My friend Jaryn has another new kitty angel.
Author: erin
Erin Vang, PMP, BMus, MMus, is Owner and Principal Pragmatist of the consultancy Global Pragmatica LLC®, offering custom JMP scripting, localization program management, and facilitative leadership services. She is also an orchestral horn player who freelanced in the San Francisco Bay Area and played assorted brass for the celebrated dance bands Midnight Smørgåsbord and contraPtion. She now conducts all her nefarious activities from Vanghalla, in Helena, Montana, where she's principal hornist of the Helena Symphony. More about Erin…
daily kaddish: for qaddafi’s son, et al
NATO airstrikes killed Qaddafi’s son and three grandchildren on Saturday night. I find the rebels’ stance (stances—let’s be realistic) compelling, but it’s not clear to me that Qaddafi’s dictatorship is the worst thing Libya has known.
What is clear to me is that there’s an awful lot of dying going on, and I don’t hear any music in that.
daily kaddish: Osama Bin Laden
Mira’s Kaddish for Osama Bin Laden is an example of why I’m so proud to be her collaborator. With her words echoing in my brain, and her “bismilleh” Kaddish text echoing in my headphones, I attempted to play a Kaddish for this whole sorry scene. I don’t think it’s coincidental that I was hitting clams and playing notes out of tune the whole way through.
daily kaddish: other kinds of loss
We grieve all kinds of losses that have causes other than death—people move away, break up, have fallings out, become senile, descend into mental illness, become incapacitated by injury or illness, and on and on. Some of these are perhaps harder than death itself.
daily kaddish: for zila’s brother
[powerpress] Zila’s brother was shot while sitting out in front of his house—gunned down, no apparent reason. Zila’s family can’t attend the funeral because it’s too dangerous to go there, to Mexico—or is it Guatemala? It hardly matters; the story could be true in either place, or in just about any US city, for that…
another kiddish for our kaddish
Mira, your writing and thinking and worldview blow me away on a regular, delightful basis. This is me saying in front of God and everybody what an honor it is to be your collaborator.
daily kaddish: for Jewel Cannon Wells Goodner Rymer
A kaddish for this woman who appreciated the humanity of the royals, and may Wills and Kate live out the happiness that eluded his parents.
daily kaddish: for still more tornado victims
Last night I played a lullaby for the several dozen tornado victims in Alabama. That number has continued to grow today as officials across the southeast tally the losses. When last I checked the news this afternoon, it had risen to 150, and as of right now the New York Times is reporting that the death toll nears 300.
the shikse makes more charoset—& mrs tzaddik doesn’t care
After years of making the weak, watery Ashkenaz muck that Mira so disdains, I ran across this recipe in the The New York Times Passover Cookbook, credited to Larry Bain and Catherine Pantsios as an adaptation of his gramma’s.
daily kaddish: tornado victims’ lullaby
Dozens of people have already been reported killed in tornados sweeping through Alabama today. I didn’t feel like playing Kogan’s “Kaddish” tonight. Instead, I improvised a sort of lullaby for those people and their loved ones.