Myspace Re-Post #22 (the LAST!): I have taken a giant step...

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on December 26th, 2007.

Ok, maybe the title is a bit hyperbolic. But today, I posted a serious comment in response to the following invitation from one of The New Republic's blogs:

The TNR Caucus: Who's Got Your Vote?

With just eight days to go until Iowa, we here at TNR thought it would be an oppurtune moment to do an informal caucus of our own. We want to give our beloved commenters the floor, and get an answer to the big questions: Who has your vote, and why? In what's already been a wildly unpredictable campaign, what do you think, as of today, is going to happen in the end? 

Of course, there are other issues that would also be interesting to hear from y'all on, if you're so inclined. For instance, in general, have you found yourself more engaged or less engaged by the campaigns--and by camapign news--this year? And has there been any particular argument, moment, event, debate, book, or article that's helped you make up your mind, one way or the other? (And no, we're not trolling for compliments.) So please, comment away!

--Ben Wasserstein

And so, I posted this:

shims-b said:

1. Barack Obama - For several reasons, most of which have been well documented by TNR, Andrew Sullivan in his terrific Atlantic article, and elsewhere.

The primary reason for my support of Obama is, yes, his ""character."" However, I do not refer to some vague, uncertain quality when I use that word. Here is what I mean: (disclaimer: I could very easily be wrong about each of the following statements of belief - it's hard not to be cynical in politics, and it's also hard to know the truth)

I believe that Obama will seek out the opinions of the most intelligent and qualified experts when handling almost any matter, and will use those opinions, and the arguments behind them, to arrive at better conclusions, on average, than any individual who thinks that he or she is a self-sufficient expert.

I believe that he will tell America the truth when and if he has something we that should be told (and which TNR will report on months before the larger newsweeklies).

I also believe that his administration will be relatively (emphasis on relatively) transparent - this much seems to be supported by his campaign's willingness to talk to the press, compared to some rivals.

Most importantly, I honestly believe that he has a better chance at winning the general election than any other democratic candidate. His appeal among moderates and conservatives has been widely discussed, and while the data may be somewhat flimsy and anecdotal, it seems logical to me to at least recognize the voter-turnout factor. In all likelihood, fewer conservatives will drag themselves to the voting booth to vote AGAINST Obama than would show up to vote against, oh, I don't know, Hillary Clinton.

2. Joe Biden - If I was one of the front-runners in this campaign, I wouldn't base my candidacy on ""experience"" unless my name was Biden or Richardson. Biden has the confidence, experience and credentials to, how shall I say this, govern from ""day one?"" I would probably support his campaign if I thought he had a reasonable chance of winning, but that does not appear to be the case at the moment.

3. Hillary Clinton - I think I speak for a large number of democratic voters when I say that we are, relatively speaking, blessed with an abundance of viable alternatives from which to choose in this primary. I would be happy to see Hillary elected president, and I am confident that she has the managerial skills etc. to get this country back on track fiscally, diplomatically and morally.

The thing that concerns me most about her is her Bush-esque emphasis on loyalty and secrecy over transparency and the toleration of dissent. She may be afraid that she or one of her staffers will say something that would potentially be an embarrassment. Well, Biden and Obama have not been so worried by this prospect, and they have each said things that the media has loudly touted as if they were campaign-wreckers. Hardly. That's why I trust them more than Hillary.

Everybody makes mistakes. A true leader is willing and able to admit them (with all due respect to those who object to Bush's numerous bunglings and disastrous management overall, I think that the inability to admit weakness or error is really his biggest problem).

A note: I will be voting in New Jersey, on ""Super Tuesday,"" so I guess I am one of those persons whose vote will count for something. To those whose votes will not count at all, I have the deepest sympathy for you. The primary system is broken, and we need to fix it!

December 26, 2007 11:13 PM

See the real live comment here:
http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2007/12/26/the-tnr-caucus-who-s-got-your-vote.aspx
"

Myspace Re-Post #21: This time, it's personal!

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on December 4th, 2007. This post was also hosted as the only post on a separate Google Blogger account from June 25th, 2008 until quite recently (March 10th, 2017, to be exact). Let us hope this will end its long lonely wanderings in cyberspace...

Hello out there all you lovely listeners! I'll bet you've been wondering where I've been...

Tee hee, course I don't really believe that. But I'm going to tell you anyways! I've been buried under a pile of work, with a special emphasis on applying to graduate schools in psychology.

That's going pretty well. I'll be sure to keep y'all up dated on if and when and where I get in anywhere.

So I've spent the past month or so researching schools and working on what is generally known as a "Statement of Purpose." In this statement, you are expected to detail what (within psychology) you are interested, why you are interested in it, why you're a good candidate for grad school, why the given school is right for you, yada yada yada. The point is that once you've come up with a carefully crafted, revised and vetted general essay, you simply need to make a few small changes for each school, and you're otherwise pretty much done.

Except for the fact that Berkeley, alone among schools that I am aware of, ALSO requires a personal statement! What is a personal statement, you ask? Why is a personal statement, you ask? What more is there for you to say after the whole friggin' statement of purpose thing, you ask?

Well, Berkeley answers: "In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree."

So, that should be pretty clear, right? No, not really? Well then you can understand why I put off writing the damn thing until last night, AKA the night my application was due!

Now I managed to pull something together with a little help from my friends, but I didn't really have time to run it through the wringer, so out of a general sense of curiosity and narcissism, I thought I would post this essay, in its entirety, on my myspace blog!

Pretty crazy, huh?

(Hey, shut up. I wasn't talking to you!)

Here's the essay. If there's anybody out there, let me know what you think!

My personal background is somewhat unusual, as I was raised as an Orthodox Jew, yet had numerous meaningful encounters outside of my community that have combined with my upbringing to lead me on a unique academic journey. Being an Orthodox Jew meant that I lived in a heavily Jewish neighborhood, attended Orthodox Jewish schools, and had only Orthodox Jewish friends while I was growing up. My community was very insular, and personal interaction with the wider culture was strongly discouraged. Despite this fact, I was exposed to other cultures and modes of living from a very young age. My grandparents and many of my other close relatives were Jewish but not Orthodox, and as a child I used to play with the children who lived on my block, regardless of their ethnic or religious background.

In high school, I began to more actively pursue engagement with the outside world. For example, I used to frequent a used music store near my high school during my longer breaks. This was in part driven by my budding fascination with rock and roll, but there was also a social aspect to my regular visits. I had struck up a friendship with one of the clerks at the store (who, it later turned out, was also the owner) simply by asking for his opinion on some of the CDs that I was considering buying. I was fascinated by my newly discovered ability to form friendships with people from outside of my insular religious community. I began to think about the basic commonalities that all people share, with a particular interest in how individuals come to form complex relationships with each other, both within and beyond group boundaries. By meeting other employees at the store, I was able to test out new ideas and theories that I had developed about how normal social interaction was structured.

I began applying a similar mindset to other social gatherings that I encountered. I joined an orthodox youth group that organized large conventions where hundreds of teens could meet one another. The array of different people I encountered at my first such convention dazzled me. I was particularly struck by the fact that I was continually meeting new people, and thus had a continuous supply of new encounters with which to experiment, so to speak. These encounters allowed me to learn a great deal about myself and my interpersonal style, as well as how people meet and become friends on a more general level.

Later in high school, my focus began to shift to the formation and evolution of informal social groups. This interest arose naturally enough, as I found myself stuck in the middle of a series of intractable conflicts between some of my closest friends. Often these conflicts boiled down to differences of personal preference and taste, and yet this seemed to be a sufficient basis on which to divide a unified group into two or more distinctly separate groupings. By senior year of high school, the web of my social affiliations had grown so complex that I felt the need to draw a diagram depicting the interrelationships of over twenty of my friends. In creating this diagram, I somehow felt that I was advancing my understanding of the dynamics which influenced who became friends with whom.

In the summer before my senior year of high school, I participated in a summer arts apprenticeship program conducted by the City of Chicago that drew teens from every part of the city. I was in the "Performance Poetry" group, where we not only learned to write poetry in a particular style, but also to "perform" it. I made some very good friends in this program, and maintained contact with them during the school year by attending poetry readings throughout the city. In this way, I also came into contact with a broader subculture surrounding spoken word, poetry readings and coffee shops. I was fascinated to discover a social world all around me of which I had previously been ignorant.

That same summer, I began working as a vendor at Wrigley Field on a part-time basis. I soon grew to love this job, not merely out of my interest in baseball, but also because it gave me a window into the inner workings of human nature. Vendors were paid on commission, and I had to hawk my wares myself. I enjoyed the opportunity to test out my naïve theories of how people could be influenced to buy a product from me. When selling peanuts, I noticed that whenever I threw a bag to a distant customer, several other people would suddenly express interest in my product. Soon I was looking for every possible excuse to toss someone a bag rather than hand it to him or her, and I began to nonchalantly toss a bag up in the air and catch it myself if I found myself in a slow aisle. I enjoyed this work experience to such an extent that it was to serve as my primary means of employment the following three summers.

As senior year progressed, I thought a great deal about what course I should pursue in life. My high school encouraged its students to remain within the bounds of the Orthodox community, even while pursuing higher education, by recommending that we attend specific colleges (such as Yeshiva University) that are largely populated by other Orthodox Jews. The idea of continuing the social and cultural isolation that had been imposed upon me by my community did not appeal to me. I looked to my college years as a time when I could branch out and meet individuals from diverse backgrounds, to learn about their values and way of life. I also hoped to find a peer group that was as interested as I in striving for a deeper understanding of human social interaction. I bucked the trend and applied to many secular colleges, including Harvard, where I eventually matriculated.

