Tag: places

Are we there yet?

Torah Study and Services: 7/9/11

OUR WEEKLY TORAH STUDY SHIFTS this week, as I am honored and privileged to lead Shabbat services tomorrow morning (Sat., 7/9/11) at Sonoma’s Congregation Shir Shalom. We will begin by looking at one of the Book of Numbers’ most action-packed portions: the tale of Bilaam the Evil Wizard. (Just typing “Evil Wizard” is a thrill; but then, I’m easily amused.) If you’re not otherwise on a vacationary road trip, we hope to see you there!

Shabbat shalom,

Neal.

Toward A Topography Of Dreams

THIS IS LESS A POST than an invitation to share hidden landscapes.

Within the past year or so, and due partly to an almost chronic drowsiness, I began noticing that a significant number of my dreams are set in a handful of recurring locations. The dreams themselves are not repetitious; that is, the circumstances within each setting is different, but the settings themselves are the same — lending to the experience a curious sense of permanence or visitation:

– At (a) Renaissance Pleasure Faire, in the large tree-bordered parking lot; the Faire often recedes as I approach, or is over by the time I make it inside
– A bustling airport, to which I arrived via BART, and whose airplanes have couch seating
– Beach resort alongside a straight highway
– “The towns south:” a forested drive through a number of small California towns, eventually leading to a series of Southern California beach resorts
– High rise hotel with a series of terraced balconies; restaurant at the top
– The Endless Cemetery (ornate crypts & sarcophagi)
– An unknown suburb of Sonoma, sometimes on fire
– Back corridors of the world’s biggest shopping mall

Am I the only one with assigned seating? What are your recurring dreamscapes?

My Favorite Osama Bin Laden Rumor

…IS THAT HIS COMPOUND WAS built in the shape of what some would call “Greater Palestine,” with his house corresponding to the location of Jerusalem. (This comes to me from to the French website JSSNews, by way of YNet, by way of The Tablet, which latter is recommended daily fare.)

Fig. 1.
I stress that this is a rumor only (like the time in high school that I convinced someone that Ronald McDonald was portrayed by an African-American actor — which was repeated to me later in the day), and doesn’t really seem to fit with what we seem to know thus far about Mr. Bin Laden’s motivations. But as rumors go, it’s worth passing along. (AS A RUMOR.)

Ship Geeks Ahoy

IF YOU’RE CURIOUS ABOUT LIFE on the other side of the foghorns, waste no time in clicking on marinetraffic.com — a global, scalable, real-time map of the world’s shipping traffic, from cargo and passenger vessels to navaids and tankers to tugs and pilots. Each is labeled with specifications, course and speed (if applicable) and destination. (Think of it as a very stately air-traffic control diagram. Which makes me wonder if there’s one for air traffic … clicketyclickety … yep: flightradar24.com. Cool. Limited, but cool.) With this in one window and the Califonia Highway Patrol’s dispatch logs in another, I feel like a secret peeker at the world’s gears.
(Thanks to Friend-of-the-Show Steve Marler for sliding this my way.)

More Than A Game, Less Than A War

THERE ARE SPORTS WHICH CALL forth the most primal emotions in order to exorcise them for the good of the community — sports which make lesser men wonder and cringe, and old women pick up a frying pan — sports which proclaim a national character unchanged by time and politing circumstance — sports which sort of make me wish I was the sort of man who plays them. Forged among the Orkney Islands where men wrest their very living from the hoary North Sea …. Ba’.

(If you’re reading this on Christmas or New Year’s Day, watch it live at http://www.thelongpartnership.co.uk/profile/orkney_webcam.php or http://www.visitorkney.com/webcams.asp.)

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