HELL IS AN ENDLESS ROMAN A CLEF. Read more

TOOK YOU UP TO MIDNIGHT MASS, LEFT YOU IN THE LURCH: I realize that this whole conversation about shame might be better if I suggested an actual occasion on which I’d acted wrongly due to shame, as vs. guilt. The obvious one for me is that I don’t go to Confession out of shame. I do not recommend this. I went on Saturday and it was amazingly awesome, as (almost) always. When I don’t go, I get in this awful... Read more

PASSION WENT OUT OF FASHION–THAT’S ALL YOU’RE CONCERNED WITH: There’s an interesting catfight about gender going on in Helen’s comments here. It’s intra-Yalien in the most desperate way, but I think her fashion metaphor is both interesting and profound. Obviously it doesn’t work in a lot of ways, but she knows that, and it’s worth taking the time to walk around inside the metaphor for a while, see how it’s shaped and what it changes about your views, rather than... Read more

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE DADDY: Read this–and the comments, too. Read more

TO TERRORIZE Y’ALL’S NEIGHBORHOOD: I messed around with the blogroll, there, mostly because what I read these days is fairly random. If it’s on my blogroll, rest assured I recommend it for some reason; on the other hand, I think I disagree about fundamental matters of justice, faith, or mercy with at least half of the blogs I ‘roll. So please don’t assume that because I link to a blog, I agree with its proprietor on all or even most... Read more

SNORT THE SNOW OF YESTERYEAR: Helen glosses my tradition-addiction post. I like these one-liners because they let you “think [one’s] own thoughts in the spaces around the print,” as Diana Wynne Jones said about poetry, so I won’t belabor the point. I’ll just say that I’d conceived my post as being about eros and its distortions; which might clarify and/or intrigue. There are a lot of ways in which the punchline is true, and Helen’s sharp final paragraph gets at... Read more

OUR ANCIENT ENEMY, THE SUN: A list of “13 memorable movies set during heat waves.” I hadn’t remembered that Rear Window counts; I’m not sure if that should disqualify it. Do the Right Thing (my first thought) clocks in at #6. Read more

I FIGHT TO THE FINISH: Some adventures with a large bag of baby spinach. 1. Too tart! First, I made a toasted cheese sandwich. I split a mealhada roll in half crosswise and then lengthwise, filled the halves with sweet onion, spinach, and cranberry goat cheese, wrapped them in aluminum foil and baked at 375 for fifteen minutes. verdict: not quite. This was way too acidic–I’d hoped that the different sharpnesses would blend, but instead they just clashed. At least... Read more

SURVEY, SCHMURVEY: A neat survey of how widespread Yiddish and Hebrew terms are in everyday speech. They’re especially looking for non-Jewish participants. I’m skeptical of online surveys as a rule, of course, but this is a fun one, so regardless of its scholarly value it might be interesting to you all. Read more

TERRIFIC photos of the Fourth of July as seen from a rooftop on the Lower East Side. Read more