Tag Archives: nature

Planet Earth & Replicants (The View From Solaris)

Posted on May 5, 2020 by zjb

The plot of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972) is basic enough. Sometime in the near future, Soviet psychologist Kris Kelvin goes to investigate goings on at the space station orbiting the planet Solaris. A massive churning sea with a mind of … Continue reading →

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(Violent Surge of Excellent Writing) Habakkuk (Shavuot)

Posted on June 10, 2019 by zjb

Locked up tight in the liturgical reading of Scripture in the synagogue as the haftarah on the second day of Shavuot, the holiday of revelation, the manifestation of  God in the third chapter of Habbakuk signals total world disaster. In … Continue reading →

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Red-tailed Hawk Fledgings & Angel’s Horn (St John the Divine)

Posted on June 24, 2018 by zjb

Would someone versed in Christian/Episcopal iconography please help me identify the angel on the back end of the roof of St John the Divine overlooking Morningside Drive down below.  The cathedral being St John, is the angel one of the … Continue reading →

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Affect & Potential (Aristotle)

Posted on March 16, 2018 by zjb

When defining affect, many will go back to Spinoza, the capacity for being affected.  More useful perhaps is this from Aristotle which I think should be read in tandem with this bit on potentiality. The first puts the emphasis on alteration, … Continue reading →

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Opera & Landscape (David Hockney)

Posted on February 11, 2018 by zjb

A musical painter or a painter of music, David Hockney painted landscapes and operatic sets –and they are glorious. The first painting that I have posted above is a view on a drive on the hilly Pacific Highway with Los … Continue reading →

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Religion, Things, Idea, Sensation (Reading Max Müller)

Posted on October 26, 2017 by zjb

In putting together the syllabus for my graduate seminar, I decided to add the almost but never quite long forgotten Max Müller to his rightful place in the canon of classical theories and methods in the study of Religion. I … Continue reading →

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Genesis (Earth Grassing Grasses, Seed Seeding Plants, Fruit Making Fruit Trees)

Posted on October 15, 2017 by zjb

  I spent some time staring at the Hebrew in synagogue this week, particularly vivid, but lost in translation. Earth being the active subject of Genesis 1:11-12 requires peculiar linguistic convolutions. 11…T’dashe ha’aretz deshe esev mazriah zerah etz pri osheh … Continue reading →

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Pagan Rabbis of the Mishnah (Jacob Neusner)

Posted on July 5, 2017 by zjb

Against history and messianic end-times, Jewish philosophy might want to take note that at the conclusion of a discussion of the Order of Appointed Seasons (Seder Moed) of the Mishnah, Jacob Neusner describes these pagan rabbis. Their world picture is … Continue reading →

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What Poetic about the Poets’ Walk (Bard College)

Posted on May 14, 2017 by zjb

Up early for a Talmud and culture conference at Bard College a couple of weeks back on a drippy spring day, I pulled in to park at the nearby Poet’s Walk. It seemed like the right thing to do. The … Continue reading →

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Talmud & Culture & Nature (Note from Conference at Bard College)

Posted on April 27, 2017 by zjb

Representing “philology,” Shai Secunda presided over a truly special day of talks at Bard College devoted to the theme of Talmud and its place in relation to the humanities. Excellent papers and presentations by junior and senior colleagues brought Talmud … Continue reading →

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