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	<title>Aharon's Omphalos</title>
	<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos</link>
	<description>spinning navel lint into fine yarn</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:58:01 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<language>en</language>
	
	<item>
		<title>Metaphors Liberate Us</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In an age when the possibility of living in the land of Israel is no longer an abstract yearning, at a time when Jerusalem is rebuilt (with a soon to be active light rail system!), and after nearly 2000 years without the physical presence of a Temple nor the daily ministrations of priesthood and caste [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/12/metaphors-liberate-us</link>
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		<title>With Heine at Lorelei</title>
		<description><![CDATA[At 161st Street and Grand  Concourse in the Bronx, there is a highly ornate  fountain named Lorelei located in a rather lonely park dedicated to  dead poets. Inscribed at the base of Lorelei is the name and visage of a  man &#8212; once upon a time, Germany&#8217;s favorite Romantic poet. Hitler [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/12/with-heine-at-lorelei</link>
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		<title>The Talmud on the Virtues of Robots and Cats</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A few days ago Engadget blogged a story originally reported in the Israeli print media that a local family was surprised to discover that their Roomba had ingested a dangerous poisonous snake (Vipera palaestinae). (Within a few days, the story was echoed by Gizmodo, Boing Boing, and Jewschool.)

In so far as Jewish lore goes, the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/11/the-talmud-on-the-virtues-of-robots-and-cats</link>
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		<title>Post-PresenTense</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Fellow Omphalos gazers might wonder what I&#8217;ve been doing. And not just in the sense of, &#8220;Hey I&#8217;m wonder what Aharon&#8217;s been up to lately.&#8221; Well, after two months of productive work on the Open Siddur Project as a fellow with the PresenTense Institute in Jerusalem this summer, I spent a month in Philadelphia before [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/09/post-presentense</link>
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		<title>Open Siddur at PresenTense Institute Workshop</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Regular readers (hi mom!) were disappointed when I didn&#8217;t post the last two months. Forgive!! Drama was afoot. I got involved in a relationship with a lovely young woman and I began to find a foothold in the world of Jewish social entrepreneurship.
Happenstance the first: a creative project I proposed to the summer bootcamp/workshop for [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/06/open-siddur-at-presentense-institute-workshop</link>
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		<title>To Stand on One Foot</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
In  October 2008, my friend Will posted on his blog, A Journey Around My Skull, his discovery of a Japanese illustrator, Rokuro Taniuchi. The image of a looming figure on the horizon by Taniuchi reminded me very much of the cover art for a book I read in 5th grade titled Creatures from UFO&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/04/to-stand-on-one-foot</link>
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		<title>Reality and Hallucination: Towards a Talmudic Ontology of Consensus (by way of demons)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
In his 1978 essay, &#8220;How to Build a Universe That Doesn&#8217;t Fall Apart Two Days Later&#8220;, Philip K. Dick wrote, &#8220;Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn&#8217;t go away.&#8221; This ontology is challenged by a syndrome recently brought to my attention in a recent post on boingboing.net, &#8220;Hallucinations brought on by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/02/reality-and-hallucination-a-talmudic-ontology-of-consensus</link>
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		<title>We are the music makers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In the film Willy Wonka &#38; the Chocolate Factory (1971), after Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) proudly describes that in his lickable wallpaper &#8220;The snozberries taste like snozberries!&#8221;, an exasperated Veruca Salt snidely comments, &#8220;Snozberries? Who ever heard of a snozberry?&#8221; Willy Wonka grabs her mouth and explains &#8220;We are the music makers, and We are [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/02/we-are-the-music-makers</link>
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		<title>Amplified Harmonic Resonance: Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-26</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Amplified Harmonic Resonance, Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-26, programmer: dj Magical Adventures of Duffy Moon, Mondays 7am-10:00am EST


Year
Artist
Album
Track
Title


1979
Kitaro
Oasis
7
Shimmering Horizon (Hikari To Kage)


1979
Kitaro
Oasis
8
Fragrance Of Nature (Shizen No Kaori)


1979
Kitaro
Oasis
9
Innocent People (Mujaki)


1979
Kitaro
Oasis
10
Oasis



Death Cube K
Guitars on Mars (Disc 2)
10
Terror By Night


1975
Brast Burn
Eurock ~ A History of&#8230; vol. 7: Zen Electronics
2
Debon Part 1 [edit]



Brian Eno &#038; Daniel Lanois
Music for Films [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/02/amplified-harmonic-resonance-playlist-for-monday-morning-2009-01-26</link>
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		<title>Amplified Harmonic Resonance: Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-19</title>
		<description><![CDATA[



Amplified Harmonic Resonance, Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-19, programmer: dj Magical Adventures of Duffy Moon, 7am-10:30pm EST


Year
Artist
Album
Track
Title


1993
Deeper than Space
Earthrise
3
Earthrise


1957
Marcel Duchamp
The Creative Act
1
The Creative Act (Houston, TX, April 1957)


1975
Franco Falsini
Naso Fredo (Cold Nose)
1
Naso Fredo (Cold Nose) Part 1


1975
Franco Falsini
Naso Fredo (Cold Nose)
2
Naso Fredo (Cold Nose) Part 2


1978
Banco
&#8230;Di Terra
1
Nel Cielo e Nelle Altre Cose Mute (Do largo)


1978
Banco
&#8230;Di [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/01/amplified-harmonic-resonance-playlist-for-monday-morning-2009-01-19</link>
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		<title>The Collected Calypsos, Sayings, and Songs of Bokonon</title>
		<description><![CDATA[From Kurt Vonnegut&#8217;s novel, Cat&#8217;s Cradle (1963). Found on the internet, and rearranged associatively.

On the Quest for Understanding
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, &#8216;Why, why, why?&#8217;
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land,
Man got to tell himself he understand.
On Life
We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do,
What we must, muddily [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/01/the-collected-calypsos-sayings-and-songs-of-bokonon</link>
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		<title>Amplified Harmonic Resonance: Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-12</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Amplified Harmonic Resonance, Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-12, programmer: dj Magical Adventures of Duffy Moon, 7am-1pm EST



Year
Artist
Album
Track No.
Title


1989
Philip Glass
1000 Airplanes on the Roof
1
1000 Airplanes on the Roof


1989
Philip Glass
1000 Airplanes on the Roof
2
City Walk


2007
Christopher DeLaurenti
Favorite Intermissions
2
Before Petrushka


1995
Coco, Steel &#38; Lovebomb
emit 2295
3
Berlinerstrasse


1999
D*Note
Steve Reich Remixed
7
Piano Phase (Phased and konfused mix)


1977
Pierrot Lunaire
Gudrun
1
Gudrun


1977
Pierrot Lunaire
Gudrun
2
Dietro Il Silenzio


1977
Pierrot Lunaire
Gudrun
3
Plaisir d&#8217;amour


1975
Zao
Osiris
1
Shardaz


1975
Zao
Osiris
2
Isis


1975
Zao
Osiris
3
Reinna


1978
Jean-Luc Ponty
Cosmic Messenger
1
Cosmic [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/01/amplified-harmonic-resonance-playlist-for-monday-morning-2009-01-12</link>
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		<title>Hobbits, Jews, and Romantics in the Woods</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Just a few notes on the film Defiance. My housemate and I caught a free screening courtesy of gofobo.com and the Ritz East. The film is based on the 1993 book by Nechama Tec, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, and it is an excellent story told well. Had it been a fantasy written by Tolkien it [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/01/hobbits-jews-and-romantics-in-the-woods</link>
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		<title>Amplified Harmonic Resonance: Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-05</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


Amplified Harmonic Resonance, Playlist for Monday morning, 2009-01-05, programmer: dj Magical Adventures of Duffy Moon


Year
Artist
Album
Track No.

