in my life

So hey! Many years ago I picked up this novel about a couple of Biblical characters was was really excited about it and said:

I finished reading Kings III today. I was going to write a huge post of squee, in enormous capslock, raving about just how much this book was written for meeeeee and oh my god I love it so much and oh the characters and oh the story and oh the meta and so forth, but for the people who are interested and can't read it in Hebrew that'd be mean, and for the people who are interested and can read it it would be spoilery. At this point, then, all I will say is that I am full of joy for having read it, and am totally nominating it for Yuletide next year.

Well, happy times are upon us, and the book has been translated to English! You can find it on Amazon, both in print and ebook edition, and I think a lot of you will enjoy it, especially those of you who are into modern retellings of Biblical stories/Bible fic.

It is a book about the house of David and the house of Saul and about a young man who grows up ~in the shadow of dark secrets~ during the timeline of those stories. It has a lot of awesome daily life descriptions, and a close friendship between our protagonist and a certain redheaded boy, and - I want to say a good depiction of Michal, but I'll be real, I read this six years ago and I don't actually remember, but I think so.

So. If you are into Biblical (= Old Testament) era fiction/action/mystery/dramas - give this book a try!

Let me remedy that, *I* DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS:

Noah (in theaters March 2014)
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Emma Watson ...Ila
Logan Lerman ...Ham
Jennifer Connelly ...Naameh
Russell Crowe ...Noah
Anthony Hopkins ...Methuselah
Kevin Durand ...Og
Douglas Booth ...Shem


Exodus (in theaters December 2014)

Director: Ridley Scott
Aaron Paul ...Joshua
Christian Bale ...Moses
Joel Edgerton ...Rhamses
Ben Kingsley ...???
Sigourney Weaver ...Tuya (??)
John Turturro ...Seti (???)
María Valverde ...Séfora (????)
Gerard Monaco ...Scientist (?????)

SO I HAVE THOUGHTS ON THIS. NOT REALLY ACTUALLY IT IS MOSTLY A JUMBLE OF FEELINGS. Since I literally want to write everything about this in capslock I'll put it under a cut to spare your eyeballs. ( !!!!! )

BASICALLY: + !!!!! + WHAT. (+SCIENTIST.)

And why isn't Sebastian Stan in the cast, I ask you.

Apparently my earlier post failed to crosspost, so for those of you who missed it, relevant-House-fans-I-am-looking-at-you, my flail is here.

Today I had a tragically long day at work and only got home at close to 22:30 /o\ And my dinner was an enormous hotdog at the train station that an hour later gave me indigestion, TMI but THAT WAS FUN.

But I managed to catch some of the season premier of Polishuk, the political comedy about the accidental cabinet minister, which is fast-paced and actually funny to me most of the time, which does not happen too often in Israeli TV. And earlier this week I watched another new Israeli political drama called The Prime Minister's Children, which felt like it might as well have been called The Good Wife, but unironically: the series premier starts with the swearing in ceremony of the new Primer Minister, and his wife and two kids moving into their new residence in Jerusalem. The wife really want to be a PM's wife, doesn't want to live there, and we learn that the couple had previously been sleeping in separate beds, but now that they're the First Couple they have to keep up appearances, and basically, at least for the first episode, she actually is playing the part of the good wife :(. It's a beautifully produced show, though, and interestingly cast, and I'll keep watching if I get the chance. Bonus points for casting Alona Tal as the PM's daughter :-)

And also I watched The Good Wife. I can sum up my reaction with the following: ;________; D: D: D: ;__;.

Okay a couple of things and I am going:

1. Fic fest pimping: in_the_beginning, the Hebrew Bible Fanworks Fest, is having a special Shavuot round! here is the short kickstart post. You can post prompts in the prompt post, and prompt claiming will begin this Sunday, May 15th. Works will be posted on June 7th-9th, which just happens to be Shavuot, the date when according to tradition the first five books of the Bible were given to humankind seewhatwedidthere? :D

So if you've ever felt like drawing or reccing or meta-ing or writing fic about the Bible, or about Bible spinoffs like animated Dreamworks films or West End musicals or Hollywood epics or whatnot, this would be the time! You don't have to wait for Yuletide. (Also PSSST crossovers are not only allowed but squeed at.)

