25 December 2022

Attending my 6th AJS Conference, AJS 2022

It was great connecting with fellow rabbis over beers Sunday evening
I was in the fortunate position to attend the 54th conference of the Association for Jewish Studies (AJS) last week, which was my 6th time attending this conference. I am appreciative to the my work for both allowing me to attend, as well as to pay for this professional development opportunity.* As this conference always is for me, it was reinvigorating, inspiring, intellectually stimulating, and an opportunity to learn new vocabulary.

Highlights

For me, in addition to re-connecting with people, as well as meeting new people, highlights of the papers I heard were the following:

Rabbi Dr. Shlomo Zuckier delivering his paper
  • The rabbis took the term גבר as a man in the Bible and made it a rooster in Mishnaic Hebrew - Roni Shweka, part of his fascinating paper, “'Torah scholars who are similar to women, but act mightily like men': Once again on construction of rabbinic masculinity"
  • Chaya Halberstam mentioned in a response to a question that even though it seems Rabbinic Literature studies are a bit behind involving new methodologies, they are also WAY ahead of most other fields of studies of late antiquity (*cough* Josephus studies *cough*)
  • While Tannaim and early amoraim discuss הלכה למעשה or not, later amoraim understand הלכה as always actionable, said Shlomo Zuckier, as part of his summary of his "Halakhah, Ma'aseh, Precedent, and Analogy: A Talmudic Reading" paper. This, to some degree, follows up from his 2016 AJS paper.
  • Yael Landman suggested considering "halakhicization" as a term, rather than "halakhah" as a fixed notion
  • Yonatan Brafman pointed out is that halakhists are not often considered by those who consider modern Jewish philosophy, even though they engage in it - their language is not composed in the way of philosophy, even if they are doing it. He also pointed out that a lot of folks who discuss "halakhah" as "The Law" in the 19th and 20th centuries often use it in a negative and backward sense.
  • Shulamit Shinnar observed that illness is a form of temporary handicapping and it can adversely affect the way one views future possibilities of their life.
  • Aaron Adler pointed out that Rambam wrote Mishneh Torah from ages 23-30 and he went through religious changes, which is reflected in changing his mind up until its publishing in 1138, thus not contradictions - he changed his mind, as part of his "Early Mishneh Torah Editions and Rabad's Glosses" paper.

Sophia Schmitt delivering her paper

A few other papers I wanted to note as being quite interesting to me:

  • "A New Theory for the Origin and Function of the Kaddish" by Reuven Kimelman
  • "We Didn’t Start the Fire: Preventing Fire Disaster in Jewish and Christians Neighborhoods of Medieval Ashkenaz" by Sophia Schmitt
  • "Code-Switching: Refining our Understanding of Greek and Latin in Rabbinic Literature" by Daniel Golde

One other paper I missed, but heard a few people singing its praises was "Bringing the Bible to Babylonia: The Bavli's Infusion of the Mesopotamian landscape with Biblical narratives" by Omer Shadmi.

Meeting up with Rabbi Charlie Schwartz at Lehrhaus

Not Seeking Completionism
One of the typical practices I engage in at previous AJS conferences has been to seek to attend every single panel session offered, which includes the final session, although I know a lot of people have already departed or they have flights to catch. While I attended every single session on the first day of the conference, for the final day of the conference, I could only attend one of the two, as I had a plane to catch for the second one (if I were to have attended that final session, I would not have gotten home until late). As far as the middle day, I skipped out on the first one to go visit Lehrhaus to check out the space, as well as to record an episode of The Jewish Drinking Show, which will be very exciting when it publishes next month. And there was an afternoon session on Monday that none of the panels seemed particularly interesting to me, so I decided to use that time to visit the book floor as well as to chat with various folks, which ended up being quite a good opportunity to use at that time.

