recent kaddishim address questions of musical expression, tragic events in El Akarib, and the cold solitude of musical labor
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.
daily kaddish: el Arakib
[powerpress]
news on our virtual, asynchronous minyan
For our purposes, the “minyan” is our community of listeners. But we’re not all Jewish. (So far we’re all adults.) We don’t gather physically but virtually, by internet. And we don’t gather at the same time, exactly—we’re asynchronous.
daily kaddish: bitchy
Mira and our mutual friend Tina have a paper-grading-and-bitching party planned for tomorrow night, so by special request I have prepared a bitchy version of the Kaddish tonight and will do so again tomorrow. Also, I’m wondering how I’ll manage to get tomorrow’s Kaddish recorded; the dailiness of daily ritual becomes tricky at times.
death and the evil eye
George Foster long ago wrote a delightful article on envy and the evil eye. He spelled out exactly how the phenomenon works, particularly in Tzintzuntzan, but he claimed it extended throughout peasant society worldwide. The critics, primarily Marxists, claimed that he was wrong — but claimed it in such a way the affirmed his essential…
daily kaddish: uff da
[powerpress] Tonight’s Kaddish (2010.11.28_uffDa) was humbling. I tagged it “uff da,” which is the Scandinavian version of “oy vey.” In the course of schlepping to shul (certainly it must feel that way some days) to say Kaddish day in and day out for a year and a day, I figure there must be days that…
recent kaddishim
descriptions of kaddish recordings from 18-26 November 2010
daily kaddish: as promised
Last night’s Kaddish addressed a situation involving hope that is bound up in despair. Tonight’s Kaddish was a dispirited mumbling-through; practice that was only practice.