Artisanal Webpagery
My dad is so proud right now. He hasn’t said anything like that, but I know he is. My dad, oh loyal benbrown.com reader, you know, he is a character. He only just recently stopped telling me to quit this whole internet thing and go to art school so I could finally attain my real potential as someone who doodled comic books during his teens.
And I mean, I have always considered what I do on here, on the tubes, to be more art than technology, more play than business. Bad art with ugly colors and lots of cuss words, but still. So, it pleases me greatly to post this news.
My friend Ari Y Kelman (the Y is important for purposes of disambiguation between faculty at the same university) and I are working on an art project for the grand opening of the new Contemporary Jewish Museum, because we are contemporary Jews, and because an organization we are part of is sponsoring the party. Booya! The project is called (Re)velation, and it will be at the museum during the DAWN 2008 ALL NIGHT OPENING PARTY / CELEBRATION OF SHAVUOT / DENGUE FEVER CONCERT on JUNE 7 BUY TICKETS NOW. Contemporary! Jewish!
I always thought there were only 10 commandments, the ones carried by Moses down from his conversation with THE BURNING BUSH. OMG!
I don’t strictly believe any of this, but it is a pretty awesome story, you have to admit. I mean, I have totally talked to burning bushes before.
But there are way more than 10 commandments. There are 613 commandments, or “mitzvah,” and they cover everything from how to salt your sacrificial offerings to rules for tribal warfare. It totally freaks me out, because you get a pretty clear view of how different times were when these laws were first thought up and put down on the books. And it freaks me out more when I think about how all of our laws and rules and society basically grew out of this stuff, like it or not.
My theory is, each one of these rules has a more modern interpretation, something that digs out the core nugget of wisdom from the “original” version and turns it on its head, makes it relevant today, for me, right now. A new translation, one that doesn’t involve blood sacrifices and slave trading.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a long, long, long tradition of interpreting and reinterpreting these things, and what we have now, these 613 rules, are the result of that tradition. I humbly submit that (Re)velation attempts to be a continuation of that tradition. Different! Possibly much more stupid! But definitely funnier.
You can visit (Re)velation right now, and browse through the 613 mitzvah. And if you see some nugget of wisdom in there that would make more sense if it referenced Super Mario Brothers or Seinfeld, you can submit your own version right there. That’s the magic Ben Brown sauce. It’s a web 2.0 style remix of ancient religious tradition! Tada! We’re also collecting audio submissions of people delivering their own versions of the mitzvah - eventually they’ll be mixed together to become THE VOICE OF GOD at the Dawn party.
Our friends at Jewcy have kindly rehosted the project. See, I am totally a legitimate artist! We really need your help, your creativity, and your insight to mix these laws up so we don’t look like boobs at the opening! Click one of those links and put on your virtual yarmulke!
If I can actually pull this off, I will be amazed.
(Here are the iPhone versions of the pixel Moses and Burning Bush that I posted a few days ago.)
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