Title


1970
John Cale &#38; Terry Riley
Church Of Anthrax
1
Church of Anthrax


1970
John Cale &#38; Terry Riley
Church Of Anthrax
2
The Hall of Mirrors in the Palace at Versailles


1990
Robert Rich
Geometry
1
Primes Part 1


1990
Robert Rich
Geometry
2
Primes Part 2


1999
Tranquility Bass
Steve Reich Remixed
4
Megamix


1974
Laurie Spiegel
New Music For Electronic and Recorded Media: Women [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/01/amplified-harmonic-resonance-playlist-for-monday-morning-2009-01-05</link>
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		<title>Amplified Harmonic Resonance on WKDU 91.7FM</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tune your legacy radio sets and etherwave monitors to 91.7 on the FM spectrum Monday mornings 7am-10am EST for the next few months and you will once again hear dj Magical Adventures of Duffy Moon (alter ego of dj spaceling) presenting your breakfast and commuting audioscape in typical wonderful entheogenic fashion.
(Also available via streamin&#8217; Internet audio, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2009/01/amplified-harmonic-resonance-on-wkdu-917fm</link>
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		<title>Day of Radiance: A Celebration of Experimental Music and Parks in Philadelphia</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Although the day, month, and season Brian Eno met Laraaji Nadabrahmananda in Philadelphia&#8217;s New York&#8217;s Washington Square Park in 1979 is unknown, their meeting led directly to an important album, Ambient 3: Day of Radiance (1980). In commemoration of this creative encounter, the Philadelphia Ambient Consortium is at the beginning stages of organizing an outdoor [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/12/day-of-radiance-a-celebration-of-experimental-music-and-parks-in-philadelphia</link>
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		<title>B&#8217;yadeinu ohr va esh &#124; In our hands are light and fire</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It is the eighth and final day of Chanukah, Chag Urim, festival of lights. It is the day after the world comes to grips with the latest horrible spasm in the terrible saga playing out between Israel and Hamas-led Palestinians in Gaza. Gershom Gorenberg of South Jerusalem, always conscious of terrible ironies, shares this:
Last week [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/12/byadeinu-ohr-va-esh-in-our-hands-are-light-and-fire</link>
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		<title>Banu choshech legaresh</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ari, at his serendipitynow blog, points out this article at Haaretz on the naked bigotry the Muslims of Yaffo (Jaffa) recently endured at the hands of right wing Israeli extremists (of the national religious settler variety). Yaffo is a mixed ethnic Jewish and Arab town in Israel just south of Tel Aviv, a place that [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/12/banu-choshech-legaresh</link>
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		<title>Chanukah, Sukkot Bet and the Brumalia</title>
		<description><![CDATA[With the dissemination and availability of 2 Maccabees (preserved in the Catholic and Orthodox Christian cannons), more Jews are learning that the eight day festival of lights originated as a renewal of the eight day festival of Sukkot.  That essential Fall pilgrimage and fertility festival (which included the joyous water-drawing festival, Simchat Bet haShoeva) was [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/12/chanukah-sukkot-bet-and-the-brumalia</link>
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		<title>The Longest Darkest Night of the Year</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Although the significance of Chanukah is masked by both its commercialization (in competition with Christmas) and its status as a &#8220;minor&#8221; or post-biblical Jewish holiday, there are important reasons to believe that it is ancient, hardly known, and quite deep.
Before he passed away this past year, Rabbi Zelig Scharfstein of blessed memory, taught me a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/12/the-longest-darkest-night-of-the-year</link>
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		<title>Bond Hill and the Panic of 1873</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Here&#8217;s a question to add to the list of mysteries left unresearched by my master&#8217;s thesis on the origin and transformation of Bond Hill: how was the housing cooperative and building association impacted by the financial crash and panic of 1873 and the resulting depression? There were hints of decline but I could only speculate [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/12/bond-hill-and-the-panic-of-1873</link>
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		<title>At your service</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am an urban planner by profession and degree, but while I&#8217;m looking for work I am also a technology consultant, copy editor, bicycle messenger, ipod manager, technical writer, blog reader, proofreader, and coffee sipper.
Perhaps you don&#8217;t have a significant other or know-it-all child or lucky friend to ask you for your computer help when [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/12/at-your-service</link>
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		<title>Kitteh Yoga</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Last night was my second night in two weeks of yoga with K. Clair and friends at her West Philly loft. I&#8217;m even starting to remember some poses for practicing during the rest of the week. But the hardest part, for me anyways, seems to be associating correctly each pose with either inhaling or exhaling [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/11/kitteh-yoga</link>
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		<title>November 4th</title>
		<description><![CDATA[



]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/11/november-4th</link>
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		<title>The Idiot Wind&#8217;s Gusts are Now a Gale</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Xeni Jardin over at Boing Boing has an important post analyzing the dragging death murder of Brandon McClelland, 24, last month in Paris, Texas, an area of our country haunted by a legacy of lynchings going back over a hundred years. Please read it.
In light of the McCain campaign&#8217;s stinking &#8220;idiot wind&#8221; gusting over America&#8217;s racist dead [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/11/the-idiot-winds-gusts-are-now-a-gale</link>
			</item>
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		<title>What&#8217;s the frequency, Kenneth!? (redux)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So far there is no indication that the recent near fatal beating of KATV anchorwoman Anne Pressly in Little Rock, Arkansas, might be politically motivated other than the fact that Pressly is a member of the media and appeared briefly in Oliver Stone&#8217;s just opened critical biopic &#8216;W.&#8217; But given that the daily vitriol heaped [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/whats-the-frequency-kenneth-redux</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Translating the Hate of an Antisemitic Anti-Obama Effigy</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
&#8220;Is that a kippah on that anti-Obama effigy?&#8221; I couldn&#8217;t help but wonder while reading this article and watching this story that local Cincinnati station WKRC (Channel 12) aired yesterday about Fairfield, Ohio&#8217;s Mike Lunsford as reported on by Shawn Ley. (For those from out of town, Fairfield is a northern exurb of Cincinnati just [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/translating-the-hate-of-an-antisemitic-anti-obama-effigy</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Text Cloud of the Omphalos</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Behold, my Omphalos as digested arithmetically (with some aesthetic treatments) by Jonathan Feinberg&#8217;s text cloud application over at wordle.net. Makes for a rather elegant visual poem, no? The wordle engine accepts site URLs, RSS feeds, or giant gobs of text. The latter is what I fed it after copying the source of my ATOM feed [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/text-cloud-of-the-omphalos</link>
			</item>
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		<title>Lingle and Boxer Spar for McCain and Obama</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Hawaiian Governor Linda Lingle and Californian Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) debated each other this past evening while representing John McCain and Barack Obama respectively at A Presidential Candidates Forum: America in the World &#8211; Friends, Foes, and the Future. The debate between the two Jewish politicians was organized by The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC) [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/lingle-and-boxer-spar-for-mccain-and-obama</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Philly Ambient Listserve Archives Alive</title>
		<description><![CDATA[PHOBOS (ie., phobos.simpletone.com), the Philadelphia Ambient Consortium&#8217;s once-vital, now deceased server, held the archives of the Philly_ambient listserve prior to the listerve&#8217;s move to the less crash prone yahoogroups account where it now lives. Good thing that I kept an archive of the discussions from those fecund first three years. In the sterile yet obscure [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/philly-ambient-listserve-archives-alive</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>The Eye that Blinds</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Two years ago on mog.com, I wrote about Urs Amann&#8217;s cover art for Klaus Schulz&#8217;s 1983 album Audentity, the new wave punk slit glasses shown in the film Big Trouble in Little China (1986), and the specialized glasses worn by Geordi La Forge, the blind engineer played by LeVar Burton in Star Trek: The Next [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/the-eye-that-blinds</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Obama in Ault Park</title>
		<description><![CDATA[

