what's going on in jerusalem?

Finally made time to write on this thing. Today I thought about the Twitter service, and if micro-blogging or whatever would help me update more or if it would just be another thing I download and don't use.

Wrote a book review for greenprophet.com. Here's a link to the review. The whole site is worth checking out for positive things about the environment in Israel. I wish I could have mentioned more connections to Israel in the book review, but here's a footnote that I found interesting: John Strutt (the 3rd Lord Rayleigh), a mathematics genius, was discovering new properties of ozone in the laboratory and in an outdoor experiment in 1918. He got special permission to use a Zeppelin airship during "a blackout rule" through his uncle, Arthur Balfour (1848-1930; Prime Minister, 1902-1905), who was then Foreign Secretary in the administration of Lloyd George (1863-1945; Prime Minister, 1916-1922). Anyway, Rayleigh's photographs that he made while on holiday show that there was not much ozone in the lower atmosphere, but must be at higher altitudes. [p. 65, emphasis mine.]

So there are some names we recognize as streets around Jerusalem. Airships would seem to indicate that we have entered a parallel world, according to some conspiracy theorists and screenplay writers. Here's hoping the Watchmen movie delivers on the goods.

On the literary scene, I'm almost finished (some would say almost literate) with my year's subscription to the New Yorker magazine. I mean I'm almost done reading all of the magazines in the series, starting from April last year to April this year, thanks to a fine birthday gift. So do the math, I still have a stack of ten issues to read and it's already the end of June. It was a good run, a good time to be thinking about New York and my favorite writers and critics. I read every issue cover to cover except all the weekly listings, and get so much enjoyment out of reading it and sharing it. When I'm done with that, I can delve into the bonus stack of random New Yorker issues from the nineties, acquired by a great tip from a friend. Yet another topic I could dedicate a whole blog to, if only I could do it as well as emdashes.com.

I also want to gather knowledge from my friends in interesting local professions, and their relationship to the environment and technology. Sometimes just putting these words out in the public and making an effort to edit is nervewracking... right now I will see if there are any reactions to the book review.