Enjoying kosher wine at the welcome reception

On The Lookout for Drinking Content
As there were a couple of papers delivered at last year's AJS concerning drinking content, especially within rabbinic texts, one of whom I was able to feature on as a guest for The Jewish Drinking Show (the other one declined as she was not used to podcasting), I was curious and open to see what would be shared. While there had been a drinking text mentioned in the course of one of the papers I heard, actually, there was one paper that had nothing in the title to do with drinking, yet it was chock-full of Talmudic drinking texts, all of which were entirely new to me if they came from the Palestinian Talmud. In Prof. Shulamit Shinnar's "The Animalization of Illness in Rabbinic Literature: Models of Illness and Rabbinic Subjectivity", she discussed a whole bunch of incidences of people drinking wine and what would happen in their exposure to potential venomization (see here for the front side of her source sheet and see here for the back side of her source sheet). This was particularly fascinating to me and I look forward to see if that ever gets published or what she wants to do with that material, but that was particularly exciting as I was not expecting a drinking paper there, but it was all about Talmudic drinking texts.

Souvenir from the Schnitzer Book Awards Dinner

Meals
A wonderful opportunity was made available for the first evening of the conference: attending the Jordan Schnitzer Book Awards Reception and Dinner Sunday night only required signing up ahead of time and costing no money. Wow! It was an incredible gift that I made sure to take advantage of. In addition to drinks beforehand, they also offered wine during the meal and the food was incredibly delicious. I also had a brand new culinary experience for me: having lox on top of a latke - it was such an incredible delightful experience. Additionally, the book awards allowed us to take home the winning books of the award, so I made sure to pick up Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism by Sarit Kattan Gribetz, about which I am very excited to read, as I know she is an incredible scholar. I also had wonderful conversations over that dinner table and meeting people and that was such an incredible experience.

For Monday dinner, I met up with a friend for a delicious Chinese dinner at The Kosher Wok. For lunches on Sunday and Monday, there was an incredible opportunity for those who keep kosher as AJS conferences are typically not located near anywhere that is under kosher certification, but this was a phenomenal opportunity, as there was a local kosher-certified restaurant that was not only close by, but one did not even have to go outside in the mid-December Boston weather to reach and it was a very delectable food, so that was quite felicitous. Also, while I did not take advantage of this for Sunday lunchtime, I did for Monday lunch which was pre-ordering the food on their app and it being ready as soon as I left my conference session, so that was also wonderful.

It was wonderful meeting Prof. Henry Abramson

Minyanim
Although having minyanim for prayer was useful for praying amongst others, I also found it to be an opportune space to either re-connect with people, as well as to meet people for the very first time. This was especially so, since Orthodox Jews are a minority at AJS, so it's an easy way of connecting with people, as there are not so many at these minyanim. 

Hallel was quick and efficient

I did get to meet Prof. Henry Abramson, which was wonderful, as well as meeting others who might be potential guests of The Jewish Drinking Show. One further note: as both mornings of AJS were Hanukah, that meant including Hallel - if you want to know how academics do Hallel, it's straightforward with no singing; I actually greatly appreciated that😉

I was surprised to see signs requesting always masking

Masking
As most of the country has moved away from masking this year, I assumed there would be no expectation of masking at AJS 2022. However, as I pointed out prior to the conference, the conference website requested people wear masks: "We ask conference attendees to wear masks, fully covering their noses and mouths, when in the AJS convention spaces, unless actively eating, drinking, or presenting in a session. We will have masks available at the registration desk. Please know that neither the Sheraton nor the city of Boston has a mask mandate, so other hotel guests may not be wearing masks." This was some weak wording and I expected similar messaging. 

I ended up wearing masks during the sessions

However, when I arrived at the conference, I was surprised to encounter signs that were actually strongly recommending people always mask unless eating, drinking, or delivering a paper. This communication was not well done, creating some weird ambivalence. While I knew attendees who adamantly refused to ever wear a mask there, I at least decided, out of a sense of courtesy, to mask while in sessions when people were delivering papers, but I did not mask outside of the sessions. Yes, this is drastically different than last year's conference where there was a mandate in place even for those delivering papers and that was understandable at the time, especially with the rise of Omicron, but this year's conference was much different and a lot of us were not used to having to wear masks anymore. We shall see what happens with masking for AJS 2023 in San Francisco....
 

