4.08.2006
Pimp My Synagogue
Just got back from synagogue. Good food. BIB came, much to his surprise. We took a different route than usual, approaching the building from another direction. Up until now, I'd only seen the very end of the building- and never realized what a huge complex it is. The synagogue and school form a sort of accidental, rambling, deconstructivist... thing, with faux-masonic add-ons, the occasional wall of stained glass, silo-like structures encased in stucco, extensive wooden ramps leading into play-pen kid spaces littered with fleets of empty tricycles.
BIB amused himself mightily on the quarter-mile walk past all of its ramparts, imagining himself in turns as the visionary Rabbi who ordered this or that addition, then as the commonsensical jew who tries to point out the folly of grafting any more fluted columns onto an undisguisable fall-out shelter.
After service, BIB had a chat with the Rabbi. The Rabbi revealed some interesting bits of history about the place. In the 1950's, the building was built by the Klu Klux Klan who, at some sort of peak, hoped to build a university which would be a beacon of white supremacist thought, and call it Lanier College. But.... they ran out of funding, Atlanta turned to desegregation and civil rights instead, and eventually the building was sold to Shearith Israel, masonic temple facade included.
And thats about it for today. I played sand-pit volleyball on Thursday, and you know.. I think I'm growing muscles in my feet. Damn Samoan genes. Arches and achilles heel feel really buff and weird. Either my feet are getting pumped up, or its ringworm. Time will tell. I'm gonna go again on Monday. I was pleased to see that after 10 years of not playing - I'm good! You can give me pretty much anything and I'll set it acceptably for a spike. I'm not that great at 2 man games - the strategy is much more about running to where the ball should be and hoping your teammate actually manages to put it there, whereas a 5 man game was always a lot more reacting to where the ball goes. But I'm sure practice can bring that about.
Dogwood festival tomorrow - rape crisis center and fire hula hoopers should be at Piedmont Park in full force. I'm gonna bring my volleyball and see if I can get some play in.
BIB amused himself mightily on the quarter-mile walk past all of its ramparts, imagining himself in turns as the visionary Rabbi who ordered this or that addition, then as the commonsensical jew who tries to point out the folly of grafting any more fluted columns onto an undisguisable fall-out shelter.
After service, BIB had a chat with the Rabbi. The Rabbi revealed some interesting bits of history about the place. In the 1950's, the building was built by the Klu Klux Klan who, at some sort of peak, hoped to build a university which would be a beacon of white supremacist thought, and call it Lanier College. But.... they ran out of funding, Atlanta turned to desegregation and civil rights instead, and eventually the building was sold to Shearith Israel, masonic temple facade included.
And thats about it for today. I played sand-pit volleyball on Thursday, and you know.. I think I'm growing muscles in my feet. Damn Samoan genes. Arches and achilles heel feel really buff and weird. Either my feet are getting pumped up, or its ringworm. Time will tell. I'm gonna go again on Monday. I was pleased to see that after 10 years of not playing - I'm good! You can give me pretty much anything and I'll set it acceptably for a spike. I'm not that great at 2 man games - the strategy is much more about running to where the ball should be and hoping your teammate actually manages to put it there, whereas a 5 man game was always a lot more reacting to where the ball goes. But I'm sure practice can bring that about.
Dogwood festival tomorrow - rape crisis center and fire hula hoopers should be at Piedmont Park in full force. I'm gonna bring my volleyball and see if I can get some play in.
