| Hallelujah |
[Jan. 24th, 2009|07:23 am] |
Last night I went to a performance by a gospel music group. The most cynical definition of music is to regard it as a form of hypnosis. Religious belief and practice too, could be looked at as means of regulating crowd behavior, using the powerful tools of creeds, repetition, rhythm, behavior modeling, using up all of your waking moments . . .
These guys rocked!
I'm feeling some fusion inspiration. This can only lead to more lyrics. |
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| Jeremiad |
[Apr. 30th, 2008|05:24 pm] |
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/04/the_full_wright_transcript.php
The Atlantic Monthly site posted the full text of aptly named Jeremiah Wright April 28th interview at the National Press Club. I didn't find it to be bizarre or shocking, Political dissent from religious sources has an ancient tradition. He is advocating for a less militaristic society, and I would be in favor of that. As to fears about biological weapons, we did develop and stockpile anthrax bacteria, so far from being unimaginable, an attempt at preparation for germ warfare by the American government has already happened.
Contrary to what I have been hearing as a television news sound bite, he did not specifically say that HIV/Aids was developed on purpose to infect black Americans. He did refer to an alarmist book and author. Not having read the book in question, I don't know the content. Even if it is as unfounded as the newscasters seem to imply, our lack of priority for access to healthcare does have the effect of shortening the lives of the low-income, who are disproportionately of minority ethnic groups.
One more thing: I had no idea that Protestants had co-opted the term "Liberation Theology". That's so cool! |
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| Flying in a Winter Wonderland |
[Dec. 10th, 2006|09:13 pm] |
Greetings from the Pacific Northwest.
In a developing news story around these here parts, some frequently flying Rabbis found that the seasonal greenery decorating Seatac airport diminished their travel experience. One of them, a cheerful black-hatted beard-wearer, notified the Port Authority that unless a Menorah fitted with electric light bulbs were installed next to the Christmas tree, he would be forced to file suit.
The airport responded by removing the trees. This disappointed the Rabbi, he wanted equal interior decoration. It also infuriated airport workers. No longer would their bleak existences be brightened by a triangle of green above the door to the concourse. Today they are buttonholing travelers and asking them to militate for tree-instatement.
Taken to its extreme, fulfilling a request for equal representation in decoration would lead to ever expanding collages of religious symbols posted in our public places. In my book, that would make for an overly graven image laden environment. |
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| It's the Hanukah Season |
[Dec. 11th, 2005|07:38 pm] |
(Time for another original lyric)
Happy Hanukah
Happy Hanukah
Oh the latkes are sizzling
Happy Hanukah to you
Happy Hanukah
Happy Hanukah
It's the month of Kislev bringing
Happy Hanukah to you
It's the Hanukah season
So light the lights of your Menorop
Make pancake with apples on top
Now the party's startin' to pop
We'll be spinning our dreidel 'round
(Spinning our dreidel 'round)
It's the Hanukah season
Tell the story of Maccabees
Miracles as big as you please
Come inside so that you don't freeze
We'll be spinning our dreidel 'round
Get your chocolate gelt before it melt
And your sugar cookie
And if you can't sing, let your cell phone ring
The Maoz Tzur melody
It's the Hanukah season
With games to play every day for eight day
Top to spin and we call it a drei
del to lox and we call it a ba
gel be spinning our dreidel 'round
(Spinning our dreidel 'round)
Happy Hanukah
Happy Hanukah
Oh the latkes are sizzling
Happy Hanukah to you
Happy Hanukah
Happy Hanukah
It's the month of Kislev bringing
Happy Hanukah to you
   
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| Beach Boogie Brucha |
[Nov. 3rd, 2005|04:32 pm] |
Best. Idea. Ever.
ADON OLAM sung to the tune of Surfin' USA
I'm in awe of this idea.
I might be able to persuade the offspring to work up electric guitar and keyborad accompaniment...
Ok, so you recall the opening couplet:
If everybody had an ocean
Across the u.s.a.
Now with that tune in mind, just swap in your favorite final hymn and mine:
Adon olam, asher malach,
b'terem kol y'tzir nivra.
