New blog - Tinfoil Yarmulke

My current blog is a set of travel essays and ephemera related to my recent propaganda-tour with Birthright Israel and the two months of Middle East travel that followed.

Tinfoil Yarmulke
www.tinfoilyarmulke.tumblr.com

Cheers!

Being Pretty

(from my Let's Go blog)

This is one of those delicate topics where I’ll have to tread the line between vanity and annoyingly overcompensating humility. But in Italy, I am really pretty.

Save your protestations, loyal friends who will insist that I am pretty at home too. Reserve your judgment, skeptical strangers eyeballing my mugshot. I know what league I’m in at home. And I’ve just been bumped up a notch.

It’s not simply run-of-the-mill flirting I’m talking about. That I could chalk up to Italian men being infinitely more forward than Harvard men. Hell, glaciers are more forward than Harvard men.

No, it’s the freebies that show I’m really punching above my weight. The old men at Trattoria Mario who flagged the waitress to have me seated at their table and were disappointed when I returned with my prettier-by-American-standards girlfriends. My inability to do efficient nightlife research because the free drinks offered at each establishment leave me stumbling door to door like the Prophet Elijah. The museum guard who asked me out minutes after the other guard in the gallery did likewise, sparking a minor controversy regarding docent decency.

I guess it comes from looking sorta Italian, but not quite. My European friends tell me that Jewish looks are “exotic” overseas. This girl from NY never counted her hook nose as an asset before and certainly wouldn’t have expected it to go over any different in a former Axis power, but shows what she knows. Get it, nose/knows? Okay, they still don’t love my Jewish father sense of humor, but I’m working on it.

Last week, I latched on to a couple American guys whose companionship I had to earn the old-fashioned way – jeez, peanut gallery, I mean through mutual interests and bad jokes – and their presence dried up the attention. Honestly, it was a relief to go back to being conspicuous only for the normal reason: talking too loudly.

So it was a shock all over again today when the attention resumed. I stepped under the awning of a restaurant to avoid a sudden downpour, and a man came out of the restaurant to hail a taxi.

“Come with me,” he said. We had not yet exchanged a word.

“What?”

“I am going to my other restaurant by the Duomo. I own this one, and a couple others.”

“Um.”

“Come, we will have cappuccino at the other place, and then we’ll come back here and have lunch.”

See? This does not happen to me at home. And at home I don’t even consider getting in taxis with complete strangers. But I was hungry. And, well, it was raining.

So what the hell. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts. I got in the cab.

Read more: http://www.letsgo.com/article/2567-being-pretty#ixzz17VHgcp7V

The good parts

(from my Let's Go blog)

You really can't complain about this job. I don't mean that there's nothing to complain about. I'm working 14 hour days, my knees, hips, and back scream in protest every time I force them to walk up and down the city in search of yet another poorly-signposted hotel, and the Renaissance is getting really, really old. I got my complaints.

I mean I literally cannot complain about my job. Because I will get punched in the face.

Metaphorically, that is. No one has yet punched me. But mentioning any of the negatives—the hours, the stress, the loneliness, the physical test—generally results in the reaction you are probably having right now: "Oh, you poooor baby. Are they making you eat too many cannolis? Wah wah, your life is soooo hard."

And they have a point. Because the crappy parts are not nearly so crappy as the awesome parts are awesome. And when you're belting
"O Mio Bambino Caro" in unison in the basement of a tiny Florentine trattoria with a dozen opera students and a half dozen old Italian men, or standing on the balcony of a 12th century hilltop monastery at dawn to watch the sun rise on the city below, this job ain't half bad.

Read more: http://www.letsgo.com/article/2399-the-good-parts#ixzz17VI7kDyx

Sphenisciphobia

(from my Let's Go blog)

I understand now why people are afraid of nuns.

When the lady at the San Gimignano tourist office told me about the convent's dorms, I got my fingers ready to give this find a coveted Let's Go thumbs-up. It took me three visits to actually find a nun at the desk, and a little while longer for her to understand my rote-memorized Italian for "may I have a look around?" Eventually, she waved me upstairs, and I got to see a bit of convent life.