In my first semester at Harvard, I enrolled in "The Evolution of Human Nature," in order to explore some of the questions I had about human relationships and social interaction. To my delight, I found that many of these questions could be answered by adopting an evolutionary perspective, and I spent hours in conversation with several of my classmates, discussing the implications of the course's material for our own lives. The following spring, I took "Introduction to Psychology," and found that I was most fascinated by the chapters on personality and social psychology. By the end of the year, I had decided to major in psychology, with a particular focus on social psychology.

My coursework in psychology and such related disciplines as biology and sociology answered some of my questions about human behavior, but this is not what drew me most strongly to the field. Rather, I increasingly found that I was able to articulate and frame the questions that had always aroused my curiosity. By learning about past experimental studies, I was able to imagine how some of my favorite questions could be explored in the future. Every new piece of information that I learned seemed to raise another question. My curiosity for knowledge of the workings of human interaction was boundless.

That curiosity is what continues to drive me to this day. I have become familiar with the day-to-day challenges and demands of experimental research in psychology by working in psychology laboratories during six semesters of college and in my current full-time position. Yet still I find that the more I learn about interpersonal relationships and social interaction, the more fascinated I am by the intricate workings of our complex human nature, and my list of questions only seems to grow longer with each passing day.

Myspace Re-Post #20: Weekend of Champions

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on September 4th, 2007.

I figured out what I'm the world champion of this weekend. Know what it is? No, it's not of asking stupid rhetorical questions to chew up blog space...come on, try a little...


Ready?


Ok


Here goes...


Turns out I'm the world champion of Lugging Around Oversize Wheelies on New York City Subways! (LAOWNYCS-ing) I established this feat with a rush hour dash from Penn Station to the Upper West Side on Friday afternoon, followed up by an all-day Upper-West-to-Queens-and-back spectacular on Sunday afternoon, with a nice little Morningside-Heights-back-to-Penn number to finish it off. All you erstwhile challengers, bring it on...

Also, although I've known this for some time, and I am a contender in the ongoing International Awkward Juggling of Possessions While in Motion (IAJoPWiM) event. I have yet to capture that crown, however...too many bumbling putzes in this world for a guy like me to make his mark...



sigh...

Today was a momentous day at work: It marked the first face-to-face meeting I have had with my boss (I've been on the job two months). It's nothing too spectacular, he's simply been in Berkeley until now (a likely story...). I should note, however, that he has been compared to Charlie of Charlie's Angels, for whatever that's worth.

Today also marked the return of my other boss, Talya. For those of you stuck in hopelessly outdated, rigidly hierarchical employment structures (which is to say, jobs in the corporate sector), this is not, in fact, comparable to the situation of our hero in the celebrated film Office Space. Danny, my ultimate boss, gives me very little work, as he is working on writing a book. Most of the work he does give me consists of scavenger hunting across the social psychological literature and beyond to verify memories he has of classic experiments.

Talya gives me much more work, which could be seen as annoying. However, she's also around more frequently, and those halls can get lonely at times (I've been hearing these aliens in the white noise that keep trying to make contact with me - but I won't let them!).

Well anyways, the point is that both of my bosses were gone, now both are back. Maybe I should explain about the lugging of luggage (not that it would seem to need explanation, given the name...)...

I went into NYC this weekend after two tranquil, placid, pastoral, endless weekends in Princeton. I left work early on Friday and made it to the Upper West with an hour to spare before Shabbos. My place of crashing was the swank pad of one Aaron K. Harris, who was in the year ahead of me up in Boston. We went to this infamous shul known as OZ on for Friday night minyan. OZ has frequently been described as a "meat-market," although this a heinous falsity, as we Jews don't sell meat on Shabbos, and most of the people there looked like they were the veggie type or else on diets.

However, there were lots of young single people there, which was a nice break from my never-ending purgatory "out-of-town" (i.e. "out-of-dates"). Dinner featured an evenly matched gender ratio and chicken. However, I grew bored of the company after dinner, when talk turned to an in-depth analysis of Justin Timberlake's (er, rather, "JT's" ) dance moves and essential hottness ...

The next day we ventured up to the low 100s to eat at another Harvard alum's place - or rather her parents'. This place was tastefully decorated in the manner of a pretentious intellectual elite. It fondly reminded me of my own childhood

ambitions.

And later in the day, after a nap, I paid a visit to "the lawn." Once again, I came in the expectation of an open-air butcher's market, and yet all I saw were young Jewish people playing games...and sports, too.

The evening was a little insane, however, I must skimp on the details. I met up with Ivan at his place in the East Village, and we proceeded to watch the show "Californication," for about an hour, before venturing out. We ended up in one of the oldest bars in New York, and it seemed to retain its 1850s feel - right down to the dirt and imminent bar fight. Fabulous!

This was followed by a trip to Washington Heights and then back to the Upper West by subway, all after midnight. However, my CIA editors tell me I can reveal no more...

Sunday, I ventured out to Queens. Kew Gardens to be precise. In theory, I was going to pick up some stuff that I left with my room mate, Jon. Turned out that it was actually an excuse for Jon's mom to foist some food on me.

Well, you've got to sympathize. I mean, she obviously never gets a chance to foist food on Jon...

Well, a conventional narrative would build to a climax [here] and then insert a brief resolution [here]. However, I'm getting bored and tired, and have better things to do, so...

One more thing: Check out my profile! I updated it recently, and seriously, it's embarrassing that it has fewer views than my blog. Really...


Good Night, and Good Luck...

Myspace Re-Post #19: What kind of music do you like?

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 23rd, 2007.

You know, this used to be such a simple, innocent question. People strongly identified with a particular music genre and its accompanying subculture, whether that be the folk scene in Greenwich in the early sixties, or rock and roll, or grunge and the the Seattle scene in the early-to-mid nineties. Even now, there are many emo kids and the like. And yet, more and more it seems that people of our generation keep saying the same damn thing: "Oh, you know, everything."

Even in the late nineties, I could catch people on this by following up with, "even country?" and they'd be like, "well no, except country." But even that caveat no longer holds true these days, with country being one of the top-selling genres of the past ten-to-fifteen years, and increasingly a staple on Top 40 radio and MTV (you know, between 2 and 5 in the morning, when they show music videos?). What has happened to our once-powerful identification in particular forms and kinds of music?

In truth, I too frequently say "everything," or at least want to say it. But that's not really what I mean. To me, a genre is not a good or bad thing in and of itself. Rather, it's a mode of expression, within which one can excel or dramatically fail. Indeed, it is within genres that I make my distinctions. and every genre is fair game. I maintain to you that almost any genre or subgenre has its good, its great, and its awful musicians/artists. example: within hip-hop/rap/whatever you want to call it, we have the great: Jay-Z. and the good: Kanye West. and the awful: Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy/just shut the fuck up already, no one cares anymore. Similarly, hair metal has its (sometimes) great progenitor Van Halen, its (occasionally) good Def Leppard, and its (generally) awful Bon Jovi (oh boy am I gonna get shit for that one - ok, just pretend I said poisen!)

Anyways, my point is this: It's ok to like every kind of music, but pick the good music from the bad. Not all songs are created equal!

In addition, don't dismiss a song or band by its genre - that's like judging a book by...well you know what I mean. Country music has given us Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson, and even metal has its moments (some of Metallica's early albums contain some astonishing melodic sections, not to mention brillian soloing).

And finally, when I ask you what kind of music you like, all I'm trying to do is engage you in a conversation about music. If you truly don't like music (or at least don't like to talk about it), then fine, say "oh, you know, everything." But if you wouldn't mind a discursive tangent on the relative merits of some of your favorite bands (I'll let you pick - I'm musically omnivorous), give me something to work with!

Myspace Re-Post #18: Dearly Beloved

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 19th, 2007.

Hello friends...

This lyric has been going through my head for the past week or so. I thought if I posted it on my blog, maybe that would make it go away? anyways, bonus points if you can guess the artist...

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
2 get through this thing called life

Electric word life
It means forever and that's a mighty long time
But I'm here 2 tell u
There's something else
The afterworld

A world of never ending happiness
U can always see the sun, day or night

So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one - Dr Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby

'Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You're on your own

And if de-elevator tries 2 bring u down
Go crazy - punch a higher floor!

Myspace Re-Post #17: Up-date, Part 3 of 3?

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 19th, 2007.

Hey all, not sure if I'll finish catching y'all up to where I am at the moment, but I'll give it another go-round. First some ordinary musings...

I was wondering why my blog views have taken off lately. I mean, what with about forty friends and maybe 3 subscribers, it seemed odd. Then I remembered that I'm now allowing facebook to import my blogs. hmm... clever, aren't I?

Let me clarify something, by the way: I'm in Princeton, New Jersey these days. I've got a job doing research with a professor by the name of Daniel Kahnman. He's cool. He's got a wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahneman . And I live in the Princeton "ghetto" which means that for about two blocks around me, there's a little bit of diversity. Got two room mates, pretty cool people...

Ok, Chapter 3:

Well, in the last episode, I detailed how I got a job, traveled, did some other stuff, then I sort of glossed over May. Well, I don't really remember May much. In fact, with the way my memory's been going these days, I'd better get this thing finished as soon as humanly possible...