L'et na'asah v'cheftzo kol,
azai melech sh'mo nikra.
V'acharey kichlot hakol,
l'vado yimloch nora.
V'hu haya, v'hu hoveh,
v'hu yih'yeh b'tifara.
V'hu echad, v'eyn sheni
l'hamshil lo, l'hachbira.
B'li reishit, b'li tachlit,
v'lo ha'oz v'hamisrah.
V'hu Eli, v'chai go'ali,
v'tzur chevli b'et tzarah.
V'hu nisi umanos li,
m'nat kosi b'yom ekra.
B'yado afkid ruchi
b'et ishan v'a'irah.
V'im ruchi g'viyati,
Adonai li v'lo ira.
(V'im ruchi g'viyati,
Adonai li v'lo ira.)
(Adon olam, asher malach,
b'terem kol y'tzir nivra.)
And you're suffused in awesomeness.
The fact that the regular meter of this poem also lends itself to tunes such as "The Saints Go Marchin' In", and "Turkey in the Straw", detracts in no way from this amazing discovery.
Maybe the Psychotoddler would help popularize it.
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| Passion |
[Oct. 28th, 2005|11:19 pm] |
Chassid guys are hip I really dig that payess hair
And Brazilian guys with their Carnivale, it’s freaky times for girls down there
The Prince of Wales (he’s Anglican) has a castle with a moat
And the Satanist made me feel at home, when he let me pet his goat
The Lutheran sons of Garrison Keillor fed me green bean casserole
And the Calvin guy brought a tear to eye with tales of stockings filled with coal
Witnesses guys deliver it, like a Pizza to my door
Tom Cruise told me Scientology was better than a whole drugstore
A Southern Gospel choir really makes me move with style
When the Pentecostals speak in tongues they have me rolling in the aisle
The Utah Latter Day guys have that reassuring smile
And the Muslim guys, when they go on Hajj, could make me walk that extra mile
Adventists with their calendar almost gave me second sight
And Eastern Rite with their fluffy beards keep their girlfriends warm at night
Nondenoms are cute, I wonder if they’re heaven sent?
And the Roman guys with their big dark eyes, I wouldn’t give them up for Lent
The guys of USY hold a rare place in my heart
They dig a soccer jersey and a ‘waved Hot Pocket with a game of Mario Cart
Guys of every creed and faith all make me see the light
So how do I settle down with the right one?
It just ain’t gonna happen tonight
nooooooooooooooooo...
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| YK in Review |
[Oct. 14th, 2005|07:13 am] |
Yesterday was teh awesome. I did the live long and prosper thing. I wasn't overly famished. The PrissKids were preponderantly unwhiney. I also got kinda sorta hit on at the break-the-fast meal by a bona fide single heterosexual who was possibly 10 years older than me. But his yapping went on entirely too long. I decided that he was A.D.D. and lacking in the smart/cute stats, so I said goodnight and went to collect my kin. That's when he got up and followed me to make sure that I knew his name. I assured him that it was a perfectly good name, and completed my exit.
As we walked to the car, the kids played catch with a baseball-sized pumpkin they'd removed from a table decoration. Maddy chose to mis-hear something as a "naughty word" which led to a chorus of a vaguely Christian camp song:
They all went down to Amsterdam
They all went down to Amsterdam
Amster, Amster, dam dam damn
Amster, Amster, dam dam damn
They all went down to Amsterdam
On the way home Maddy asked me why I'd cried during Havdallah. I didn't have a cognitive answer. The only words that came were along the lines of "pretty intense" and "a big deal." I certainly hadn't been sad. Sometimes feelings can't be explained. It seems odd to be doing Havdallah in the middle of the week. The practice may have come from a Chasidic tradition. If you call the day "The Sabbath of Sabbaths," then it's a continuation of the metaphor.
Zbig said, "I'm glad that we only do this once a year." By saying "we" he reminded me of the first son in the Passover Hagadah. While it included his usual complaint that any degree of observance adds stress to your life, it also conveyed a sense of volitional participation and belonging.