I found a long hallway of empty, sparse dorm rooms adorned with surprisingly tasteful Virgins. Not bad, not bad. I took a different staircase down and emerged in another hall of dorms - these clearly inhabited by persons of the cloth. Outside was a gorgeous stone courtyard with a huge old well, still in operation. I suspected that I had ventured out of bounds, but the place was empty. So I had a poke around.

Now, I am a big fan of trespassing. Sure, sometimes you get yelled at. But sometimes you make a great find. This time, I'd found a fully operational 12th-century Italian convent.

There was a chapel, of course. I bumped my head on the ceiling going in - 12th-century nuns were short - and discovered the entrance to the cloister. The convent is on the edge of San Gimignano, a mountaintop city, and to my amazement, the cloister had a postcard-perfect view of the city center's towers.

Just then the sky rumbled. And before you could say "one Mississippi" a lightning bolt had brightened the dark sky. And as every grade schooler knows, that means the storm is here. I ducked back into the convent by another door, just as a burst of sharp rain came tumbling out of the sky. At this point, I had no idea where in the apparently immense convent I was, but that wasn't going to stop me from continuing my exploration. Thunder shook the walls. A line of elderly nuns passed by in habits, probably to go sing "My Favorite Things" with the Reverend Mother, but that wasn't going to stop me either. Then one of them noticed me.

So, turns out trespassing is less fun when you can't speak the language. Normally, when an enormous old nun asks me what I'm doing, I smile and make up some convincing story, probably flashing one of my several persuasive ID cards for good measure. It worked on the monk at Westminster Abbey who put me on the list for Darwin's birthday party last year. But this nun? This nun questioned me in Italian. And I could respond with nothing better than, "Huh?"

And then I am being dragged - literally dragged, by the arm - through the convent by a very large, very angry nun shouting at me in rapid Italian. I catch words like "privato" and "vietato" but am at a loss to respond, and it doesn't seem like a great time to pull out the press pass. She yanks me all the way to the front gate. With a good shove, I am thrown out of the convent and into the rain.

I meant no offense. Nun: taken.

Read more: http://www.letsgo.com/article/2644-sphenisciphobia#ixzz17VGv02ws

An open letter to Tuscany regarding the matter of cosplay

Dear Tuscany,

You have a very proud culture. Your personal identity is closely tied to your regional loyalties. I get it. I mean, I basically grew up in a suburban strip mall, so I don't get it get it. I do empathize. But dear, dear Tuscany, you've taken it too far. It's time for us to have The Talk. The Talk about cosplay.

Now, now. Don't start sputtering about heritage this, tradition that. I have seen far too many grown men in moth-eaten Ren Faire cast-offs this month to buy that line. Clearly, you just do this because you like it. And that's great! More power to you.

But there is a time and a place for every time and place. So here, my Tuscan friends, are some basic rules for anachronistic dress-up time.

Rule #1: You may only dress anachronistically in routine life if the style is from a decade in which Hitchcock made films. Fedoras are hot. Top hats are not.

Exception to Rule #1: Ironic mid-'90s garb.

Rule #2: Attire from decades and centuries not covered by Rule #1 are acceptable on the following occasions:
- Halloween, Carnivale, Purim, etc.
- Theme parties
- Before your 12th birthday

Rule #3: Not all styles work for all people. Perhaps everyone in 1590 wore tights. Well, maybe you should pretend you're in 1570 instead. There's a century for every body type, my Raphaelite friends.

Rule #4: Comic book conventions and Ren Faires. And, specially for you Tuscany, major festivals. I said MAJOR. That means once annually. Comic Con is once a year. The NY Ren Faire is once a year. You can restrain yourselves from parading down the street in pantaloons at least as well as the convention cosplayers, can't you?

Exception to all rules: Waistcoats. Waistcoats are always OK.

Second exception to all rules: Hot chicks. Hot chicks are also always OK.

