Blogging the Bible

When user-testing the Tagged Tanakh, the Jewish Publication Society's attempt to user-navigate the Bible, my first reaction was, this is the mother of all blog -- and the logical next step in human technology. When I worked as a trend forecaster, we had a maxim that started, "If Hewlett-Packard only knew what Hewlett-Packard knows," which effectively meant that big corporations have no idea how to fathom the entirety of the knowledge that's already at their fingertips. If there was a way to do that to the Bible -- not just as a simple search engine, but as a real, organic, multi-reference work that ties together the entire body of human religious knowledge -- it could, without hyperbole, rock the socks off of academia.

The thing is, the Tagged Tanakh might do exactly that.

Imagine Facebook where all your friends are religious experts. Or, to make it a little more Stone Age, imagine that you could eavesdrop on Rashi, Radak, Onkelos, and the Gur Aryeh writing notes back and forth to each other. And that's just the barest level of the depths that the Tagged Tanakh can plumb.

JT Waldman, the Tanakh's creator, sat me down at his laptop and told me to start out easy. "Search for a word," he said. "Any word?" I asked, typing in "nose ring."

We only received one result, in Isaiah, which troubled both of us a little. "We're working on the search feature," he explained. Attempting the variation "nose-ring" with a hyphen got us what we expected -- Rebecca's gift upon meeting Isaac for the first time; the women of the Children of Israel donating their jewelry to create the Golden Calf. This didn't bother me as much as it should have. It was a minor glitch, which JT said would be fixed before the official launch; besides, Google has accustomed me to searching for variations more or less automatically, like "chazan" when your desired search doesn't turn up much for "hazzan."

But that was only the beginning. "Tag it," JT encouraged me. He showed me a few options: I could read commentary on the verses, write my own commentary, or tag the phrase -- that is, I could sort it by applying a label (such as "jewelry," "gold," or "punk-rock accouterments in the Torah") and grouped it with other similar instances in the Tanakh. I could use a tag that already existed, such as "ritual objects" (since nose-rings were thought to mark engaged women in early Sumerian societies), or make my own, like the aforementioned punk-rock tag.

I went with both. Then I went to a more frequently-visited section -- Exodus 9, one of those "Let My People Go" chapters. I clicked on the lemma view, which displayed notes and annotations by scholars, and came across a note by Elaine Adler Goodfriend (identified as a "scholar," the highest possible designation on the site). On the biblical passage "the hand of the Lord will strike your livestock," she'd written, "A letter from Ugarit refers to pestilence as the 'hand of god/s'." Not the absolute most insightful thing I've ever read, but still pretty insightful. (It led me to Googling "Ugarit," in any case.) Then I went back to the text itself, with all the phrases that had notes on them highlighted. It felt like I'd hit paydirt -- like one of those Internet mazes where you're confronted with a thousand different links, and you want to click on them all.

Right now, most of the annotations are made by scholars. As more people log on, they're going to fill up the Bible with more and more chatter -- my beloved "punk rock accouterments" category is going to be complemented by more "OMG Ashley Tisdale Has A Nose Ring Too" labels. Which could be as destructive as it is self-serving. If everyone and their bff are commenting on Genesis 24:22, who's going to care about what Rashi has to say about it?

But, even then -- my mind leaps to debate myself -- the people writing stupid comments would have to be reading the Torah in the first place, which is no small goal. And there are enough filters in place so it's possible to only display remarks from recognized Torah scholars, or to only display remarks by people who've never read the Torah before and are recording their first interactions with it. Remarkably, the same far-right Jewish communities who'd want to shield themselves from "liberal" commentaries, such as some of JPS's books, might be the biggest potential clients for this venture. Imagine clicking that you'd only want to read Orthodox commentaries on the Bible. Or that you'd only want Reform commentaries accessible. By giving the common reader the tools to filter and censor the commentaries themselves, Waldman and his cohorts are also fundamentally giving their readership the ability to break down those very same labels.

There are "summary" tags next to each biblical book, which are somewhat helpful when dealing with Leviticus or Deuteronomy, and immensely helpful when it comes to lesser-known prophets like Mihah and Habakkuk. Strangely, the existing commentators (such as Rashi, Gur Aryeh, and those folks) aren't yet included...but a variety of multimedia content, ranging in variety from curious (wacky parsha videos) to awesome (Google Maps!), is.

"Tagging" was originally the province of graffiti artists, who scaled buildings and burrowed into train tunnels in order to paint pictures and write verses on walls. (The phenomenon of tagging one's own handle or name was a relatively recent innovation.) I used to tag in Eastern Europe with an artist friend, and our sole rule was that the only buildings we tagged were ugly Communist cubes. Although our stencils would have looked amazing on Tyn Church, or the Orloj clock, our rationale was that they were already beautiful; we didn't want to ruin it with our art, even if it might be complementary.

