I decided to try making a Kaddish that told the story Mira told us about her evening in the ER.
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.
the heart of the matter
I used to be able to spend decades not thinking about my own demise, although as a teen thoughts of mortality were a constant companion. But in recent years, watching the death and dying of family members and friends, the mortality thing seemed to dominate absolutely everything else. Still, ‘my own demise’ is a fairly…
daily kaddish: for karl savage
Our friend J. Todd Ormsbee shared a yizkor of his dear friend Karl Savage recently, and tonight’s Kaddish recording is for Karl. Todd told me a bit more about Karl after seder at Mira’s, and I can still see the sadness in Todd’s eyes as he quietly answered my questions.
how to play Rook Wanamingo style
A kaddish for all my Norwegian-Minnesotan relatives who played the most cutthroat game of Rook you can imagine.
daily kaddish: for the sjsu parking lot 3, and thanks
A kaddish for the three killed in the SJSU parking lot shooting Tuesday night, and a prayer of thanks that Mira parks in a different garage.
a kaddish for the music man
A kaddish for Bill McDonald, The Music Man, the guy who finally taught me trumpet for marching band several years after teaching me horn against his better judgment. A kaddish for the guy who led a whole community through its seasons for six long, exhausting years.
the sjsu parking garage shooting — a kaddish —
I’ve never worried about the SJSU parking garages. All these many years of night classes, of colleagues and students getting police escorts back to their cars at night — I’ve never once seen the necessity. And I don’t see it now, either. And yet, last night, while I was heading for my own car in…
daily kaddish: for hindy nobler
An audio response to Mira’s kaddish for her biofather’s wife, incorporating yesterday’s joint reading of the text.
a kaddish for hindy nobler
The funeral was so fast! Her brother was leading people off to head for a gathering at the house, one last time. One of the chapel people, said “Stop — we haven’t said a kaddish!” Some of us had been waiting for a kaddish. But he was adamant — she wouldn’t want a kaddish. Just…
daily kaddish: for really bad books
It seems appropriate to me that an audio response to Mira’s kaddish for really bad books ended up displaying really bad reading from me.