Read more: http://www.letsgo.com/article/2604-an-open-letter-to-tuscany-regarding-the-matter-of-cosplay#ixzz17VHJ7FN5

Italia!

After procrastinating on it for all of undergrad, I am finally traveling for Let's Go this summer. I will be writing the Tuscany section of Let's Go: Italy 2011. Exciting!

Although the travel guide won't be on shelves til the winter, I'll be officially blogging on the Let's Go website as well - you can find my Italy stories here.

Ciao!

LOST in Translation

(from my Let's Go blog)

I had a brief moment of panic yesterday. Harvard is forcing me to graduate, again, and I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm doing with my life after Let's Go. But this is not why I panicked.

I panicked because I realized I would be in Italy for the finale of LOST.

This is actually a big deal. What would I do? Where would I watch? With whom would I cheer the improbable success or inevitable disappointment of the finale? I'm not even that big of a LOSTie - I just caught up this fall, marathoning the first five seasons so I could watch the last season with the rest of the world. It’s, like, a cultural moment and stuff, right?

That marathon would be all for naught if I missed the finale, so I began to brainstorm. Maybe there's a LOST fan club in Florence! Maybe I could advertise on Craigslist to find somewhere to watch! Maybe I could hang signs in every hostel to rally the other misplaced LOSTies to storm an internet café!

And then I actually got a little excited. What better excuse to round up random strangers and make them hang out with me? Adventure! I began to tell my housemate – a far more serious LOSTie than myself – about my plan to mobilize the lost LOSTies of Florence via social media and Dharma Initiative graffiti. I was just getting to the part where I would unearth secret fans with each handshake by writing NOT PENNY’S BOAT on my palm, when he stopped me.

“You’re leaving May 29, right?”
“Yeah.”
“The finale is on the 25th.”
“…Oh.”

Bummer. It’s okay though. The Doctor Who finale isn’t until mid-June.

Read more: http://www.letsgo.com/profile/LizWeinbloom?page=4#ixzz17VIPufEt

Silent Mob at HMNH

Running an event at the Harvard Museum of Natural History next Sunday, check it out!

Website: www.silentmob.wordpress.com

Facebook event (join to receive updates)

I have now gotten lost en route to Brookline via every conceivable form of transportation. Bus, different bus, T, bus + foot, car, and now finally bicycle. The options have been exhausted! Come back, Sleep No More! I know how to find you now!

I'm pretty sure I circumnavigated the entirety of Allston and Brookline. On the plus side, my T9 now knows how to recognize the word "circumnavigated."

Today, I am in the letters section of the NY Times. Glad to know my useless superpower is still in fine operating condition.

My letter

Amusingly, you can follow my entire academic/career trajectory to date through my Times letters. Standardized testing, college apps, freshman-style social awareness, Sesame Street, PBS Kids, and now internships. Also throw in there the one about the X-Files, and my mother's about paying for college tuition, and you have a pretty good record of my life in the Grey Lady. You're welcome, Future Biographers!

So hey. For the next week, I'm apparently called Anna and have Elle Woods as my blogger image. Sorry about that. I'm designing a pervasive game for a course, and for the next week I am running a demo version. And stupidly I didn't think to create a new google account before starting a Blogger account for the main character. Whoops.

If you're curious, the demo is based at HarvardiAnna. Feel free to check it out* and let me know your thoughts, though remember that this is a very very early beta that is more a proof-of-concept than anything else. It is an Alternate Reality Game designed to complement Harvard's freshman orientation.

*previously this post said Harvard affiliates could feel free to participate, but I am amending that. If you are or were an undergrad at Harvard, please do give me your thoughts but don't post answers - the puzzles are designed for Harvard neophytes. Thanks!

Today I learned that my dear friend Gracie's wedding got written up in Offbeat Brides. This is cooler than getting in the Times! My bar for wedding awesomeness is officially set.