I rode my bicycle over to Ault Park today to hear Barack Obama speak. Navigating the hills and valleys of Cincinnati on a beautiful day, as it was today, is so much more preferable to huffing it to the park from a car parked a mile away. As it happened I was pretty exhausted by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/obama-in-ault-park</link>
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		<title>Vote Today Ohio: till the Election!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday we received the first numbers from our get out the vote early event from Vote Today Ohio HQ.  Tate Hausman writes:
During Golden Week, Vote Today Ohio banked ~3,300 Obama votes, plus 621 voter registrations. Did we hit our ambitious 10,000 goal? No. Did we make a critical contribution in America&#8217;s #1 battleground state? Absolutely.
Our [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/vote-today-ohio-till-the-election</link>
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		<title>Dawn After Golden Week</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday the Scion xA and I got some street time shuttling students from Xavier to the Board of Elections building downtown and back. Who knew you could fit six people in that hatchback? From noon to five pm, I manned the &#8220;overflow vehicle&#8221; because our regular shuttle (a Windstar van donated for the day by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/dawn-after-golden-week</link>
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	<item>
		<title>ELECTION DAY IS NOW</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
This is the last day of Golden Week, the week in Ohio when the periods for voter registration and early voting overlap allowing new voters to register and vote on the same day. Our teams are working hard to make one final push to get out the vote. I made posters like the one above [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/election-day-is-now</link>
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		<title>Vote Today * * * Ask Me How</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Vote Today Ohio sent out the latest numbers just after midnight this morning on how many early voters our teams managed to shuttle over to the Early Voting Centers.
9/30: 380 votes
10/1: 429 votes, plus 121 new registrations
10/2: 449 votes, plus 306 new registrations
10/3: 776 votes, plus 391 new registrations
That&#8217;s 2,034 total votes cast statewide since [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/vote-today-ask-me-how</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Vote Today Ohio</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Early voting began in Ohio this past Monday, September 29th. Over the weekend, I was making maps for Vote Today Ohio, a volunteer group hoping to make the most of a &#8220;Golden Week&#8221; during which Ohioans can register to vote and actually vote via absentee ballot on the same day. Field teams fanned out across the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/10/vote-today-ohio</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Kabul, Afghanistan August 2008</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Fellow Daniel Pinkwater afficionado 3m1ly recently returned from Afghanistan on official snark-out business and posted images gleaned from her travels at her flickr account.
]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/09/kabul-afghanistan-august-2008</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Post-Parks Conference Thoughts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve taken more notes than I&#8217;ve been able to blog just yet, and the conference is already over. I came to the conference to see what opportunities there might be for a former researcher for a major park advocacy group to stroll back into the world of park professionals after cutting his teeth working on [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/09/post-parks-conference-thoughts</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Urban Parks 08: Opening Session</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ll be blogging the Urban Parks conference session as I attend them. The opening session occurred yesterday evening.
Luis Garden Acosta, founder of El Puente, a community based human rights and environmental organization in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, and recipient of the Heinz Award for the Human Condition, provided a rousing keynote address, &#8220;Parks: The [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/09/urban-parks-08-opening-session</link>
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		<title>Body &amp; Soul: Urban Parks 2008</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the next few days I&#8217;ll be in Pittsburgh for the Body &#38; Soul: International Urban Parks Conference. Besides attending sessions and workshops, I&#8217;ll also be monitoring certain sessions to handle audio-visual and other computer issues that often arise. I promise to blog, or at least twitter, interesting ideas gleaned from the conference here at [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/09/body-soul-urban-parks-2008</link>
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		<title>On Mind Flayers and the Faith of our Fathers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Isaac S. and I were talking role playing and the biological basis of behavior for Mind Flayer society again this past Shabbat when our conversation meandered into the ever fertile field of movement ideology and identity politics in American Modern Orthodox Judaism. (In hindsight it seems appropriate we were taking a stroll through Spring Grove [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/09/on-mind-flayers-and-the-faith-of-our-fathers</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Ghost Recon and the South Ossetian War</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My friend Guilherme R. and I were chatting about the terrible new war in Georgia&#8217;s South Ossetia (soon to be Russia&#8217;s South Ossetia?), and he blew my mind recalling the premise of a particularly prescient video game released back in 2001, &#8220;Tom Clancy&#8217;s Ghost Recon.&#8221; From wikipedia:
Ghost Recon begins in 2008, with civil unrest in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/08/ghost-recon-and-the-south-ossetian-war</link>
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		<title>The Forbidden iPod: HFS+ on Windows</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last year around this time I was thinking about mp3 players. My trusty old Archos Jukebox 20 Studio just wasn&#8217;t cutting it anymore, even with its ROM flashed with open source Rockbox firmware. Yes, the Archos was a solid brick of an mp3 player, had a simple yellow LCD display, USB 1.1, and a very [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/08/the-forbidden-ipod-hfs-on-windows</link>
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		<title>More on Emergency Broadcast Network</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ten years ago I was in Philadelphia and excited to learn that Emergency Broadcast Network (or EBN for short), an art music/video project would be touring with dj Spooky providing live mixed visuals and even performing their own set. I had first seen their work in college in the mid 90s, probably on a friend&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/08/more-on-emergency-broadcast-network</link>
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		<title>You Don&#8217;t Mess With the Samson</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I promised myself that I would not think too hard about You Don&#8217;t Mess With the Zohan, Robert Smigel and Adam Sandler&#8217;s comedy film this summer. But alas, reading about the story of Yiftach in the haftorah reading this past shabbat, I couldn&#8217;t help but think of the context of Zohan within the context of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/07/you-dont-mess-with-the-samson</link>
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		<title>Jeer at them</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yochanan Lavie, who regularly reads and comments over at failedmessiah.com, recently shared this poem inspired in general by the sickness and evil near the root of Aaron Rubashkin&#8217;s animal slaughtering and meat processing factory in Postville, Iowa, and specifically by Rubashkin&#8217;s use of PR flacks, paid industry &#8220;representatives,&#8221; and the Orthodox establishment to shill for [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/06/jeer-at-them</link>
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		<title>Zer Presence</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Besides working through the problem of what is meant by being asked to worship an invisible, non-verbally communicative superbeing (who is yet imagined to be present, personal, and ready to intervene), my next most-difficult problem when conforming the god of my imagination with the god of Jewish liturgy has always been how to avoid thinking [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/06/zer-presence</link>
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		<title>Netflix Widget for Wordpress</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This post goes out to all the wordpress users out there who wanted to use Albert Banks&#8217; Netflix Plugin for Wordpress but were frustrated at the plugin not being accessible as a sidebar widget. I added some code to widgetize the plugin that I adapted from this goodreads plugin. If you want you can download [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/06/netflix-widget-for-wordpress</link>
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		<title>Cain and Abel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[From her yeshivah digs in Jerusalem, Gella Solomon (of Nogah Chadash) writes to me of an aggadic commentary she&#8217;s recently composed on the story of Cain and Abel (or transliterated, Qayin and Hevel). Her midrash, narrated by Cain is deeply humanistic &#8212; Cain expresses himself and his experience of fratricide in human terms that easily [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/06/cain-and-abel</link>
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		<title>Behemot and Bahamut</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The umbilical of my omphalos winds its way back in time to the blessings of my mother and father, but also inwards and outside-of-time, stretching into a womb land that is all myth and dream and imagination. With some effort I can follow my way back into this makom, this space and hopefully return from [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/06/behema-and-bahamut</link>