So with May began the senior events, and Hillel was the first. Because if Hillel tried to compete with all the other senior events, let's just say that wouldn't work out so well...so on Wednesday, May 2nd, they had a senior dinner. This was actually pretty fun, although the ironic part is that I sat with my housemates mostly - that is, people from the Currier '07 Jew Crew. This is primarily me, Aviel/Bryan, Jon Kamler (my senior-year room mate - who still has my stuff!), Hannah Sarah, Arielle, and Strich. Plus there are satellite members like Josh Elihu and Johnny Leeman and a bunch of others. All in all, not too shabby of a group, compared to what '08 and '09 have got...Also, we got to drink wine in the courtyard and try to act graceful and sophisticated. right.

I had work to do - a paper for my Jewish history class was due on Monday, and I had also decided, for some odd reason, to organize the study guide for the class. You know, study guides - where you do a fraction of the reading for the course, write up a summary, and everyone else does likewise, and everyone gets to take it easy-ish.

Now I had never organized one of these things before. Second-semester of my senior year, doesn't seem like a good time to start something new, does it? But I was really anxious that no one would do it, because the reading list was HUGE. and since I knew a ridiculous number of people in the course, I figured, hey, why not?

In the end, I managed to get out of doing practically any reading at all - just lots and lots of emailing, assigning, and a little bit of arm-twisting. See, my group was a runaway best-seller. We cornered the market - another group actually said that they couldn't get enough people because of us, and asked to join. Over half the class was in on the take...I got a weird kind of evil glee out all this.

and I was writing a paper on the relation between Freud's Jewishness and his Freudian-ness. But aside from that, I was pretty much free. See, at Harvard, they have a reading period that lasts a week and a half, so that students can put off studying for a week and a half and party or whatnot...

of course, I should have been figuring out what I was going to do between graduation and July 1st. That's when my job was supposed to start, and in the mean time, Harvard was throwing me on my ass on June 8th (day after graduation). I needed to find a place to live, but had never done this before, and at first, I really didn't know what to do. naturally, my first reaction when I don't know what to do in a situation is to do nothing, so that's basically what I did for a while...

May 8th there was a Currier house senior dinner...I sat with Aviel (formerly Bryan, formerly my room-mate) and a bunch of people we weren't that friendly with. Turns out it was primarily an awards ceremony for pretty much everyone in out house and class except us. Actually, the whole Jew crew got pretty much shut out...but I'm not sayin anti-semitism or anything, hell no. See, I almost never get awards, and I have figured out why: I never do anything extremely well and I never devote hours of my time to helping other people. I think that's pretty much the only ways people get awards...and kudos to them, for that.

(Actually, there was a little scandal about an award that I could have potentially gotten from the ortho minyan at hillel - basically, they had created the award this past year, and it was to be given to an outgoing member of the community who had done a lot to serve the community. The only public service I did while at Harvard pretty much was helping out the minyan, which I did in a variety of ways for my first three years. Then I got sick of performing a series of thankless tasks without any support or help or positive reinforcement, etc. So, senior year, I prioritized other things. And guess what? although three awards were given, I didn't get one - even though I know one of the big guys was pulling for me! What can I say? orthodox judaism has really never done anything but push me away. Sometimes you gotta wonder - why bother pushing back?)

May 15 our psych-lab had a year-end party. I'd been looking forward to this because in the past they've been pretty cool, but this year's party was a little underwhelming. Also, they gave out awards at the party, too, but only for people who had worked on a particular study - guess what? not my thesis study. Shut out again...I'm really not the award-winning type.

May 18th I had my first final, May 22 I had my second, and last! So at this point I was totally free, and had nothing to do but kick around and party until June 7th. However, I let the housing search stress me out to a ridiculous extent. I decided that I decided that I needed to go down to Princeton to look around in person, after laying the groundwork first. but first, there was Shavuos...

That's right, almost forgot about Shavuos - it started the evening of my last final - May 22. The big stinker was that Austin had managed to get out of town right beforehand. I mean, good deal for him, I would've done the same, but that left me with Avi and Adam and the usual crowd at Hillel, and they're all pretty unpredictable.

Usually, shavuos night is awesome because it's a religiously sanctiones/ordained all-nighter. hillel was pretty boring, however. In fact, I walked back and forth twice, and gave myself some foot trouble for a few weeks, but nevermind.

The second night, I ate at Danny and Lindsey's - they are the nicest people ever. I think this is when I found out what I would do with all of the random stuff I needed to store - they offered to let me use their basement for the three weeks.

MY GOODNESS, I almost forgot to put this in: on Sunday the 27th, I drove to Monsey, NY, and back with Avi and Dave to attend Shuey's wedding. No time to explain, but it was just crazy that we went there and back on the same day...

The next week was "senior week" - a whole bunch of random party-ish events for seniors, since all the underclassmen were gone. I was stressing about the housing thing - that really killed this period for me, unnecessarily. Still slapping myself. I was emailing all kinds of random people, sending blind emails, etc., and trying to find out when people could show me around. I thought at first that I would go down to Princeton on Thursday/Friday, but then realized that it wasn't really convenient for the people showing me around, and that doing senior week stuff would be cooler.

Although I didn't actually do a lot of that stuff, except hang out in the house and party with those people a bit. There was a talent show which was an amusing cultural experience...I remember a pre-game for a formal I didn't go to. I ended up hanging out with Joe and Mike Judge (aka Fudge) and a few other folks, watching the red sox game at a bar and then going back and chilling at currier. I hung out in the ten-man (the major party suite) more that week than I had all year (another criminal offense on my part, since I was pretty good friends with a few of the residents - but last year was all about work and pain...ugh!)

So I went down to Princeton sunday night, stayed at a real stripped-down joint for the night, and spent Monday checking a few places out. Mostly, I didn't have a clue what I was doing, and the few places I saw weren't right. So I stopped by the office, where some of my former co-workers came up huge for me, and we worked some things out. I arranged to meet a guy who lived in a semi-collective house nearby around 4ish, with the knowledge that to have any hope of getting back to harvard that night, I would need to be out of there by five or so.

and lo and behold, this place was great! I was really enthused - the people seemed cool, the room was nice, the rent was fair (or even cheap), and the location was awesome! I called them and said the deposit was on the way, and they sounded stoked too...

unfortunately, they pulled the wildest, weirdest bullshit I have ever encountered. When I checked my email at some point Tuesday afternoon, I had an email from the guy saying that he had received my check - and torn it up! Why? the owner of the building told him that since there were currently 4 male and 1 female residents, the remaining room had to go to a girl, since otherwise no woman would ever live there ever again. now, I hate to say this nice boys and girls, but this counts as housing discrimination on the basis of gender...

I was in disbelief, and also quite upset. I contacted my legal counsel (my father), and he handled the situation, which was key, because I totally would have gone off on this guy. unfortunately, they were unbudgeable, and so I graduated without knowing where I would live...

Tuesday, June 5th, there was a senior wine and cheese run by hillel at the home of the assistant director. I was one of the first there because I had to meet the Shoags and work out some random details. So I got to hang out awkwardly with two hillel staff-people until some of the hillel folk showed up with their families - such a strange gathering...but I braved it out, yes I did! Incidentally, Avi showed up, which was the last time I would see or hear from him for a full week. he totally ditched me. sometimes you just gotta wonder what goes on in peoples' minds...

and then when I was about to leave I was unlocking by bike on the street below and notice that someone had jacked - my seat! re-fucking-diculous! and I actually biked all the way back (about a mile and a half) just standing up...

The next day there was a brunch at hillel followed by one at chabad and then "class day." and my parents and brother were coming in. They missed the hillel brunch, which would have been somewhat cool for them to be at, but hey - my parents barely ever hung around at Harvard while I was there, and maybe it was better that way...I did set them up with some food at chabad, and then we went and found some seats for the class day thing.

Class day is a series of humorous or poignant speeches by students and one celebrity guest speaker - we got Bill Clinton. I was pretty stoked. Also, one of the peeps from my house, Kiernan Schmidt, was giving a speech, which was hysterical! really, he crossed the line about a dozen times, and I was just surprised that they actually approved it...

Clinton was ok. My brother kept obsessing over how he kept listing great people who had spoken at the Harvard Class Day thing, people we should emulate, people like Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, and...Bono. he really did keep bringing Bono up for no apparent reason. What can I say?

Did I mention that to this point I had packed about two or three boxes? to give you an idea, in the end there were probably 10-15, plus luggage, plus stuff that I just left behind because of my hideously poor planning. but at least I got down to princeton for no reason...

and then my bro and I stayed up veeery late that night - nevermind that I had to be up at 7:30 to attend a "very special breakfest" (no, no alcohol or drugs were involved. I know, I was disappointed too...) and then march all together down to Harvard Yard.

I got about two hours of sleep and was late to breakfast, and also to the marching because I ran to my room for a minute. Then began the most hallucinatory experience I have ever had - and I mean ever (so far...). There were about 100 of us, in black caps and gowns, walking down the street and through Cambridge Common during morning rush hour, mostly tired but also giddy. When we got there, they lined us up in the middle of the yard, which was packed, and we got to stand in the center aisle while all these pompous people in ridiculous uniforms marched by - famous people, too, like Bill Gates and John Kerry &c.

Then we all sat together through some truly bizarre rituals, and then some awards and stuff, then we were officially "graduated." yay! Of course, my brother slept through it all...

Then we hiked back to our house (I made a frickin beeline in my cap and gown) where, after a brief intermission, we had our official roll-call degree ceremony. The weather was perfect, and I was just tired enough to be sentimental and teary-eyed. We go fancy programs and heard some speeches by classmates and tutors, and the house-master, then we all got our degrees.

After this ceremony was lunch, and the family discussed what the next move should be. I decided it would be sleep. which was awesome...