Offbeat Bride | Grace & Mike's hat-tastic church wedding, with a pirate cruise reception

(I am the creator of the mentioned sign-in book)


In similar news of awesomeness, my sister is in a show that just got panned by the New Yorker. Panned by the New Yorker! That's some high-profile panning right there. I couldn't be more impressed if they'd actually liked the show.
Caligula Maximus at La Mama

Today I learned how gas stoves work! Or at any rate, where they keep their pilot light.

I also learned that I don't notice the smell of gas until it has given me a splitting headache. Fail.

A Passover Pageant

Jeremy: There are sections of the haggadah that, quite frankly, could use a polish.
Dan: You're gonna do a rewrite on the haggadah?
Jeremy: It's not written in stone, Dan.
Dan: Actually, some of it is.
- Sports Night

I wrote a Passover pageant, for the story-telling portion of my all-Gentiles seder. It went over rather well. Enjoy, and feel free to use/re-post, with credit.

NARRATOR: Previously, in Genesis:

GOD: It sure is dark in here... claps twice Hey, that worked!

ABRAHAM: Man, I can't keep track of all these gods, can't I consolidate all my worship into one easy deity?

GOD: Sure!

ABRAHAM: Yay!

GOD: Although, not so much with the easy. Go kill your son Isaac.

ABRAHAM: What??

GOD: J/k, j/k! Chill out, theologians.

ISAAC: I'm a pretty passive figure, overall. Jacob, Esau, what are you boys doing?

JACOB: Just stealing Esau's birthright, Dad!

ESAU: Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?

RANDOM ANGEL: Me too! I am so not on Team Jacob. Let's wrestle. On a ladder. Just because.

JACOB: Whatever, I am Israel, I can do whatever I want. C'mon, wives, let's get cracking on this “descendants as plentiful as the stars” business, if you know what I mean.

JOSEPH: Hey guys! I had this dream that you were all bundles of grain and you were bowing down to me! Isn't that funny guys? Why are you throwing me in this hole? Did someone take my technicolor dreamcoat? Hey guys? Guys?

POTIPHAR'S WIFE: You there! Slave boy! How you doin'?

JOSEPH: Err...

JOSEPH'S PHAROAH: Man, these weird dreams suck. I wonder if there's anyone locked in my dungeon who can interpret them for me.

JOSEPH: Me! Me me me! So either there's going to be 7 years of plenty and 7 years of famine, or you want to bone your mother. 5 cents, please.

JOSEPH'S PHAROAH: Such low rates!

JOSEPH: For you, I make a deal. Now let's talk royalties.

NARRATOR: And so Joseph became the Pharoah's chief of staff, and invited Jacob, Joseph's asshole brothers, and 70 other free-loading relatives to shlep down to Egypt and settle in the land of Goshen. Several hundred years pass, and the Hebrews, as we are now calling them for some reason, have been fruitful and multiplied. Then there came a pharoah who knew not Joseph...

PHAROAH: I know not Joseph, but I do know that all these pesky Hebrews are really ruining the neighborhood.

ROYAL BUTLER: You can't kick them out, sir; they've got rent control.

PHAROAH: Bah! Might as well make them useful, then. What are they good at?

BUTLER: Nothing very useful, sir. Comedy writing, standardized tests, and kvetching.

PHAROAH: Well, let's give them something to kvetch about. This view of the Nile would look a lot nicer with some big pointy brick things, don't you think?

NARRATOR: So the Hebrews became slaves, which wasn't exactly a picnic, so they just kept on having children so that they'd have someone to complain to.

BUTLER: Sir, the Hebrews still won't go away. They're just packing more children into their huts.

PHAROAH: They'll never give up a nice deal like Goshen as long as they have kids who can inherit it. Tell the midwives Shifrah and Puah to kill every baby boy born to a Hebrew woman.

SHIFRAH: What??

PUAH: This job blows.

SHIFRAH: I so didn't sign up for this.

PUAH: Let's tell Pharoah that the Hebrew women are unnaturally vigorous and give birth before we can get there. The ruling class always likes to hear that the disenfranchised are hardy and animalistic.