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		<title>The Two Lovers</title>
		<description><![CDATA[On this trip, I had the pleasure of sharing a day trip between D.C. and N.Y.C. with a friend of an acquaintance. As it happens, by which I mean, by the tender coincidences blessed upon me in the happenstance of creation, this fellow, Eli K-W, also happens to love Jewish myth and has lately been [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/05/the-two-lovers</link>
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		<title>Blacks, Jews, and the Post-Racial Candidate</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This week I&#8217;m in New York City for the New Voices Conference in Independent Jewish Student Journalism. &#8220;Blacks, Jews, and the Post-Racial Candidate&#8221; was the subject of last night&#8217;s (May 28) panel discussion at the Center for Jewish History (CJH).
Moderated by Marissa Brostoff (New Voices contributing writer), the panel consisted of Sam Freedman (Columbia U. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/05/blacks-jews-and-the-post-racial-candidate</link>
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		<title>Taco Maria Needs Your Love</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You need a cat. Yes you do. Already have one? Does it have FIV? Great. Because I know a very special kitteh that needs a home and has FIV (NOT infectious to humans). Taco Maria is a great cat, a rescue from Hurricane Katrina. She needs to be quarantined from other cats so they don&#8217;t [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/05/taco-maria-needs-your-love</link>
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		<title>On Frida Kahlo&#8217;s Jewish Heritage</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This past Sunday, May 18th, marked the end of the Frida Kahlo exhibit this year at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My friend Robyn and I caught it just before its expiry along with hordes of locals who had waited till the last moment. Outside, pregnant rain clouds were birthing a fury of elements, a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/05/on-frida-kahlos-jewish-heritage</link>
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		<title>Feeling Philo for Philly</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This last week I&#8217;ve been in Philadelphia, part of a three city trip to reconnect with friends, explore possibilities such as RRC and Penn&#8217;s GSE-JRE, and stumble upon whatever serendipities the cosmos has placed before my blind third eye. Philadelphia is wonderful, by which I mean, it is full of wonder even when it is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/05/feeling-philo-for-philly</link>
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		<title>The House that Emma Built</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In the House that Emma Built
There are two chambers
One looks upon the other
And the other looks outward
A turntable spins ye-ye
A darkness sleeps in fits
A cat speaks in Mandarin
and the walls, last forever
A man is hidden under the boards
While the window glares on its curtains
All lines cast suspicions
on the vagueries of nature&#8217;s curve
Brightly bit, sound asleep
exposed [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/05/the-house-that-emma-built</link>
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		<title>Downtown Baton Rouge Needs an Independent Cinematheque!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Downtown Baton Rouge needs an independent cinematheque!&#8221; I exclaimed desperately to Emma Chammah. The architect is familiar with these bursts of urban sentiment from her city planning apartment mate. But she agrees, as do most folk who live and work in the city. Sure downtown now has a selection of bars and restaurants, as well [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2008/05/downtown-baton-rouge-needs-an-independent-cinematheque</link>
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		<title>Seven Kings</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In the beginning, there were seven kings
One created a kingdom of earth and became suffused with it.
One created a kingdom of one and hid himself in it.
One created a kingdom of love and filled it with two and a challenge to entice them.
One created a kingdom without number and became lost in it.
One created a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/12/in-the-beginning-there-were-seven-kings</link>
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		<title>An introduction and archive for Piyutim (sacred Jewish musical poetry and song)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[An introduction to Piyutim (piyut.org.il)
A piyut (piyutim, pl. hebrew) is a sacred musical poem, sung as part of a communal prayer service but just as often after a good meal with friends and family. I was raised with these songs and tunes, learning a new one occasionally while eating as a guest at someone&#8217;s house, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/12/an-introduction-and-archive-for-piyutim-sacred-jewish-musical-poetry-and-song</link>
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		<title>Shuffle Album : Album Shuffle advice for 1.0.3 ipod firmware updaters</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This is an informational post for ipod classic owners out there. The recent firmware update 1.0.3 changed the functionality of the shuffle songs feature. Until you follow the following steps, the menu setting for &#8220;Shuffle&#8221; will have no effect.
To change the ipod from shuffling songs to shuffling albums follow these steps:
1) Go ahead and shuffle [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/12/shuffle-album-album-shuffle-advice-for-103-ipod-firmware-updaters</link>
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		<title>IS IT CAN BE ROTHKOTIEM NAO!?!1!11one!!!?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
credit: based on the original Rothko Tiem Nao! by Emma Chammah
]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/11/is-it-can-be-rothkotiem-nao111one</link>
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		<title>LOLed_ruscha</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/11/loloof</link>
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		<title>lolrus alive! or I HAS 15 MINUTES</title>
		<description><![CDATA[As this blogs stays alive in fits and starts, bear with me as I add a shot of whiskey into its cold empty tank and crank its engine with a story of wistful lolrus. Even better, let Jeff Roedel tell you the story, as he&#8217;s a much better writer, and hit all the good parts. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/11/lolrus-alive-or-i-has-15-minutes</link>
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		<title>A quick short, sharp shock</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Pink Floyd fans may know of this series of discs that make available a plethora of rare recordings: radio adverts, interviews, mono edits, alternate versions, etcetera. On disc three, track 20, a very special track, and one which gave me the shivers. You&#8217;ll understand when you listen to it.
From wikipedia:
Snippets of dialogue between and over [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/06/a-quick-short-sharp-shock</link>
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		<title>one year later</title>
		<description><![CDATA[hello blog, welcome back me.
One year later and I&#8217;m still in Baton Rouge and working with my planning team, now an order of magnitude larger. Plans out the door include the City of Port Allen Annexation Plan and the Comprehensive Coastal Protection and Restoration Master Plan for Louisiana. To reprise, I came down here a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/05/one-year-later</link>
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		<title>Philip K. Dick on Kurt Vonnegut</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Far be it for me to add another to the blossoming forest of eulogies for Kurt Vonnegut, a man who I loved &#8212; I&#8217;m just thankful I&#8217;ve been alive at a time when  I could read his writings (Mark Twain, never got the chance). I do have something to share though: some audio of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/04/philip-k-dick-on-kurt-vonnegut</link>
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		<title>Belated International Women&#8217;s Day Blogging</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yes, International Women&#8217;s Day was a week and two days ago, but I promised Lola the Car Chick I would blog for the gentle women and men for whom the gospel of feminism has not yet reached. This past March 8th I was traveling all day and being computer-less, left my  MOG  sullen [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/03/belated-international-womens-day-blogging</link>
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		<title>Pitch Control</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Kate is listening to Leo Kottke in her basement. She writes,
There is something so comforting about vinyl. I went to Goodwill a few days ago and found a live Leo Kottke record. Took it home and lavished loving care upon it. Cleaned it, set it reverently on my Technics, opened a beer and sat outside [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/03/pitch-control</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Kiyoshi Izumi</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
In 1997, Rephlex released an EP by Kiyoshi Izumi featuring the track below, &#8220;Bedroom Glow.&#8221; A few years later he followed up with a full length album on Nobukazu Takemura&#8217;s Childisc label pleasantly titled, Orange Sunshine, the tracks of which, while appealing enough, sound nothing like &#8220;Bedroom Glow.&#8221; (Orange Sunshine is a nice little idm/ambient [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/03/kiyoshi-izumi</link>
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		<title>Hirokazu Tanaka&#8217;s Metroid</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Currently the president of Pokémon card producing and game developing company, Creatures, Inc., Hirokazu &#8220;Hip&#8221; Tanaka in the 1980s was a sound engineer for the Japanese game developer, Famicom. There he produced the soundtrack for the  NES  game, Metroid (1986).

