Primrose Road

Three search terms that brought visitors to Primrose Road this month:

1. dress mud

2. di frage

3. attacked by a bear and yiddish

The Jewlicious blog offers a good reason to say that "today, we are all Chabadniks":

"Sure, we’ve all poked fun at these guys. I mean they are Hassidic Jews after all, with their funny hats and beards, and their odd ideas about the Messiah. We’d take advantage of their hospitality and kindness while always asserting “I am not a Chabadnik.”

But all that’s changed now. Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg were targeted solely because they were Jewish. Had any of us been in Mumbai the day of the attack, we too would have been similarly targeted by mere dint of our religious affiliation. It wouldn’t have mattered in the least to the cowardly terrorists if we were atheist Jews, or cultural Jews, or left wing peacenick Jews, or secular, LWMO, Reform, Conservative or Reconstructionist. If they called out for Jews and you had the balls to raise your hand, they wouldn’t have asked if your Mom was Jewish or if the Rabbi that performed your conversion was on the approved list of Rabbis put out by the Rabbinate in Israel. They would have targeted you without further question."

Be sure to read on at the site.

All seemed hopeful until we realized they were talking about the balloons. ;)

Our friend L. lives a few blocks from where they inflate the balloons for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, so we went to check it out (though tragically, we missed Spongebob).

Hello Kitty:



Dora the Explorer and an excited little girl in a pink hat:



Smurf!



On the way back to L.'s apartment, we found a deflated Spiderman in a trash can:



Distraught, we hurried back to L.'s apartment and comforted ourselves with onion and mushroom pizza.

Part I of White Noise: here's what my studentlekh came up with (ok, I threw in the "media skeptic" part, but they thunk the rest) --



Also, I learned that graduates of middle schools in the county where I teach still resent not being *told* what was happening on 9/11. They knew something was wrong because their teachers were mumbling fearfully to each other in the halls and then going back into the classrooms and telling the students that everything was ok. In the days and weeks afterwards, their teachers didn't mention anything about the event and its aftermath(s) because principals were afraid of upsetting students whose relatives had been involved in the disaster.

This week's G-dcast presents a nice lesson about caring for others and not being narcissistic, but I'm a little put off by the idea that Rebecca was THREE YEARS OLD when it was decided that she'd marry Isaac.


Parshat Chayei Sarah from G-dcast.com.

Ah, the things we don't learn in Sunday School.

Chabad.org offers up an not-really-posthumanist argument in one writer's attempt to engage with the "Can You Prove You're Not a Machine?" question:

we can't *prove* we're not machines ---> wait a second, we do operate kind of like machines ---> ............
----> but we're just *not* machines, we can't be ---> the difference between people and machines is the possibility for embracing God and meaning ---> you should embrace God and look for meaning and holiness in everyday life.

An argument with slightly fewer open spaces but more open questions might be:
we can't *prove* we're not machines ---> wait a second, we do operate kind of like machines ---> but aren't meaning, and God, and consciousness what make us human? ---> then ...????????

Overheard on campus:

"This is the first school I've been that I've actually gone to."

I received a "friend request" and message on Facebook today from someone who, on his profile, claims that he's trying to put together a poetry anthology that would involve a 50-state book tour:

Greetings, I hope all is well. Do you write poetry by any chance, or know any writers? I could use more submissions for my anthology project, the theme of which is how people see America.

I can't decide whether this is just another anthology scam or the work of a naive kid who's really excited about creative writing.

Here's a sampling of what's on the SecretPressUSA website:

1. The site welcomes visitors with the words "Welcome, to a place of publications, and unique situations."

2. The project's goals are "To publish anthologies and other types of fictional publications" and "To create once in a lifetime reading and meeting opportunities, in the form of publications, and literary events."

3. The "this will not be a "vanity" publication, so do not ask if it is" argument would usually suggest that "this" is indeed a vanity publication.

4. However, "Fifty percent of anthology royalties will be split between Writers during the first two years the anthology is in publication. Royalties will be paid in six month intervals, via check or PayPal. Writers will receive a free copy of the anthology." The PayPal part of this doesn't sound like standard practice, though.

5. "Founding" members have had books published by pay-to-publish presses like Trafford, Outskirts, and InstantPublisher.com and known publishing scam PublishAmerica.

6. Why I'm going with the "naive kid" theory for now: the photos and videos pages announce that photos and videos of the US book tour will appear. It seems like the "publisher" is extremely excited about a book tour for an anthology that hasn't been compiled or edited yet.

According to their Facebook page, Secret Press USA's "goal is to offer the first anthology for $10," and I'm wondering about the logistics of that goal.

I don't want this to sound like a random attack on a random aspiring author, so I'll own up to the fact that I used to sound just like him. If you turn up the sound on your computer, you'll be able to *hear* the shame.

I've written before about how PublishAmerica takes advantage of teenage writers, but here's another good example that arrived in my inbox this morning: a 14-year-old writer in Syracuse, New York found a story he'd written when he was 10 years old, revised it a bit, and after submitting it to several publishers, had his work "accepted" by PublishAmerica. The 58-page softcover book is selling for $17.

Many wedding planning websites exist entirely for the purpose of selling you stuff.

Big shocker, I know. On the Internet, we're all free to sell each other crap, as long as we have the resources to be able to sell crap to others. Rock on, cyberlibertarians. ;)

But my favorite bit of wedding-based consumerism thus far is the following "idea" from The Knot magazine:

Trash the Dress
The wedding is over and now you have a gown you'll likely never wear again hanging in your closet. Giving it to a local charity that supports low-income brides is a wonderful gesture, but if you've been dying to let off some of the steam that built up in the planning stages, consider a "Trash the Dress" video. Brides jump in a puddle of mud, let kids put their sticky little hands all over it, or rip it to shreds with their friends -- this video is all about having fun. While it's not a necessary piece of wedding memorabilia, it could be one of your favorite keepsakes.

I'd like to let this speak for itself, but here's my translation: "Dear brides, while it *might* be nice to donate your dress to a charity program, it's probably better to create a keepsake for yourself and de-stress instead."

The magazine also recommends that I get one oxygen facial per month before the wedding.