A couple of books

[mojosmom]

#23
The Rosary, by Garry Wills

I will read pretty much anything Garry Wills writes. A true Renaissance man, he writes with equal insight, articulateness and knowledge about Catholic history and theology or United States history and politics, with the occasional foray into literature and biography. Here, he discusses the Catholic practice of praying the rosary, that assist to medidating on, and participating in, the life of Christ. Drawing on the gospel texts, he shows how they hark back to the prophecies of the Hebrew Bible, and he uses paintings by Tintoretto as a visual supplement to his descriptions. One need not be Catholic (or even Christian) to find this worthwhile reading.


#24
The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate, Ruth Fredman Cernea, editor

You don't have to be Jewish or an academic to love this book, but being one or the other or both certainly couldn't hurt! Sixty years ago, at the University of Chicago, an anthropologist, an historian, and the director of Hillel started the first formal academic debate over the relative merits of the latke and the hamantash. (For the uninitiated, latkes are the potato pancakes traditionally served at Hanukah, while hamantashen are a filled pastry served at Purim.) Cernea has gathered together some of the best and funniest of the presentations, mostly from the University of Chicago, but also some from similar debates at other institutions of higher learning. Participants include university presidents (" . . . as president of the University of Chicago, it is my duty never to think."), Nobel Prize winners (to be invited to participate in this forum is, as one of the scholarly élite points out, an honor eclipsed only by that of winning the Nobel Prize), and even the occasional goy.

Here, you will learn that Shakespeare was an adherent of the hamantash, while Jane Austen preferred latkes. Dive into the debate over whether the hamantash is masculine and the latke feminine, or vice versa. What did Freud, Darwin and the ancient Chinese have to do with these dishes? And what is their influence on the roots of rock 'n' roll?

Such fun to watch academics skewer themselves! "My own moment of enlightenment about the significance of latkes and hamantashen came one day after many hours of studying a genealogical diagram of the kind anthropologists have traditionally used for making the study of kinship incomprehensible." (Judith Shapiro) " . . . the only real difference between an faculty meeting and a preschool class is that the preschool class is run under responsible adult supervision." (Edward W. Kolb) "How rarely in academic life these days are we actually granted an occasion on which to act out our deepest and most atavistic impulses: to indulge in arguments as pompous, spurious, specious, and tasteless as we please!" (Judith Zeitlin)

This book is tremendous fun.

Other stuff

I came home and found a parcel from shadiehawke - a box of cards wth images from Hiroshige woodblock prints. Ooooh, so nice! AND my Jazz Fest tickets arrived. I'm so looking forward to that - I discovered that Germaine Bazzle will be performing the weekend we're there. I love her work.

I mailed in my tax returns! I'm getting a small refund from the feds, but I owe the state (not too much, though). Glad to have that out of the way.

Comments

[teotakuu.livejournal.com]

'The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate' sounds fun. I actually have a very soft spot in my heart for this kind of debate. We actually do quite a lot of this in 'Reo Rumaki' immersion language learning weekends as it helps expand vocabulary and encourage research etc.

I find it interesting that we were only discussing Hamantash the other day and i had never heard of them before. Now I discover that there is a book about them! Well, I suppose, somewhere there is a book about almost everything and anything.

Yay for completed taxes without too large a liability, for Festival tickets and for Shaie gifts. What a bonus kind of a day.

Happy holiday MJM

[martip.livejournal.com]

It appears you've had a lovely day all around, with delights on every side. The latke/hamantash book sounds wickedly funny.