To say that Tanaka was just a sound engineer would completely understate the man&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/02/hirokazu-tanakas-metroid</link>
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		<title>Arcade Video Game Music</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Video Game Music (1986), produced by Haruomi Hosono (Yellow Magic Orchestra, Swing Slow, et al) features music from the popular Namco arcade games from the early to mid 80s: Xevious, Pole Position, Galaga, Dig Dug, etc. The actual music having been written by other early musicians writing in pioneering 8-bit digital sound, Hosono&#8217;s role as [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/02/arcade-video-game-music</link>
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		<title>Doctor Y.S. &amp; the Cosmic Drunkards</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So, there are these tracks which I love, the artists of which I don&#8217;t know too well. I&#8217;m looking for them, I am, because I want to understand more myself and find more music by them&#8230; but should I wait until then to share my discoveries with you? (Fistula Spume is raising the bar here, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/02/doctor-ys-the-cosmic-drunkards</link>
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		<title>Ivory Toad of Catalan</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Just happened to tune into National Public Radio this morning to hear listener letters sent in this week on a program segment that was broadcast last Sunday, January 21st, a promo spot for Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular (2007), a new album by Banjo master Tony Trischka. Along for the ride were fellow Banjo superstars Steve [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/01/ivory-toad-of-catalan</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Tricycle Built for Two</title>
		<description><![CDATA[For the best mix cd ever, I&#8217;ve been searching for Haruomi Hosono&#8217;s cover of &#8220;Daisy Bell&#8221; by Harry Dacre, which appeared in the 1984 film, Revenge of the Nerds, you know, in the scene of Takashi tricycling to victory for Tri-Lam against the Jocks. Why it doesn&#8217;t appear on the soundtrack along with well-forgotten 80 [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/01/tricycle-built-for-two</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Bernard Herrmann</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Someone, I think Daniel Clowes, once theorized that  JFK  was assasinated by hit men for the hat industry, payback for the President&#8217;s disregard for men&#8217;s hats and the subsequent decline in their fashion in the early 1960s. But in the days of Dwight Eisenhower, you could still drive around with Jimmy Stewart whilst [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2007/01/bernard-herrmann</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Help with Steve Miller</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t expect you&#8217;re like me, but if you are or can sympathize, know that I detest Steve Miller Band&#8217;s most popular album, Fly Like an Eagle. But it&#8217;s complicated. As expressed so perfectly by the Butthole Surfers in their epic, &#8220;John E. Smoke&#8221;:
It&#8217;s about being in love and loving the love that&#8217;s hating the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/12/help-with-steve-miller</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Chanukah Choir Band circa 1980</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tonight is the eighth night of chanukah, and to celebrate I want to share the cassette-to-mp3 transfer of my parents recording of me and my sister in our school&#8217;s choir. We gave a performance with the U.S. Navy Band back in 1980 that I still think was rather excellent. From the back cover of another [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/12/chanukah-choir-band-circa-1980</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Nottingham Lace</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Back when, when I was holed up in Terre Haute, Indiana for a month or so, I was rooming with a fellow whilst attending some classes on graphic design and such. This was about 1990 and he was very much into three musicians I had never heard of: Joe Satirani, Yngwie Malmsteen, and the band, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/12/nottingham-lace</link>
			</item>
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		<title>The Calypsos of Bokonon</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Cat&#8217;s Cradle is a story about the end of the world, related to us by a man who witnessed the destruction and could explain how it came to occur. It is also the only known record of the philosophy of Bokonon, sung and subsequently archived as calypsos by a prophet with profound insight into the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/12/the-calypsos-of-bokonon</link>
			</item>
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		<title>mog on soulseek</title>
		<description><![CDATA[mog is on soulseek.
yes. (mog precedes  MOG )
no. (Sir  MOG  is not on soulseek (as far as I know)&#8230; however other MOGgish rascals are verily ubiquitous).
mog is Polish and blogs here.

