I Gotta Get More Regular (11 cents)

I need to post every day, even if only a little.

Well, I am watching Cable Channel 147, country music videos, and just heard an advertisement to enlist in the Army Reserve (Reserve enlistment ads run pretty regularly on this station). If you join, you will get first class training, be able to continue your education, serve close to home (except when called up to serve your country). And, if you enlist now, you get a free sports watch. Scouts honor.

Today was a beautiful late summer Sunday, perfect for all sorts of activities. So, what did about 175 people do at 3 p.m. this afternoon? They packed the community room at the DC Jewish Community Center to hear Rebecca Goldstein give a lecture on Spinoza. Goldstein's new book, Uncovering Spinoza, has just been issued, and she spoke for about 45 minutes. What a good talk. And, you will be able to see it soon on C-Span's Book TV.

Spinoza as the ultimate rationalist and logician. Basing his theory on Euclidian mathematics, he believed that everything could be demonstrated a priori, by the use of reason, and that religious ritual and superstition was harmful, not helpful. He was excommunicated for life by the Amsterdam Jewish community when he was 23 years old. He was a universalist, very conflict adverse, yet the cause of extraordinary conflicts. He was the descendant of Portuguese Marranoes and lived at the time that the newly established Jewish community in Amsterdam was trying to define itself, and its members trying to determine what it meant to be Jewish, and how they should behave.

The night before, even more people were at the Studio Theater to see a production of Red Light Winter, a three actor play. Two men, one woman, Man #1 loves woman, Woman loves Man #2, Man #2 and Man #1 are friends, but Man #2 is macho, and Man #1 nerdy. It starts in Amsterdam, when the girl is a prostitute, that #2 engages (after having his own fling with her) to bed Man #2. It ends in New York, months later, when the girl is no longer a prostitute, but a simple girl suffering from AIDS going home to her parents in Baltimore, where Man #1 still loves her, but the girls does not remember him, but she does remember Man #2 who, of course, does not remember her. The acting wa good, some of the dialogue was clever, the play moved along, but I can't say that it was profound theater.

Before the play, dinner was at Rice and, with the exception of the appetizer tempura (which was mainly fried breading), it was very good. Warm eggplant salad, rockfish steamed with ginger, and duck in a plum and ginger sauce. And good coffee.