When Benjamin wrote about miniatures and melancholia, he was picturing me with tending to my colony of mourning geckos

satisfying fascinations with non-human creatures and tiny versions of normal-sized things at the same time

Definitely

Incredible

Fairytale of New York. Bc I’m a sucker for the Pogues, and it’s so much more than a Xmas song. The “I could have been someone etc” verse always gets me. And it feels so good to bellow “the boys in the NYPD choir etc”

“Notre Dame is us at our best.” And it is humanity at its cruellest— the destruction of Talmud commentaries we would still be poring over. A cloud over our understanding of our central text. All the chambers of the palace of Torah that could have been and never will be. (3/3)

And so much of what we did have is lost to us forever, unlike the the boards of the Notre Dame, with knots and carpenter’s marks no one will take another look at. They see the stone edifice with the spire behind it burning. I see 10,000 Jewish manuscripts ablaze on its steps. (2/3)

Cambridge, Mass! So weird!!

In the past I’ve been in relationships with guys in a relatively similar sociological niche, but with whom I’ve had pretty big differences in terms of religious sensibility (I’m allergic to the word ‘hashkafa’ but here it might actually be apt)

I’ve been talking to someone about Torah and God and Life and all that stuff and it’s been… a lot. Sometimes a little nerve wracking or draining, but for the most part it’s been really special…