Odessa's Oddities & Curiosities | Week of 9/9/2024

Dear friends,

Welcome to another dispatch from my mind. Today is a wonderful day (coming off of 3 days with 8.5+ hours of sleep), I woke up to the news that my 9:25 class was canceled, so I turned over, grabbed my book, and read for another 45 minutes. The weather has been stunning in New Haven, and the sun is extra deserving of worship these days as we know her luxurious warmth is fading, so I’ve been sifting through my dresses and skirts, making sure they are all properly worn before I tuck them away for the Fall.

Bear with me, dear readers, for a thorough update on my semester.

Let’s first start with my classes.

Hormones, Evolution, and Human Behavior — basically the class I’ve been dreaming of taking ever since picking up Behave by Robert Sapolsky in the fall of my junior year of high school. Some fun facts from that class: did you know Erasmus Darwin (Charles Darwin’s grandfather) coined the term evolution? (Charles Darwin = Nepo Baby?!?!) And look at these art pieces! Don’t they seem sentient?

Introduction to the Occult Sciences. I’m warning you all right now. This is the semester I start a cult…or start messing around with dark magic. This is the dreamiest lecture I’ve ever taken. I mean, Jewish magic! the historical braid of magic, science and religion! magical papyri! Did you know that Jewish magic was famous in antiquity? We need to bring that back! Of course, I’m taking diligent notes for my Jewish Pirate Novel. One of the most interesting themes running through my semester is the definition of religion (magic is an othering term). One essay we read defined religion as the “awareness of and our reaction against our dependency on the unfathomable scramble of energies coming out of the universe” — which I rather liked. Speaking of religion, my other class is…

Making European Culture Jewish in Five Mediums. The class is filled with a whole bunch of my favorite Jews, taught by the enthusiastic & brilliant David Sorkin. The aim of the class is to teach Jewish history as we teach European history. We talked about assimilation as the process of translating Jewish culture into popular culture, rather than losing Judaism entirely.

And we have one more religious studies class: Poetry & Faith. After Modern Jewish Poets, I’m hooked on poetry classes. Prof Wiman firmly believes that you cannot read a poem unless you read it aloud, and he wants us to memorize poems. Memorizing poems, he believes, is the closest you’ll come to writing them. These memorized poems will serve as consolation, as companions, for the rest of your life, he told us. The theme of the course has been that poetry is a “clear expression of mixed feelings” (to cite W.H. Auden). This class is the most ostensibly religious class I’ve ever taken, but I'm trying to sit with the discomfort I feel talking about faith openly. I’m not sure why it seems to bother me so much. The tinge of proselytizing maybe. But as “Celestial Music” by Louise Glück reminded me, maybe it’s because I twinge in jealousy at the thought that my peers are hearing this “celestial music” that I cannot hear. Anyway, here are some poems from class I recommend reading.

“For the Anniversary of My Death” W.S. Merwin

“A Prayer That Will Be Answered” Anna Kamienska

“Sorrowdrawl” Osip Mandelstam

“Emerging” by R.S. Thomas

My last class is Introductory Machine Learning (from a data science angle). The professor is great, but it’s mainly been a review of stats so far.

Ava and I binged the first season of Only Murders in the Building in two lovely Saturday evenings. The show is brilliant and meta and funny with delightful cliff-hangers. Cannot recommend enough.

Some media I loved:

This New Yorker piece on the Instagram photo dump (sent to me by my Momma): “At first glance, they [photo dumps] seemed to be chaotic jumbles, but the collections of images often conveyed an over-all atmosphere—a vibe—by way of juxtaposition, with the disparate scenes cohering like the elements of a collage. I sort of appreciated this attention to gestalt, but the sheer volume of dumps became overwhelming.”

This brilliant satire piece on post-birth abortions from Larry David (thanks to Medad fo recommending!)

An ode to bookshelves! A good reminder to finally unpack my books.

Matlock (my all-time favorite show from ages 4-7) is being rebooted!

The logistics of fix-it shops at the Paralympics.

And this short film on the art and process of reconstructing the person beyond rings lost on the subway.

And of course, artnet highlighting my mom’s solo exhibition as one of the must-see gallery shows.

One little tidbit that brought me joy: I’m a receptionist at Slifka, and we were brainstorming a sign to put up when we’re temporarily away from the desk. We decided to go with Gone Gefilte Fishing.

It is indeed a new day when I’m finishing this newsletter (sadly, I’m not as well-rested). This semester is building up to be a doozy. Spare time is a scarce commodity, but I’m choosing to relish that I get to pack my days with so many things that bring me joy and satiate my curiosity.

Until next time & shabbat shalom!

With love & curiosity,

Odessa