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.
Category: podcasts
A podcast of the daily recordings of Lev Kogan’s “Kaddish” for solo horn, by Erin L. Vang, usually but not always on horn and often including improvisations and collaborations with Mira Z. Amiras and guest artists.
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…
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.
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.
daily kaddish: for lost histories
I’ve spent the evening digging through ancestry.com and a box of old family photos—most unlabeled—mixed up with big envelopes of negatives (also unlabeled except that they were ordered from Bismarck, North Dakota by my great-grampa (Mom’s dad’s dad) Herman L Selvig from Plaza, North Dakota. I haven’t been able to make a whole lot of sense of most of it.
daily kaddish: for don, sr
A kaddish for our neighbor don, sr; we just learned of his passing two weeks ago.
daily kaddish: chez rebecca
Today Mira and I visited her mom, Rebecca, for a mini Seder, and I recorded a kaddish afterward in her great room. Wow.
daily kaddish: mohammed bouazizi
Mira dedicated this kaddish to Mohammed Bouazizi, whose humble reaction to bureaucratic humiliation set off the revolution in Tunisia, which set of revolutions in Egypt and Libya.