#i got shit to do. my essay aint gonna write itself

[constantvariations]

My scavenge for screenshots that I might use in an upcoming video essay led me to Lilith Fairen’s blog where, lo and behold, she apparently saw this post of mine and decided she had to talk about it

That’s an interesting way to say “the blog has me blocked, so I can’t reblog the OG post.” Fairen, you know what a block means, right? It means I don’t consent to you being on my damn blog. So either you don’t understand what boundaries are or you think it’s okay to ignore them so long as it’s the right kind of person you’re invading. Neither of which reflect well on you

[convervative-blog]

essay preparation, Conservative Judaism: Our Ancestors To Our Descendants by Elliot M. Dorff

alright buds gonna go thru this book, theres chapters and then like essay questions, so im here reading the chapters then answering the essay questions. im fucken ignorant as shit so this is all my stupid opinions that im still developing and it might change as i learn more idk. enjoy, lots of surprise-zionism in here skip if thats not ur thing

I. yes services start early morning we do prelims then shacharit torah & musaf then kiddush congregants range in ages from young to elderly (predominantly older tho) and in observance from super frum (ok like 5 of us lol) to basically secular & very pluralistic no one cares, very close-knit, "maritime personality disorder" very evident, love it

II. never studied at yeshiva or went to hebrew school, looking into doing so (u know when), actually the reason i picked up this book, im inherently drawn to like childrens resources (this is a highschool level book but u get it) bc as an adult i missed out on jewish child education, so im drawn to childrens resources to "learn from the start" so to speak

III. parents are gentiles, no jewish identity really, grandma resolutely denied being a jew though got 'mistaken' for one almost daily due to last name and appearance, 'corrected' people constantly, got bullied for it (i say grandma but its still patrilineal dont @ me), she didnt know anything about judaism and was frequently antisemitic and firmly catholic

IV. conservative judaism means that halachic rules are binding but that they should and must be interpreted via the lens of the society in which we live, in order to reduce suffering and increase overall observance (e.g. women, lgbt+, accessibility), conservative judaism also means an affordance of leniency in individualistic expressions of obligatory mitzvot

V. emancipation occurred from 1776-1880, within western europe (france holland england) during the rise of nationalism jews were considered naturalized citizens of their respective countries & not foreign outliers, allowed to serve in army etc  but had negative impact bc jews at the time began to lose their jewish identity whilst adopting goyische practices (ref. assimilation)

VI. absolutely and i fully intend on making aliyah, learning and speaking hebrew is nourishing for my soul, its an internal secret of mine that “magneto was right” u know, “does mainstreaming work?” and like, i say this not bc i believe jews should be separate (or even that jews should immigrate to israel) but in the interest of jewish protection and continuation, is mainstreaming going to contribute to jewish protection and continuation? mainstreaming needs to include existence. u cant mainstream two groups if one group is only accepted when they dont exist as themselves. “jews and gentiles can exist together! but u better show up to work on yom kippur.” jews deserve self-determination and to have the opportunity to live in their homeland which is the only safe place on earth for jews to publicly and fully express their judaism, to go to a school where they can safely and publicly express their judaism, to go to a synagogue where they can safely and publicly express their judaism, to go to a job where they can safely and publicly express their judaism. u tell me where that is, is it where u live? thats the downfall of mainstreaming, bc sure jews can assimilate but what u see is that ppl who arent jews will only interact with them if they renounce their judaism. sure u want to say jews and goyim living side by side respecting one anothers practices is the ideal, absolutely im "pro mainstreaming" for those ideals, but be practical! that shit aint never gonna happen, dont sacrifice yourself and ur family and ur friends for an academic concept that has never manifested itself in reality

VII. the advent of secularism! secularism is super appealing. movies! tv! books! music. mixed dancing as it were. all the things considered heretical bc they could curse g-d, but appealing on a neurological level. who doesnt wanna sit down and binge drop dead diva for 9 hours, its not me buds. so ofc many orthodox peeps would be drawn to it, but in the interest of maintaining their practices and beliefs, new movements would necessarily sprout up in response

VIII. assimilation occurred bc the advent of secularism drew alot of observant jews away from their practices and subsequently their identities, it was more appealing to be a citizen (a "german" not a "jew") bc it afforded them rights and privileges and goys would interact w them on an equal level, as long as they didnt express being jewish too much, or used their jewishness in a self-deprecating kind of way (alot of jewish comics got famous like this, ppl love listening to jews self-deprecate and in a downward shifting economy u gotta get it where u can get it)

IX. the differences between halacha in orthodox judaism and reform judaism? oh boy well today, because reform judaism looked totally different in the 1800s guys (most american jews were reform, which is why american jewish culture was so radically separate from european jewish culture and far more secular), but at the core orthodoxy believes halacha as it was written and interpreted (and as it continues to be interpreted and debated) is binding, no ifs ands or buts. u can find reasons why things can and cant be done but its always within the established halacha. reform judaism doesnt consider halacha binding but essentially “refers” to it as they develop their individual practices (”im a woman but im not gonna cover my hair if i get married bc blah blah blah” might be a reform opinion, its deciding not to follow the law, but its still referencing the law) and is exponentially more concerned with the idea of jewish peoplehood, identity, nationality, history, outside the world of torah. (yes? no? this is all shit i was spoonfed by 1 guy so like?) 

X. im writing a fucken essay on this man. need to chill out and condense. get my opinions in order. orthodoxy is appealing bc most ppl will believe the same shit u do and put the same weight on it, conservatism is more pluralistic/individualistic, definitely more secular, even tho i wholeheartedly agree with this & practice it in my life, the art of letting people do their own shit without judging them, the art of welcoming ppl into ur space despite their diverging belief systems, just: sometimes u can feel kind of silly when u know ppl probably dont take as literal interpretations as u do. strengths of reform individualism, pluralism, activism, diversity, influx of new opinions/thoughts, ppl talk to me about this i know very little about reform judaism dont get mad at me pls. weaknesses uhhhhhh lol am i gonna go there on tumblr.com 2day... weaknesses i guess would be that its not taken as seriously by outsiders? is that acceptable/right?

endin here for now!

