Monthly Archives: August 2019

(Trump Trade Wars) The Cows Are Gone (New York State Fair 2019)

Posted on August 30, 2019 by zjb

The jewel in the crown at a big State Fair is the cowsheds. Dairy-families bring their stock to show, camping out and caring for the animals, and connecting with each other and with the larger social public. This year we … Continue reading →

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(Nighttime Dance) Machine Parts in Motion (New York State Fair 2019)

Posted on August 27, 2019 by zjb

You can’t say you like technology and dance or Bauhaus and not like looking at the rides at the New York State Fair as you wander among them as they gyrate in the night. Before JG taught me how to … Continue reading →

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Heterotopia (New York State Fair 2019)

Posted on August 26, 2019 by zjb

“There are also, probably in every culture, in every civilization, real places- places that do exist and that are formed in the very founding of society-which are something like counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which the real … Continue reading →

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Talmud & The Casuistic Style (Shlomo Deshen & the Jews of Morocco)

Posted on August 18, 2019 by zjb

Working through 18th and 19th century halakhic sources (in this case, responsa) to get a bead on traditional Moroccan Jewish life prior to formal colonial period (prior to the establishment of the French protectorate in 1912), Shlomo Deshen said something … Continue reading →

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Holocaust Objects Are Small (Auschwitz at the Museum of Jewish Heritage)

Posted on August 13, 2019 by zjb

Probably because it was close by and in New York City, I went to see “Auschwitz: Not Long Ago, Not Far Away,” the big exhibition now on view at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and then I went again. There … Continue reading →

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Tisha B’Av Lament (Reading Lamentations Rabbah)

Posted on August 12, 2019 by zjb

No political hot take, Lamentations Rabbah, the rabbinic commentary to the biblical book, is an ambiguous lament. This is more true of the main body of the text as opposed to the by-and-large more “orthodox” proems, focused as these are upon … Continue reading →

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(Feeling Nostalgic) Nixon Resignation Speech

Posted on August 5, 2019 by zjb

PRESIDENT NIXON’S RESIGNATION SPEECH August 8, 1974 Good evening. This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have … Continue reading →

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(An Evil Report) A Land That Eats Its Own People (El Paso)

Posted on August 4, 2019 by zjb

What kind of country is this? Something like from Numbers, chapter 13: 13:26 And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; … Continue reading →

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The Priestly Blessing is Weird and Most Impressive (Hertz Pentateuch)

Posted on August 2, 2019 by zjb

As I continue to scroll through the Hertz Pentateuch in search of wayward things and other points of interest that tell us something about the HP and its time and place, I found this odd and unexpected thing. It’s his … Continue reading →

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Foucault and Transcendence: Haunted by Merleau-Ponty, Affect, and the Norm of Determinacy

Posted on August 2, 2019 by zjb

Gail Hamner on Merleau-Ponty and Foucault, sense and dream, world and the transcendence of climbing out

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