Dec 2025 Five Questions

1. Is there anything from 100 years ago you'd like to see revived
today

A general "art of conversation" revival: I feel like one thing
after another in my lifetime has greatly diminished our ability to
enjoy and have meaningful extended conversations.  Phones, covid,
work from home.  I find myself a bit envious of my children, who
get to have a childhood (at least for now) that looks a lot like
mine: knocking on doors, games of imagination outside, fast
friendships, easy conversational confidence.

2. What's the best book you've read so far this year?

"On the Calculation of Volume I", easily.  Quiet, beautiful,
insightful.

3. What's your favourite musical discovery ((sub-)subgenre, artist)
this
 year?

Uh, I dunno. Joey Weisenburg's niggunim? He does beautiful and
participatory Jewish liturgical music. I've listened to him for
more than a year but I've only recently started following his
instructional videos on things like leading Shabbat blessings etc.

4. Share up to five of your favourite 'foreign language' terms and
expressions

I like the word for 'bottle' in Hebrew because it's cute onomonopeia:
bakbook (the sound of water glugging out of a jug).

5. You can have one person from any time in history call you for
advice and follow what you tell them to do. Whom would you like to
have call you?

Let me get back to you on that.