(also psst I am a mod, you can be nice to me and prompt stuff even if you don't plan on participating.)

2. annemari is having a, um, beautiful-people-vote-off thing, where every day you have to vote for the LEAST attractive boy and girl she posts until finally there is a winner. This is actually pretty horrible because most of the boys are Bandom people (but not all) and I have to CHOOSE BETWEEN THEM. Yesterday I didn't vote and then Ryan Ross was voted off. I BLAME MYSELF. So unless you also want to have guilty consciences over your favorites being voted off, you should vote. Bus mostly you should head over to that post because annemari compiles really pretty picspams.

3. A version of Panic performing Carry On My Wayward Son with good audio. If you are not in Bandom, you will look at this and see Sweaty Eleventh Doctor Wannabe Fanboys Supernatural, Sings Karaoke. However, if you like Panic, you'll probably be going omg look he's so haaappy look at them rock those soloooos eeee :D, and also rue the fact that for the first time ever you want the camera to zoom out so you can see everybody's guitar fretting better, but ah well.

4. And okay, the thing that made my tragically long day end on a pretty great note was reading this on the train, so rec: The Sweet Spot (Bandom, Brendon/Spencer, 15,000 words, R). It's just arrgh so freaking sweet, with funny dialogues and character who care about each other and love and tease and it's a Harlequin story that has two tropes I love, one of them being Bakery-owner!Spencer (a trope in itself!) and the other being something best unspoiled though it's not actually a spoiler, just a trope I love. Summary: "Responsibility" should be Spencer Smith's middle name (except it's James). After all, not many people would sacrifice their lives to run the family bakery and raise their twin sisters. But now the girls are grown, and Spencer has to learn to put his own needs first! And Brendon, the Sweet Spot's newest regular, might just be what Spencer's looking for. But will Brendon's past get in the way of their present?

So one of these days someone should open up another harlequin_bands fest, y/y?

5. There is a meme and I am doing it here:
THE YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL MEME
my thread here

I'll finish with a philosophical question: if you have 15 mosquito bites and you have killed 1 mosquito, who counts as the winner, the mosquito or you?

There is a discussion going on the point of this post is just to post an excerpt from a book, that I'd meant to translate the last time this subject came up, and now finally have. But just so you know why I'm posting this now, a short and slightly incoherent prelude:

newredshoes made a post about very general elements of being a Jew in the US (I'm trying to both narrow it down and generalize as much as I can). I hesitate to get involved in that discussion, not because I disagree in particular with anything she's said -- I don't even feel like I have the authority to -- but because it's nearly impossible to find a common denominator in Judaism that won't make someone feel excluded. Jewish identity is pretty much a mess, and different cultures and individuals follow different traditions and define themselves differently. I don't have any complaints about the post -- newredshoes makes these disclaimers herself -- and it can serve as a great introduction for learning about a certain type of Judaism, if people are looking for a gateway to start off from. As long as people remember that it's only a fraction of the diversity that's out there, both in traditions and in levels of observance.

(As an aside, I'll add that in fandom, the first thing I do when writing fanfic about Jewish characters that references their religion, is sit down and try to decide what kind of Jews they are. How were they raised? Do they believe in God? Which traditions do they follow, to what extent, and why? How many times a year, if at all, do they go to synagogue? How familiar and how involved are they with the kind of classic-secular-Ashkenazi-Yiddish-Jewish culture and humor that are portrayed in Hollywood, a la Mel Brooks and Woody Allen and Fran Fine, et cetera? Lisa Cuddy, Jeremy Goodwin, Ziva David and Adam Lambert are all very different kinds of Jews, and even the four of them are just grazing the surface.)

Anyway, as had happened in the past in the context of discussions of Judaism, the subject of the "vengeful Old Testament God" arose. Now, I admit: I wasn't really aware of the idea of a vengeful and angry Old Testament God until it was brought up in discussions such as these over past few years on LJ, for a few reasons: One, having grown up in a dominantly Jewish and secular environment, God was just God, never in comparison with some kind of other, transformed, New Testament God. Two, I guess I either wasn't exposed to or wasn't aware of such comparisons being made in the American TV I watched or the English language books I read. Three, honestly, I was never too concerned about the nature of God or his temperament. I enjoyed reading the Bible on a very shallow level -- interesting storytelling and good drama -- but for me, each story stands on its own. I haven't read the entire Bible cover to cover, so even if you asked me to I could never make up a comprehensive assessment of God's character, vengeful or not, especially in comparison with the NT which I have read very little of.

