Betty Crocker Cosmo

It's already 10:00 pm and I have had such a busy day today, but it was absolutely amazing! I cannot get over the energy on the Bar Ilan campus, it's contagious. Granted, I did have to get a cup of coffee to get me through the 2-4 p.m. sugar hump, but once I was outside and walking from class to class I was able to just feed off of the surge of students walking through campus.

Couple of interesting things to note about classes today and my vacation. But, before I launch into my vacation wrap-up, I read the following today. Apparently, Kurt Cobain beat Elvis as the top earning dead celebrity.

According to the Reuters article: Rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley ceded his crown to Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain on Forbes.com's list as the top-earning dead celebrity. The list, published on Tuesday, said grunge rocker Cobain earned $50 million between October 2005 and October 2006. Presley wound up in the No. 2 slot with $42 million, down from last year's $45 million. Forbes.com bases its dollar amounts on licensing deals for using the deceased celebrities' work or image in advertising or elsewhere. This was Cobain's first time on the list in its six years of publication. Presley has ruled the roost since its inception, said Forbes.com staff writer Lacey Rose. Cobain's coup was due to his widow, actress and singer Courtney Love, who sold a 25-percent stake in the Seattle grunge group's song catalog to New York music publishing company PrimeWave. Ranked after Presley is "Peanuts" cartoon strip creator Charles Schulz at $35 million. Rounding out the top five were Beatle John Lennon at $24 million and groundbreaking physicist Albert Einstein at $20 million, whose estate profited from such licensing deals as the popular "Baby Einstein" educational videos. Other celebrities on the list include Theodore Geisel, better known as children's book author Dr. Seuss; rhythm & blues pioneer Ray Charles, silver screen legend Marilyn Monroe and reggae superstar Bob Marley. Past top earners include songwriter Irving Berlin and actor Marlon Brando

Of course, I went into my iTunes to listen to my Smells Like Teen Spirit album and discovered that I never uploaded it before leaving for Israel!! I went through a hard core grunge phase, and own the classics from Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, etc. I'm just curious to understand why this year was Cobain's year? Is there a resurgence in grunge that I just don't know about? Before I left for Israel, I gave Josh D. my copy of Kurt Cobain's journal (and a bottle of chocolate flavored vodka, the perfect accompaniment to Cobain's writing) but I highly recommend it as a reader for anyone who was interested in getting a glimpse into Cobain's head. It would be great if someone published Elliott Smith's journals too, that would be #1 on my must read list!

VACATION final update.
This will probably bore most of you, but it's just a list of some of the funny experiences and expressions that came out of the trip last week with Hannah, Liora and Fruma. If you have any questions and would like me to elaborate, feel free to e-mail me offline and maybe I'll fill you in! Hannah and Liora, feel free to add anything if you think I forgot it!

- Val Kilmer and the gazelle, camel and ibex
- Carnival tongue
- The datim are coming!!!
- Me Love You Long Time
- Come to my Tree (Abed to Hannah)
- Fayaad superimposed with Gnarly Charly at the Kibbutz
- El 'Heffei
- Separated at Birth
- The day isn't complete without an anecdote about Cousin Neil!!
- Before bed crack up
- Separated at birth
- "Toot" Sadeh (this one is all Hannah folks)
- Bats in a cave
- "ping" a quarter off of the hot buns
- The Dead Sea Boys show up at Shesek
- "You know the sex, I want the sex" (Fayaad to me, before I responded that "you're not going to get the sex")
- Box envy!
- The Betty Crocker Cosmopolitan (which Hannah and I wrote one night before going to bed, imagine if you will a 1950's version of your favorite magazine!)



The largest esrog I've ever seen!!!



The Olive Man



Ari Miller hates cameras in public. Oh well, Hannah snapped him anyway (PS. I'm in this picture but you'll have to e-mail me to see the complete shot. Remember, I'm like OZ, I don't ever appear on the blog!)


Class
Today, we finally got to meet Bret Lott, who is going to be leading our Fall workshop. It was really refreshing to listen to him, and he is such a different type of instructor as compared to Atar from Summer session. We already know when we will all be responsible for workshopping our stories, so I have about three weeks to get another piece together. I think what really got to me, in addition to his constant quoting of Flannery O'Connor was the fact that he opened the class up to us today to ask any questions we wanted to. I appreciated that and found his answers were really informative and insightful. One of the things I walked away with from his class was the following comment:

Write what you don't know about what you know. Brilliant way to provide me with direction, that was really a thinker.

We then had our Jewish Arts seminar with Professor Michael Kramer, and each of us went around the room to talk about our ideas for our thesis. I was glad that we did that, it really forced me to put down on paper what I'm working on and the feedback from Michael and the class was extremely encouraging. There were a number of project ideas that also really appealed to me and I'm looking forward to reading what my classmates will be writing. Tobye drove me to the train station after class and she gave me the opportunity to describe the first story I'm working on for the workshop in a few weeks. She was pretty into the plot, which was encouraging, so I'm looking forward to getting it down on paper.

I then walked from the train station back to the apartment, stopping by Supersol to pick up some of the ingredients I need for Shulamit's blondies, which will be dessert for my meal this Friday night. I'm hosting 8 people for the first time since I moved here, and I'm going to need to figure out how to work my microwave/convection oven in the interim.

Other than that, I've been trying to help my friend Josh sell two of his extra tickets to The Killers show tonight. Sadly, Arye, Jason, Zeke and Jules are all either unavailable or just not interested in spending $50 to see them play the Theatre at MSG. I don't blame them, that's pretty steep! Plus, with CMJ in a few weeks, the four of them will be busy with tons of great musical acts.

The folks just called to let me know that they've arrived back home, safe and sound. Thank G-d!

Song of the day is Welcome to The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance. The video is really stirring, I highly recommend watching it on their website!