murmbeetle has made an awesome thing and is now working on the next.

myodana has also made an awesome thing:
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My world is dark. ( Read more... )

(originally Nov 25)

Last month I spent a week in Berkeley, working on the new Moshav HaAm web site (which hopefully will launch this week) and meeting with various Bay Area Yidden. Here are the notes I took down -- and then put off fleshing out and posting here for several weeks -- after my eventful Shabbat in East Bay:

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New Mishkaneer piece on generational politics in synagogues. Fun for the whole family, if I may say.

ps. I promise I have tons of photos to post, and I will as soon as I can. It's just that I have to lighten a bunch of them first, and I've been busier than the proverbial one-legged man in the ass-kicking contest.

I'm playing a set at the Jewish Arts Fest in the U. District this weekend. Only $5! Come and stack my audience! Then go enjoy all of the other great art and music!

As part of my Moshav HaAm employment (thank G!d), I will be doing a lot of writing this Fall. Here are the latest two pieces.

First, in the new (secret!) Moshav HaAm Lab, the inaugural entry: Open-Source Distributed Rebbe

(poll: should I retitle this "Open-Source Rebbe" just because that's much snappier, even though it misses part of the point?)

And on Moshav HaAm proper: A Reminder of Why We're Here

As a footnote, while I was posting this I got a comment on an older Mishkaneer post that, well, kind of irritated me. But I'm trying to be good, see, so I was nice. I think. Anyway, I'm curious to know how anyone thinks I handled this.

Now that the autumn holiday cycle is a wrap, here are the last of the pre-holiday photos.

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Now that the fall holiday rush is nearing its end and things are getting back to "normal," I'm going to start posting some backlogged stuff from the last month. Before our little road trip to Oberlin, Lorain, Cleveland, Chicago, and back to Columbus via Indianapolis, tam_lynn and I took an afternoon trip with Peninah and her sister Sarah to the Hocking Hills, a beautiful hiking area which, I noticed at the time, is really no more of a drive from Columbus than the areas are from Seattle that we smug pioneers extol for their grand topography. The Midwest is truly underrated.

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So my bicycle was stolen. All that was left were my dangling severed lock and dashed dreams of a trip to Israel. I wrote an obtuse livejournal entry about this sad state of affairs and docsrock, to her immense credit, not only understood just what the heek I was talking about, but also gave me the helpful suggestion of looking on craigslist for bikes being "freecycled." I said, alright, if I can find a bike for free, then I'll still go to Israel. I left a message with a woman who was giving away two bicycles, and never heard back.

Fast forward to the next morning. I am taking a morning stroll -- along a new route for me, a pedestrian-only route that goes through some nice gardens (I'm trying to make the best of it, see) -- and what should I find but a 21-speed mountain bike, not dissimilar from mine that was stolen, just sitting in a patch of grass by the street, not in front of a house, unlocked, no identifying marks, apparently abandoned! For several minutes, I looked up and down to street, incredulous. This is the U. District. Bicycles don't just lie around unlocked (or even, apparently, locked) in plain sight, especially not three blocks off of Greek Row. I tried riding around on it. The crankshaft is loose and wobbly and the front shifter doesn't hold in third gear. I'm sure these are fixable issues, and otherwise it's in great shape, so I pedal the thing home. Then I print up a poster asking, roughly: "Lose Something? A valuable item was left here. Describe it in an email to me and I'll return it to you." So far, the sign is still there at the scene, but I haven't heard back on it either.

Fern says now I really have to go to Israel.

I, or I should say my bicycle, was visited last night by Lameo McCablecutty, a deranged former Sound Transit executive who, once driven by political frustration to that metaphorical edge of the urban growth boundary, envisioned finally a surefire strategy for increasing bus ridership: take bicycles away from non-car-owners.

This is the day I had planned to take a deep breath and buy myself a really cheap Ukranian airline flight to Israel in December that only has four seats left. So, as if by Divine Trial, I wake up this morning with a choice between Israel or bicycle.

And that is why I am calling an early birthday for myself. In particular, I'd like to know whether anyone has a reasonably rideable bicycle that they aren't using and wouldn't mind entrusting to a guy who evidently lives in the wrong neighborhood. %-p

This brings it all home.

This makes my head dizzy.

So who needs Yom Kipur?

A good fast to all the Yidden!

I finished this site last week and it just came online this morning. I believe it's the first site I've ever designed on an airplane...

http://www.emanuelcongregation.org/

Please tell me if anything's broken. But don't tell me if it's ugly. We can't do anything more about than now than we can do about your face.

(Actually, that's not really true. The site design could be redone, I just don't want to.)

I just got an email with this "From:" line:

From: "#DICT(FNAMES);#RAND_CHAR_LC; #DICT(LNAMES)#RAND_CHAR_LC;" <#DICT(FNAMES);#DICT(LNAMES);#RAND_CHAR_LC;@telkomadsl.co.za>

So far, it's nice being back in Ohio. I'm loving the insect noise and the quality people. We're staying with tam_lynn's friend Peninah. She and her boyfriend Scott and Tamar and I spent Saturday evening playing rounds of cards ("Class War," complete with funny hats) interspersed with performances of interpretive dance...

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Davin and Ashley were gracious enough to schedule the return flight from their honeymoon in Hawaii to arrive right before check-in time for tam_lynn's and my flight to Columbus, so we all got to hang out together at SeaTac for an hour.

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In recognition of Mom's birthday, I ferried over to Silverdale and cleared stuff out of the attic. I was such a little gear-head! Many of the following were among my most beloved childhood belongings.

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Finally, one of the most striking performances at this Bumbershoot was some middle school yo-yo whiz. I took this video, which anyone with the requisite software is welcome to rotate 90-degrees counterclockwise.

One about the language of "antisemitism."

One about new possibilities in synagogue organizing.

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