We went out to Taam China that night to eat, then my dad helped me and my brother move some boxes to the storage locale. I continued to neglect packing that night, and hung out some more in the ten-man instead, and reality seemed strange and somehow altered.

The next day, (Friday, the 8th) my brother and I had a hellish experience trying to throw all my stuff together. we had to have our cabbie drive us to the storage place to drop off more stuff, and then we got to the airport about 20 minutes before boarding time - we were lucky, because there was almost no traffic. I was sweating because we were coming in pretty close to shabbos...

but we made it onto the plane & everything. the final indignity - I was in the very last row of the plane! But oh the relief...

***Ok, so there will be one more chapter, but it will be briefer, hopefully, and focus mostly on my epic journey with all of my stuff from boston to Princeton, with a little detail about life since getting Princeton thrown in. I'm impressed with myself! and with you for getting to the bottom of this post. How do people manage to stay interested in all this mundane bs? ah well...love ya lots!***

Myspace Re-Post #16: A Funny Little Note

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on August 15th, 2007.

Hello boys and girls,

I will be posting the next installment of my tell-all recent biography soon. Meanwhile, here is the text of an email I sent an (anonymous) friend recently:

Subject: what up

Message:
the subject line is to be read in exactly the same way that I typically answer my phone, with a higher pitch on the 'what' and a lower pitch on the 'up' - perhaps you could tell me how to relate that in the terms you philologist motherf---ers like to use...

So I was on vacation and wasn't answering my phone. went to Dallas. it was fun.

quick things:

1) Interpol - on the cover of Rolling Stone this month. does this mean you hate them now?

2) Noah Feldman - in case you weren't aware, that article he wrote (were you the one who sent it to me?) kicked up a shit-storm in the self-obsessed worlds of the liberal orthodox-hating Jews and of the orthos themselves. just google his name or something - it was the topic of much conversation over Shabbos in Montreal a week ago (all of those people - Avi, his dad, one of his friends) are really into the Rabbinic gossip stuff...and speaking of which, did I ever make you look at this essay written by Hillel Halkin? It's about his apostasy. Perhaps you will enjoy...

3) Social constructionism - I might have mentioned that I've been reading an article that aims to reunite social psychology with social constructionism. It also gives a background to the rift, which is not inconsiderable (<-- double negative). Anyways, you might want to read the article - it's actually very well written, and occasionally hilarious as well. Here is my favorite sound-byte:

"Perhaps the single most significant and enduring bone of contention between [the camps] ... concerns the issue of truth. To simplify things greatly, experimental social psychologists believe in truth." - tee hee, aren't we cute, with our antiquated notions?

They also turn the tables on the constructionists, pointing out that "the notion that there is no truth or objective reality, for example, provides a convenient objection to any claim about the (real, actual, material) existence of injustice, inequality, exploitation, and oppression." - Oh snap! All that exploitation and oppression y'all obsess about - just a construction!

Anyways, how are you doing?

Myspace Re-Post #15: Getting Caught Up, Part 2

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on July 30th, 2007.

Ok, I wasn't so happy with the strictly chronological approach I took in my last post - it was tedious to create, and I don't think it reads very well. So I'll pick up where I left off last time, but I'll use a more standard narrative stream...

Pesach was a major milestone, because it coincided very closely with the completion of my thesis and the emergence of a greater level of freedom in my life. However, there were still a fair number of things in the air when I got back to Cambridge after the first nights (at aproximately 3 AM, incidentally). To begin with, the thesis process wasn't technically finished. A mandatory poster session worth 20% of my grade was scheduled for later in the month. I also had to get back to class work that I had been neglecting for about a month - since the appendicitis, likely. In fact, I had a paper due almost immediately, although in the end it turned out that my TA was more than willing to give me an open-ended extension on that. Finally, I still needed to find a job, and in fact had already scheduled a job interview.

Meanwhile, events in the real world weren't slowing down so I could catch up. My friend Avi intimated that he was very close to proposing to his girlfriend Shifra. This event, which occured shortly, was to have a far more significant impact on my life over the next few months than I ever stopped to realize.

So things unfolded like this: When I got back to school, I first had to work on writing a paper - I technically had like 3 days to do this. I also set about planning a trip to Washington, D.C.

One of my prospective employers was the NIH - well, not exactly, but they have a centralized program that allows you to apply to multiple NIH labs simultaneously. However, I had to arrange interviews with each different lab simultaneously. For the next two weeks, I was constantly juggling several different gmail "conversations" to try to work out who would meet with me and when. I decided to fly down for a Thursday and Friday, spend Shabbos with my recently-married friends Ari and Miki in Dupont Circle, and then take the train (don't ask) back to Boston on Sunday. Also, the poster session mentioned above would happen that Tuesday, meaning that most likely I would have to work on it while visiting in D.C. Sounds like a good plan, right? That is, until you stop to think about it and realize how totally stupid it is. sigh. whatever...

In the midst of all the school work and elaborate planning, Avi and Shifra announced their engagement on April 15th. He proposed to her on their plane flight back from Oklahoma (that's where her parents live). At like 7 in the morning. I guess he couldn't wait. I had the profoud honor of being the first to greet the newly engaged at the airport, whence I served as their chauffeur for a short while.

Now the announcement was sure to make a splash for the following reason: Avi was the "Campus Rabbi" of Harvard Hillel. And he had kept his relationship with Shifra a secret from almost everyone on campus. So you can imagine...one day, the Rabbi suddenly announces that he's engaged, with absolutely no prolouge! He also announced, in the same message (or one sent shortly thereafter? I don't recall), that he would step down at the end of the school year. hilarity ensues.

The engagement party was on a Sunday night. The next day, I took an Acela express to the heartland of New Jersey, to interview for a position with Daniel Kahneman at Princeton. Instead of putting me up in a hotel, the people at the lab offered to have me stay with Carey. Carey was my contact at Princeton - he'd receive his PhD from Harvard the previous year, and had once TA'd a course that I was in. This ended up being a really cool experience - we went out for drinks with his girlfriend (or maybe they weren't dating yet? hard for me to remember...) and later we watched the Daily Show. Had to turn in - interviews were bright and early the next day!

Those interviews went well enough, and I got a tour of Princeton. It's amazing how similar and yet how different two places can be! Princeton is very Ivy League, in many of the ways that Harvard is. And yet, there's all this, like, space, and, like, fresh air. Who knew? on the down side, there's also very little to do...

After my interview and tour, I packed up and took an Acela back to Boston. The next day, I flew out to D.C.

The D.C. experience was pretty cool. It'd been years since I was last there - briefly in senior year of high school for the bit Israel rally, and only once for a real tourist extravaganza, with my class in eighth grade. It was fun to stay with Ari and Miki...I'd get up in the morning and spend all day wandering around the NIH (enormous campus), interviewing and meeting people and all that, and then I would go back to their place and relax. Shabbos was nice but relatively uneventful. We went out for both meals, and ran into a couple of Harvard people, almost at random. I even got some work done on my poster, though as it turned out, not quite enough...

On the train back to Boston, I really felt the effects of not owning a laptop (I still use a desktop, and trust me, there are many advantages), as I could have been working on my poster, but instead I mostly just wasted time. The session was on Tuesday, and after calling around, I determined that I really needed to get the poster in to Kinko's 48 hours before I wanted the poster. After getting back to my room, I worked on the stupid thing for something like five hours, and then took it down to Kinko's. See, in Cambridge (are you listening, Princeton Township?), Kinko's is actually open all night! And the guy working there was really cool, and set it up so that I would be able to pick up my poster as early as two hours before I needed to present.

Nerve-racking though it was, the whole poster production thing ended up working out quite well (once again, I get by on the skin of my teeth...). My poster was well received, and I got fairly tipsy at the post-poster thesis party, the highlight of which was the opportunity to go out on the balcony of the fifteenth floor of William James Hall.

Actually, I delivered my actual defense the next day, at 10:00 A.M., but that went fine as well, and I was given my grade - magna - on the spot. And what did I do after my defense? Why, of course I hit up the first day of a three-day sale of all of the Psych library's books. Then I had class, and then a meeting with my advisor, Wendy.

Thursday, I had a meeting with another prospective employer, but she no-showed. She forgot the date of our meeting - whoops! I then went back to the book sale, and hung out with Austin - the rest of the day was a relaxing bit of nothingness.

Friday, April 27th, I spoke with Talya, one of my prospective employers at Princeton. She had some last minute questions, and apparently I gave the right answers, because later that day she offered me the job, and I almost immediately accepted.

That's pretty much it for April - every bit as eventful a month as March. May, I can't really remember much of what happened...I did have finals at the end of the month, and the random senior events started happening. I played some Hillel softball...I do know that by this point Avi had pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. Of course, I hadn't noticed at first, because of how busy I was, but in May, I had lots of free time...and the conspicuous absence of one of my best friends in the Boston area was, well, conspicuous. Fancy that.

There were still a few things for me to worry about: I needed to find a place to live in Princeton, and I needed to start a-packin. As it turned out, I did a pretty poor job on both points. But hey, life is for learning! Isn't it?

And so instead of getting into the saga that is June, I think I'll hold things here for the time being. Oh, and FYI, I assure you I'll return to more random and interesting posts, with less blah-blah autobiographical details, after my next post or two. Once you're all caught up, you know...that is, if you're still reading this. Soldier on!

SSB

Myspace Re-Post #14: Let's Get Everybody Caught Up, Cool?

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on July 20th, 2007 (this date corresponds to my 23rd birthday).

First things first: By the time I finish this post, it will be my birthday (started at 11:53 in P.M...). So there's that...Not a big birthday person, but if you've been desparate for a reason to give me a call, here's your chance, you lucky kid!