]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/12/mog-on-soulseek</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Easy as</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Lady Horrible recently mogged about an aging musician who was resting heavily on laurels unfortunately propped up by a legion of credulous enabling boomers. I couldn&#8217;t help but think of this when I was visiting the website of one of the most sampled electronic artists of all time, Jean-Jacques Perrey (wikipedia link which also [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/12/easy-as</link>
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	<item>
		<title>THX-1138</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I can forgive George Lucas for all of his late epic Star Wars prequels only because, only afterwards, did Lucas revisit his first film, the minimalist dystopia,  THX -1138 (1971), correcting the audio artifacts that plagued the earlier video releases and making the soundtrack available on the  DVD  as a standalone special [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/12/thx-1138</link>
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		<title>Nights of Carlotta</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Woke up to &#8220;Punk Rock&#8221; by Mogwai this morning, the first time I had heard their album Come On Die Young (1999). It opens with a quote from Iggy Pop, from an interview on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) television, March 11, 1977. In the interview he&#8217;s talking to the &#8220;90 Minutes Live&#8221; show host Peter [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/10/nights-of-carlotta</link>
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	<item>
		<title>does your college radio station do this?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve been listening to a lot more radio this past month. This is a good thing. For a long while I felt like I needed to play catch up with my music collection. From the  MOG -O-MATIC perspec, I&#8217;ve been  MIA , but really I&#8217;ve been here all along. Baton Rouge has a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/10/does-your-college-radio-station-do-this</link>
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		<title>there are Green Men here. (don&#8217;t try looking for &#8216;em)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Robert Holdstock won the Newberry Fantasy Award in 1988 for his book, Mythago Wood, a novel which spun fantasy around the theories of Jung and Campbell, and delved deeply into the mythic world of the Finnish Kallevala. The tome is one of my favorites ever and changed the way I interact with myth, religious calendars, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/09/there-are-green-men-here-dont-try-looking-for-em</link>
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		<title>Gutting old mp3 players for 100gb goodness</title>
		<description><![CDATA[w00t! I now have a 100gb portable mp3 player after swapping the 2.5&#8243; standard laptop 20gb drive out of an old Archos Jukebox Studio. My music collection is now entirely portable, something currently impossible with today&#8217;s 60gb limited (and über-expensive) ipods. This is not news really&#8230; folks have been doing this for years already, but [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/09/gutting-old-mp3-players-for-100gb-goodness</link>
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		<title>John E. Smoke</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Years ago af riend of mine gave me a mixtape filled with the Ventures, Dick and Dale, and this one incredible song by the Butthole Surfers called &#8220;John E. Smoke&#8221; from their album Hairway to Steven. Is there anything by this band that sounds remotely like this song? Is this the only surf rock performed [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/09/john-e-smoke</link>
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		<title>Camper Van Beethoven</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Eugene Chadbourne makes a good impression of a Richard Scarry monster, especially all roly-poly during improv. Little did I realize he figured in one of my favorite albums evar, Camper Van Beethoven&#8217;s Camper Van Beethoven (1986). I bought two cassettes from him wrapped in stray socks that he had shlepped from somewhere, possibly a laundromat, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/camper-van-beethoven</link>
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		<title>Hooper Bay</title>
		<description><![CDATA[UPDATE : I was hoaxed. The track lengths were right on, but I was the victim of wishful thinking. On another listen, the tracks of this album are faded out in order to conform to the time length signatures for Hooper Bay songs (still very much obscure). I&#8217;ll keep the text below in this archive [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/hooper-bay</link>
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		<title>Terrapin Station</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There are some bands I really could not get into, but it wasn&#8217;t because their music was so terrible&#8230; it was just because the community of its adherents and I couldn&#8217;t find a common language to recommend music by taste. This is a perennial problem among fans who love one band or one genre almost [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/terrapin-station</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Audentity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I haven&#8217;t used my MOGspace much to blog about Klaus Schulze, and it does reflect some personal bias on my part&#8230; I just have the hardest time separating out one of his albums musically  from any of the others in his early discography. That&#8217;s why the cover art is so important in identifying what&#8217;s [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/audentity</link>
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		<title>Emergency Broadcast Network</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Joshua L. Pearson, the most visible man behind Emergency Broadcast Network, has a website. Had I known this, I would&#8217;ve stopped praying every day for a new  EBN  tape to finally be released, cause Josh has graciously offered elevenses up for download. Not familiar with  EBN ? Throughout the 90s they pioneered [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/emergency-broadcast-network</link>
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		<title>What is needed</title>
		<description><![CDATA[See how popular already youtube is on  MOG  for providing  VIDEO  content? What is really needed on  MOG  is a youtube like service for folks to easily share  AUDIO  that they&#8217;re mogging on about.
]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/what-is-needed</link>
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		<title>Hiding Underneath the Skin</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My favorite country song. Yes, my favorite country song. It is by a man named Michael Stanton. It is a cover of the song &#8220;Skin&#8221; by Oingo Boingo. This song is deeply strange (lyrics), and sounds especially weird sung by a neo-tradionalist Country singer. I would love to hear more country songs like this.
I am [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/hiding-underneath-the-skin</link>
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		<title>Re-Entry to Mog</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Astro-Sounds from Beyond the Year 2000 (1968) is a terrible album if you&#8217;re looking to hear &#8220;astro-sounds&#8221; as contemplated by a studio orchestra in 1968. Even as a lounge album it is unmemorable save for its delicious cover art and excellent track names. If you have high expectations for &#8220;A Dissapointed Love with A Desensitized [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/re-entry-to-mog</link>
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		<title>MOG mathemagicians?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I need some math/statistics help. I&#8217;m trying to figure out with some spreadsheet mojo whether math can give me an insight into who my favorite artist is. (I think I know the answer, but I&#8217;m open to being surprised by what statistics might reveal to me). If you&#8217;ve ever been interested in figuring out statistically [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/mog-mathemagicians</link>
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		<title>Sur Le Theme De Bene Gesserit</title>
		<description><![CDATA[As a follow up to my last post on the origins of ambient music and cryptic homages left to Philip K. Dick, I thought I&#8217;d write a little something something on the theme of electronic music inspired by the fantastic in general. J. Horrible had commented/questioned on whether I had read Roger Zelazny which made [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/sur-le-theme-de-bene-gesserit</link>
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		<title>Philip K. Dick and the Heavenly Music Corporation</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In Man in the High Castle (1962), Philip K. Dick&#8217;s masterpiece novel written with jos sticks about a parallel world with its own parallel Philip K. Dick, i.e., the man in the high castle. This man in the high castle, who we never meet, is a man hidden by virtue of his being the Author, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/08/philip-k-dick-and-the-heavenly-music-corporation</link>
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		<title>Gavotte</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So, like you, I&#8217;ve been loving me some embedded youtube on the MOGs of the  MOG -O-SPHERE. There&#8217;s no excuse for why I haven&#8217;t lit up my own text with video stars, it&#8217;s not like I haven&#8217;t come across some fantastic vids while researching these posts. Actually, I came across this vid (see below) [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/gavotte</link>
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		<title>Claude Bolling</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In an earlier post, I wrote about the influence of baroque on the development of progressive-electronic music (see &#8220;On the lookout for electro-baroque und beethoven&#8220;). After listening to some recommended albums by The Nice and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, I realized that I had totally forgotten to mention Claude Bolling.
Beginning in the mid-70s when all [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/claude-bolling</link>
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		<title>Respecting Provenance with Metadata</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Fontgoddess has posted twice on her affection for metadata, providing examples of how others, even librarians, are tagging their files.
I started out tagging with the quiet and devout rigour of a monk gilding the dome of the basillica, but I eventually gave up with the genre field of id3 because it felt dishonest to tag [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/respecting-provenance-with-metadata</link>
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		<title>Wherefrom come thou, Glock Frauenzimmer?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The path into spooky kitsch is littered with the shelly husks of corroded tin robots, while a soundtrack is played in  REAL STEREO  by a Regina Music Box endlessly performing from a cylinder alternately spun by the three norns of Americanum Fantasticum: Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling, and Philip K. Dick. It&#8217;s night time [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/wherefrom-come-thou-glock-frauenzimmer</link>
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		<title>Robot Musics (for Fistula Spume)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[F. Spume inquires,
I’m looking for music from the seventies that are similar to Kraftwerk. I’m a sucker for robot music/old electronic and I thought I would throw this out there. I’ve already discovered Telex, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Jean-Michel Jarre, and more recently Roberto Cacciapaglia’s Anne Steel album. I’m even down with 80’s music like Klein [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/robot-musics-for-fistula-spume</link>
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		<title>François Bayle and Laurie Spiegel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I picked up the compilation Ohm: The Early Gurus of Electronic Music from my local library a few years agoon the recommendation of a friend. I was prepared to be educated. I knew not to expect beautiful, haunting melodies as on Harold Budd and Brian Eno&#8217;s Plateaux of Mirror as I had already experimented with [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/francois-bayle-and-laurie-spiegel</link>
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		<title>Baba O&#8217;Riley and Peter Baumann</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m listening to Trans Harmonic Nights by Peter Baumann (1979) and it&#8217;s hard to miss why Tangerine Dream sounded so much better before he left that seminal electronic-space jam band in 1977. The artist knew how to sequence baroque melodies and sing lullabies into vocoders. Baumann must have been an incredible catalyst for Tangerine Dream [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/baba-oriley-and-peter-baumann</link>
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		<title>Gamelan, Xylophone, and Computer Kitsch</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I listen to the punctuated tones and hypnotic melodies of gamelan music and I begin to understand why I become so flustered when trying to describe ambient to friends (and relatives, co-workers, strangers on blogs and listserves). Ethereal, atmospheric, and drone sounds also describe elements of the ambient spectrum, and in a way sets it [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/gamelan-xylophone-and-computer-kitsch</link>
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		<title>Ggggong-go-long</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Next to a Rainbow in Curved Air by Terry Riley (1968) my most favorite album (with a rainbow in the title) is Rainbow Dome Musick by Steve Hillage (1979), a magnificent two tracks/two sides album from the Canterbury school of progressive rock. I don&#8217;t really know whether to give credit to Brian Eno for liberating [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/ggggong-go-long</link>
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		<title>Jean-Luc Ponty</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t have too much to say about the genre of new Jazz fusion other than to point out certain tracks by Jean-Luc Ponty that absolutely stand out. Check out if you can, &#8220;No More Doubts&#8221; from his otherwise unremarkable 1987 album The Gift of Time. Jean-Luc Ponty helped to popularize the electric violin playing [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/jean-luc-ponty</link>
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		<title>Music Evangelism</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I don not want these albums to be obscure, but they are. Even the ones I take for granted &#8212; by famous bands like Kraftwerk, remain unknown to so many! This is why musical evangelism is so important. Lacking magic and prophecy, we have the next best thing, perhaps the only thing: art. And we [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/music-evangelism</link>
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		<title>less quiet than you might think</title>
		<description><![CDATA[While the Leviathan has barely made a peep in the last month, I&#8217;d like to point out to interested readers and voyeurs that I&#8217;ve been blogging music related essays over at the new music site, mog.com. You can read them in all of their snarky and music-dork glory here.
]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/less-quiet-than-you-might-think</link>
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		<title>On the lookout for electro-baroque (und beethoven)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Part of the mystery of progressive rock in the 70s and early 80s were bands covering Beethoven and J.S. Bach.  Listen for example to &#8220;Beethoven&#8217;s Ninth Symphony&#8221; on Jethro Tull&#8217;s A Sackful of Trouser Snakes (1977) or &#8220;Cans and Brahms&#8221; on Fragile by Yes (1972). In prog circles, this sub-genre is often referred to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/07/on-the-lookout-for-electro-baroque-und-beethoven</link>
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		<title>from the mouth of mog</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So David Hyman, whose project we enjoy in this here website, messaged me after reading my earlier blog post. He had some corrections. See below.
I had made a point in Hyman not having mentioned last.fm or other audio based social networking sites in his explanation on the origins for his idea for mog, quoted by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/06/from-the-mouth-of-mog</link>
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		<title>Audioscrobbler Stats (for comparison)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[These are the artists I listened to last week, as recorded by Audioscrobbler/last.fm:

