interviewed by talvinamarich
1) Imagine you have been asked to give a sermon on Judaism to a room full
of goyim. (Assume a friendly/receptive audience, here.) What topic would
you choose?
Assuming I know nothing more about the interests and composition of the audience, I think I would talk about what God wants from us. That's huge, of course, but there is an apparent widespread belief among gentiles that the God of the Tanach is vengeful, autocratic, and generally nasty, and that our role is pretty much just to obey all these onerous rules. I would talk instead about our role as partners with God -- partners in creation, the obligation to wrestle with and challenge God, and the whole "light to the nations" thing. (From the outside:) Islam teaches submission to God and Christianity teaches love as the path to salvation; Judaism teaches a more "interactive" relationship. So I think I would talk about that. (And also that there's not one single answer -- drawing from the torah, from prophets, and from rabbinic literature. This would require a longer talk to do more than make passing mention, of course.)
2) While looking through your profile, I noticed that you are a musician. Voice only, or do you play an instrument?
I play hammer dulcimer pretty well, dabble with bodhran and bowed psaltery, have performed really simple stuff on bass guitar, dabbled in the past with appalachian dulcimer, and had piano lessons as a kid.
I somewhat regret not having some level of proficiency on guitar, as it would open up many possibilities, but I seem to have trouble wrapping my head around it and fixing that hasn't been important enough yet. You may have noticed that everything else I play is very "horizontal"; there might be polyphony but you're playing a line with melody and forward motion, not just playing a chordal accompaniment. I seem to be more wired for that; I think of the strings on a guitar as six chromatic progressions offset from one another, not as configurations of chord ingredients. (Yes, I know you can play melodically on guitar; that's not where beginners start, and part of my goal were I to learn guitar would be accompaniment.)
3) OS X, Windows, or *Nix?
The memory is fuzzy by now, but I think my best GUI experiences were from X-Windows running on a Unix box. When using a shell, I strongly prefer that it be Unix (or, if on a Windows box, Cygwin). I suspect that OS X gives me the best combination on modern machines (given that I want a machine to work pretty much out of the box), and it will probably be the OS on my next machine. (I have a Mac laptop now for occasional use, and also to explore the Mac before committing.)
4) Another from your listed interests: Callahans! Favorite story?
Oh wow. It's been too long for me to have strong impressions of individual stories, I'm afraid. The first book (Callahan's Crosstime Saloon) is my favorite of the series, and I stopped reading after the failed recovery from Callahan's Secret.
I love the idea of that bar, and was for a time part of the Usenet group that sought to immitate it online.
5) (Yeah, I am reaching, here): Cinderella or Mulan?
I have not actually seen Mulan, but based on the plot summary at Wikipedia, I think I would like it. I don't care for the Cinderella story (in any of the depictions I've seen); quite aside from what it says about love, beauty, and gender, the magical fix doesn't really address the core problem. (The original ending, usually dropped, gives the story a vengeful turn but also does not seem to address things beyond that one family.) I guess I want my escapist fantasy to be grander and wider-ranging.
Assuming I know nothing more about the interests and composition of the audience, I think I would talk about what God wants from us. That's huge, of course, but there is an apparent widespread belief among gentiles that the God of the Tanach is vengeful, autocratic, and generally nasty, and that our role is pretty much just to obey all these onerous rules. I would talk instead about our role as partners with God -- partners in creation, the obligation to wrestle with and challenge God, and the whole "light to the nations" thing. (From the outside:) Islam teaches submission to God and Christianity teaches love as the path to salvation; Judaism teaches a more "interactive" relationship. So I think I would talk about that. (And also that there's not one single answer -- drawing from the torah, from prophets, and from rabbinic literature. This would require a longer talk to do more than make passing mention, of course.)
2) While looking through your profile, I noticed that you are a musician. Voice only, or do you play an instrument?
I play hammer dulcimer pretty well, dabble with bodhran and bowed psaltery, have performed really simple stuff on bass guitar, dabbled in the past with appalachian dulcimer, and had piano lessons as a kid.
I somewhat regret not having some level of proficiency on guitar, as it would open up many possibilities, but I seem to have trouble wrapping my head around it and fixing that hasn't been important enough yet. You may have noticed that everything else I play is very "horizontal"; there might be polyphony but you're playing a line with melody and forward motion, not just playing a chordal accompaniment. I seem to be more wired for that; I think of the strings on a guitar as six chromatic progressions offset from one another, not as configurations of chord ingredients. (Yes, I know you can play melodically on guitar; that's not where beginners start, and part of my goal were I to learn guitar would be accompaniment.)
3) OS X, Windows, or *Nix?
The memory is fuzzy by now, but I think my best GUI experiences were from X-Windows running on a Unix box. When using a shell, I strongly prefer that it be Unix (or, if on a Windows box, Cygwin). I suspect that OS X gives me the best combination on modern machines (given that I want a machine to work pretty much out of the box), and it will probably be the OS on my next machine. (I have a Mac laptop now for occasional use, and also to explore the Mac before committing.)
4) Another from your listed interests: Callahans! Favorite story?
Oh wow. It's been too long for me to have strong impressions of individual stories, I'm afraid. The first book (Callahan's Crosstime Saloon) is my favorite of the series, and I stopped reading after the failed recovery from Callahan's Secret.
I love the idea of that bar, and was for a time part of the Usenet group that sought to immitate it online.
5) (Yeah, I am reaching, here): Cinderella or Mulan?
I have not actually seen Mulan, but based on the plot summary at Wikipedia, I think I would like it. I don't care for the Cinderella story (in any of the depictions I've seen); quite aside from what it says about love, beauty, and gender, the magical fix doesn't really address the core problem. (The original ending, usually dropped, gives the story a vengeful turn but also does not seem to address things beyond that one family.) I guess I want my escapist fantasy to be grander and wider-ranging.