Now then, I begin as always with a cliche excuse about being busy and blah blah and therefore I haven't blogged in months. But it is true, I've been more busy this past year than at any other time in my life, and it's been sustained and unrelenting! However, this is apropos to my post, as I have decided that I will simply list all of the major events and minor points of interest that have transpired over the past four and a half months. I'll be skimping on the details, but if you're just dying to know, hit me up with a comment or something. I always cave to popular demand...

I begin my saga on the 4th of March. Why? I have some notes about it. Also, it was erev Purim. Before getting into all of this, however, we must set the scene:

It was the second semester of my senior year in college, but I was not partying as the cliche goes. Why not? Well first of all, there was the senior thesis I was working on. Important to keep this in mind: the thesis due date was March 22. Further, it seems I've become something of a careerist - instead of using my spare time to chill &c., I continued to help out in my psych lab, apply for jobs and network with grad students and faculty. Ok, enough background! Here's the chronology:

March 4th (Sat) - Purim eve, heard megillah and then proceeded to get steadily drunker and drunker throughout the evening. Ended up not going to sleep until something ridiculous like 5 A.M.

March 5th (Sun) - woke up around noon and walked over to R. Avi's, where there was a seudah that gradually degenerated into a party - ended up staying there until night time.

March 6th (Mon) - got up at the god-forsaken hour of 8:30 A.M. to work as mashgiach at Hillel. I didn't feel well, but who does on such little sleep? Did I mention that I'd been running on a nifty prescription I picked up at the beginning of the year? I can say no more...

    Around noon I went back to my room, giving up on an optional class because I felt kinda crappy. Also I had a phone interview for a possible job lined up for the afternoon. When I got to my room, I went to sleep for a couple of hours...

    Woke up around 3 P.M., still feeling crappy. Decided to go to UHS (University Health Services) after my interview. Interview went fine, then I went down to UHS and waited around for like 45 minutes to be seen.

    After describing my symptoms, the Doc poked me in the abdomen and my eyes bulged out like bugs bunny or something - she sent me packing to the hospital. I spent about six hours in the emergency room, mostly bored off my ass, plus I was a little scared, and in a fair measure of disbelief.

    Well they decided I had appendicitis, I had an operation, etc. etc. There's another post about that (see if you can figure it out by the title...heh heh...), so I won't go into it here.

March 8th (Wed) - Didn't have to go to school. Sweet! But seriously, isn't my thesis due in three weeks? oh shit...My dad flew in and stayed with me for a few days, which was nice, but as you might expect, also somewhat awkward. Also, they gave me percocet, which was cool...

March 9th (Thu) - again, no school, but I did take care of some business. Most notably, I responded to some correspondence from a prospective employer. The position was as R.A. for Daniel Kahneman. More on that later...

March 10th (Fri) - Went to dinner at Danny & Lindsey Shoag's - they are awesome people and Lindsey is a terrific cook, even though I may be spelling her first name incorrectly. Also, they were happy to have my Dad as well. Which was interesting...

March 12th (Sun) - For the first time since Tuesday, I went back to Hillel. A man's got to work...Basically I was feeling better really quickly, but it took everyone else a while to catch up, so I was still getting sympathy comments and stupid bs for another month. sigh...

March 17th (Fri) - Under doctor's orders not to walk very much, so I decided to spend Shabbat at R. Avi's. Turns out a few other people had the same idea...One of his room mates, Shuey, wasn't in, so I got to sleep in a bed (the appendicitis plea worked like a charm here...). But his other room mate was over. Also, one of Avi's good friends was visiting from NY, and this other guy who was visiting the grad school, and Dave - well, Dave was just always there, no particular reason for it...So that made a total of six people staying in a three-bedroom. Not unusual for Avi's, although it sucked that we didn't get any girls to come over for dinner and whatnot.

    And then it started snowing, all day Friday and on into the night. I believe it was the only actual blizzard Boston had all winter! and remember, this is mid-March. So I barely left the building, and neither did most of the others, although at least they were allowed to walk some distances...

    Well there was plenty of idiotic bickering and tension. But in retrospect, it was practically the last time I got to hang out with Avi and Dave. Time was running out on us, though only one of us really knew it...

March 22nd (Thu) - Did I mention I got a week's extension on my thesis? Otherwise it wouldn't been due on this day. No matter, I still had a stats final! This was also the last official day before spring break. By this point, the stress is really getting to me, plus the random appendectomy from out of the blue really threw off my rhythm. Fortunately, Austin was staying around that weekend. This was because we had made plans to go on a journey to the centre of our minds that weekend - well that had to be called off, which sucked for both of us, but especially for him. I wasn't going home at all - I needed to friggin work!

March 26th (Mon) - I pulled an all-nighter to finish the first draft of my thesis and send it to my grad-student advisor. I got it in around 8 or 9 A.M., I think. Then I slept until 3 or 4 P.M.

March 27th (Tue) - Second straight all-nighter to implement my advisor's recommendations so that I could send the thesis on to my faculty advisor. Another 9 A.M. to 3 P.M. night of sleep...

March 28th (Wed) - Received a whole bunch of revisions from my faculty advisor, most of which I simply could not implement within 24 hours (though I did waste plenty of time trying). Note that I was barely leaving my room at this point, and anyways no one was around. They were all having "spring break" or something...

March 29th (Thu) - Submitted my thesis, a full 1/2 hour early! Proceeded to indulge myself in food, drink and a movie (The Namesake - which I quite enjoyed!).

March 30th (Fri) - I was scheduled to go down to NYC for the weekend to stay with my friend Ben for Shabbat and a few days until Pesach. But first, I had to meet someone who I had applied to work with! And I was late for this, had to take a cab, with all my luggage, but she was really nice, and I got a good feeling about the situation from her. Then I took a loooong train ride to NYC. I crashed over at the Bayit, a co-op for Jews at Columbia (I know, I know, isn't that all co-ops at Columbia?). I had spent numerous Shabbatot there during my four years of college. This was to be my last, and it was an enjoyable weekend, overall.

April 1st (Sun) - My sleep schedule was still out of whack, and I aggravated the situation by sleeping until 6 P.M. I know, I know...the sun was setting when I arose. I met up with Ivan for a drink and made plans to meet with Yossi early-ish the next morning. Basically, the plan was to not sleep.

April 2nd (Mon) - That up-all-night thing happened, and I met up with Yossi all freaked out on the no-sleep thing. I tell you man, nothing blows you out of your mind like not sleeping for 24 hours + . Then I got out to Monsey (I actually don't remember how this happened) and managed to nap a bit before sundown and seder night.

    and I spent about an hour at the local library frantically arranging my trip to Princeton for a job interview with the Kahneman lab...

    About the Seder thing, that was as crazy as ever, with my Charedi uncle leading, both of my sisters there, and the whole extended Mishpacha...However, given my condition, I actually kind of enjoyed the scene. Plus, did I mention I was done with my thesis?

Oh yeah, and it was Opening Day in baseball land...

**Whew! I didn't realize how long this would take me...well I apologize if it's as boring to read as it is to hear Al Gore speak, but I'm glad that I'm getting this down, so I will pick up the chronology right here sometime soon. Good night!**

Myspace Re-Post #13: Updates - I had Appendicitis!

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 15th, 2007.

Hey people. I know it's been a time. Whatever, I've got a lot of other stuff to waste my time with. but a comment by Yoel...er, Eight Days and Scared..., jolted me from my langorous inertia.

So I had Appendicitis last week. True story, I was there. Not a lot to tell, and what there is, I've already told fifteen million times, but basically I wasn't feeling good, so I went to the doc, and she poked me in this one spot. They have a name for it, but I forget. Anyways, my eyes bulged out of their sockets like Bugs Bunny being slammed by a mallet, and she sent me packing for the hospital.

Where I waited. For about five hours, all told. First the nurse checked me out. Then the resident did the same exact procedure. Then a surgeon. Then they made me wait a while to have some pictures taken. Then finally they were like, ok, we'll operate in five hours. Why don't you get some sleep?

Good question. But I didn't/don't. Sleep, that is. I was up all night, they needed to freakin anesthetize me to put me out, and then I woke up two hours later!

Here's the kicker to the whole thing, though: approximately eight days after surgery (that is, now), I feel basically normal. Cept I have this incision in my lower right abdomen and it's got some bruises around it. And they won't let me walk more than like half a mile at a time, and who knows when I'll exercise again...Seriously, I'm totally fine now, although I realize those of you reading this will probably feel that they have to say something about getting better anyways. Truth is, ""I've got to admit I'm getting better, a little better all the time...""

Nuff said about that, except that it interrupted my job hunt for next year, and pushed back my thesis due date. Good deal, right? Not really. My thesis was due the day before spring break. Now it's due in the middle of spring break. Whoopee!

But seriously, I'm pretty happy and well adjusted these days, my sarcasm aside.

And if I could figure out how to stop wasting so much time at 3:25 in the A.M., maybe I'd even get a little work done.

And maybe when this thesis is over, I'll attempt to post some sophisticated blogs. No promises. But ya never know...

Peace!

Myspace Re-Post #12: Sacramento Street

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on September 5th, 2006.

Saturday afternoon is a languorous time in West Rogers Park,
my home neighborhood,
being the Sabbath to the Orthodox Jews,
a substantial portion of the areas inhabitants.
After the traditional Sabbath-afternoon meal
(the second of three traditional mealswe love to eat!)
many of the locals of all ages and sizes,
bedecked in their Sabbath finery,
make their way to the promenade,
the road by the park, Sacramento Street.
The hidden backbone of religious enclave,
Sacramento is Jewish from Rosemont to Howard Street,
A stretch of over a mile and a half.
The residential street passes two popular parks,
The two the Jews love to flock to the most,
And on Saturday afternoon,
The residents are in evidence.