They're off from school today. Our agenda includes shopping for pants and notebook paper, and getting caught up on homework.
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| Misnagid and proud of it |
[Aug. 17th, 2005|02:35 pm] |
The last post was politics; this one is religion
I did my once or twice a month routine of oppressing the PrissKids with Saturday morning services. They mostly do okay, but when I left my seat for a few minutes, I came back to find that boredom had led to poking each other and escalated to shoving. To prevent a dust up, I positioned myself between them after that. : “What?” said Zbig feigning innocence.
They went to a secular picnic with the ee, and I stayed for an afternoon class. The text was from a Kabalistic Chassidic book that was all in Hebrew. Its name translates as Children of Issachar. It was a combination of ordinary commentary and mysticism. Each month was not only associated with constellations, but linked to certain animals, ascribed with elements of gender, and tied to various internal bodily organs. One had something to do with the kidneys. Just to be clear, I'm not a mystic. To me, astronomy is good and astrology is bogus. This book was full of cryptic abbreviated inline references to other books. It was a challenge for me to follow the reading given my lack of vocabulary and the tiny letters with no diacritical marks.
Sunday was a special interfaith event at a local mosque. They had invited community members to see their building and to a barbeque in the courtyard. R. Dave had asked if we could hold a service in their sanctuary. The room was very cool and dark, and the pale green carpet felt silky under my bare feet. The only adornment was an un-raised lectern on one wall, and a bookcase full of Korans with Gilt characters on their spines on another. There were areas with cubbyholes for shoe storage, and a separate, smaller chamber for women’s prayers.
We read Mincha, and as it was Tisha b’Av, apparently it was appropriate to lay tefillin in the afternoon rather than their usual morning use. Being female, I didn’t use them, I haven’t personally adopted every custom as unisex.
Outside I found that lots of my peace group people were there as well as a few local big wigs and 2 police officers. I sat at a table and got filled in about the scope of the local interfaith movement. It includes lots of Catholics and Lutherans, but independent fundamentalist ministers can’t handle the idea that other approaches could be ok too. It sounds interesting and worthwhile, but I have reservations about it. Available time is a factor, and I have reservations about involving my kids in it. I want them to respect other traditions, but I’d like to delay contact so close that they might want to try them out.
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| Jealous much? Dysfunctional? Let us seek the better angels of our natures. |
[Jul. 29th, 2005|08:52 pm] |
Plans to hang out with my little brother Leo (AKA “the BLB” for bratty little brother) and his longtime live-in Leela seem to be falling through. He arrived in my geographical neck of the woods this afternoon and telephoned. Zbig was on the internet, so my voicemail picked it up. When we spoke he was completely undecided about what day and what hour he was visiting various acquaintances, including me, and also my ex; and wanted me to hang out to be called when he finally decided. I outlined some possibilities that would work, and left him to get back to me. Now, 8 PHONECALLS later, plus the evil ex freaking out at the suggestion that I borrow my own kids back from him DURING DAYLIGHT HOURS on the weekend I feel like skipping the whole thing. I was expecting the BLB to come over on Sunday morning, and then we’d go out somewhere. But he prefers to do some do-si-do with picking up the kids from the ee ON THE WAY to see me, and then dropping them off BACK THERE after a quick visit with me -- which is what the ee requests.
My feeling is if the two of them want to maintain an intimate post brother-in-law relationship my brother should not see the ee ON HIS WAY to see me. This isn’t merely pettiness on my part, the ee can be hyper and charming and aggravating all at once, and my bratty but impressionable brother is bound to arrive in an agitated and prejudiced state after such an encounter.
Fortunately I have a pleasant diversion planned for tomorrow in lieu of the BLB absolutely having to hang out on Saturday morning. Every Saturday in front of a shopping center not far away, a redoubtable retired republican sets up his lawn chair and an American flag, and rests a “support our troops” sign on his lap. An hour later he is joined by a mob of Methodists who um, oppose war, frown on post-crucifixion human sacrifice, and well, quite frankly, think that bombs cost too much. They wave at cars for ninety minutes and then adjourn to the food court for lunch. It sounds like a worthwhile use of a morning. I can contribute to the saving of lives and the salving of our national budget while meeting valuable contacts to network with when President Jeb and VP Rove try to draft my babies three years hence. If anyone invites me to church, I shall aver to be a devout Starbuckian.
