Monthly Archives: November 2012

Glass Green (Modern Architecture)

Posted on November 13, 2012 by zjb

(150 E.70th Street [between 3rd Ave. and Lexington]). The combination of green and glass in this modern building creates the illusion that the space between outside and inside has collapsed. Appointing the  expensive Barcelona chair in the lobby reminds you … Continue reading →

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Religion ~Politics (After 2012)

Posted on November 12, 2012 by zjb

(Andy Warhol, Crosses [c.1981-2]) Maybe after all is said and done, Jesus wasn’t a radical progressive, the rabbis were neither conservative nor liberal, and the prophets weren’t political. Maybe just maybe they had other things on their mind, some other … Continue reading →

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Black Birds (Central Park)

Posted on November 12, 2012 by zjb

Hundreds of birds (?) rooting around for food in the foliage. I think what caught my attention was the black mass combined with the intensive movement in the changing pattern of the positioning of each individual across the small hillside. … Continue reading →

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Grassroots Cognitive Dissonance (Red State America)

Posted on November 11, 2012 by zjb

For a fascinating journalistic glimpse into what cognitive dissonance looks like at the grassroots level  after Obama 2012 in Red State America, see this article in the Washington Post. It goes to show that perception, like politics, is always local. … Continue reading →

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(American) Religion (and Society) (David Kaufman, Shul with a Pool)

Posted on November 10, 2012 by zjb

I finished reading David Kaufman’s book on the American Synagogue-Center movement, an idea which enjoyed its heyday between the 1890s or so and the 1920s. It’s a great book with lots of food for thought re: the relations between religion … Continue reading →

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Beethoven Awareness Month (Bourgeois)

Posted on November 9, 2012 by zjb

November is “Beethoven Awareness Month” at WQXR in New York, which means all Beethoven all the time online at http://www.wnyc.org/. Check it out, especially as you sit down to read your Hegel or your Wissenschaft des Judentums. Nighttime or daytime, … Continue reading →

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Starry Sky (Arvo Pärt)

Posted on November 8, 2012 by zjb

It was Arvo Pärt’s Arbos on the drive home tonight from Syracuse to NYC. With day light savings over, much of the commute back home to NYC from Syracuse is through the dark. A lot of Pärt’s music is psalms translated … Continue reading →

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Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts & Plastic Imagination (“Crossing Borders” at the Jewish Museum)

Posted on November 8, 2012 by zjb

  Go to the Jewish Museum to see Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-place of Cultures. The works are on loan from the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Its motley world is inhabited by dragons, unicorns, musicians, wild-men, and … Continue reading →

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Liberalism (Vindication) (Obama 2012)

Posted on November 7, 2012 by zjb

Obama’s speech last night was a vindication of liberalism, based as it was on appeals to people from all walks of life. And I can’t help but think that it represents, or comes close to representing those very values important … Continue reading →

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Maimonides (Luxe Edition)

Posted on November 7, 2012 by zjb

[Samuel ibn Tibbon, Hebrew translation of Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed (Spain, 1300)] This luxe edition throws a different light upon the Guide of the Perplexed, Maimonides, and medieval rationalism. I love the aristocratic elegance, the abstract and organic components, … Continue reading →

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