Now my sometime routine is
to traverse this boulevard
en route to a hideout above the thickness of the shtetl
where semi-religious twenty-somethings
convene and cavort.

But ah the promenade is half the fun.
For I stride in a step that is nearly a strut
Forcefully forward, though I'm in no rush,
Scrutinizing the passersby for familiar faces
Or someone interesting for other reasons.
Indeed, while flirtation can be awkward at times,
Due to the strict mores of the populace,
The body language says it all, as young things,
Coming into the primes of their vitality,
Preen and display as they stroll casually by,
For a glance and a look and then maybe another.
All the while parents, the elderly and newlyweds
Pushing the stroller of their first or second child
Stare sternly and observe,
Mouths ready at the gab,
To let everyone know what mischief is going on.

I arrive at my destination,
Find the key in the mailbox,
And at the top of the stairs
I remove my shoes.
Inside is the cool of the air conditioning
And couches and easy chairs beckon softly to me.
After all, Saturday is our day of rest
A varied crowd is strewn across the living room,
Sipping drinks of the alcoholic or non variety
And idly gossiping about friends and acquaintances.

We hide here from the glare of the outside community
Whose suffocating closeness and scrutiny often stifle
The fledgling spirits of our youthful years.
No eyes to see
Or ears to hear
Save our own.
We desperately claw for a few hours of freedom.

And later, as the sun nears its going down
I return to the promenade
though its tenor has quieted down.
Now young men and old rush for their shuls
To daven the final prayers of the Sabbath
And to eat the holy day's final meal
While somberly singing the melancholy songs
That accompany the Sabbath's departure.
Soon I will reach home and begin making plans
For my Saturday evening out on the town.
But for only a moment I savor the feeling
Of the years in this neighborhood
And the Sabbaths I have known.

Myspace Re-Post #11: The Summer of 2006

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on July 30th, 2006.

The summer of 2006 has been a summer of bikes and cars and prodigious sweat.

It has been a summer of frequent trips to Brookline for kosher meat and excitement. A summer of Saturday-night ice-cream escapades and midnight birthday celebrations. and constantly missing turns onto mislabeled streets and poring over maps in the middle of traffic.

This was the summer I spent fifteen minutes in Maine and several hours in New Hampshire. The road was clear though the sky was cloudy, and with only my thoughts for company, I covered ground on backgrounds along the ocean's front.

The summer of 2006 is a summer of long hours in a lab on the fourteenth floor of a tall white building that stands stark against the sky, where machinations take place behind closed office doors and summer interns joke and play pranks in the central control room.

This has been the summer when my spring romance ended. Much hope and talk and late-night obsession ended in a two-hour phone call across continents. And a summer when new possibilities arose, when a talkative girl with intricate curls drew my interest in spite of the mockery of my friends.

On sunny days I occasionally undertook bike missions - once to a storied arboretum and a necklace of parks. other times I sat in my apartment and labored at getting myself to work.

Somedays I rose at nine, other days at twelve. A few days I rose later. I distinctly doubt that I ever rose earlier.

This summer the Shabboses are long and mostly lazy. They begin with a frenetic Friday night, a brightly-lit communal meal at one or another of the region's apartments. The day stretches on into eternity and the reading only puts me to sleep.

This has been the summer of my first trip to suburban Long Island. The visit became an impromptu shabbaton when one of my chicago friends was stuck in new york due to cancelled flights. and the beach was the scene of unexpected sunshine and nerf-football and the ever-present waves.

This summer I have learned to keep thoughts unspoken, and to resent room mates with poor hygenic habits. The apartment politics became too involved at times to articulate, but at the end of the day, in truth, the war was one.

The summer of 2006 has been better than the summer of 2005 and other summers past. Take no offense, fair Chicago, but it was certainly time for a change. and the future stretches out, with one more month, before the end of the final summer of my college years.

Myspace Re-Post #10: Grey Day

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on June 30th, 2006.

There was an oppressive dome closing me into a narrow space today. All day.

The sky refused to rain, but I was forced to drive around and take car of my business with a perpetual cloud over my head (not the metaphorical kind).

I go through periods of disillusionment and boredom sometimes. Often. I'm in this routine where I get up, watch some TV, go to lab for a few hours, drive around aimlessly for a few hours, spend some money to make me feel productive, and then go home and spend hours watching TV.

I did finally finish a rather moving movie today. I don't suppose any of you have seen it, it's a double threat: it's old and it's in another language. Oh wait, and its a musical too. Triple threat. Nevertheless, I liked ""The Umbrellas of Cherbourg"" for its depiction of a French town in garish pastels, for the beauty of the lead actress, and for the devastating conclusion to it's central love story. Let's just say it wasn't a happy ending.

Oh, and I spend like a half hour or so at this guitar shop near my place. This guy who was working there by himself is kind of goofy, but he knows more than I do about guitars, so I asked him a bunch of questions and displayed my chops a little bit.

Will music get me through my malaise? It better, cuz I don't know what else will.

 

Myspace Re-Post #9: Guilt

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on June 26th, 2006.

Hey everyone,

Guilt is the subject of today's post. This is because I haven't posted in three months or something (too lazy to actually check...).

First I was busy with term papers and finals and getting things settled for summer. and my brother was around for a few days, &c. so my side street of the internet was closed to thru traffic.

and then, you know, momentum just kind of takes over and I'm in a not-posting rhythm and it's just a tough habit to kick, you know?

Anyways. The tumultuous semester ended - one in which I was responsible for publishing a psychology journal (came out really well), took classes that were too hard for me, finalized plans to work on an honors thesis over the summer, and spent a lot of time chasing after a girl (or thinking about doing so).

About that, I mentioned her in my last blog (yes, nearly three months ago). We went on a couple of dates, which were fun, and chatted on the phone a bunch, but she's in Israel now for the summer, so that's all on hiatus. and it's not an exclusive relationship or the like, so I'm still on the lookout (new prospect sighted this weekend!).

As of right now, I (with a small running crew of two) am caretaking the Hillel Rabbi's pad while he parties hearty in Israel. Pretty sweet deal, since I'm not paying rent really, just upkeep and maybe a small donation at the end of the summer. I'm also taking care of his car...

The main focus of my time is getting some thesis research off the ground. I work in a psych lab that's really expensive and complex, and there's like thirty people around this summer (I swear, it's busier than during the school year!). My primary contribution to the study I'm working with is to be a few scales (questionnaires to assess personality traits or attitudes, etc.), and the professor in charge keeps rejecting my submissions, so that's frustrating.

But I shall overcome.

and working on some new music, finally. because when I'm not in lab, or running back and forth to different Harvard libraries tracking down obscure journal articles and publications, I really don't have that much to do.

So anyways, maybe I'll muse about something in a day or two, to keep my rhythm down and the like. cuz I would like to have a nice, productive little blog. nothing too fancy, just my two cents (only if you put aside two cents a day, it can add up to four cents, or so I've been told...).

Hey, let me know how you're doing, if there's anyone out there (myspace claims there is, but I'm not so sure...). and...have a great day!

S

Myspace Re-Post #8: Spring Break

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 26th, 2006.

That's right. It probably seems late to most of you, but I finally have a little time off to welcome in the spring. I am chilling...

For reasons that are complicated and uninteresting, I'm here in Cambridge for the first weekend of my break. Well, sort of. The Rabbi here and I went over to Brandeis for Shabbat, along with another guy who floats around Hillel betimes, and a good time was had by all. 

Now I have to explain a little here. This Rabbi is no ordinary Rabbi. Some Rabbis try to make connections with the youth by acting cool and hip and chill. Well, this Rabbi's not acting. He's not trying to lure anyone, he's just being himself, and that makes for a pretty amusing picture.

You've got to imagine this slightly overweight 26-year-old with permanent stubble wearing an untucked and rumpled shirt with no jacket or tie to Friday night davening. Now you've got the picture.

So we tore the roof off over at Brandeis. Well, not exactly, but there was a fair amount of drinking and shmoozing and general good feeling. This girl I met a week ago, who hails from Sharon, MA was there for Shabbat as well. This Sharon place, I've never been there, but it sounds like a crazy place. It's rural or exurban, and apparently the population is 70 percent Jewish!

Anyways, this girl is really sweet, and I spent most of the weekend chilling with her, so we'll see where that goes.

But the cool thing about taking on Brandeis was that we had a built-in pack. The three Harvard visitors, two of our hosts, one of our hosts' girlfriend and this girl from Sharon were all generally moving in the same pack, so we had some serious energy going.

mmm. Also lately been having a bit of a flurry of guitar creativity. I just wrote a Jewish song - melody for the ""Ani Maamin"" regarding T'chiyat Hameitim. I think it's kind of a silly, funny idea, but really, why does T'chiyat Hameitim always get shafted in favor of Mashiach? Coming next - the Ani Maamin regarding G-d not having a corporeal body...

I just finished watching ""Hoop Dreams."" It took me like a week, because I watched an hour here and there between homework, and it's a LONG movie. But really good - it's a documentary, but about the most gripping doc I've ever seen. You follow the high school basketball careers of two kids with lots of talent but also lots of issues to deal with. A real rush of getting on someone else's wavelength.

Last week - agh! Glad that one's over. I had one in-class midterm, one take-home midterm, and right in between them my good friend Yossi came visiting on HIS spring break.