Submitting a Paper Proposal?
One question I have received every single time I attend is "Are you delivering a paper?" While it was flattering my first two appearances, it has begun to grow on me. Attending last year's conference, I got an idea in my idea for a paper to submit, although I did not pull the trigger to submit a proposal for it this year. However, both in the weeks leading up to this year's conference, as well as at the conference, I received a lot of encouragement to deliver a paper, in general, as well as for the topic I have in mind, in particular. However, a further piece of advice I had never previously considered, but heard from a handful of people is to put a panel together, which makes the chances of getting the paper proposal accepted a lot higher. So, I am currently working on seeking out a panel to put together to submit along with my paper proposal.


Conference Guidebook
Perhaps due to what happened at last year's AJS with so many sessions being reshuffled or outright cancelled, causing everyone to stay updated by looking at the conference app, the conference program books contained no information about any of the schedule nor any program content. Instead, the book contained select information about the conference, as well as exclusive advertisements, offers, and opportunities from conference sponsors and exhibitors.This was useful in that I ripped out the pages with the hotel map and got rid of the rest of the guidebook, following the conference program in the app. Again, while I do not know if last year's events directly caused this change, it's my speculation. I am totally fine with this change as I largely used the conference app in previous years anyway. I wonder what the older conferencegoers must have thought of this change.

Tweet Threads of Panel Sessions I Attended

Sunday 18 December 2022

Monday 19 December 2022

Tuesday 20 December 2022

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* I am thankful to my current employer, Majestic Care of Cedar Village, for allowing me to attend, as well as Jewish Home of Cincinnati for funding this professional development opportunity.

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14 December 2022

Looking Forward to Attending AJS 2022 Next Week!

I'm once again looking forward to attending this year's Association of Jewish Studies (AJS) conference! This year's conference, the 54th annual conference, will be my sixth time attending.

After having attended in 2008 and 2009, this will be my fourth AJS conference out of the past six conferences (having attended in 2016, 2018, and 2021).

Just as with attending last year's AJS conference, I am grateful to my employers for permitting and funding my attendance as professional development. In addition to it providing me with intellectual stimulation, it also provides some fascinating fodder for me to bring back to the residents of the senior living facility where I work. In fact, last year, I spoke about highlights of papers I heard; I plan to do similarly this year.

While I enjoyed the intimacy of last year's conference, as many people either decided not to attend in the first place, or decided not to attend in the weeks leading up to the conference (seriously, it was a really fascinatingly small conference-size, allowing a greater opportunity to connect with conference attendees), I hope we do not have another experience of panels collapsing and people presenting papers scrambling to re-assemble a new panel with whomever was left. That was unfortunate and caused people to have to check for updates online for each set of panels.

One thing that will be interesting will be with regards to face masks. While face masks were expected to be worn at all panels and any official conference program (but not in the hotel bar or while eating or drinking), which made sense, as the new variant, Omicron, was on its rise, it will be interesting to see what happens at this year's conference. Fortunately, according to communications sent out by AJS last year, there were no reported cases of COVID-19 following the 2021 conference, which is great news. However, how will people behave at the 2022 conference? A lot of people are over wearing face masks. Nevertheless, the conference website requests people wear masks: "We ask conference attendees to wear masks, fully covering their noses and mouths, when in the AJS convention spaces, unless actively eating, drinking, or presenting in a session. We will have masks available at the registration desk. Please know that neither the Sheraton nor the city of Boston has a mask mandate, so other hotel guests may not be wearing masks." This should prove interesting, as I suspect that a lot of people will wear masks, while many, many others will not.

In any event, I am greatly looking forward to the conference starting in just four days for the intellectual stimulation, new ideas, re-connecting with people I have known for years, and for connecting with people I will be newly be meeting. I'm excited!

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22 August 2022

Experiencing Asheville's Breweries

barrel-aged beers at Burial Beer
A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I went away to Asheville to celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. Fortunately, she allowed me to visit some breweries in the afternoons/evenings of our few days there.

While you are welcome to read on about my beer experiences, I will share with you that the two breweries that really stood out to me were Burial Beer and DSSOLVR. Three other breweries that were outstanding were Bhramari Brewing, Wicked Weed, and Hi-Wire.