SHIFRAH: Sweet.

NARRATOR: Thanks to Shifrah and Puah, a Hebrew woman named Yochevet gave birth to a baby boy and was able to hide him from the authorities. But after a few months he was too big to hide, so with great sadness, she put the baby in a basket and floated it down the Nile. The baby's sister Miriam hid among the bulrushes to see what would happen to her little brother.

PHAROAH'S DAUGHTER: Hey look, a basket! With a baby in it! Aww, can I keep it?

MIRIAM: But you'd have to nurse it and take care of it and stuff.

P's DAUGHTER: Oh. Well, am I a princess or am I a princess? I'll hire someone.

MIRIAM: I know just the woman for the job.

NARRATOR: So Yochevet was hired to nurse her own son, which is a pretty great scam, and though Moses grew up in the court of the pharoah, he never forgot his birth mother's teachings. One day, Moses was slumming it in Goshen, and he saw a slavedriver cruelly whipping a Hebrew.

MOSES: Dude, relax.

SLAVEDRIVER: Relax? I've got production deadlines to meet, and these lazy Hebrews aren't meeting their brick-baking quota, and you're telling me to relax?

MOSES: Maybe if you were a little nicer to them...

SLAVEDRIVER: “Nice” doesn't get you bargain rate pyramids, mister. Or did you never think about where all your fancy papyrus comes from?

NARRATOR: He hadn't, actually, and so Moses did what any privileged young man would do when confronted with the source of his privilege – blamed someone else and killed the slavedriver.

MOSES: Uh oh.

NARRATOR: So he skedaddled the hell out of Egypt and had a nice long wander in the desert, before coming across a lovely shiksa named Zipporah.

ZIPPORAH: Hey, stranger. New to this strange land?

MOSES: Sure am.

NARRATOR: And Moses spent a couple decades chilling with the Bedouins. Meanwhile, things kinda sucked for the Hebrews.

ALL: Grumble grumble grumble grumble

NARRATOR: But God heard their grumbling. One day, Moses was chilling with his sheep at the foot of Mount Sinai, when the mountain went all lightning-y. When Moses reached the summit, he found a bush that burned with flame, yet was not consumed.

MOSES: Awe-some.

GOD: Moses, Moses.

MOSES: Here I am!

GOD: Take off your shoes. I just vacuumed the holy ground.

MOSES: Who are you?

GOD: I want you to go into Egypt and tell Pharoah to let my people go.

MOSES: Okay great, but who are you?

GOD: I Am Who I Am.

MOSES: But who should I tell Pharoah has sent me?

GOD: I Am Who I Am.

MOSES: That's... not very grammatical.

GOD: No, it's tetragrammatical! Zing!

MOSES: Oh god.

GOD: Yes?

MOSES: Listen, can't you get someone else to do this? I'm busy. I have to... shampoo my sheep.

GOD: Moses.

MOSES: No seriously. I am slow of tongue. I mean, sloooww offff toooongggguuuueeee...

GOD: Get your brother Aaron to talk for you. He was always the cute one.

NARRATOR: Moses went back to Egypt and found Aaron, who was in fact the cute one, and they marched in to Pharoah's palace and said:

AARON: Let my people go!

PHAROAH: No.

AARON: Oh. Please?

P's DAUGHTER: Okay!

PHAROAH: No.

MOSES: Psst, Aaron! Try the staff thing.

NARRATOR: Aaron raised his staff over the Nile, and the water turned to blood. Or red like blood. Depending who you ask. Either way, for seven days and nights it was pretty nasty stuff. But the Pharoah's magicians were also able to turn water into red stuff, so Pharoah was unimpressed.

PHAROAH: Moses, Moses, Moses. What else have you got?

NARRATOR: Next, Aaron summoned up a plague of frogs. Hundreds, thousands of frogs, hopping all over Egypt on their little frog legs. But the magicians could pull frogs out of their hat too, and Pharoah's heart was hardened. Next came gnats, which are really gross.