Which was cool, I just ended up staying up all night Wednesday night finishing the take-home, and then promptly slept through Thursday.

But that's all in the past, and I'm sailing for now - for the next week. Chicagoans watch out - I'm coming for ya! Flying in on Monday...

SSB

Myspace Re-Post #7: Why Matisyahu is Tripping Me Out

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 17th, 2006.

For those rare and peculiar people out there who were raised in an orthodox Jewish enclave, the idea of Jewish music is one that tends to make us squirm. We are accustomed to hearing (generally against our will) bad songwriting in a harmonic minor key with cheesy production and a pretensiously passionate voice. These singers are almost inevitably high-pitched and crying for mercy from ""Hakodoish baruch hu"" or ""the holy one, blessed is He.""

Of course, times change, and there has been an increasing trend over the last 5-10 years for bands with more of a jam-band sound to emerge. The Moshav Band has some cool sounds and has even begun to develop some real songwriting talent. Nevertheless, as I have repeated to my friends ad nauseum, the market for the music is tiny. Anyone with real talent would have to go secular.

When I first heard of Matisyahu, I was skeptical, because I tend to take a more critical approach to most art than my peers do. He's probably decent, I thought, but reggae's not my thing, you know...

Then I heard he was touring with Trey Anastasio, the former front-man of Phish, the inheritors of the deadhead following (until their own sad demise...). Still, small potatoes, I figured, and besides, Trey's probably washed up (no offense, phans).

When King Without a Crown started getting played on VH1 and modern rock radio, I started to pay attention. and what the hell? this guy, dressed to the chassidic nines, singing like a jamaican...""he's good, but doesn't he make you squirm?"" That's what I thought other people would think - other Jews, non-Jews. After all, the ultra-orthodox kinda freak me out, and I've had plenty of contact to get acclimated to them.

And yet his star keeps rising. First he garnered more airplay on modern rock radio. Then he started doing the late-show circuit: jimmy kimmel, david letterman, recently Conan O'Brien. Next his album, ""Live At Stubb's"" was flying up the charts. A few weeks ago, it was certified gold (500,000 copies sold). You may be unaquainted with the demographics, but let me tell you right now that the orthodox jewish market can not provide this kind of demand.

So what's next? Oh, I guess his new album will just debut at number 4. In fact, it'll have the best-selling week of any reggae album ever! That's right - better selling than Bob Marley! 119,000 copies in one week!

So I dunno man. I dig some of his music. Seen him in concert, had dinner with him at Chabad once. How long will he last? How will he be remembered? These are all valid questions, and time will provide the answers.  

But what I still can't understand is: how? How has he been so successful? how did it happen? how do you make it in music without playing friday nights? without toking with all the big heavies? how has he managed to convince hundreds of thousands of average americans - disproportionately young ones, I might add - to not only give his music a shot but to actually buy it? The situation is so surreal. I'm mystified...I'm stumped...and I'm really, really tripped out... 

Myspace Re-Post #6: Communication

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 15th, 2006.

This post is in many ways connected to my previous post on ""why we blog."" There, I discussed issues of identity and free expression. However, the issue of interpersonal communication is perhaps the most important of all.

Sometimes I reflect on the nature of some of my favorite activities: reading (be it fiction, journalism etc.), listening to music, watching movies. An element common to these three things is that they are all media for communication. Even when we're not directly interacting with people, we still seek to connect with them.

Of course, however much you make like some of the above activities, none are nearly so prominent in the lives of most people as the act of everyday conversation. Millions of profiles throughout the land proclaim their masters' interest in ""good conversation"" or some variation on that theme.

What's the deal with all this obsessive communication? Natural as it is to us, when you  think about it, animals and other organisms seem to thrive and reproduce very well without all the intensive discussion and dialogue etc etc.

A psychologist named Pennebaker made his name by proving that writing down one's thoughts or expressing them to a confidant on a regular basis enhances health, in addition to mental well-being. A less well-known guy I read in one class made the argument that many mood disorders (e.g. depression, anxiety) and other psychiatric conditions are due to social rejection.

But why? What reason is there for our driving desire to talk to another person?

What's more frustrating is that sometimes it seems, no matter how hard we try, we'll never really know what it's like to be another person, how they feel, what they think...we try so desparately, interpreting (usually subconsciously) body language, little statements or tones...most conversation seems so trivial, and we treasure those moments when we do seem to break through to a deeper level. But what do we really know, even then? and isn't that moment transient? I mean, it's nice while it lasts, but the relationship could easily sour the next day.

On the most basic level (the neural level), what a word means to you is almost certainly not what it means to me. That's because we learn the meanings of words via complex processes of association. To take an example from Waking Life (a really cool movie), my concept of love is based on my relationships with my family first, then with the girls I dated in grade school, high school etc...plus, of course, all the movies and songs about love (how many aren't about love?), and I somehow integrate this into a distinct conception of the meaning of the word. But you've had different familial relationships, different boy or girl friends, seen different movies, attributed different levels of significance to each...

and how about the significance of eye contact? this is even more mysterious to me. eye contact plays a crucial role in social interaction. many ""experts"" have noted its central role in communicating interest in a speaker or affection towards a prospective or actual partner. it also plays a role in aggressive encounters - intense eye contact is often present in the build-up to a fight. one study demonstrated that the body has a real physiological reaction to ""mutual gaze.""

You could say that the significance of eye contact is a learned, culture-bound phenomenon. But, so far as I know, eye contact plays pretty much the same role cross-culturally. newborn babies show intense interest in the eyes of other people.

but why? what's actually in an eye? you can't see someone else's thoughts. its just a bunch of cells, light receptive cells, in an exquisitely crafted perceptive device.

another interesting question is the role of content. on the one hand, we all have particularly interests that we would prefer to discuss. but ultimately, the key seems to be maintaining animated dialogue. content doesn't enter into the picture, from this view. its just the pure association with another person, and the exchange of words, as if that's somehow reaching beyond...

could our desperate desire for connection reflect an internal drive to reach the eternal? some theologians have conceptualized much of religious ritual and practice as being a representation of a reaching out to the infinite, but surely infinite can never be reached - I find this idea echoed by our quest for inter-personal communication.

this topic is far from exhausted in my mind. I'm just hoping to bring greater clarity to my thinking by getting some ideas down - that's the reason for these wordy thought blogs. if anyone actually reads them, I'd love some feedback...a little, y'know, interaction...

Myspace Re-Post #5: Update

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 14th, 2006.

So that was Purim.

Played a concert last night...the crowd was small, in part because we were preceded by the local Klezmer band, but it was also spirited (ah, so many meanings). Our set was pretty long, and I had a pretty good time playing it.

Today was a complete waste, except for one class I went to in the morning. Hung out at Hillel for a while, then checked out a few different happenings and got fairly toasted. Now life will go back to ""normal,"" for a few weeks anyways.

I'll be back in Chi-town on March 27th, although the plan is to take a brief jaunt down to Champagne-Urbana to see my boy Yossi before he graduates college - graduates college!

Speaking of Yossi, he's supposedly going to be out here next week to chill on his spring break. The plan is to get completely wasted on a weeknight...well we'll see how that affects my schoolwork.

Man, I feel like life's so busy sometimes, and yet when I step back and look at it, I can't remember what I've done in the past week! What's the point if I'm not even doing anything worth remembering? Ah, adolescent despair...I wonder when it well abandon me.

In the meantime, I'm gonna go watch the Daily Show...

Myspace Re-Post #4: Why do we blog?

Note: Re-posted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 6th, 2006.

We are living at a time when individuality is more elusive than ever before in the history of the human experience. With six billion people and counting, the world is overflowing with others eager to take your place in the eternal climb to the top of whatever. and then there are the inevitable masses of shortfallers, those unable to achieve the impossible expectations of society.

and what of the communication of ideas? three thousand years ago, a scant handful of texts contained all the written wisdom of humanity. As time passed, the amount of printed matter increased in a linear fashion until the invention of the printing press. Then things really got interesting.

Today, the author of several books has no reasonable expectation of being known outside the narrow confines of whatever discipline or genre he writes in. The proliferation of printed matter has become ridiculous - what significance can one even find in being printed?

Yet the internet revolution has expanded this situation exponentially. Anyone, anywhere can write whatever they want. But who is listening? Does it matter if anyone is?

I say it does not. While some might like the idea of a large readership following their words with bated breath, this is ultimately a shallow motivation that is not likely to produce anything worth our still-finite time.

Do I know who reads these words? Do I believe I will somehow affect or impress them? Surely not, for who am I? Just a college student, pontificating about subjects beyond my ken. If Noam Chomsky's ideas about governmental policy are full of shit, then who am I to offer up my own alternative?

Rather, I think the matter of blogging has to do with the matter of free will and self-expression. These two concepts are, in my view, intimately intertwined, and both are perhaps at the root of man's resemblance of G-d (i.e. we are created ""in the image of G-d,"" but how so?).

The belief that one has control over one's actions is essential to mental health. Ellen Langer got tenure for her finding that giving senior citizens greater control in a nursing home environment actually increased the length of their lives. She emphasizes the significance of the ""illusion of control."" Even if it is an illusion, which she believes it is not, it is nevertheless better to believe that we have control than to know ""the truth.""

What does free will mean? It means that we are responsible for our actions, of course, but also it means that we get to decide who we are. What kind of person are you? Although temperament may have some genetic basis, and cognitive ability, surely the realm of opinion is almost entirely subjective and self-determined.

I like x and y artists (see my profile) and z and w movies (profile again). Why is it important that I make that known? Because it represents the determination of my conscious will. We discuss these matters with one another because the most interesting thing about people is the choices they make.