But anyway, as I have grown to realize, the phrase and usage of "vengeful OT God" do in fact exist. And are promptly rebutted whenever these discussions arise, so I'm aware of the fact that I'm not really needed here to flesh out God's character or anything (especially given as I am an atheist). nextian has also made a post about different facets of God in the (Hebrew) Bible, as a response to the same phrase.

One of the BTW examples that I've seen people bring up is the relationship between God and his followers in the Bible, mainly the ones who stand up to him, who negotiate. The ones God actually listens to. And I think those stories are awesome, because -- well, basically because they're awesome, really. And though I'm not a great Biblical scholar, now and then I do enjoy reading a textual/literary analysis of Biblical stories, which is what this entire post has been leading up to, other than letting me ramble and procrastinate.

I've mentioned in the past Meir Shalev's book In the Beginning: Firsts in the Bible, which is basically a collection of meta essays about different stories in the Bible, written by a modern Israeli author. I've posted excerpts before, a few quotes from Genesis, and, in the heyday of my Kings addiction, some excerpts about David.

Today, I bring to you Meir Shalev's interpretation of the story of Jacob and his dream, and the arrangement he negotiated with God. Translation's mine; if it's awkward, it's because I tried to stay true to the source. I used King James for the Bible quotes. I think it's interesting; hope whoever reads this does too.

( Jacob has a dream, in which God makes a promise. )

The in_the_beginning (Hebrew Bible Fanworks Fest) master list is up! One piece of poetry and six new stories, and like kass said, the quantity may be small, but the quality is seriously top notch. There's the Jo(seph) genderswap fic, and the Pushing Dasies fusion AU (gorgeous), and the Miriam and Deborah fic -- really, I just love them all, and I'm so happy this fest happened :-) Much thanks to kass for co-modding!

(The community, btw, remains open for posting, so if you ever want to share your Bible fic, GO THERE.)

I've finally caught up on most of last week's TV. Words I have learned how to pronounce:

--'mischievous', which I always mentally pronounced mis-chi-vus, but Sam Winchester pronounces ma-shee-vious. ETA: Apparently I was wrong! Or rather, Sam was. So mischievous is pronounced as I had always thought. In some places.

--'US Weekly', which I thought was U.S. Weekly but Paris Hilton called Us Weekly.

--'patronize', which I thought was pate-ronize but Sally Walker pronounces pat-ronize. (I think this one might be pronounced both ways, though?)

Speaking of Brothers & Sisters, the episode made me happy, except for Kevin, who made me want to cry. The episode also reminded me that Kevin existed. Which is important, because --

Fun fact: I read an AI fic which if you are in the fandom at all I hope to god you've already read, that included a relationship between Adam and an OMC named Kevin. My brain, which is apparently sadistic, decided to supply me with the mental image of Kevin from The Office. INSTEAD OF KEVIN FROM B&S.

Yes, that's right. I visualized Adam Lambert with this:



Instead of with this:



Conclusion: my imagination license should be revoked immediately.


(PS. That fic deserves a much better recommendation than my mention if it here. Thankfully it already has one.)

I haven't been around today but I just wanted to say that

in_the_beginning is officially open!

Yay for Hebrew Bible fanworks! People have already posted some stuff which I am really excited about reading, and I will post something by the end of the week, and it's not even too late to participate -- here's the posting template and here are prompts (that you don't even have to use) and the fest is open until the 9th, so there's time. ANYWAY CHECK IT OUT if you want.

Also happy holiday for those celebrating! This morning I built a sukkah, then drove around for an hour looking for palm branches for the sukkah roof, but the thing is that when you wait until non the day of the holiday eve to go looking for sukkah roofs, chances are you're not gonna find one. I have 24 years of experience, and still I haven't managed to internalized this fact. So I returned home and announced the lameness of our palm-branch-less town by yelling "KISHALON!". My parents responded with a strange look, and only then I realized I'd just translated "FAIL" and with no internet lingo context they had no actual idea what I was talking about.