I shall wear an enormous hat.
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| Lulei Demistafina, it sounds like a song! |
[Jun. 3rd, 2005|07:36 am] |
I've discovered the world of Jewish blogging. After skipping over it for awhile, I googled the phrase "lulei demistafina", which cropped up on their comments pages. The Goog tells me it can be defined variously as "were I not afraid" or "don't quote me on this."
My three favorites are
Mirty The early entries are about the contrast of growing up in a very observant family with her choices about how much to retain as an adult.
Psychotoddler The name began as a reaction to his youngest child who was kind of a handful, but has evolved into a metaphor for his inner child. He's in a rock band that plays Hebrew liturgy to honky-tonk Rollin' on the River type accompaniment. He has chronicled his mother's Holocaust survival experiences in a blog form at Rose's Story.
The Rabbi's Kid is thoughtful and poignant. It measures up to any of you guys's livejournals. Just as the Psychotoddler isn't a toddler, the Kid isn't a kid, but is in his late 20s.
They all seem to like Dov Bear . But I find it a bit dry.
Continuing with my personalized livejournal statistics:
20% of my friends list belong to what Alan Dershowitz calls "the Abrahamic Tradition". |
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| All I wanted was a frickin’ swivel chair |
[May. 13th, 2005|05:16 am] |
This slate.com article which references economist Laurence Iannacone’s 1994 essay "Why Strict Churches Are Strong," lays out the benefits of these organizations both in self-perpetuation and to the individual members..
“What does the pious person get in return for all of his or her time and effort? A church full of passionate members; a community of people deeply involved in one another's lives and more willing than most to come to one another's aid; a peer group of knowledgeable souls who speak the same language (or languages), are moved by the same texts, and cherish the same dreams. Religion is a " 'commodity' that people produce collectively,"
This should be obvious, but I’ve never seen it stated this directly before. Everyone who feels that faith is a delusion, and that they’d be hypocritical to participate in something built around a dogma is choosing to forgo those social benefits.
But to have an enduring source of those advantages do you have to be fanatic?
Apparently it helps. |
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| Mama Loschen |
[May. 8th, 2005|10:57 pm] |
My son just asked me to read and initial every page of his 2000 word report on Taiwan. It’s written in the form of an imaginary diary. I suggested a few changes in grammar and style. There was a sentence about “pig and sheep sacrifices” during a festival. Because he had them as the subject, it brought images to my mind of animals dressed as executioners and preparing a guillotine. His trip description included the purchase of some souvenirs, or as he preferred to call them “tchotchkes”. I was surprised that my son speaks Yiddish as I do not, but this was the one word where I got to correct the spelling. He’d had no luck looking it up under “ch”. I gave him the Erica Jong preferred spelling.
His response was, “Who’s Erica Jong?” |
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| Annual Passover Post |
[Apr. 24th, 2005|09:58 pm] |
It is not well known, but there seem to be jokes hidden in the Hagadah
to make the story entertaining. Last night my son Zbig noticed that the
plague of the deaths of the firstborn extended to the firstborns of the
cattle and sheep and donkeys.
Wasabi makes a pretty nifty bitter herb, but it’s very strong. I
started to cough and I had to be careful not to aspirate crumbs from
the matzah that I’d dipped into it.
I almost always serve strawberries on Passover. This is because they are often in season coincidentally with the holiday.
And now for some personal midrash or, at the least, apocrypha. A prequel to the story if you will:
It occurs to me that Jacob and Israel may not have been the same
person. Yes, people undergo transformative experiences, and we’ve all
known plenty of people who have changed their names. But I think that
the inhabitants of greater Goshen ended up combining the stories of two
entirely different ancestors from different family lines. Their need to
do this, shows that the community wanted to stress their unity. It also
shows how hazy family history becomes after only a few generations. I
know a lot about my grandparents’ lives, but almost nothing about my
greatgrandparents.
