Yikes!

of shofars and vespas

This is kinda old news. But I found it today.

Maurice Kamins is a very cool guy that I know. A few weeks ago, he was on the cover of San Francisco's Jewish rag with a great story about how he makes shofars, how he loves shofars, how he thinks shofars are awesome, etc. The story is also a bit about how he's a cool guy, and mentions his daughter Rochelle. I know Maurice because Rochelle is a good friend. Because Rochelle is such a good friend, I have an original Maurice Kamins shofar of which I am very proud and very fond. It is big and pretty and it sounds amazing.

I don't have any deep commentary on the subject. I just think that Rochelle is cool ("Rochelle, by the way, is a chip off the old block: She, too, rides a motorcycle, which likely will make her one of a rare breed of biker-rabbis when she is ordained next May. Dad, meanwhile, gets quite a few stares when he rides his Vespa around town with a 36-inch kudu shofar prominently sticking out."), and that her dad is cool, and that you should read the article, which you can find here.

Quotes of the Day

"Esther and Haman wouldn't be a bad name for the band. Kind of like Belle and Sebastian, but Jewish and probably a little harder-core."

and

"Sometimes I feel like Darrin Stevens, except that my wife is a Protestant instead of a witch."

and

"Nothing on earth, apparently, is funnier than a pretending that a dessicated carrot is a senile cat's penis."

[From my new favorite blog, Neal Pollack's The Maelstrom, in which Pollack mostly muses about his adventures in fatherhood.]

Oh Harry!, Season 2

My favorite podcast is back. Call me a "True Believer."

Another Reason We Need More Men in Education

It turns out that the lack of male school librarians is detrimental to boys' reading habits. As Emily Bazelon writes,

According to Eden Ross Lipson, the author of The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children, boys read on a need-to-know basis: To generalize wildly, "They don't set out looking for story and relationship. They set out looking for information."

Why then do a lot of boys get turned off from reading sometime in elementary or middle school? The blame partly lies with librarians. They are mostly women, they tend to love stories, and they also have a thing for books that teach moral lessons. (Take a look at this list of the winners of the Newbery Medal for children's literature awarded by the American Library Association.) Librarians also play a hugely important role in children's book publishing. "You don't get a walloping success without that institutional support," says Lipson, who is the former editor of the children's section of the New York Times Book Review.

Librarians and teachers often look down on boy humor or nonfiction, and their disdain seeps through to the boys who crave those things.

We need more male teachers. Period.

Reform Conversion?

Exactly how insulted should we be by this cartoon?

(Shabot6000 is a comic strip about a wisecracking Jewish robot and his frum friend. Often, it's pretty funny. In the most recent strip -- which you can see by clicking the above link -- Shabot the robot comments that Orthdox conversions come with strict requirements. His frummy friend replies, "Maybe you should go with Reform conversion. Their only requirement is that you watch Fiddler on the Roof.")

Etrogim Are Useful

Harry and Ziva mentioned etrogim in this week's podcast. According to them, the funny yellow citrons are only useful for Sukkot, jam, and magic illness-curing potions.

Of course, many of us (thanks, Daryn) know that etrogim are also useful for making Etrog-flavored vodka. Here's the recipe, courtesy Rabbi Gingi (master of animal husbandry), who let us put it in last year's Year-in-Israel cookbook.

Dick Israel’s z”l Etrog Liquor Recipe

Ingredients:
Up to 3 etrogs
3 cup vodka
1.5 cup superfine sugar

Instructions:
Wash etrogim
Peel only yellow portion
Place peel in 4 cup jar and add 2 cups vodka
Store in a cool, dark place for a minimum of 48 hours
Remove peel and discard (or dry the peels and use in a cake that needs citron)
Add 1.5 cups sugar
Stir until clear
Add one more cup vodka and stir until clear
Close and keep in dark for about 6 weeks
You will have a bright yellow color and sweet flavor with a distinctive strong aroma.

Oh Harry!

I know I'm late to the game, but the new awesomeness in my life is podcasting, a technology that allows you to listen to "podcasts" (a lot like radio shows, but usually w/o the commercials) on your iPod.

[For those who need more explanation: You tell your computer (specifically, you tell iTunes) which podcasts (shows) you want to listen to. It automatically downloads any new episodes, and then puts them in your iPod. Now you can listen at the gym, in the car, in a house, on a boat, while eating green eggs and ham.]

My favorite podcast is The View from Here, a blog out of Modi'in, Israel. By favorite, I mean pretty-much-the-only-one-I-listen-to-with-any-regularity, by which I mean I downloaded all 20+ episodes and have been listening non-stop.

Each episode of TVH is a 30-40 peek into the lives of Harry and Ziva, a pair of Americans (married to each other) who made aliyah a few years ago. They talk about life in Israel, about things in the news (but rarely politics), about reality TV, about Israeli music, about food... It's basically just a couple talking about their lives. And it's hilarious.

I want to get all my friends listening to the podcast... Mostly because it's awesome, but also because I want to get everyone together to play a game I invented called "The View from Here Drinking Game." To play, start listening to the podcast with a group of friends, pour yourself a tall glass of beer, and make sure you also have a bottle of hard liquor and shot glasses handy. Then...

Drink a sip of beer if...

• Ziva says Harry's name
• Harry says something "drives him up the wall"
• they talk about reality TV (take a second sip if they specifically mention American idol)
• Harry says "...actually, it's a funny story..."
• Harry tries to do a British accent
• Harry or Ziva talk about Israelis being crazy

Drink a shot if...

• Ziva says "Oh Harry!"
• Harry whines about Ziva not answering her email
• Harry says "Oh Ziva!"
• before or after telling a story, Harry explains that its a boring story and no one will care
• Ziva uses a Hebrew word

I guarantee, you'll be plastered in no time.

The best way to listen to the podcast is to open up iTunes, click on Music Store, click on Podcasts (on the far left), then search for "View From Here" and click Subscribe. Then click Podcasts in the far left menu (where your playlists are) to find the downloaded episodes.

Definition of Chutzpah

Paul Boutin has balls. I mean... real balls.

In an article for Slate.com -- a news site owned by, um, Microsoft -- Boutin suggests that PC users switch from MS Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox.

As Alex Chadwick on NPR/Slate's radio newsmagazine Day to Day puts it, "Paul Boutin has now advised you to stop using Internet Explorer. Paul Boutin, who writes about -- or perhaps formerly wrote about -- technology for our partners at Slate magazine."

Quote of the Day

"Fear builds walls to bar the light." - Baal Shem Tov

Quote of the Week

From Tarik's new blog:

What's great about this country is that there is no cracking prohibition (so I'm on crack all the time)... U can have a lunch for 50 cents, I don't guaranty you'll wake up the next day but nothing tastes better than dirty food.