In short:

Sukkah with 3 walls: check.
Sukkah roof: X
Decorative rainbow-colored paper chains made with marina while watching her new Horatio Hornblower DVD to make up for lack of sukkah roof: check
Mosquito repellent to enable actually sitting in the sukkah after sundown: X

==> I am almost prepared for the holiday.

2 cool things of slightly different magnitudes:

1. Leaving the library today, I passed by the used books table where they sell old books that I never have any use for ever for 5-15 shekels -- like, a biography of Douglas MacArthur in Russian, or International Relations almanacks from 1963, or various yellowing Arabic titles that I can't even read -- when my eyes caught upon a fiction book from 2005 that I loved lent to someone after I'd finished reading it, and promptly never saw again. 5 shekels later, I am now once again the proud owner of God's Gang, an Israeli Biblefic book which any Hebrew readers are welcome to borrow. And when I say Biblefic, I do mean that -- 28 short stories about different Biblical characters. Or, more often than not, original characters inserted into the original stories -- like the reality Tv show host who interviews Abraham, or the gynecologist who wants to quit his job after all of God's meddling in women's wombs in Genesis. Many of the stories are snarky little jibes at Israelis, like Rehab's POV on the two strangers looking for a bed at night, who don't want to come out of the deal "suckers" (fryerim... eeps, can any locals think of a good translation?)

ANYWAY. Awesome book, glad to have it back :-)

2. I have been remiss in not pimping the ontd_ai_gives Author/Artist Charity Auction!



Here's the deal: a while ago, Adam Lambert asked that instead of fans giving him gifts, they should donate to charity, in particular his charity of choice -- DonorsChoose.org, an online charity that collects money for classrooms in need. So far, ontd_ai have raised over $29K, which is pretty amazing.

Here is the art/fic auction rule post. You can bid for all the authors who have signed up here. The auction is open until Monday, September 7th, 11:00pm, and payments (to the charity itself) are due September 14, and after that you get your story!

I am offering two things -- a 2000+ AI crossover, and a 1000+ word fic crossovers or AUs welcome. I'd intended it to be an Idol fic, but if anyone actually wants to bid for it and have me write in a different fandom that I know, I could do that.

Aaaaaand that's it! Both of my offers have already been bid on, which means I'll definitely be writing two stories already, which is awesome.

Oh, wait, 3. Happy birthday thedeadparrot! ♥

...and now good night.

in_the_beginning

Come and join the HEBREW BIBLE FANWORKS FEST, where, for a week in October (2-9), we will have a festival of fics, arts, icons, meta, and any other fanwork you can think up, centered around the Hebrew Bible i.e. the Old Testament! There's a rule post here, and a prompt post here, and you should all go and leave as many prompts as you can -- all genres, all ratings, all pairings, crossovers, etc are acceptable. If you've ever tinkered with the idea of writing the story about Jacob and Rachel's first meeting, or what if Moses were a girl, or that time House was transported back in time to 967 BC -- now you have your chance!

Fanworks of other Bible transformative works are also accepted, so Prince of Egypt, The Red Tent, and so forth fics are also welcome.

Important Dates To Mark On Your Calendar:
Until August 19: Prompt submissions
August 20--August 27: Prompt claiming
October 2: OFFICIAL FEST OPENING
October 9: Official fest closing (though late fest posts will still be welcome after this date)
October 10: Master list goes up \o/

You don't have to have a DW account to participate -- you can join the comm and leave comments using an OpenID account, and you can contact us to post for you when the time comes, linking to the works in your own LJ. The community also has a syndicated feed to LJ* -- if you add the feed, posts will appear on your LJ friends list. (Also, I still have some DW invite codes, if anyone wants them).

kass/kassrachel has graciously agreed to co-mod with me, which also means we've got timezones covered, thankfully. And, you know, YAY. I'm really excited about this. Even if we only get like 5 new fics out of this, it's still 5 new Biblefics! Hurrah.

You are all most welcome to (a) join, (b) prompt, and (c) pimp. Thank you for your time :D

in_the_beginning

*Okay, I know the feed name looks stupid -- i_the_beginning -- but LJ only allows 15 characters in feed names so one of the letters had to go :-(

Okay, I totally wasn't supposed to because OMG exams, but I was awake at 3AM and for once I remembered that Kings was on and that there was a link to a livestream, and I watched it live. Granted, quality was slightly crappy, but last episode! How could I miss that?