If you're interested, here is further information about my experiences visiting brewery taprooms in Asheville:

Day One: As we arrived to Asheville, I figured it would be easier to visit some breweries not in walking distance to our hotel first. As such, our first beer stop was New Belgium’s Asheville location. While New Belgium’s primary facility is in Colorado, this is their eastern US facility. It has a nice space with an outdoor area, overlooking a river. I ordered a flight of sour beers:

  • Le Terroir Grand Reserve (dry-hopped green Walnut lambic sour) = tasty and intriguingly earthy (like asiago cheese)
  • Dominga (mimosa sour) = clean, refreshing, palate cleanser
  • La Folie (sour brown ale) = fine
  • Adding Corners Three Chambers Rye (sour ale with abruzzi rye and licorice root) = very tasty with chocolatey/coffee notes and some dryness, as well as some earthiness
    sour flight at New Belgium

We then moved on to Cellarest, where they offer neither tastes nor flights. Nice little tap room with open air patio and also indoors with open garage doors with fresh air filtering in. I enjoyed their Enkindle (ruby saison) with notes of cherrywood and smoked black tea - tasty!

After settling into our hotel, we went out to DSSOLVR, where I ordered two IPAs:

  • Eternal Mourning: Citra, which is a funky foeder-aged IPA with simcoe, amarillo, crystal, and citra hops that had Brettanomyces in it - it was pleasantly funky. 
  • Ghosted in the Juicy, a double dry-hopped IPA with huell melon, azzacca, citra cryo, mosaic lupomax and phantasm cryo blend hops - this was really, really tasty with a thick mouthfeel - this was really good.

Day Two: Having enjoyed my visit to the San Diego location of White Labs seven years ago, I was intrigued to kick off my brewery visits for day two at the Asheville location of White Labs, where I got a flight:

  • Tropical IPA with WLP001 California Ale Yeast - Supplied tasting notes: dragon fruit, dank. My favorite of the flight - I like the fruitiness and the dankness.
  • Tropical IPA with WLP077 Tropicale Yeast Blend - Supplied tasting notes: passion fruit, peach, vanilla - Easy-drinking. 
  • Triple Hop Hazy IPA with WLP007 Dry English Ale Yeast - Supplied tasting notes: pineapple, mango, orange blossom - Definitely dry with hop resin.
  • Triple Hop Hazy IPA with WLP090 San Diego Super Ale Yeast - Supplied tasting notes: dried apricot, strawberry, mint - Eh okay.

Hoppy IPA Day flight at Wicked Weed

I knew I needed to visit Wicked Weed, since people rave about them (yes, I know they’re an ABI brewery, but had to visit); I got the Hoppy IPA Day flight, where they don’t allow you to make your own flights; only set flights:

  • Pernicious IPA: Tropical mango hop aroma, dry finish
  • Coastal Love hazy IPA: Pineapple citrus and tropical fruit notes, semi-dry finish. Relaxing and dank
  • Perni-Haze hazy IPA: Citra and Simcoe. Citra-y pleasingly lately dank - my favorite of the IPAs in this flight
  • Freak of Nature DIPA: Big pine grapefruit peel and dank hop aromas. Clearly, my favorite overall of this flight

Following the flight, I also ordered a half-pint of Valkyrie DIPA - fermented with kveik yeast and dry hopped with Citra, El Dorado, and Idaho 7 - citrussy, hazy, sharp (my wife says that it tastes like cleaning supplies).

We then moved on to Burial Beer Brewery; they do not do flights, but I got a couple of half-pints:

  • A Collection of Idiocy From A Top Notch Moron (DIPA double dry-hopped with Strata, Motueka, Simcoe, and El Dorado, finished with lots of Cryo) - Juicy and dank🍺😃
  • Not A Thing Left To Say (TIPA triple saturated with Citra incognito, Cryo and pellets. Double dry-hopped with Citra, Cashmere and Riwaka) - Really delicious and juicy; nectarines and Dank 🍺😃

We moved on to Wicked Weed's Funkatorium Brewery, where I ordered their limited release flight:

  • Marina - Peaches and apricots: Nicely tart
  • Mirtelo Morte - Barrel aged golden sour with blueberries
  • La Mure Morte - Barrel aged sour fermented with blackberries: Solid
  • Cerise Morte - Barrel aged American sour fermented with cherries: Refreshingly cherry-licious

