Efrex
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efrex.bsky.social
Efrex
@efrex.bsky.social
120 followers 99 following 1.1K posts
Father of 4, Orthodox Jew, Liberal Zionist (probably doesn’t mean what you think it does), ADHD, straight musical theater queen, tired. Posting barbershop quartet content until the timeline improves…
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efrex.bsky.social
Obligatory xkcd:
XKCD Comic: “If you really hate someone, teach them to recognize bad kerning.”
November 13, 2025 at 2:58 PM
efrex.bsky.social
I said what I said…
Indigo Girls Presto by Rush Dessert Wind by Ofrah Haza Greater Scheme of Things by Safam
October 29, 2025 at 4:38 PM
efrex.bsky.social
I remember that one! From days gone by….
Twitter/X post from efrex July 13, 2018: Listened to a podcast ( @fiatlexpodcast ) episode exclusively focussed on how dictionaries break up syllables in their words. For the second time. In one day. On my own volition. Methinks I might be a bit of a word nerd...
October 16, 2025 at 3:02 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Joker origin story:
August 8, 2025 at 12:27 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Took a picture of this machzor at a now-closed Heights shul several years ago. It wasn’t that long ago that Jews crossed the Washington bridge to and from the Bronx to attend services on each side…
August 1, 2025 at 5:28 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Not sure where I first heard about this book, but it is one of the most essential and infuriating reads I have ever experienced. How the hell is this not a bipartisan social priority?
“Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness” by Peter Earley
June 8, 2025 at 3:06 AM
efrex.bsky.social
Going down the rabbit hole of the number of translations & emendations suggested for this one verse, and might never see air again:
Original Hebrew text of Ruth 4:5
June 4, 2025 at 10:57 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Even then, there were one-offs where Calvin acknowledged Hobbes toy-ness:
May 21, 2025 at 1:30 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Uh-oh, you’ve ticked off the LIBRARIANS?! That is NOT going to end well…
Zelda Schiff from “The Magicians”
April 25, 2025 at 12:32 AM
efrex.bsky.social
Quite possibly my most prized possession:
LP of the Original Broadway Cast Recording of “Company,” autographed by Pamela Myers and Donna McKechnie
April 17, 2025 at 4:09 PM
efrex.bsky.social
aufschnitt arroz con gondules
April 8, 2025 at 11:43 PM
efrex.bsky.social
It’s been many a year, but the only one that comes immediately to mind (and it’s not that critical a plot point) is “Blue Carbuncle.” Far more devastating (and accurate) a critique came from Sir Pterry:
Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!
April 8, 2025 at 8:47 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Obligatory Discworld quote:
Nude women are only Art if there’s an urn in it,’ said Fred Colon. This sounded a bit weak even to him, so he added, ‘or a plinth. Both is best, o’course. It’s a secret sign, see, that they put in to say that it’s Art and okay to look at.’ ‘What about a potted plant?’ ‘That’s okay if it’s in an urn.’ ‘What about if it’s not got an urn or a plinth or a potted plant?’ said Nobby. ‘Have you one in mind, Nobby?’ said Colon suspiciously. ‘Yes, The Goddess Anoia* Arising from the Cutlery,’ said Nobby. ‘They’ve got it here. It was painted by a bloke with three i’s in his name, which sounds pretty artistic to me.’ ‘The number of i’s is important, Nobby,’ said Sergeant Colon gravely, ‘but in these situations you have to ask yourself: where’s the cherub? If there’s a little fat pink kid holding a mirror or a fan or similar, then it’s still okay. Even if he’s grinning. Obviously you can’t get urns everywhere. Terry Pratchett, Thud! (Discworld, #34)
April 4, 2025 at 5:32 PM
efrex.bsky.social
The nicer version of that, which hit me right between the eyes when I first read it:
“It is worth living long enough to outlast any sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health.” Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
March 30, 2025 at 1:28 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Natan Slifkin quotes Israel Aharoni as making that suggestion in 1938. Dr. Hayyim Tawil argues that the word simply means “decorated leather”
Quote from “Sacred Monsters” by Natan Slifkin Quote from Dr. Tawil’s Akkadian Lexicon
March 26, 2025 at 12:53 AM
efrex.bsky.social
Just read the prologue. Stopped, turned back to page 1, and read it again. If the rest of this book is half as good, I’m in for an insane treat…
“Why Fish Don’t Exist,” by Lulu Miller
March 20, 2025 at 4:09 PM
efrex.bsky.social
עד ביאת הגואל
I miss you, Ima…
March 19, 2025 at 1:18 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Nothing like a little light reading…
Three books, all essay collections on contemporary Hasidic theory: “A New Hasidism: Roots,” “A New Hasidism: Branches,” and “Contemporary Uses and Forms of Hasidut
March 19, 2025 at 12:43 AM
efrex.bsky.social
One of so many brilliant and depressing passages from Terry Pratchett’s “Night Watch”…
People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people. As soon as you saw people as things to be measured, they didn't measure up. What would run through the streets soon enough wouldn't be a revolution or a riot. It'd be people who were frightened and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down. And when that happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn't try to bite the sheep next to them.
March 10, 2025 at 6:20 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Imagine feeling like this man in this picture:
81-year-old James Harrison, whose plasma contained a rare antibody that was used to treat over 2 million babies, giving his last blood donation, surrounded by mothers and babies whose lives he helped
March 4, 2025 at 9:07 PM
efrex.bsky.social
I don’t even know how much I objectively thought it was good at the time, but gotta be
March 4, 2025 at 12:55 PM
efrex.bsky.social
It’s weird to think that I last read these when I was roughly the same age as the protagonist, and am coming back to them at the same age as his father. #ShabbatReads
Chaim Potok’s books: “The Chosen” and “The Promise.”
March 2, 2025 at 3:19 AM
efrex.bsky.social
www.newyorker.com/news/daily-c...
As for Thomas, he is physically transformed from his infamous confirmation hearings, in 1991—a great deal grayer and heavier today, at the age of sixty-five. He also projects a different kind of silence than he did earlier in his tenure. In his first years on the Court, Thomas would rock forward, whisper comments about the lawyers to his neighbors Breyer and Kennedy, and generally look like he was acknowledging where he was. These days, Thomas only reclines; his leather chair is pitched so that he can stare at the ceiling, which he does at length. He strokes his chin. His eyelids look heavy. Every schoolteacher knows this look. It’s called “not paying attention.”
February 25, 2025 at 6:19 PM
efrex.bsky.social
1942. The Warsaw Ghetto. The Piacetzna Rebbe is able to somehow deliver this line (Esh Kodesh, parshtat Yitro). One of the most stunning pieces imaginable:
Selection from the work “Esh Kodesh,” explaining an aggadic passage that a Jew, no matter how low, has the ability to grab the divine throne and outrank the angels.
February 18, 2025 at 11:33 PM
efrex.bsky.social
Someone else out there was learning Eruvin and started singing “A tanna’s bolt has a knob on the end,” right? It wasn’t just me, right?

*sigh*
Tamud Bavli Eruvin 102a - discussion of a bolt with a “gelustera” (knob) and it’s permissibility for use on Shabbat
February 11, 2025 at 2:06 AM