I don't know how useful it will be to know about what random teenagers in the future think of Bible verses, but I know that I love writing about what I think of them. And I know I'm curious to see what my friends think. And that's why I can't wait for the Tagged Tanakh to come out for real.

Losers: The Movie

Okay, so, not. But there *is* a movie coming out called "Losers," and it's not based on a novel about comic book geeks, but it is based on a comic book.

Yay. Dammit.

Michael Jackson, Power Girl, and the Deeper Meaning of Chests

I just took a walk outside on the rare lunchtime spent in the company of fresh air -- well, as fresh as it gets in urban Manhattan, anyway -- and I can report back, with almost no mean degree of inaccuracy, that this is going to be the summer of the Michael Jackson t-shirt.

I'm serious. For a while, I thought that Barack Obama was going to take the cake -- I mean, the t-shirt stores and bridge-table vendors near Times Square have been selling BO t-shirts and baby tees since January, and back then no one was even wearing t-shirts -- but things change, and the stakes are raised. After all, nobody expected the King of Pop to die.

And then I start wondering, where did we get this idea to wear our heroes on t-shirts in the first place? You didn't find the Children of Israel wearing I Heart Moses t-shirts, and how many times did he save their lives? More than Michael Jackson did, for damn sure.

Recently, in Israel, a clothing manufacturer started selling baby t-shirts that bore Rabbi Akiva's summary of the Torah, the words V'ahavta l'recha kimocha -- literally, "love your neighbor like yourself" -- written across the bosom. As much as Rabbi Akiva probably didn't linger too long on the free-love double entendre of his core principle, it's not a bad thing to go spreading to the rest of the universe. And, hey, it encourages various rereadings and reinterpretations...which is the essence of Torah commentary in the first place, right?

When I started working at MJL, there was a dress code. I suppose most day jobs have one. But, being as though I'd spent the past three years doing single days at law offices and anywhere that needed something typed, I wasn't used to having to do something that didn't require my one tie and single pair of fancy pants.

I learned pretty quickly, however, that the MJL dress code didn't cover much -- basically, it was no t-shirts with writing on it. It sounded pretty simple at first (I mean, the last thing that fosters a productive work environment is an ALOHA FROM MAUI shirt, or one of those ITHACA IS GORGES joke t-shirts that nobody really understands but everyone spends hours looking at, trying to figure out) but I soon came to have a different understanding of the rule. Wearing a word on your chest, whether it's "Sexy" or "Rock Star" or "I Voted for Fred Thompson," it's making a statement. It's limiting you. Even if the word is as simple as "hope," it's still setting a direction for your day. And the beauty of us as human beings is, our days can go anywhere.

In DC Comics, there's one superhero, Power Girl, whose uniform, in place of a Superman "S" or a Batman bat logo, has -- to put it delicately -- a lack of fabric. For years, it was never mentioned. Then, in a recent issue of Justice Society of America, it was called attention to rather vividly (and, at first, rather indecorously). At the end of the issue, however, there was a blazing monologue that caught me off guard: "Superman can wake up every morning, put on that big 'S,' and he knows exactly what his job is," she said (I'm paraphrasing). "Batman can wear a bat and strike fear into people's hearts or whatever. But I don't know what my mission in the world is, yet. I'm not ready to limit myself to one thing. So I have to keep searching."

Which is the biggest reason (though certainly not the only one) that I'm not going to wear a "V'ahavta l'recha kimocha" t-shirt. But even if there's nothing across my chest except for a blank shirt and a couple buttons, you'll know exactly what I mean.

G-dcast: The Shema, Beatbox version

Husband-and-wife team Rachel Harvrelock and Yuri Lane did this week's G-dcast. I really think it might be the best one yet. Do I say that a lot? Well, I mean it. Evidence: this does mark the first appearance of a capella gospel beatboxing in a G-dcast. And Old Man Moses is making me a little jumpy, after being used to Dynamic Puffy-Beard Moses, but I think I like him. He reminds me of Miracle Max from The Princess Bride. And that swelling of the beatbox just as Rachel fades from her own words into the words of the Torah...man, I get chills.

Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg!

If you haven't schooled yourself on The Goldbergs -- one of the first American sitcoms, a virtual one-woman show created by writer/producer/director/star Gertrude Berg, who won the first Emmy Award for Best Actress ever given -- there's no better time than now to start.

For one thing, MJL just posted its history of The Goldbergs. It's a series that was on the radio for the better part of two decades, and television for five years -- and, today, barely anybody knows about the program. Hey, I didn't even know about the existence of The Goldbergsuntil I was halfway through writing a book about them.