Orville and Wilbur's Awesome Adventure Flight at Bhramari Brewing
Day Three: We kicked-off day three at Bhramari Brewing Company, where the only flights one can order are one of three - a sour flight, an IPA flight and a miscellaneous flight. I went with the miscellaneous flight, entitled Orville and Wilbur's Awesome Adventure:

  • Haunted Graffiti - DDH Multi-Grain Farmhouse - Grains: Barley, Rye, Oats, Spelt, Millet, Wheat, Corn, Sunflower, Sorghum, and Buckwheat; Hops: cryo Citra, cryo mosaic, cryo eukanot: Very bright up front with citrusy juiciness early on in the palate and then goes dry towards the finish
  • Cubism Dream  - BBA German pilsner: This is a really fun beer as the barrel provided some fun to this beverage, maybe some vanilla maybe some butterscotch. Definitely my first-ever bourbon barrel-aged pilsner!
  • Phantom Syren - Leichtbier: It's basically a light lager - okay
  • Perfectly Imperfect - Rauchbier urbock: A very clean and easy-drinking rauchbier 

This was certainly an interesting array of flavors!

We then stopped at Twin Leaf Brewery, where I had a half-pour of Fleurs de Soleil, a farmhouse ale with black tea and honey - it was decent. We then went to Eurisko Beer, where they also don't serve flights, so I got two half-pours: 

  • Under the Sycamore Trees, which is a saison with lemongrass and cucumber. It is a collaboration with Petty Thieves Brewing Company. Nice and clean.
  • He left Us, a hazy IPA with Galaxy, Sabro, and Chinook hops, which is pleasant and enjoyable - solid for the style.

We then returned to Burial Brewing, where I ordered a couple of barrel-aged beers:

  • The Garden of Earthly Delights (5% ABV) - Barrel-aged golden sour aged on rhubarb, ginger, orange zest, rose hip, dark fig, and chamomile: This was quite herbal! Pretty clean
  • Please Rescue Me From My Own Ignorant Barrage of Non-sequitur - Imperial Stout with decaffeinated coffee, macadamia nuts, vanilla, cinnamon, and maple syrup (14% ABV): incredibly tasty and strikingly smooth! I love the smooth coffee flavors! This was my favorite beer of the trip!

We walked over to

Surprisingly good flight at Hi-Wire Brewing
Thirsty Monk Brewery, where I ordered a tripel, which was okay, but an incredibly forgettable tripel…. 

Then we went over to one of the locations of Hi-Wire, where I ordered a flight:

  • Super Haze - hazy IPA: Pleasant, light hazy IPA - appropriate for warmer weather
  • Simple Brett: Simple, bretty, and light - easy-drinking for the summer. I actually think this is an incredibly appropriate use of brett
  • 9th Anniversary Bulleit BBA amber lager: Intriguing: I have never had an amber lager aged in bourbon barrels before - it has a lot of sweetness
  • Puncheon-aged Brett: Intensely tart for a brett beer 

Admittedly, I had low expectations for Hi-Wire, but it was really quite good!

Delicious beers at DSSOLVR
We then returned to DSSOLVR for the 7th and final brewery of the day. Even though I had visited two nights prior, I knew that I wanted to return because the beers were so incredibly delicious. This time I ordered heavier beers:

  • Psycho Sigmund's Viennawine (11.5% ABV) - a Vienna malt-based barleywine style ale: Very sweet - almost like a bubble gum quality of the sweetness. Of course, there's also incredible dark fruits such as dates or raisins. While I would prefer this to be aged in bourbon barrels, as it has some youthfulness to it, it is still tasty.
  • Absolutely Aliens 30-month barrel aged Mexican imperial Stout (12% ABV) aged 30 months in Bourbon barrels with poblano pepper, cinnamon, vanilla, and cocoa nibs: Very delicious chocolate and vanilla notes. Cannot really taste the peppers. Wonderful smoothness to the mouthfeel.

