They offed themselves. Both of them, together. She’s pissed, and devastated, and who wouldn’t be? But I can’t help admiring their decision, even as I share her grief and anger.
Category: essays
Mira and Erin writing on themes of death, dying, grief, ritual, music, listening, Kaddish, Lev Kogan’s “Kaddish,” and so on.
reasons for staying alive
We were signing papers. Getting them notarized. It was a jocular moment. I was trying hard to keep it that way. I was giving him complete authority to take over my affairs should my brain start to melt and/or body start to fry its circuits. For that time, in other words, when we cease to…
what is it about words? a rant in response to a preamble
Music sits alongside religion as an opiate for the masses, and when music joins religion, it’s a truly powerful drug—one that scares the crap out of me sometimes.
recent kaddishim: on connection and music
Something unexpected happened a few weekends ago. I asked Mira to record the text of the Mourner’s Kaddish for me, and she did, and then everything changed. We are nearing the end of the first three months. We have almost ten months to go on this daily musical exchange, according to the Julian calendar, because this is a leap year in the Hebrew calendar, which adds not just a leap day but a whole leap month. And after what felt like a lifetime of awful recordings to both of us, we’re both starting to enjoy the music.
the problem with music: a preamble in expectation of a response
I’ve got to put my cards on the table here. Finally. I’ve let my collaborator-extraordinaire do all the music-talking, and I’ve sat in the shadows and nodded (frequently without comprehension) and watched — and mostly listened. Sometimes I’ve even heard. The fact is, I can’t believe I agreed to this contract we have at all….
the little country that could — a kaddish for mohamed bouazizi and ibn khaldun’s oscillation of elites
Once upon a time there was a little country. It hadn’t always been a little country, but it had for the most part been an outlier in the larger scheme of things. It prided itself on being the ‘breadbasket of Rome’ but if the Punic wars had gone otherwise, Rome might have been the breadbasket…
a conundrum for our compassion
a ten-year-old murder case in San Jose begets murder last week and presents a conundrum for our compassion
recent kaddishim
Performance and listening notes on Kaddishim recorded 20-29 December 2010.
a kaddish for six people in arizona
In the copious, loud discussion that has following in the wake of the shootings in Arizona last week, what has gotten lost is that six people died. Six people died, and we don’t even know their names. May their memories be a blessing to those who knew them. May their memories not be wasted by the rest of us thinking that their tragedy is fodder for our careless arguments.
the paintbrush
“What you really want is closure,” he said. I had called him knowing I was in peril. I asked him what he thought I should feel. He’s pretty good at feeling stuff. But I’m not so sure he’s right. I’m not sure closure is attainable in cases like this. Just as I’m not sure there could…