PHAROAH: Ew ew ew! Make them go away! Make them go away and you can leave!

NARRATOR: But God hardened Pharoah's heart, which is one of those problematic translation things that I'm just gonna skip right over, and everyone went back to the drawing board. There were flies, and cattle disease, and boils. Then shit got real. It hailed great big hailstones that burst into flame. Locusts came and nommed all the crops. And Moses stretched out his hand and--

MOSES: claps twice

NARRATOR: --drew a darkness over Egypt for three days.

BUTLER: Okay, sir? I'm covered in boils, there's nothing to eat, and I keep walking into frog carcasses because I can't see where I'm going. Let those people go.

PHAROAH: Sorry, my heart's been hardened. Out of my hands.

AARON: Alright, but listen. This last plague's not going to be pretty.

NARRATOR: God spoke to Moses and Aaron, and gave them a shopping list which has changed little in five thousand years, with the same old bitter herbs and unleavened bread, along with a nice dab of lamb's blood for the doorway so that the angel of death would pass over their house. And at midnight, the angel of death swept through the land of Egypt, and slew the first-born of all the Egyptians.

PHAROAH: Get out! Out out out! Scram! Beat it!

AARON: Kthxbai!

BUTLER: You're not going to harden your heart again, right sir?

PHAROAH: Well... I do have all these annoying unfinished pyramids... And that Sphinx could sure use a nose.

BUTLER: Which you'll want the Israelites for, obviously! ...It's funny because they have big noses.

PHAROAH: To the chariots!

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, the Israelites had reached the Red Sea.

MOSES: Huh.

MIRIAM: This doesn't look good. Do we ford the river?

PHAROAH: I'm coming for you, Israel!

MOSES: I guess we're not waiting to see if conditions improve. Onwards!

NARRATOR: And Moses raised his staff and parted the sea, and the children of Israel walked across on dry land. But when Pharoah's chariots tried to follow, their wheels got stuck in the mud, and when the last Israelite reached the bank the waters came crashing back down, drowning the Egyptians.

MIRIAM: Hurrah! Now what?

MOSES: I have to climb this mountain, brb.

NARRATOR: The Israelites, however, were not very patient.

ISRAELITE 1: Where's Moses?

ISRAELITE 2: I'm bored!

ISRAELITE 3: Can we eat yet?

AARON: Hey guys! You know what would pass the time? Why don't you give me all your gold and jewelry, and I'll build a giant shiny cow!

ISRAELITES: Yaaaaay!

MIRIAM: Why do slaves have gold?

AARON: We looted the Egyptians on our way out.

MIRIAM: Seriously? That doesn't seem very under-doggy of us...

AARON: Listen, do you want to hear one of the lesser-known stories where our guys forcibly circumcise our enemies? Or do you want to make a shiny cow?

MIRIAM: Moo.

MOSES: I am back! I am back and I have brought you these two stone tablets, which contain the – oooh, shiny! [drops the tablets] Uh oh. Hope I saved the receipt...

GOD: [face-palm]

NARRATOR: But God gave the children of Israel another chance and gave the law to Moses again. But as punishment, the corrupted former slaves had to die off before they could enter the Promised Land. Forty years of wandering later, they finally reached their new homeland. Unfortunately some other people lived there already, but that's not a very pleasant story and these four glasses of wine aren't going to drink themselves, so let's just pretend the Israelites made friends with their new neighbors and nothing troublesome or morally squicky ever happened in the land of Israel ever again. The end!

