"A little Magritte on toast" and other stories

I just discovered that my friend's husband, Yoel Judowitz, who illustrates a lot of Jewish children's publications (Spotlight Magazine, and some books), has an art blog.
Cool.

Here's the blog.

Of course, the first thing I have to link to is his animated painting of the Alter of Slabodka.

Alter of Slabodka painting


Anyone whose Torah is the Alter of Slabodka and whose Derech Eretz is little Japanese kawaii things is someone whose blog I have to link to, yes? Yes.

Sing us a Thing, Piano Man

I always liked this post of Schneeblog's, maybe because I remember as a middle schooler being shocked that anyone could prefer the third Harry Potter book (which is all plot twist) to the first (which is all Things). I like Things. There are noble abstracts and linguistic thickets and essential errands and all sorts of wonderful verbs in the world but at the end of a long day of negligible weather and negligible phone calls I find the concept I want to curl up with is pretty Things.

This, I think, is part of why women subscribe to catalogs.

I wrote recently here about the question of how not to get carried away with “Torah im Cool Stuff”.

Of course, if you pursue Things long enough, you discover on your own that the proportions are off and the story is not solid enough: that the novel that is your life has to have a theme and a protagonist, also.

HSF February Challenge: Blue.

This is another clothes-sewing post.

Gadol portrait in BRIGHT COLORS

I just wanted to share this portrait of R' Elya Lopian by my friend Rebecca:

http://www.bergsonart.com/acrylics-and-oils.html

Maybe I am reading nonsense into it that she didn't intend... but:
The interest in a gadol portrait lies in the person. So most gadol portraits tend to be fairly black-and-white. Color in them is incidental.
My impression is that in this picture she has used the BRIGHT COLORS that I love to show the geshmak of the Torah that is in the person.
I just think that is SO SO SO cool.

Dark Mink

Some Israeli friends of mine were once invited to a wedding at which the color scheme for family members was Champagne. They thought that was hilarious: "Champagne? That's a color?"

I have lived among New Yorkers long enough that it no longer strikes me as hilarious that a wedding would have a color scheme, or that the color would be called Champagne... but I did get the giggles recently when my friend was busy calling bridal shops searching for a garment in Dark Mink.
"Dark Mink? That's a color? What color is a mink, anyway?" -- but all the shops knew exactly what she was talking about.
Giggle.

...whereupon we here in the Rain made a list of colors that we'd like to set as the color scheme for a party.
We tried to come up with colors that you can almost visualize... you're sure you know what color that is... except that, on second thought, you'd be hard-pressed to specify exactly what it is...

Faded Venezuela
Burnt Horizon
Blase
Arctic Grape

Then we got silly...
Pepper
Yellow Cup (as opposed to plain yellow)
Off-Orange

...and sillier...
Postmodernist Aster
 Antidisestablishmentarian Pink
Yesterday's Backgammon
 Mutual Fish

I wish I could take credit for coining the name Mutual Fish, but that is the name of a real fish store in Seattle.

 Then we listed all the shades of yeshivish suits that the men might wear to this wedding...
Raven
Coal
Tar
Pupil
Times New Roman
Flat Tire
Black Licorice
Vivid Bat