Along these lines, D. A. Pennebaker has found that journaling or having regular sessions of deep disclosure (talking about your feelings) has significant positive effects on mental and physical health. This, of course, connects us full circle with the whole blog idea. For reasons that aren't entirely clear, it is imperative for people to have their feelings and ideas heard. or at least to say them. and maybe online forums like this one are just what the doctor ordered.

I've heard plenty of social-network-site bashing recently, as I'm sure many of you out there have as well. While you may cavalierly dismiss such criticism as being due to the jealousy or failure of comprehension of an older generation, I think that a more potent defense of our social-networking world is more easily to be found.

The ease of communicating our ideas online, in a world where it is increasingly more difficult to have our voices heard in real life, can only have a positive effect on our mental well-being. The dramatic rise in depression during the past fifty years may in part reflect sociological trends. The cities and suburbs have become more crowded, more plentiful and more homogenous. Individuality is to be attained at an ever higher premium.

At least we have this outlet here, this naive dream that someone out there, somehow, somewhere, is listening.   

Myspace Re-Post #3: On the Lighter Side

Note: Reposted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 1st, 2006. For reference, this post came about 40 minutes after the previous post (i.e. "Myspace Re-Post #2..."), and refers to it in the opening paragarph.

Hey there,

My apologies to those of you who just suffered (hee hee) through that rough rough draft of my moral reasoning paper. In other news, I've been in a productive flurry in the realm of songwriting recently. Just today I wrote words to the chorus of a song that has a really excellent tune but no words before now:

and as I crest the hill I/see the valley below/I hear the road its calling/from the depths of my soul/and I can't remember/all the times I've been low/but that's all in the rearview mirror/I've got places to go

I mean, it's a work in progress, but I think it's pretty good. I also came up with a new tune, and few words to that as well:

The smoke clears, she draws near/I fall into a trance/our eyes meet, my heart beats/our words begin to dance

although I still have a long way to go on that. add in the beginnings of a paper on reward and punishment and theism etc. etc. and I've had a fairly productive day. Now might be a good time to mention that I slept through a class (and quiz) this morning. First one this semester, so I almost made it out of February without a ditch. Oh well.

Man, this moral reasoning crap...it's a requirement for graduation. Really, I can never figure out how to talk meaningfully about such issues. The course title is: ""If there is no G-d, all is permitted."" discuss. I prefer having concrete facts, like psych studies or OBP (On-Base Percentage). well, it's only one semester...

well, that's about all that's really going on right now. looking forward to: Dinner at the Rabbi's Friday night (tis no ordinary dinner, lad), Oscars Sunday, fantasy baseball draft the following Sunday, Purim, and finally spring break. Someone remind to live in the present from time to time, ok?

sb

"

Myspace Re-Post #2: Reward and Punishment

Note: Reposted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on March 1st, 2006.

So I'm supposed to be working on a paper for this ""moral reasoning"" class about the role of reward and punishment in morality. but I'd really rather post a blog, plus I don't know what I'm writing about yet, so here's a test run.

One question that could reasonably be asked is, presuming the presence of G-d, does He run the world on just principles? Are rewards given to the moral and punishments to the immoral? In Deuteronomy (7:12- ), this would seem to be the clear implication, as Moses relates that ""this will be the reward when you follow these rules...[G-d] will bless you and multiply you...and the fruit of your land...G-d will remove from you every illness...etc.""

On the other hand, we have the complicated discussions in Job. Job spends a lot of time insisting on his complete and total innocence of any wrongdoing, and yet he suffers immensely. Indeed, G-d clearly affirms his innocence in the prologue (Chs 1-2). Then G-d appears to him from the whirlwind &c. and goes to great lengths to demonstrate that no human can comprehend His ways. The basic implication seems to be that any search for causality in life events, i.e. their being due to sins or good deeds, is futile, as no clear causality will emerge.

Now one could easily conclude that the passages are in conflict and that each articulates a radically different notion of reward and punishment. But is it possible to reconcile these two stances into one coherent and sophisticated moral system?

What, in fact, is the nature of the human inference of causality? Are we truly equipped to track and connect all the disparate elements of our existence into a meaningful whole? Most psychologists would say that causality is simply an effective mental tools that allows us to understand the behavior of physical objects. A clear demonstration of the breakdown of human causal reasoning can be demonstrated with the following anecdote from the life of a sports fan:

In 2004, the Boston Red Sox were (as usual) in the playoffs, and a large number of college students were gathered in the common area of my residence hall to watch a game. It was about the seventh inning, with the Red Sox batting, when a new person came into the area and took a seat in close proximity to the television. The Red Sox then rallied and scored a run. One viewer then told the newcomer: ""You're not moving from that seat."" The implication being that it was the presence of this one person in this one residence hall in Cambridge that had somehow caused the Boston Red Sox to score a run.

Similar examples are no doubt commonplace, particularly in the realm of sports. The point is to demonstrate that humans are not reliable agents for determining causality. This is, in a way, the message of G-d from the whirlwind in Job. While  the blessings of the land and the lack of illness may be directly caused by our positive or negative actions, we may simply be unable to comprehend the channels and processes that connect these factors to our actions in a chain of causality.

Ok, sure, but who's going to say that Job was in reality being rewarded for his positive actions? The possibility (suggested ad nauseum by Job's three friends) that Job actually deserves his manifold sufferings is clearly ruled out by the prologue, where G-d declares Job's innocence of wrongdoing, and in the end, where G-d reaffirms this declaration.

Reference to the introduction also raises the question of the ultimate reason for Job's misfortunes. G-d engages in a conversation with ""the satan"" (literally - the prosecutor), who claims that Job is only so righteous due to his good fortune (Job was initially a rich man with many children who apparently wanted for nothing). G-d grants the satan free reign to hurt Job as he wishes, so long as he doesn't kill him. Thus, Job's sufferings seem to be a form of test: will Job's faith and goodness persevere in the face of extreme suffering?

If one presumes the existence of an afterlife, then many of these problems can be resolved with relative ease...

Myspace Re-Post #1: Brief Update: Live Performances &c.

Note: Reposted from my now-defunct Myspace blog, where it was originally posted on February 26th, 2006. Moving forward, I will be numbering my Myspace Re-Posts to reflect the original chronological ordering of their posting. This post was modestly edited to improve grammar, punctuation and spelling.

Can I just say last night rocked? My band played a gig on campus (did I mention I'm in a band? We're called Red Heifer, and we play a mix of Jewish and secular originals and covers). Small crowd, very relaxed setting, but the audience was very attentive. Of course I was pretty buzzed (I've yet to publicly perform without alcohol in my bloodstream), but that always helps. Some songs we played included a slowed down reggae version of Matisyahu's ""King Without a Crown"" which was well received, and a three-song Elvis medley which the crowd LOVED.

It's getting to be a problem, really. The most consistently well-received song(s) I ever play are Elvis. People really dig my King impression. Problem is, they're all three-chord wonders, very short, and you kinda get sick of them pretty quickly. and, if you know me at all, you probably know that there's a whole shitload of bands and artists I like better than Elvis (nothing against him, just, y'know...). See my profile - he doesn't even appear amidst, what, thirty-five bands?

Regardless. We also played one of my originals, called ""Part of the Game,"" which features embarrassingly bad lyrics about personal anguish. Thing is, apparently I'm not much of a lyricist. In fact, I have a number of songs backlogged, waiting for me to add lyrics.

So that was the concert. Lots of fun. I got praised for my vocal skills, and chatted with the organizers and other bands. Then I met up with these other kids and we went back and watched a movie.

Doesn't sound like much, but here's the back story: I met a really cute girl this weekend with high potential. She was in town over Shabbos visiting one of her friends who's a visiting student from Stern. So we hung out for a while at this little get together Friday night, and then she pretty muched disappeared the next day. she was gonna come to my show, along with a few of my friends, but their car got towed in Brookline. and she was leaving town the next day...

So those were the people I ended up watching a movie with, and maybe now you see the significance. we got to hang out a bit more...we'll see how things develop from here on out. gotta figure out how to lure her back to Cambridge (her friend should be helpful in that endeaver, I hope).

Well, there's other stuff going on in my life, too, but this is already a rather epic post. Let me conclude with this amusing anecdote: We have a new Rabbi at hillel this year. He's, umm...chill. like all his friends have pothead written all over them, he digs carlebach, and each friday night he leads a ""shabbos breathing"" session in the middle of dinner at hillel. get the picture?

So Matisyahu rolled through here two weeks ago (to the day) and hung out at chabad for a while. I went to that, and ended up going to the concert on the spur of the moment. Good show, very surreal, but that's not the point. This is the point: at the very end of the show, I'm chilling in the back with a very pretty little freshwoman (she told one guy we were together to get him to buzz off) and Matisyahu's winding down his show. Just as the final number is finished, I see (and can still see) my hillel rabbi get on the stage and dive into the crowd. it was totally nuts! and the worst part is, the crowd didn't even catch him...heh heh. he's okay, folks, really. but man...I bet your rabbi doesn't act like that.

Ok, well peace out y'all. Thanks to those who've hit me up with a comment or message. and Perl, if you're reading this, why is it so shocking that I should be on Myspace? I'll have you know I'm quite the facebook, er, enthusiast (we have another word for it, but I won't defame myself). 377 Harvard friends and counting...plus Donni ordered me to get on myspace. and it was featured on the daily show (along with facebook)! so, nu, what's the surprise?

ok, have a good whatever-it-is-you're-having,

Chi-town Shim