[balancingbookact]

Ready Player One Review/Rant *Spoilers*:

Copied from my goodreads account:

*cracks knuckles* Okay, let's get into it.

I want to start this by saying I like the plot and action of the story. It was engaging and propulsive, and the tension was very effective in the last chunk of the book. The world of the Oasis is cool and I like the idea of this crazy creator fucking with the world by pulling a One Piece and leaving his fortune as the prize in an international treasure hunt. All that is aces to me, my issues with the book come from two things: the protagonist, and how nerd culture is represented.

Let's get one thing straight: being a nerd does not ostracise you from society. Being really into Star Wars or Game of Thrones isn't seen as uncool. These are some of the most popular franchises in history! They are MAINSTREAM ENTERTAINMENT. The only reason someone would make fun of you for liking something is if you're being a dick about it. This book is Big Bang Theory-esque with it's approach to nerd/geek culture. Name-dropping Star Trek characters or quoting television shows isn't good, comedic writing. You're just naming things. And that's all this book does, it just names things.

The thing about references, or 'easter eggs', is that you're meant to FIND them. If you spot a reference or easter egg it's cool, it's like a little pat on the back to yourself from getting the joke. That's what makes it funny. If someone has to explain the joke to you it loses all of it's fun. That's the problem with all the pop culture references in this book- every time Cline mentions something he has to go out of his way to explain to the reader the context of the thing, defeating the purpose of what an easter egg is supposed to be. People who know what you're on about will get it, that's what makes an inside joke cool. It's like when Wade takes out this teleportation device in the Oasis and the password to activate it is 'Brundle'. Now I, as someone who has watched The Fly, knows this is a reference to the movie about a scientist named Seth Brundle, who builds a teleportation machine. I got the joke! And he didn't feel the need to explain it! A successful use of an easter egg! But every other time he does something like this the reader is treated to a five page essay on the history of the thing AND I DON'T NEED IT. It would be like if every time Stephen King referenced one of his other books in The Dark Tower series he stopped the narrative to give us a plot summary of The Shining. Not fun.

Then there's the stuff itself which is referenced in the book. It's all so generic. It's like if you did a general survey on the most popular stuff from the 80s, that's all the stuff that Wade and Halliday are into. Now, obviously this is all the stuff that Ernest Cline is into and that's why he chose to write about it, so I can't really blame him for that. They're his interests. But it would've been nice in the midst of all the dude-centric stuff to maybe get a few nods to female creators or influencers, like Mary Shelly, Ursula K. Le Guin, Hiromu Arakawa, and the like. I guess this just goes into one of my main issues, being that this book is such a dude-bro nerd hand job. In as many words. But we'll get to that.

NEXT, I don't buy that Wade was able to ingest the amount of content that he did. He lists so much stuff that he's watched/read/played and I'm calling bullshit. Now, I know what it's like to hit free-fall with stuff and when you do nothing but binge, you can binge hard, but he's seen War Games, Blade Runner, and Monty Python enough times to know every word, he's seen the entirety of Family Ties three times, he's read every Stephen King book (there are, like, sixty), he's read every issue of Amazing Spider-Man (there are like 800, not to mention the countless other Spider-Man titles out there, i.e., Spectacular Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, Sensational Spider-Man, Spider-Man 1990, etc.), and countless other things. There's no way in the five years since the contest began that he ingested everything that Halliday had across the entirety of his life! There's just no way. But whatever, I'm not hung up on it or anything.

But the thing is, being able to quote and reference shit doesn't make you a "true fan" in the same way that getting an A on a standardised test doesn't necessarily make you smart. Anyone can know things, but it's how something touches your heart and makes you feel that counts. It's like, the sixers just KNEW STUFF, they didn't have the same heart for it that other gunters did, you know? They could just get fed the answers, like cheating on a test. That's why trivia tests are an ineffective way to measure a person's level of fandom. There's probably lots of other people out there who have seen How to Train your Dragon more times than me and know more obscure details about the film, but when it comes to FEELINGS I'd best any one of you bitches.

Now, onto Wade as a character. In short: he dumb and boring. Longer version: he's a dime a dozen protagonist with nothing interesting about him that clearly serves as a self-insert/audience character. Nothing about his perspective is fresh, and I think the story would've been vastly improved with a more interesting MC. Also, he's really dumb and careless. I don't blame him for the sixers getting his school info- the contest hadn't even begun, he didn't know any better, whatever. But then he tells Art3mis his name! This person, who he's never met irl, who isn't being particularly forth-coming with any personal details of her own, he just tells his civilian identity to. Last time this happened his house blew up, resulting in a lot of death (not that he appeared to be too bothered by this), so you'd think he'd be a little more protective of his identity. Honestly, I was with Art3mis throughout the whole thing. She was being so much more reasonable than he was. Although her whole reveal with her birth mark was a bit lame. Like, we're supposed to believe this mark would make her repulsive? Have you seen Prince Zuko? A scar aint gonna put bitches off you. Also, Aech's whole reveal of being *gasp* a woman made me question why it had to be a reveal in the first place. Like, I get why she would disguise herself online but I don't know why Wade and/or the reader couldn't be clued in earlier. I think people are past gender and sexuality being used as plot twists.

And that concludes my rant. I didn't hate this book, there were just lots of things that irked me. I think, in the right hands, this story could've been a lot better. Fingers crossed for the movie.