A lesson in graceful writing, from the pens of Joseph Stein and Sheldon Harnick:

Tevye: Is he in bad trouble, that hero of yours?
[Hodel nods]
Tevye: Arrested?
[she nods again]
Tevye: Convicted?
Hodel: Yes. But he did nothing wrong. He cares nothing for himself. Everything he does is for other people.
Tevye: Yes, but if he did nothing wrong, he wouldn't be in trouble.
Hodel: Oh Papa, how can you say that? What wrongs did Joseph do? And Abraham, and Moses? And they had troubles.
Tevye: Yes, but... But why won't you tell me where he is now, this Joseph of yours?
Hodel: It is far, Papa. Terribly far. He is in a settlement in Siberia.
Tevye: Siberia! And he asks you to leave your father and mother, and join him in that frozen wasteland and marry him there?
Hodel: No, Papa. He did not ask me to go. I want to go. I don't want him to be alone. I want to help him in his work.
Tevye: Hodel...
Hodel: Papa.
[sings]
Hodel: How can I hope to make you understand, why I do what I do? Why I must travel to a distant land, far from the home I love. Once I was happily content to be, as I was, where I was. Close to the people who are close to me, here in the home I love. Who could see that a man would come, who would change the shape of my dreams? Helpless now, I stand with him, watching older dreams grow dim. Oh, what a melancholy choice this is, wanting home, wanting him... Closing my heart to every hope but his, leaving the home I love. There where my heart has settled long ago, I must go, I must go. Who could imagine I'd be wandering so far from the home I love. Yet... there with my love, I'm home.
[the train is heard]
Tevye: And who, my child, will there be to perform a marriage there in the wilderness?
Hodel: Papa, I promise you, we will be married under a canopy.
Tevye: Yes, yes. No doubt, a Rabbi or two were also arrested.
[the train pulls in, Tevye lifts Hodel's luggage aboard]
Hodel: [crying and hugging him] Papa! God alone knows when we shall see each other again.
Tevye: Then, we will leave it in His hands.
[he helps her aboard and watches the train pull out]
Tevye: [looking up] Take care of her. See that she dresses warm.

Today I learned that it's possible to write a cover letter that actually clarifies your interests and plan. I wrote the following in a cover letter yesterday (slightly adapted for posting). I read it over today and realized that it really DOES sum up my current life plan. Can't say that about many cover letters!

I want to educate people to be more awesome. When my classmates at Harvard ask why I'm in grad school for educational media, I blather something about the pedagogical potential of interactivity for reaching students of multiple intelligences. That's true too. But I also just want more cool people to hang out with – even if I have to make them cool myself.

Games are scaffolding. That's an ed school word, but it could very well be a gaming word too. Scaffolding allows students to grok sophisticated ideas by taking them there step by step, so that each stage is a well-supported progression from the previous. Games are scaffolded as well – when you level up, you have proven the ability to tackle harder bosses. When you unlock a new clue, you are biting off a manageable chunk of the meta-puzzle. The naturally scaffolded structure of games and puzzle hunts means that you can use them to make people do all sorts of fun things they wouldn't normally do.

Engaging video games are great and all, but it's far more awesome to appropriate video game mechanics to have fun in Real Life. A pervasive game can be used to encourage exploration in an old fort, critical thinking in a museum, willingness to wander off a trail in the woods, absurd behavior in a public place, and a whole range of other activities that I, in my infinite objectivity, find valuable.

I design games because games help people do cool things they wouldn't do otherwise.

A bit rough, yeah, but that's totally the idea! :)

Today I learned that pantsing, debagging, depantsing, drooping, shanking, skanking or dacking (in Australia), cacking, skegging, dekecking or just kecking (in the United Kingdom), scantying in Scotland and jocking in Ireland and, when in New Zealand, simply the down-trou all refer to the act of pranking someone by pulling down their pants.

Oh, Commonwealth countries. If the extra Eskimo words for snow reflects the abundance of the stuff in their lives*, what does this plethora of pantsing synonyms say about you?

I highly recommend the surprisingly informative wikipedia article List of School Pranks for further enlightenment/ideas.


*yes, yes, I know

On the college admissions process

Today I learned that high school students and their parents ask entirely the wrong questions about the college admissions process. Not stupid questions, mind. Just the wrong ones.

Their questions betray that they just don't get the point of the whole thing. A highly typical example: "My son has a 3.7 GPA and plays lacrosse. How many hours of community service does he need for Harvard?" This reflects a student-centered concept of the process that is inaccurate and counter-productive.