The new film Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg doesn't do penance for this oversight, but it's a great place to start. Documentarian Aviva Kempner's previous film, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg covers the same time period and territory -- that is, the early 20th century, where Jews have already come over to America in large numbers and are just starting to deal with the question of what it means to be here. It's that question, and the various answers that are posited, that Kempner manages to express so eloquently.

If Yoo-Hoo has any major flaws, it's that it doesn't dwell long on the actual Goldbergs series. While Berg was a wild, compassionate, and multi-talented character -- she was a writer/director/actor "triple threat" before a label existed for such things -- so much of her public persona came from Molly Goldberg that it's hard to minimize the fictional Goldberg's influence on the real-life Berg. As Berg was fond of saying, she spent more time in her day writing, acting, and talking about Molly Goldberg than she did being herself.

That's not to say that Berg's struggle with her identity, as well as the struggle with the identity of her most-prized creation, don't come across in the film. It's exceedingly hard to follow the narrative rule of "show, don't tell" in a documentary, but Kempner accomplishes it masterfully. One scene, which combines file footage of Berg showing a TV interview crew around their house with Adam Berg talking about his grandmother's spending habits, it paints a picture that's both understated and incredibly vivid. Berg was both a modern, material woman and a first-generation American, and she combined the two in a personality that was equal parts regality and awe -- almost as if she couldn't believe the life she'd stepped into, but still wanted to do it right.

With a rollicking pace and a bunch of different voices, the film feels almost like an episode of The Goldbergs, telling a story that's warm and funny and existing just on the verge of believability...but always with that undercurrent of wonder that keeps you not just invested in the story, but cheering for the characters.

A bunch of first-person accounts -- from Berg's biographer and grandson, as well as some of the original actors and random people, among them Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, recounting their own memories of listening to the Goldbergs -- round out the documentary. There's also an awesome slate of guest appearances -- including the director, Aviva Kempner, as well as Mrs. Berg's grandson (who appears in the film, and tells some great stories), and the granddaughter of the actor who played "Uncle David" (of course) -- to go with screenings of the movie.

It's not an exaggeration to say that virtually every television show that's come after The Goldbergs, from the faintly Jewish tone of anti-Semite Archie Bunker's kvetching to the wacky plot twists of Full House and Arrested Development, bears in some way the genetics of its Jewish ancestor. When I wrote my own novel about a TV sitcom centered on a Jewish family, I called the book Never Mind the Goldbergs and the fictional TV show "The Goldbergs"--in the words of one character, it sounded "Jewish, but not too Jewish." I only learned halfway through writing that there already was a sitcom with that name. After contemplating changing the title, I decided to leave it untouched--both as an homage to the show that I never knew about, and as an homage to the idea that I'd somehow already connected with.

Watching the Signs

Today was funny and sad and moving and poignant and pretty awesome, all told, the kind of day that makes you question why you do what you do, and then shows you by smacking you squarely in the head. Here's the song I'd listen to if I listened to music, but it's still part of that time period where we don't listen to music, so I'm dwelling in the silence instead. Which might be just as well.

First was Young Adult Writers Drinks Night, which are definitely my 5 favorite words in the English language to say together. laughing and making merry with david the editor and coe booth and other good folks. and then i looked up from my drink and saw Richard Nash, who (until last month) was editor and director of my other publishers, Soft Skull Press. And then Anne and Denise, who took over Soft Skull, showed up too, and I had this uneasy realization that, if someone dropped a bomb on that bar, I would have no editors left in the world.

I went to the B&N on 66th Street and did a covert signing. (All they had was Candy, but hey, one book signed is one book maybe-sold.) I don't know if it was a good sign or a bad sign or what. Asked the guy who worked there if they could order more, and he said he'd try to remember to ask his boss in the morning.

Then I went to the Mimaamakim poetry text study. It was a pretty amazing feat -- 80 or so Orthodox folks going over Lucille Clifton and Seamus Heaney, analyzing their words like Torah and ripping them apart like Talmud. It was kind of glorious. Even the painful parts (well, the parts that were painful to an English kid like me) were glorious. People don't just read poetry these days. Especially Orthodox people. Except, they do.

As we were packing up, two girls came up and asked if I was me, and told me how they'd both read Goldbergs and about their class projects in yeshiva and they had no idea there were other people in the universe like them. I wanted to tell them all about Michael Muhammad Knight and how he hadn't known there were other punk Muslims in the universe -- and then I realized, I was the same way with punk Jews. This was kind of my signal flare to the universe, my "are you out there?" call. And, dammit, sometimes people reply.

Yes: it was a good night.

Now I should be asleep. But I'm waiting up for my family to get home. My family! I wonder what Hava would say to that.