It was a tasty trip that was accompanied by warm weather that had some rain mixed in, but not too hot of a weather. It turned out to be a lovely time to go, especially as the town was not particularly crowded. Furthermore, one thing that is nice about Asheville is that it is fairly walkable. When we needed, we could get our car and drive outside of the downtown, but there is a lot that one can do

 

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10 January 2022

Fascinating Audio Content by Rabbi Irwin Kula

In recent months, I have noticed that I have been referencing some of Rabbi Irwin Kula’s ideas to other rabbis. Specifically, audio recordings of Rabbi Kula, whether on podcasts or elsewhere. As such, since it is becoming so frequent, I have decided to collect a handful of these and share them, as I have found them to be very valuable and I hope others find tremendous value in them, as well.

I will note that Rabbi Kula can talk a bit saltily, so I just wanted to put that warning out there. Nevertheless, the richness and freshness of his ideas are very rewarding, even if (or perhaps, because of) being so against the grain that one may typically encounter in regular organized Jewish life.

The first of these talks was his “Texts Without Borders”, which was delivered on November 8, 2011 at the first session of the third cohort of the Rabbis Without Borders Fellowship, which had been recorded by Clal and posted on their website. While I cannot seem to find the recording on their website now, the recording is what I had downloaded from their website and am sharing with you. While I had been in the room for this recording as I was part of this cohort of the fellowship (and you can hear my laugh at certain points), I have returned to listen to this talk on multiple occasions, as it is lively, invigorating, and fresh content, especially for rabbis.

I recently chanced upon a couple of episodes of Judaism Unbound, the first of which is good, while the second one is great:

And here are two further podcast episodes that feature him:

I hope you enjoy this audio content and if you have any further audio or video content of Rabbi Kula you would like to recommend, please feel free to share with me🙂

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03 January 2022

Launching "What's New with Drew?" Series

Since I get asked frequently, "What's new?", I realize I don't share enough about my life and what's going on with me online. Therefore, I have been inspired to share what's been going on for me, both personally, as well as professionally. (Not only will it help others gain a sense of what I am doing, but it also helps me consider what is going on in my life.) While I do not know if this will be a weekly share, or if it will be multiple times a week, I imagine I will be experimenting with this format. While this will be available on this website, I will also be sharing it on my Substack (for instance, this post is also available here).

Personal:


Professional:

Senior Living Facility:

Jewish Drinking:


Other Links of Interest:

 

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30 December 2021

2021: My Biggest Year of Podcasting

2021 was my biggest year of podcasting yet. This was likely due to the pandemic.

Granted, 2020 was a big year for podcasting, in general, and for me also, especially since 2020 marked the first full year of running my own podcast, which I had begun in the fall of 2019. What I think marks 2021 differently than 2020 is also appearing on more podcasts others published. The most numerous of these are my appearance on a podcast about the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), although I appeared on others, as well.

Of the 48 podcast appearances on which I appeared in 2021, 31 of these were for my own podcast, The Jewish Drinking Show. While this was fewer than the 44 episodes I published in 2020, if one combines all of my appearances on podcasts, it still felt like more than 2020. 

In 2021, I appeared ten times on an MCU podcast

Having mentioned my ten appearances on an MCU podcast, it was largely driven by all of the new Marvel shows that are that have been coming out in Disney Plus, which has been really exciting and has really driven my fandom this year, vastly far surpassing my interest in Star Wars. My interest in Star Wars in recent years has been waning, in general, and certainly in comparison to the MCU. Although I did appear on a few Star Wars podcasts, it wasn't at the same level. 

I appeared a couple of times on Let There be Light

In the Jewish realm, I appeared on the American Israelite's podcast a couple of times in-studio as a sort of rabbi-in-residence for the podcast, Let There be Light. I also appeared on a couple of other podcasts, primarily to promote The Jewish Drinking Show. 

One other thing that also upped my podcasting game this year was getting a proper microphone for such endeavors. I was able to get this after someone had gifted me an Amazon gift card for a video-editing project that I did and I very much appreciated that token of their appreciation, which was just enough to get a Blue yeti microphone, which definitely elevated my audio quality for podcasting, whether appearing as a guest or for hosting.

Here is a listing of my podcast appearances in 2021:

Star Wars Podcasting:

MCU Podcasting:

Jewish Podcasting:

The Jewish Drinking Show (in reverse chronological order):

 

 


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