always come up to me before or after class to tell me why they missed the last class meeting anyway. Eighty-five percent of the time (I don't think I'm overestimating this), the student will tell me that he or she was in a car accident.

Is "I was in a car accident" the new "my grandmother passed away"?
If not, then approximately thirty of my students have been in car accidents since 2005. Which would suggest, of course, that there is a clear correlation between being in my class and getting into car accidents. ;)

For final exams, the only excuse I'm accepting is "I was attacked by a bear."

From the Fall 2008 issue of the Nextbook Reader, on Israeli-American-German filmmaker Omer Fast's Spielberg's List:

"The beginning of the film seems like just so much more Holocaust testimony: first-person descriptions of the camps, the smokestacks, the dogs, the hunger, the widely plumbed range of Nazi inhumanity. One might watch this testimony with the same measures of sadness and respect and anger and exhaustion with which most Holocaust testimony, at this point, is taken.

"But the film starts to breed some strange incongruities ... The interviewees, it begins to become clear, aren't talking about their experiences in the camps themselves but about their experiences as extras in the film Schindler's List.
...

"Where the woman in Poland had actually been at a fake place, the medic in Jerusalem seemed to have been absent from something real: His participation in a real event was a far less emotional experience than her participation in a staged one."

Via Shakespeare Geek: an astrologer blogs about Kenneth Branagh's chart and links us to another blog post that asks whether or not the character Hamlet is "Saturnian." This probably would have interested me a whole lot in my drippier days, and would have most likely inspired me to write a paper speculating about Hamlet's astrology chart.

You'll notice that Branagh's Saturn is between the seventh and eighth houses. ;)

Though astrology is bunk and there's no mechanism by which planets and asteroids can influence human behavior, I will offer this critique of Branagh's Hamlet film: Branagh -- probably because he casts *himself* as Hamlet -- doesn't acknowledge the possibility that our buddy the Dane has Saturn in the eighth house in his chart. :)

(Explanation: the eighth house is the house of sex and death. Saturn is a planet of limitations, usually limitations imposed on oneself, but it can relate to physical limitations too.)

(Also: astrology is fun mythology, but it's at best a protoscience and at worst crap.)

200-level fiction survey class, circa 9:30AM, after students have spent 10 minutes asking questions about assignments/due dates/how the syllabus works --

Me: You know, according to some psychological studies, you guys ask me all of these questions because you want me to be your mom.

30 minutes later --

Student: Do we have to read the Allende story for Monday, Mommy?

He was joking, of course, much unlike Ralph Wiggum. ;)

Aish New York, a branch of kiruv organization Aish HaTorah (which basically aims to bring young Jewish people "back" to Haredism, one mitzvah at a time), is offering "gender wars" workshops later this month. These workshops are intended "for young Jewish professionals in their 20s and 30s with limited to no Jewish background":

We all know that men and women are different- but how do you learn to use those differences to engage in a successful relationship with the opposite gender?

What A Man Wants
For Women Only (Join for part II on Sept 24th)

Ziva Kramer is a matchmaker and a dating mentor with attitude. Her delicate and brilliant assessment of relationships will give all women the power and strength to take each step in the dating process with grace and wisdom. With the wit of her stories and vast matchmaking experience, Ziva will shock you while simultaneously opening up your eyes to all the truths which she has learned over the years.

What A Woman Needs
For Men Only

Rabbi Yitz Greenman, husband and father of nine, has over 15 years of experience presenting no-nonsense wisdom on relationships. An accomplished executive in the field of Jewish outreach, his combination of humor and relatable life experience have made him a sought-after counselor by singles, couples, and some of the most senior New York executives.

My father's state-ist advice to me as a teenager: "Never go to Alabama. Never, ever go to Alabama."

A kind-of-creepy $50,000 "family relocation project" grant is available to Jewish families willing to move to Dothan, Alabama.
There's a Family Relocation Project Prospect Questionnaire on their site.

I'm curious as to how many people will take Dothan up on its offer ...

A message to whomever found this site by searching for "evaluate quote from hamlet denmark's a prison":

1. Unless you're discussing some type of cultural phenomenon or reactions to a current event, blogs are not good sources;
2. Ask a librarian at your school what JSTOR and Project Muse are and proceed to USE them;
3. Ask your teacher/prof to review the concept of close reading with you and proceed to close read the scene in which Hamlet claims that "Denmark's a prison";
4. If for some reason you simply copied and pasted into your paper what you found via Google, remember that your teacher/prof ALSO HAS GOOGLE (that's the wonder of the WWW) and can easily catch you in the act.

Thanks. :)

Received a postcard today for "The English Channel," by Robert Brustein, at the Dorothy Streslin Theatre (312 W. 36th St.):

"The murky relationship between great writers and their proclivity to "borrow" ideas and materials is examined in this comedy trading Shakespeare's relationship with the Earl of Southampton, the Dark Lady of the Sonnets and Christopher Marlowe during the turbulent months before Marlowe's death."

There could be a misunderstanding of how authorship and "borrowing" worked in the days before copyright and intellectual property, but it looks like it's worth seeing nevertheless. It's playing until October 5th (see Smarttix.com for tickets and showtimes).