And now for a bit of personal liberation:
I haven’t made a nut torte or a sponge cake this year. Dessert was homemade frozen yogurt. |
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| Soul on ice |
[Apr. 19th, 2005|11:20 pm] |
Under the fresco
On the whole, the pope election process reminds me of how
Olympics ice skating judges are qualified. In those “sports” that call for
subjective grading where a photo finish to see who won a race isn’t possible,
judges must strive to grade within tenths of a percent of each other. They must
arrive at these numbers quickly independently. They can discuss the merits of a
performance after the fact, but not before rating it. Similar principles apply
here: whichever is most like the others is selected. In most cases the result
is going to trend conservative.
Now back to our regularly scheduled Priss Journal
Bud Crazy
I let my daughter know that the tulips will last much longer
in the garden than they would indoors in water. But she was not to be deterred
from bringing the spring inside. On my kitchen table there is a bud vase. It
contains one dandelion, a spray of miniature hyacinths, and for greenery, a
sprig of a weed called vetch. It looks like a sweet pea vine, but is not.
Escape Velocity
The Astronomy professor got sidetracked into talking
about volcanoes and evolution for half an hour. Then he talked about Newton’s
laws and the book Principia Mathematica. I remembered the title from Chaim
Potok’s The Chosen. One of the characters was studying it in the public
library, over a summer break. The Chosen is a book that I’ve reread at
different ages and continue to find meaningful. Its title refers to a quote
from Pirke Avot directing the reader to choose a teacher as well as
companions. Unfortunately, because it was so popular, it was followed up by a
disastrous sequel, where most of the characters made abominable choices. |
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| Pope Pope Pope Pope |
[Apr. 19th, 2005|05:06 pm] |
It’s an interesting enough news story to draw my attention even though I'm not a R.C. First of all, I have to admit that my knowledge of how to be Catholic comes mostly from popular novels.
Andrew Greeley tells us that priests should be “good looking”. Well I'm all for eye candy. Actors on television commercials are selected largely for their pleasing appearances; and as this helps to sell dishwashing liquid, it can’t hurt in attempts to sell redemption. As far as appearance and charm, this guy doesn’t meet the precedent set by his predecessor, his eyes are set so close together that they nearly overlap, his voice is mousey, it’s hard for me to tell in Italian, but he may have a lisp. His hands shake markedly.
Now let us hear from Colleen McCullough: Priests are ill advised regarding founding their own biological dynasties. This organization has a huge international budget and it follows the strictest definition of a hierarchy. There’s no board of lay members who can decide that the present spiritual leader just isn’t inspirational enough or organized enough or not doing enough to increase membership so let’s just not renew his contract ok? That happens all of the time in other denominations. When news types endlessly repeat that priests should be allowed to marry, they never mention this difference. Allowing this hierarchy to have families and to continue to choose their own successors would plunge Catholicism into something resembling … the American Presidency! Modern countries that insist on retaining an ancestral royalty have had to make them merely ceremonial in favor of a parliament that does the real administration. Eventually this reality will catch up with those whacky Americans and Vaticaners.
Finally we come to my favorite: Leon Uris: all priests, in fact all Catholics, in fact everybody who wants to be hip and with it and desirable, should be Irish. He expressed this not as ethnocentrism, but as admiration, as he was not himself* Irish.
(If you like the word “himself” be sure to read Greeley. It’s used endlessly.) |
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| Insight |
[Sep. 16th, 2004|09:39 pm] |
Another Rosh HaShanah, and Isaac escapes by the skin of his teeth yet again. Instead of the same old story I look at as a serial. How will he escape this time; what twist of fate will work out in his favor? The text stays the same: the differences lie in my stage of life and in how things are going for me.
My children were with me. Even at the mature ages of 11 and 14, they still wiggle a lot, finding new ways to fidget every so often. They decline to read the silent meditation pages, preferring to stare at the ceiling. My son was wearing the talit that my grandfather gave my brother a long time ago. At one point Zbig referred to it as his "cape." One of his fidget behaviors was counting the fringes; he found that there were 112. I was happy to see him wearing it, but it's a reminder that my brother isn't interested in observing holidays.