Admissions committees are not awarding prizes in a scavenger hunt. They're crafting a college class. Maybe it's different at less prestigious, more ranking-conscious schools, and they really do tick off a list of GPA/SAT/AP attributes. But the good places only care about those numbers inasmuch as they are shorthand for the attributes of Real Actual People. No one cares about your 1600 2400 if you aren't also special.

Maybe that's the first filter to the whole process - the first test of your Harvardiness is whether you can grok the reason for the admissions committee's existence. Which of course means this is yet another way in which disadvantaged kids are further disadvantaged... Understanding the motivations of the man behind the curtain, when everyone around you is an idiot, is a pretty sophisticated cognitive task.

There's just so much mis-information and bad advice - often coming from professional advice-givers, which is what sparked this blog post - that it makes me sad. And for many kids who don't have ivy-level parents or friends, the first way they learn about college admissions is through television. In my case, that meant seeing Zach Morris get a 1507 or some such impossible score on his SAT, and then watching the rest of the Saved By The Bell kids scheme to make the Hahvahd recruiter at the college fair notice Jessie Spano, as though those college fairs matter in the slightest.

Or just last week on LOST, that entire sideways-world subplot where Alex so desperately wanted a letter of recommendation for Yale from the asshole principal, and not from her mentor Dr. Linus, because the asshole principal was a Yale alum. NO ONE CARES IF HE WENT TO YALE. Ben Linus would have written a far better letter. Or at least manipulated Yale into doing his bidding, whatever. Ugh.

Maybe I should just write a tv show about kids applying to college, and do some good in the world.

Back from spring break! Back to learning!

Today I learned that in 1933, a Mr. Maxwell J. House* hired a rabbi to say that the coffee bean is more like a berry than a bean, and therefore coffee is kosher for Passover. And thus was born the Maxwell House haggadah, sheepishly tucked into grocery bags by the dozen every Passover by thousands of families who couldn't manage to remember where they stored last year's Maxwell House haggadahs.

Even though my 15 Maxwell House haggadahs - the fruits of my mother's visits to four different supermarkets last weekend - would be enough (dayenu!), I am having an all-Gentile, all-singer seder, and therefore am compiling my own supplement. Thus far it consists of "readings" from Marjorie Morningstar, The King & I, Tony Kushner, and The Nanny. Suggestions for quotes, songs, and other ephemera are quite welcome.

And, typed by hand from Death & Taxes: Hydriotaphia and Other Plays because amazingly this wasn't yet on the internet, I give you the following from Tony Kushner's rambling short "Notes on Akiba":

...And, and look how good my kid is, he... performs, he really performs, he memorizes, he is prepared, a performer, he's four years old he can barely read Green Eggs & Ham and look he has memorized lengthy strings of what are to him nonsense syllables which he will now produce flawlessly on command because he knows like the whole year to follow and his life along with it will be cursed, the crops will fail and Elijah won't come because YOU FORGOT WHAT COMES AFTER MA NISHTANAHA ETCETERA, and like, that's not affliction?

*not really, but the rest of it is true

Today I learned that the only way to survive hell-week - nay, hell-fortnight - is to give myself one lovely treat per day. And no, television and naps (unless in the hammock) and shameless facebook stalking don't count; must be somewhat more special.

After failing to follow this rule on Friday and Saturday, and crashing horribly, I started over with a wonderful-as-ever post-church brunch on Sunday. Yesterday featured a lovely stroll in the Arboretum, and today? Today I read a new Sherlock Holmes story.

I've actually read just a small percentage of the Holmes canon, despite being a fan. Once I realized how much I loved them, and how finite was the proper Conan Doyle canon, I decided to parcel out the original 24* over as much of my life as possible. So I only read new ones when I really, really need it. (I am allowed to reread A Scandal in Bohemia as much as I'd like). Delayed gratification - I has it.

That being said, "A Case of Identity" is a bit rubbish.



*Yes I know there's the post-Reichenbach stories, but I've not touched those yet