kaddish in two-part harmony
A conversation between an anthropologist and a musician along with a growing virtual minyan, on themes of death and dying, grief, ritual, and the interplay between music and words.about
Monthly Archives: October 2010
war stories
We were holding kabbalah study group tonight at Beit Malkhut, and I don’t know how it came up. But you know how study groups go — one topic leads to another. We started with the Kaddish — the Mourner’s Prayer … Continue reading
Posted in essays
Tagged Beit Malkhut, Isaac Luria, kabbalah, Mourner's Kaddish, yahrtzeit
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mandelbrot and music: on listening in fractal dimensions
Benoit Mandelbrot died this month. He was the guy who came up with fractal theory, which led to all those gorgeous computer graphics like this one: Last week, my friend and contradance bandmate Tina Fields wrote an essay about Mandelbrot’s ideas on … Continue reading
yahrtzeit for the tzaddik
Do I still get to cry? The first year ends, and I’ve been living the dying over and over. Actually, it all started two years ago with her. And I just couldn’t get over it, and then, wham — the … Continue reading
misunderstanding pessimism: a manifesto of sorts
The NYT has run a number of articles lately on optimism and pessimism, including one entitled, “Is your Dog an Optimist or a Pessimist.” Which was an incredibly depressing article. Another, which ran today (but disappeared before I could find … Continue reading
missing her as I do — new orleans revisited
Maybe I don’t have any right to miss her as I do. Maybe the missing is reserved for what people conventionally call ‘family.’ For kin related by blood or marriage. And I am neither. She is ‘family’ in that other … Continue reading
zipping through the life cycle — a sufi parable
Nothing like your firstborn’s wedding to put the reality principle front and center, life cycle-wise. Ten seconds ago I was giving birth. Ten seconds from now I’ll be under a pile of dirt, or small particles blowing in the wind. … Continue reading