Last week someone asked me to help with feeding homeless teens. I didn't know what to expect, but I made a casserole. Other than the fact that we had to serve it cafeteria style, it was a lot like a potluck dinner, right down to people coming back after eating, for another cookie. The population turned out to be mostly adults, which was a relief to me. One of the things that made me nervous was the grimness of teens being separated from their families. Someone counted 45 people that came through the line. The experience affected me profoundly, something I hadn't at all expected. It was the direct contact with those being helped, and my ability to make a difference. Today I found out that someone I know, who seemed to be doing ok, is sleeping on a friend's floor, in other words: technically homeless. |
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| The Priss Bible (New feature!) |
[May. 25th, 2004|12:25 am] |
Genesis 22:10
And Sarah said unto Abraham, "Get that trailer trash and her redneck son OUT OF MY HOUSE"
Note -some modern translations substitute: "off of my property" |
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| Rowing to Jerusalem |
[May. 16th, 2004|06:23 pm] |
Today I played a pick-up game of Scrabble at the book store. Fortunately it went better than those pick-up playground games of basketball in the movies that end in gang violence. I didn't win of course, but managed to amass 284 points, which is not too shabby. Much as I like Scrabble, I can't imagine devoting the energy that its diehard adherents give it. I'd much rather be reading and happening upon the occasional new word, than studying up on the myriad acceptable spellings of "djinn" and planning ahead for the triple word score space. First Place Books does the nearly impossible, it stocks boring books. Dealing in remaindered lots is their secret. As I wasn't in a magazine mood, I came away with no purchases.
I got scans of a few pictures from last weekend. Here is the mural I designed. It's about 6 feet by 3 feet. It started as a pencil drawing, with crayon to show ideas for color. I drew it on canvass and then it was painted as group project. The paint wasn't thick enough in some places, and others hadn't been filled in, so I ended up finishing maybe 70% of the painting at home. A number of people asked me for details on subject and story, and I was able to resist replying in a snooty French accent, "This is my art." Oh, but I wanted to.
Another weekend highlight was learning to row. It's peaceful yet strenuous, and so good for the midsection. Rowing could be addictive. |
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| I don’t have a shank bone, what are we gonna use far a lamb? How about a Furby? |
[Apr. 5th, 2004|09:14 pm] |
I caught little snippets of the movie Exodus on TV last night. Funny things in it among others:
The actors couldn’t pronounce Tziporah, so they named Moshe's wife "Deborah" the real Deborah didn't incarnate until maybe a thousand years later.
The Low tide at The Sea of Reeds scene was very cool,
The golden calf looked awfully goat-like.
Plus, you know how God kisses Moshe at the very end? The Hebrew Bible says something like "the mouth of God", they should have shown giant heavenly lips in the sky.
As for today, I still have dishes to do. And it's amazing how much of the Hagadah I have memorized, yes, even the English. |
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| We Tried to Write a Google in Gemetria, We couldn’t do it |
[Mar. 27th, 2004|06:39 pm] |
It is true and it is certain that shaking a Polaroid picture does not speed drying, and only enhances the possibility that you will smack the wet gel surface into something, smearing the fragile image irreparably before it dries; but I now have Hey Ya added to my playlist. (woo)
Just as Arthur C. Clarke updated the Islamic concept of 99 names of God in his story. Nine Million Names of God, it's clearly time for a mystical update; working title:
999 Googolplex forms of God's Name.
In other news, I've used a combination of suave persuasion, guilt tripping, and arm-twisting, to get my son to sign up for an elective of Japanese Language next year. He was inclined to go for something easier such as choir or possibly Spanish.
"Do you have any idea how lucky you are to live in a school district that offers choices of French and German and Japanese??? Most have Spanish as the ONLY choice."
Oh yes, I get out the big guns when required.
P.S. It turns out that lots of his friends are taking it too, because they want to read Anime in its unsullied original tongue. (What a bunch of freaks) |
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