Here's the BCC temple choir singing Dropkin's "Oseh Shalom" [recorded with my husband's new iPhone 5]. He's got the last solo, and you can see from how long he hold that final note why he blows such a great tekiah gedolah on his shofar.
Along with awesome High Holy Day services, a miracle happened to me this morning [OK - it was small one]. Just as I was wondering and worrying over where to get some palm fronds to roof my family's sukkah before Sunday, my husband announces that as he was walking grandson to kindergarden, he noticed that one of our neighbors had trimmed their palm trees and left a big pile of fronds on their lawn. I hurried over there, where our neighbor was delighted to have me take them away and save him having to dispose of them.
Now is that a miracle or not?
RAV HISDA’S DAUGHTER has been out for almost two months now and when friends ask me how it’s doing [which they do regularly], I’m at a loss how to answer. I could say that it’s Number 3 on Amazon’s bestseller list for books about ancient Babylonia and Mesopotamia [Number 1 is “Epic of Gilgamesh”], or that it has received a few nice reviews, mostly in the Jewish media [see links below].
But for the most part, I have no idea if it’s selling better or faster than RASHI’S DAUGHTERS at this stage. Judging from the emails, my fans are happy with it, and I haven’t received any complaints yet. But it’s clear that my fantasy of seeing my name in the New York Times will remain just a fantasy. Still, as I survey my accomplishments during these Days of Awe, I know that while I may not have climbed Mt. Everest of the publishing world, I have at least scaled Half Dome. And the view is pretty nice.
HUC Library blog
The Jewish Daily Forward
Paleojudaica
Jewish Book Carnival
Orange Co Jewish Life
Library Thing
Library Journal
Jewish Book Council
#spottheshuttle by LAX and Howard Huhes Promenade twitter.com/davpacopas/sta…
— David Parkhurst (@davpacopas) September 21, 2012
I was taking my semi-usual beach walk at Playa del Rey this morning and came across all these people standing around with cameras. So we waited and sure enough, the space shuttle flies by on its way downtown. We turned around to walk back south and suddenly, there it is again, flying almost overhead. So we walked home via a street above the airport and waited until it landed. What a great morning. My husband saw it from work and took the photo above.
Here we are [me and my grandsons] celebrating Tashlich at Venice Beach with our congregation after second day Rosh Hashanah. The birds sure liked our casting our sins [bread crumbs] into the ocean.
Last year, at my rabbi’s suggestion, I participated in a spiritual exercise called 10Q, where each day between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I log into their website and answer a different question. The answers could be as short or as long as I wanted, and nobody would see them except me – unless I wanted to share them. Earlier this week I received an email with my answers to last year’s questions, and it was quite enlightening to see where I was last September compared to this one. Eventually I will be able to review years worth of progress.
According to their website, 10Q was inspired by the traditional ten days of reflection that occur between the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a period of time that’s long been considered an opportunity to look at where you're at, where you've come from, and where you're heading. Whether a person is Jewish or not, though, 10Q is a great way for anyone to look back at the year that’s past, look ahead at the year to come, and take stock.
Today’s the first day, but you can sign up [it’s free] any time during the 10 days. It doesn’t take long, and I highly recommend it, especially for those who don’t have time for regular reflection during the year.
In honor of the upcoming holidays, here's a blog post I wrote for Penguin that details how Talmudic sages like Rav Hisda instituted new rituals and liturgy in Third and Fourth Century Babylonia that make Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur what they are today.
After the first volume of “Rashi’s Daughters” was published I spent [wasted?] far too much time checking its Amazon rank and reader reviews. I never doubted that those reviews were real and sometimes recognized names of people who had emailed me fan letters. While I personally don’t choose to read a particular book based on Amazon reviews, I do occasionally use them before buying other types of products.
Thus I was both fascinated, and somewhat depressed, to read this New York Times article about paid book reviewers on Amazon and how they’ve perverted the process.
And on another sad front on the same subject, a best-selling crime author posted great reviews of his own novels while slamming the competition, under an assumed identity. See the Huffington Post article for details.
For those in Southern California, particularly in Orange County or the San Fernando Valley, I want to alert you to the speaking events I’ll be doing about my new historical novel, RAV HISDA'S DAUGHTER, in your area this week.
For my OC fans, I’ll be at Laguna Beach Books on September 9 at 5:00 pm]. The address is 1200 S Coast Hwy # 105A, Laguna Beach, CA 92651. Come on out, it’s free, and the weather should be beautiful.
Also in OC - on September 12 at 7 pm, I'll be speaking to Newport Beach Hadassah at Temple Bat Yahm, 1011 Camelback St, Newport Beach.
The closest I’ll be to the Valley this month will be on September 11 at 11 am, when I speak the Women’s Lunch & Learn at AJU. American Jewish University, 15600 Mulholland Drive, Bel Air.
I look forward to seeing many of you there. Shabbat Shalom.
The success of my historical novels has brought many unexpected new experiences into my life. One of these, being interviewed on radio and TV, started out causing me great anxiety, but now that I’ve done more than a few, they have turned out to be more fun than I’d ever imagined. Yes, I was nervous at first, but after only a couple, I realized that the interviewers are expert at what they do. The folks who host these shows are professionals who know how to put the guest at ease, ask questions whose answers will be both informative and entertaining, and essentially make it easy for the guest to appear witty and knowledgeable. The really good ones make it fun for all involved, although I admit that sometimes I have to be quick on my feet to answer an unanticipated question.
Today, with the rise of Youtube, I no longer have to rely on searching cable TV schedules for when my interviews would be aired, only to learn that I missed it or that it was showing in the middle of the night. Instead, my fans and I can watch the shows at our convenience on our own computers. I’m including links to both a TV and radio show that I did recently.
Connie Martinson’s TalksBooks TV show is divided into two parts for Youtube. Hee's Part 1, .
And here's Part 2, where I discuss Babylonian Incantation Bowls and show off one that I own,
I was surprised to find my interview on the Good News Israel radio show, since it was only audio. But they used images from my website to accompany the broadcast and turn it into a visual broadcast. Here the host intrigued me by asking about how my studying chemistry in college in 1960’s was like studying Talmud in early 1990’s, and it made me realize that in both cases I was drawn to the challenge of a woman entering a man’s field of study.