Space Opera, &c

[chanaleh]

Why was I so tired last week? 'Cause I had, among other things, three shul meetings in as many days. The good news, though, is that the Board passed my proposal to bring in [what we will surely begin affectionately calling] the "Frydenberg siddur" as an option for Friday nights. Yay!

Friday was yet another Clean-Out Day at work (because we're moving offices in May, a whole block and a half), so I spent much of it on hands and knees consigning old piles of paper to the recycling, which was tiring but satisfying. After shul, an impromptu dinner outing to the S&S with missaligator and cohorts. Then I went home and rested.

Saturday: after shul, went to read Talley & Son with the theatreatfirst gang, then an impromptu early-dinner outing to Johnny D's (where I actually finally managed to see Jane Sherrill's paintings on display!). Then the housewarming/early-b'day chez laurens10 and tapuz, where the principal fun activity of the evening turned out to be making mezuzot (out of Sculpey). I haven't done that since the ones I made for jessruth, and I got a little (okay, a LOT) more freeform with this version. It was fun.

Sunday: absolutely gorgeous buffet brunch at the Blue Room as our after-the-fact cast party for Talley's Folly. Then Tiger Boy and I went on to see the North Cambridge Family Opera Co. production of Space Opera! We couldn't convince gremionis to come along, but muchabstracted and then kalessin met up with us there. And of course there were a whole bunch of Tremont St. folks in the audience, there to root for our own. I am, if possible, even more enamored of David Sandberg after seeing him engage in light-saber combat ;-) but his daughter Ilana, age ~10, totally stole the show as Luke. Wow. All y'all with little geeklets should definitely take them next weekend.

Tonight at MIT, 7pm: The Great Latke-Hamantashen Debate!

Comments

[cmouse.livejournal.com]

I really wanted to go to the debate! There are so many cool people in it this year.

But alas, I am stuck in software design class.

[moominmolly.livejournal.com]

I had no idea that the Great Latke-Hamentashen Debate had spread past the University of Chicago! Ha ha! That's awesome.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Where is the Press moving to??? (aside from a block and a half away?)

[happyfunpaul.livejournal.com]

Well, it's good that MIT steals from the best, I suppose. :)

[besamim.livejournal.com]

That is one nifty siddur, the Frydenberg. The both-languages-on-one-page format is definitely the wave of the future. Although my favourite prayerbook, Sim Shalom, doesn't use that layout, the forthcoming Reform siddur, Mishkan T'filah (replacing Gates of Prayer) does, as does one of the recent Renewal siddurim, Kol Koreh.

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

What is The Great Latke-Hamantashen Debate? (the link didn't work for me)

[awhyzip.livejournal.com]

Crud! Latke v Hamentaschen is my favorite Purim fun (based off UMass's) and I didn't learn about this one until 8. ... Hope you enjoyed, Erica!

DoeEyedBunny, a Latke/Hamentasch debate is a farce where academics make up pseudo-scientific arguments to prove the superiority of the one foodstuff over the other. Here's a fun quote from MoominMolly's link:
“The Heisenberg uncertainty principle would not have been discovered had it not been for the eight-day miracle [of Hannukah],” Lewin said. “Clearly he must have been inspired by the seven-day uncertainty of the oil miracle. Though it’s a rather high uncertainty.”

[mycroft.livejournal.com]

D'oh, somehow I missed the news about the debate. Ah well. That just means I'll have to make my own and compare!

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Do you know Mark Frydenberg? Or remember him from Beth Bingo (if you ever went there to speak of)?

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Amazingly -- back to 55 Hayward St.! Our old digs, where we were before the Linguistics dept. got it. Now they've moved (and we can save money by being back in an actual campus building), so we're going back.

[besamim.livejournal.com]

I went to Beth Bingo during the summers when of course there was no Egal (or any other minyan) on campus. Don't recall a Mark Frydenberg, though. But then I'll wager he doesn't recall me, so that's all right, then.

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

I thought you must have, but for a minute I couldn't remember. :-) You'd remember Mark, then, if you met him again. He did a lot of the davening.

[miraclaire.livejournal.com]

The synagogue I went to in Richmond, VA was one of the ones testing the new reform siddur. Everyone there adored it (and people were annoyed when we had to bring out the old Gates of Prayer).

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Mishkan Tefilah? Shaarei Tefilah? Is there a rule that all Reform prayerbooks have to be named after synagogues in Newton, MA? Or is it the other way round? ;-)

[besamim.livejournal.com]

Well, at least we can be reasonably sure there's no shul in Newton (or anywhere else) named Union Prayer Book.

Oh! funny story about that ancient Reform "hymnal." A rabbi I know said he once was in one of those tiny, real black-hat sefarim stores when he saw a guy ask the salesperson for the Union Prayer Book. The salesperson looked at him increduously for a moment, then slapped down a copy of Siddur Tikkun Meir and said, "Here! Whatever you don't like, you can tear out."