And these are the artists I&#8217;ve listened to the most (since 03/2003):

]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/06/audioscrobbler-stats-for-comparison</link>
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		<title>Mog and Audioscrobbler</title>
		<description><![CDATA[If you were reading boingboing.net this past week, you might have thought that Mog was the first social network site with the idea of connecting audiophiles based on their listening habits. When David Pescovitz asked David Hyman where he got the idea for Mog from, Hyman didn&#8217;t reply that his idea had already been implemented [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/06/mog-and-audioscrobbler</link>
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		<title>random things</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
is a hidden thing.
the excellent student run radio station here in Baton Rouge is KLSU. Late nights keep me sane.
there is no conquering the fleas. though they feast on me, i shall not become one of them. Or will I&#8230; ?
confession: my JITW friends have great patience listening to me wax on about leviathans and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/06/random-things</link>
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		<title>From Moineşti</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
Moineşti (pronounced MOI-nesht) is a small city in north-eastern Romania, in the Moldovan region, and in the county of Bacău. According to Wikipedia,
The name is derived from the Romanian word moină, which means fallow or light rain. Moineşti once had a large Jewish community; in Jewish contexts the name is often given as Mojnescht.

Bordering the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/05/from-moinesti</link>
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		<title>More from the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Inspired by Borges&#8217; 14 kinds of animals catalogued in “a certain Chinese encyclopedia, The Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge,&#8221; here are
14 kinds of people

those mistaken for bigfoot
those who are asleep
government workers
nameless ones
those who exist only in dreams
women with cats
seafaring ones
those who are crying that cannot be consoled
actors
dead ancestors
babies
others
cyborgs, or drivers of cars
those that are already [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/05/more-from-the-celestial-emporium-of-benevolent-knowledge</link>
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		<title>Rejoining Tetragrammaton</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Here is one more attempt at trying to explicate the mystery of Leviathan and Behemoth.  This is a work in progress, but for those among you interested in myth and esoterica and/or Judaism, you may forgive its rough edges. Writing this took me most of yesterday evening and much of the morning, a work [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/05/rejoining-tetragramaton</link>
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		<title>On the Importance of Preparation</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Truth cannot be told, but it can be pointed to.
(this is in contradiction to teachings that &#8220;Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message&#8221; (Umberto Eco in describing the cult of tradition, the first feature of ur-fascism).
Pointed to, as in, go in this direction [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/05/on-the-importance-of-preparation</link>
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		<title>Jennifer Wickboldt</title>
		<description><![CDATA[her voice
soft like honey
seeps into me
i can feel
intonations
resonating
in my ears
sweeten the
harsh world
with your
lavender voice
caressing my pen
torturing my fingers
write i must write
for you
and you
alone
Jennifer Wickboldt wrote the poem above, one of many available sprawled over old tripod user pages. Friday evening I had a long conversation with her.  Later today she is being cremated. I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/04/jennifer-wickboldt</link>
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		<title>Lost Month</title>
		<description><![CDATA[So what happened, Aharon? Death and resurrection. Of this blog. No more am I of the FEMA ESF-14 LTCR Team in Vermilion Parish. That&#8217;s all done with. Officially demobilised on March 20th along with all the other parish teams save for Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. About a month earlier, a local planner had seen [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/04/the-lost-month</link>
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		<title>Of the Red Stick</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am in Baton Rouge now, having been hired by a global megacorporation whose humble beginnings, I have learned, were in the plumbing trade, specifically, pipe manufacturing. Connections to urban and environmental planning interests, follow directly from the assimilation of firms specializing in engineering pumps, those laying labyrinthine pipeworks, and those mapping the guts and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/04/of-the-red-stick</link>
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		<title>More inspiration from broken hearts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Long ago I planted my heart in a field, the soil of which had long been fertilized with the dung of lumbering, magic creatures. I walked away with faith that upon returning years later, I&#8217;d find a heart tree, and live long succored by its precious fruit, and be nourished by a knowledge rooted deep [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/04/more-inspiration-from-broken-hearts</link>
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	<item>
		<title>There is only one L in Vermilion</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Here’s a song that my co-worker, Leslie Meyers penned with the team lead for Beauregard Parish, Richard Hendrickson (who can sing it!)
There is only one L in Vermilion 
There is only one L in Chevrolet
There is only one L in Louisiana 
And that is why people say: 
You only need one L 
            To say “I Love You”
And one [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/03/there-is-only-one-l-in-vermilion</link>
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		<title>Mardi Gras and Purim</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This year, the Jewish holiday of Purim is on March 12th, which is so close to Mardi Gras (Feb 28th), the parallels are impossible to miss. I experienced Mardi Gras in Lafayette and Kaplan, the latter, far enough into the countryside where you can still find the vestiges of some extremely old traditions in practice. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/03/mardi-gras-and-purim</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Protected Posts</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A meta-post just to explain that some posts will now be password protected. The blog is a useful space for documenting certain thoughts for my own review. I could document these offline in a handwritten journal, or in a text document on my hard drive, but I find it more usful and interesting to see [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/protected-posts</link>
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		<title>Lazy Sunday</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today I&#8217;m catching up reading all the posts from the JitW-spring06 list that I missed reading because I didn&#8217;t register until a few days before the gathering. The discussions and insights of the folks on the list touch on all of the relevant issues and reflect the sophistication and insight I respect so much in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/lazy-sunday</link>
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	<item>
		<title>NPR in Vermilion Parish</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Andria Hsu had a story in yesterday&#8217;s All Thing&#8217;s Considered on the aftermath of Hurricane Rita on Vermilion Parish. Listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5232278
]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/npr-in-vermilion-parish</link>
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	<item>
		<title>This group needs your help</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Just got forwarded a link from a contact I made in Baton Rouge about a group concerned about the welfare of animals in Vermilion Parish. As it happens, one of the National Guardsman in my team, and his wife, have long been active with the group. They need some basic things like nails, and warm [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/this-group-needs-your-help</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Slacker</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Just briefly, here are the things I meant to blog about but haven&#8217;t yet, in no satisfactory chronological order. Just got to get them down or else I&#8217;ll forget to write about them entirely. (With blog rot in the Swamp of Despair, where the waters above meet the waters below, and the great Nothing erodes [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/things-ive-been-doing-i-forgot-to-blog-about</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Long Term Community Recovery</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today I am working on the Community Baseline, as I was yesterday, and I will be tomorrow. It is the first part of the Long Term Community Recovery Plan we will be submitting the compilation of my team&#8217;s planning efforts in Vermilion Parish. I have created worksheets for the other experts in my team to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/long-term-community-recovery</link>
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	<item>
		<title>New Orleans</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have a back log of things to write about so here are my observations from my visit last Saturday (1/28) of New Orleans.
The night before, I visited Beth Shalom Synagogue in Baton Rouge, for meeting Rougey Jews and to maybe even sing L&#8217;cha Dodi and other nice songs. The synagogue is one of two [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/new-orleans</link>
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	<item>
		<title>First Day</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This will be a short post because I am exhausted.
Early this morning I left La Quinta Inn for Abbeville. The hour an a half drive brought me to work by 7:30am where I met many of my fellow workers and my supervisors. After getting set up I began what turned out to be a day [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/02/first-day</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Vermilion Parish</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I just received my deployment details. I&#8217;ll be heading to Vermilion Parish in southwestern Louisiana, a largely rural parish in the heart of Cajun country where a number of small towns (population less than 5000) were devastated. I am very excited! I&#8217;ll be staying in Abbeville (or nearby) and filling in a gap with the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/vermillion-parish</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Motel Evacuees</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve written a little about the motels I&#8217;ve been staying while waiting for my deployment, but I didn&#8217;t write up some observations that now seem rather relevant to what&#8217;s going on here in Baton Rouge related to the evacuees. The reason I haven&#8217;t, I&#8217;ll chalk up to inexperience transcribing my observations&#8230; I&#8217;m not yet well [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/motel-evacuees</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Lizards of Louisiana</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This is an image of a lizard I took scaling the wall of the Highland Coffeehouse next to LSU last Sunday (1/22/2006). Can anyone help me identify it? It&#8217;s skin was bumpy with little white bits popping up over it. Cute little critter!