( Not a full detailed ep reaction, but spoilers under the cut. )

Other than that, two posts that have made me happy:

1) thefourthvine's Rant about Fantasy Warnings:

I love love love authors who use warnings, largely because I rely on them. But, in addition to the big important warnings, I think we all also have fantasy warnings. Or, okay, I do. Here are just a few of the ones I long to see on stories - or, hey, I'd like to slap them on myself, sometimes.

It's a hilarious list of warnings she would love to see on some fics, and god, so true.

2) tieleen's post about Adam and the story of creation according to Meir Shalev. I've translated some of Shalev's awesome Biblical meta in the past, and now she's translated an essay he wrote about Adam and God and the two different creation stories that appear in the first 2 chapters of the Bible, and it's a really interesting and beautifully written analysis.

There's no mistake in the act of creation of chapter A. Like a complex and careful jigsaw puzzle picture the world is created with its parts fitting and completing each other with admiration-inspiring precision, towards the last piece - the adam - who completes the act of creation and causes God to say of all he has done "it was very good".

In chapter B the creator takes on other methods. With a lot of intimacy he designs the adam with his very hands, and blows the breath of life into him. He creates the animals as he created the adam, making them from dirt as well, and the woman he carves from the adam's rib. Closeness and warmth characterize his actions. If the creation of chapter A brings to mind an engineered, scientific act of compilation, precise and free of errors, the creation in chapter B has in it elements of contact, of play and of art, and maybe that's the reason it isn't as precise, and soon the defects of planning and manufacturing in it are revealed.

I linked directly to the essay, but if you scroll up and read earlier on, tieleen described her own approach to the Bible and where it came from, which pretty much matches my own.

Remix reveals tomorrow! \o/

My technological woes, let me tell you them. My laptop has gotten weirder and weirder -- that is to say, worse -- and I've finally decided to abandon it and moved one of the PCs from home to my apartment. The upside -- I now have internet! And have backed up my stuff! And can type and everything, it's very cool. The downside -- the PC is actually 10,000 years old and matchingly slow. I can't read all my saved .docx files and have to convert them all online. And the PC is very weirdly unclicking windows I have open which makes it very hard to type, although I'v fiddled around and that problem may be partially solved -- I'm crossing my fingers.

I also have a new phone, and I can whine about that too. My old phone was old and falling apart, and for the new one I switched to Nokia which everyone recommended, and chose one of the simplest designs, since I don't use any of the special features anyway. But new phones are always hard to get used to, and the weirdest thing for me now is writing text messages. There are five end letters in Hebrew - that is, letters that look one way when they're in the middle of a word (כ, מ, נ, פ, צ) and another way when they're the last letters in the word (ך, ם, ן, ף, ץ). My old phone would change the middle letters automatically. The new phone doesn't, so I have to get used to clicking the letters differently. And seriously, if that was not the definition of whiniest whine ever, I don't know what is. Seriously, sorry about that.

I'm really hoping to post the Jack/OC PWP (Kings) I wrote posted tonight, because tomorrow is already Memorial Day Eve and I do not even want to think about posting porn on Memorial Day, let alone porn in a military setting. Until I do that, though, here's some Biblical meta to tide you over! Those of you who might be missing Kings, at least.

So I've already mentioned reading the book In the Beginning: Firsts in the Bible by Meir Shalev, and even posted a few excerpts. I read some more last week, and there's a lot of really awesome meta/analysis concerning David in the chapter titled "The First Lover", except minds out of the gutter, lover is not lover but rather one who loves -- and more precisely, in this case, woman who loved.

Apologies in advance for the stilted translation -- anything that sounds bad or makes no sense I take upon myself; trust me that the original is beautiful.

From the chapter's intro: ( The First Lover, or David and the people who loved him. )

( David, Bathsheba and Uriah, or: David's greatest victims. No background necessary - he basically retells the whole story. )

*

( David and the monarchy. )

All of this demonstrates pretty well what my pretty huge issues with Kings' David are. Not that he isn't the man Meir Shalev describes now (not that that helps) – but rather that I can't ever see David Shepherd turning into this guy. It's much easier for me to accept changes the show made in other characters, but... well, this is David.