I didn’t make the rules of the game, I just play by them. And the ability to flirt with men, (especially accomplished men which often means especially older men), is a networking tool just as useful as Linked-in. We live in tough times. Using every tool at our disposal to get ahead separates the wheat from chaff in competitive industries. Who really wins if the girls who choose to take the high road and never engage in this type of flirting end up without the careers they wanted?
When you work in a business that relies heavily on networking, single girls have an advantage. Like it or not, a man will treat you differently if he knows you’re “single.” In Hollywood, that’s currency and to not trade on it, is simply a wasted opportunity.
An older single male Director friend of mine took me to a movie screening this week. I enjoy his company and it’s completely plutonic and comfortable and not really that flirtatious.
Greg Leake emails me: Hi Luke,
You know, my friend, since from the point of view of Tamara’s chronological age we would both be considered older men, I guess this offers us some hope. I would be delighted to have Tamara flirt with me for such concessions as I felt were mine to bestow.
On the other hand, one would not wish to lose sight of the idea that naked opportunism and manipulation are not virtues. It occurs to me that people envisioning Tamra for a prospective frummie lifestyle are hoping in vain. And of course it does dampen the possibilities for marriage inasmuch as a girl’s mode of behavior is not likely to change in every aspect simply because she puts on the ring. And so if I were a prospective husband I would be concerned that Tamara’s enchanting, flirtatious ways were being plied on some other man while I was down at the plant busting my ass. Of course this all takes place in Hollywood. And it is possible that that alone makes all the difference.
I followed your posts on Lara Logan, and my supposition is that her capture and subsequent mistreatment were done in retaliation, as they had already jailed her and kicked her out of the country on another occasion. My suspicion is that the police felt that she had been amply forewarned that they did not want her in the country. Therefore when she returned they felt it was a slap in the face. The dynamics of her rescue all smack of intentional orchestration.
I found your post from the Seforim blog to be scintillating in its speculation. Obviously, a very scholarly and thoughtful post. I wonder if a knowledge of the Kaballah would have suggested that creation from the point of view of Kaballistic exigesis suggests both eternity and a beginning.
The three veils of negative existence eventually become so attenuated that the last veil opens onto an existence literally without properties or distinctive characteristics beyond the capacity of language to define. (Probably a high level of cognition about conciousness without an object.) And here, of course, we have a ground of eternity, inasmuch as eternity doesn’t mean simply a long time, but literally without beginning or end.
However, creation could be seen to begin in Kether. Perhaps one could call it the beginning of positive existence. The transition having been made through the virtue of Ain Sophie Aur (the Limitless Light) into a grace of experience (please excuse the Christian word) that can at least be considered in reference and allegory by the human mind. And therefore a “beginning” that could be seen as a reference to Biblical origin.
I read all 3 of the essays that Rabbs provided me with, and I must say that I do have some understanding and some sympathy for Rabbs’s situation. My suggestion would be for Rabbs to take occasional mini-vacations from ethnicity. Not the practice of Judaism, but simply ethnicity. On occasional, less-important holidays, rather than toughing it out in his apartment, simply lose the head gear, put on a pair of Levis and a sports shirt, drive to a sports bar in a part of the city that is comfortable, and spend all night having a few beers and watching a game. G-d is not going to condemn anyone for dropping the ball occasionally, and Rabbs needs some release from the constraints of his lifestyle.