]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/lizards-of-louisiana</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Baton Rouge: Sense of Place (part 1)</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Baton Rouge is a small town that hardly seems to have the urban energy expected for a state capital. A number of concerned planners, civic organizations, corporate sponsors, and urbanist oriented citizens have a vision though. And I&#8217;m appreciating their efforts. Firstly, there are obvious attempts to raise awareness of the distinctive urban character of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/exploring-the-baton-rouge-levee-walk</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Checkout to nowhere</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday morning, I finally received the call that my background check came through. Just in time, I thought, since my one week reservation at Motel 6 was coming to an end. So in a reprise of my recent nomadic exertions in DC, late last evening I repacked my belongings into my rental car, and in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/checkout-to-nowhere</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Motel 6</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Fifty years ago Airline Highway was likely a very pleasant country road. No longer. I don&#8217;t have any pictures of it for you (maybe in an upcoming post) but I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ve seen it before. It&#8217;s a sprawling commercial strip like any other. Every few years they expand the intersections to add another few feet [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/motel-6</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Jews in the Bayou</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Fruity Jews in the Woods, or just plains Jews in the Woods, is the name of a community which is getting larger, that meets and organizes collectively over the internet via a listserve and wiki, and gathers together once or twice a year for Shabbat at a rural retreat of some sort. The values of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/jews-in-the-bayou</link>
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	<item>
		<title>Baton Rouge</title>
		<description><![CDATA[After a three hour flight from DC, I&#8217;m in Baton Rouge. Allan drove me to the airport, once again helping me to appreciate what a wonderful and reliable friend he is. I spent the morning trying to tease out my anxieties from my past memories and to focus on the good I can do, but [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/baton-rouge</link>
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		<title>Last night with friends</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There is a peace here in Paul&#8217;s hamishe home on Harvard (just a few doors up the street from where I used to live). I&#8217;m sharing the couch with Emma, a small black and white chihuahua-like dog with big eyes and big ears, and incontinence. She managed to nest in my pillow before I had [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/last-night-with-friends</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Tomorrow is today</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s 1:00am and my mind is spinning with all the things I need to accomplish before Wednesday:

clear out of my room
move my stuff into storage
determine what to bring with me to Louisiana
book a flight
show my room to prospective tenants
buy some luggage, say goodbye to friends
sign paperwork
and maybe buy an ev-do cellular data card, and a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/hello-world</link>
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	<item>
		<title>On Swedenbrogianism in Bond Hill</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the more interesting hypotheses in my book I felt was that Bond Hill&#8217;s first church was trans-denominational, or perhaps even Swedenborgian, reflecting the progressive spiritual framework of Henry Watkin&#8217;s family. The degree to which Watkin was a Swedenborgian hasn&#8217;t been fully established. We know that Watkin&#8217;s father-in-law Henry Fry was a committed Swedenborgian [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2006/01/on-swedenbrogianism-in-bond-hill</link>
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	<item>
		<title>A few updates&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The new edition of Bond Hill: Origin and Transformation&#8230; contains a few new findings. Robert Wimberg corrected an error of mine, where I had confused the Old Mens and Womens Home (aka the Old Folks Home) with the Altenheim (aka the German Old Mens Home). I really appreciate it when readers take the time to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2005/11/a-few-updates</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Latest edition featuring new findings</title>
		<description><![CDATA[By the end of the summer my interest in publishing with Arcadia slacked. The editors were great to work with but Arcadia was very interested in publishing the book with original scans of images of old Bond Hill photographs. Unfortunately those photographs may no longer exist. The images of buildings and streetscapes in Bond Hill: [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2005/09/latest-edition-featuring-new-findings</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Arcadia Publishing to pick up Bond Hill</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Self-Publishing Bond Hill with on-demand printer lulu.com has been great but I haven&#8217;t been as inclined or motivated to self-promotion as I might have been only a few years ago. So the idea of finding a publisher to pick up my book to promote and distribute seemed like a great idea. Good thing for local [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2005/05/arcadia-publishing-to-pick-up-bond-hill</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Updated Title Wording: Railroad Suburb, not Metro-Suburb</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve updated the title of the book. I&#8217;ve relaced the ambiguous term, Metro-Suburb with the more historically accurate term Railroad Suburb. I&#8217;ve also created a barcode for my ISBN for bookstores that only carry books with barcodes (for trackng sales at the counter). Also, an actual publisher looks to be interested in my history of [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2005/03/updated-title-wording-railroad-suburb-not-metro-suburb</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>On Names</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A close friend of mine has a popular name. She struggles to identify herself, to take strength in her unique being, and she is defied by her name: she is one of millions with this name. The galactic central planning committee gathers to converse and meditate on this problem for a thousand years. One venerable [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/11/flourescent-thoughts-2</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Bond Hill Planning History Presentation</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last weekend (the weekend before Thanksgiving) I returned to Cincinnati to give a presentation of my research findings to the community at the Bond Hill branch of the Public Library. About 25 people came to hear my talk and to ask questions. One woman even bought a copy of my book! Thrilling. Hopefully, I&#8217;ll be [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/11/bond-hill-planning-history-presentation</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Orphaned Expectations</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the drawbacks of a curious and imaginative mind is that you&#8217;re constantly thinking that the places you visit and the people you meet will defy your expectations. I have been living in DC for three weeks now, just enough time to have made the acquaintance of some of the people I share my [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/11/orphaned-expectations</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>On Nudity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Interrobang‽ is in Cincinnati where Aharon has volunteered to give a presentation of his masters thesis research to the good people who show up at the Bond Hill Branch Library. &#8220;What will I tell them‽&#8221; asks Aharon while he procrastinates by interrobanging his head against the wall of his old bedroom. So much anxiety. But [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/11/on-nudity</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>A Story of a Fly</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Once upon a time there was a fly, big and hairy as some flies are. He was born in a city nearby a large river in Mesopotamia. There the young fly ate the flesh of a corpse until he was no longer a squirming maggot and had to find a bride to birth a new [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/11/a-story-of-a-fly</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Working</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Well, I&#8217;ve made it. I&#8217;m now living in DC having found a nice internship at the Trust for Public Land, a national non-profit specializing in helping communities create parks and trails. I&#8217;m working directly with Peter Harnik who helped to found the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, very exciting. And, get this, I found a place to live [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/10/working</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Washington, DC</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I am in DC, surviving on the generosity of friends and a dwindling bank account as I look for work in our nation&#8217;s capital. Ideally, I&#8217;ll find something in trail advocacy or historical and environmental preservation (perhaps all three!). So far my interviews have been wonderful and the planners I&#8217;ve met here, exceptional.
Dr. Tanaka is [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/09/washington-dc</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Lafcadio Hearn Memorial Conference</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Since first getting this printed on lulu.com I&#8217;ve met some incredible people interested in this research. One such person is Dr. Kinji Tanaka of the Japan Research Center of Greater Cincinnati. Dr. Tanaka has long been interested in Lafcadio Hearn and by extension, Henry Watkin, Lafcadio Hearn&#8217;s mentor (and founder of Bond Hill). I am [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/09/lafcadio-hearn-memorial-conference</link>
			</item>
	<item>
		<title>Post SOP Life</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Having graduated from planning school this past Spring (2004), over the Summer I&#8217;ve been cleaning up my thesis and looking for work. As for the former, you can purchase the fruit of my labors here. (If you prefer to read the 230 page fully-formatted 27mb pdf, then please do so at: http://lulu.com/cdi). As to the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://aharon.varady.net/omphalos/2004/08/post-sop-life</link>
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