Rest in peace, sweet Anke Akevit. You were a sweet cat.
Category: kaddish in two-part harmony
The Academic and the Musician. The academic immerses in Kaddish with thoughts of thinking rather than feeling—the emotions being too raw. The musician spends her time in making us feel, whether we want to or not. And making the music of kaddish. Making music kadosh. A flurry of emails ensue between the two. Their blogs lock horns, as do the writers themselves. They start a joint blog. They start a podcast.
A commitment to a year-long project has begun: a kaddish in two-part harmony.
A conversation among an anthropologist, a musician, and their audience on themes of death and dying, grief, ritual, the interplay between musician and listener.
This is a kaddish for too many suicide victims. Since suicide is a contagious disease, and it’s in the headlines again, I think it’s urgent for parents, friends, family, teachers, coaches, and vague acquaintances of young gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, queer, and questioning folk to be on the alert in coming weeks. LGBTQQ youth are statistically […]
Sigrid was sweet, fun, goofy, curious; all the usual cat things. Silky and beautiful. By far the most beautiful cat I have ever known.
Dad (Paul F. Vang) wrote this remembrance of a darned sweet black lab, whom I named (see below) and will always remember as the best lap-lab ever. There was nothing quite like relaxing in a recliner with Flicka stretched full-length on your lap. We miss you, Flicka.
My mother’s ‘passing’ has crippled my writing. And apparently that’s not all. It would be unfair to blame her, per se, because that would be rude. But I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that she’s had a hand in it. Some lesson left to teach. I thought what would be fitting (I had this brilliant idea […]
My plan was that nobody else would die. Ever. My plan was to leave the death-and-dying biz to someone else; give someone else a turn. My plan was that enough was enough. At least for this year. My plan was that only the elderly die, and that sometimes it’s a blessing and an end to […]
Dad wrote this remembrance of his mother on her Yahrtzeit in an email to the family last week, and he agreed with my suggestion to post it here.
My great-aunt Joad died a few days ago, of wicked old age. I didn’t record a kaddish for her tonight. Instead, I recorded some traditional shofar calls.
The house is empty. I’m not sure what to do and death is so much closer than it was— The phone isn’t ringing starting 5 AM and every ten minutes or so thereafter Even the delusions have stopped having culminated in one final coup de gras She ascended, ascended to Jerusalem. I got calls from what […]
I hadn’t thought about her since we were kids. Hadn’t thought about what might have become of her. What her contribution might be to the world. All I remember is that she was a prima donna when I met her. In 5th grade. Unreachable. Unapproachable. Two years my senior, and yet we were in the […]