Just got back from the swanky new Jewcy office where I happened to mention that I'm going to the Limmud convention in England over Xmas break. Tahl The Editor got excited and asked if I could blog it, upon which *I* got excited, because I'm supposed to speak at a dozen or so sessions and haven't actually thought of anything to say at any of them.
As a point of fact, I'm not entirely clear on what Limmud is. This is what I do know: Limmud is the Hebrew word for learning, and the weeklong conference has featured sessions with Nobel-contending authors, the director of Tiny Ninja Theater, my rabbi from yeshiva who teaches mysticism in the Talmud, and the odd Hasidic performance poet who writes about supermodels and kung-fu (me).
I've heard the raves from past participants. Y-Love, who'll be there, has warned me to prepare to have my mind blown. Right now, I'm mostly scared — scared that I won't finish my collaborative play about Rebbe Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev, scared that I'll stuff up talking about sacred porn in the Song of Songs. But I'm excited.
What I'm most looking forward to, I need to tell you, is the conversations. Insomniac walks through the dorms at night, bumping into holy heretics and brilliant nuts, thinkers who could change the world (and who are). A.B. Yehoshua never replied when I asked if he wanted to do storytelling together. But even he's got to sit next to somebody at dinner every night.