Would you turn me away if the walls were all I could see in your face?

[sovay]

I do somewhat resent that the first time I remember my dreams in weeks, they are nightmares about attending a convention, having to fight off a serial killer, and then contracting some kind of life-threatening alien infection, which is definitely way too high a ratio of pulp to anxiety if you ask me.

On the other hand, I spent much of the afternoon being interviewed by a grad student for her master's thesis in folklore: she is studying the music of Jewish partisans in WWII and the creation of liminal spaces through song and I felt like a one hundred and ten percent ringer and I had a wonderful time.

The recording I made for Jeannelle M. Ferreira can now be found with author's notes on her blog: "October Ghosts and Minor Resurrections: An Audio Excerpt."

The world continues fractured and frightening, but people build fires, and within the circle of the light, even if only for a little while, things may be all right.

Comments

[yhlee]

*support support*

[sara]

I would totally listen to a Jewish partisans record.

I remember about twenty years ago reading about the armed Jewish resistance and finding it so HOPEFUL.

[sovay]

I would totally listen to a Jewish partisans record.

There was a famous one that was my first exposure to many of the songs: Partisans of Vilna: The Songs of World War II Jewish Resistance (1989). More recently, we have albums like Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of World War II (2018). A Besere Velt has consistently incorporated partizanerlider into their concerts and I would love for us to do a full program thereof, but first it would need to be safe to have concerts.

I remember about twenty years ago reading about the armed Jewish resistance and finding it so HOPEFUL.

It is. And such an important part of the story to remember. Which I imagine is why I keep coming back to it, especially now.

[sovay]

*support support*

*hugs*

[selkie]

There are a few of those, of varying production value! Excuse raw links, I’m on my tiny pocket computerphone:

https://www.amazon.com/Partisans-Vilna-Songs-Jewish-Resistance/dp/B001076Z1A But buy the DVD if you can find, it comes with a better copy

https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fight-Songs-Jewish-Partisans/dp/B0027IC28G/ref=mp_s_a_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=partisan+songs&qid=1603165499&sr=8-6

And there are at least two more my internet searchery is failing me at, both newer!

[sovay]

Excuse raw links, I’m on my tiny pocket computerphone

I've been hunting the second of those unsuccessfully for years! Because Theodore Bikel. I . . . don't suppose you've got?

[selkie]

This is how you know I would walk through fire for you:



....
....I will ask Teddy.

[sovay]

....I will ask Teddy.

Oh, my God.

[kore]

I thought you might like this -- there was a Twitter listening party last week for Jet Plane and Oxbow, "meaning that we tweeted along in real time as we listened to the record, shared stories and photographs from the tour and the making of the album, and answered questions" Jonathan Meiburg says. https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/list/collection_468.html

[sovay]

I thought you might like this -- there was a Twitter listening party last week for Jet Plane and Oxbow, "meaning that we tweeted along in real time as we listened to the record, shared stories and photographs from the tour and the making of the album, and answered questions" Jonathan Meiburg says.

Thank you! That's a neat thing to do.

[sara]

I just feel down a Wikipedia hole and you probably already know about this guy but I didn't and wow: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shmerke_Kaczerginski

[gwynnega]

How wonderful and fitting that you were interviewed by that grad student about the Jewish partisans' music!

[sovay]

I just feel down a Wikipedia hole and you probably already know about this guy but I didn't and wow

It counts that you're discovering him now! We sing his "Yugnt-himn" in A Besere Velt. He was a zamler as well as a writer and that matters to me.

[sovay]

How wonderful and fitting that you were interviewed by that grad student about the Jewish partisans' music!

Thank you! I didn't even know that was her subject when I signed up for the interview—the e-mail that went around the chorus list had said "singing in Yiddish, creating radical Jewish space through song, and nostalgia + modernism." The reality was even cooler!

[sara]

I also learned "zamler" tonight and that is a great word, speaking as someone who does a lot of that kind of work. Do you think that is a word one can use about non-Jewish assembly of old things, or do you think it is one of those culturally bound words?

[sovay]

Do you think that is a word one can use about non-Jewish assembly of old things, or do you think it is one of those culturally bound words?

I've never seen it used outside of a Jewish context. It means "collector" in Yiddish, זאַמלען‎—it was given its current meaning in 1891 by Simon Dubnow, one of the first major Jewish historians/ethnographers of Jewish history and culture. [edit] If I saw it extended to other marginalized cultures, I would hackle much less than if it were picked up by mainstream white Christian America.

[moon_custafer]

I dreamt you and I met at a convention (remember those?) and discussed jocular representations of the Devil in modern popular culture. Also I invented Spoon Fencing.

[sovay]

I dreamt you and I met at a convention (remember those?) and discussed jocular representations of the Devil in modern popular culture. Also I invented Spoon Fencing.

That sounds like a much better dream convention than the one I attended!

[selkie]

Big Boss is very proud that his name is what it is, because zamler. He considers it one of the profession-names like Feld or Shechter.

[asakiyume]

I love that you're a source. You're a source! Transmission of knowledge and culture FOR THE WIN.

And we'll always build fires. (And I love that retelling and recording so much!)

[asakiyume]

Spoon fencing sounds like switchblade dueling--so intimate!

[selkie]

SOME. DAY. I will collaborate with [OH PRETEND I DID HTML PLEASE] Sovay on the queerest most doikeyt-laden Yiddish-enriched book there EVER WAS, and that will be my equivalent of lighting the fire and knowing the place in the forest.
(Kiddo asked, because of the recording/retelling, when I was going to write a book with Aunt Sovay. Cue Awkward Askhenazi Brows as I realized neither adult in the equation really skims lower than PG-13, whether for bog bodies, adult interactions, or adult interactions with bog bodies. Which is not to say we limit Kiddo's books, but they are 10.5.)
*Edit for doikeyt: the concept of "hereness," presence uniquely in a moment.
Also for the fact that I would like to do this even though some people do not speak sensible Litvish and use strange slippery consonances and well, we will have to bring an outside editor on for transliterated orthography.

[sovay]

I love that you're a source. You're a source! Transmission of knowledge and culture FOR THE WIN.

Thank you! It makes me feel like part of a tradition, which is important: the stories shouldn't stop with me.

(And I love that retelling and recording so much!)

I am so glad!

[sovay]

SOME. DAY. I will collaborate with [OH PRETEND I DID HTML PLEASE] Sovay on the queerest most doikeyt-laden Yiddish-enriched book there EVER WAS, and that will be my equivalent of lighting the fire and knowing the place in the forest.

*hugs*

(Kiddo asked, because of the recording/retelling, when I was going to write a book with Aunt Sovay. Cue Awkward Askhenazi Brows as I realized neither adult in the equation really skims lower than PG-13, whether for bog bodies, adult interactions, or adult interactions with bog bodies. Which is not to say we limit Kiddo's books, but they are 10.5.)

So the good news is, it'll take us at least a couple of years to finish the thing. And then we can embarrass your child!

Also for the fact that I would like to do this even though some people do not speak sensible Litvish and use strange slippery consonances and well, we will have to bring an outside editor on for transliterated orthography.

PRESTIGE DIALECTS ARE BUNK.

[selkie]

Great, give me a second to finish this other thing! We should be alive in 2025, af tselokhes!

*hugs*

....Galitsianer.

[asakiyume]

I need to dust off my time turner so I can respond to your comment earlier than I am doing, BUT:

I love this idea.

[selkie]

Me, too! Between our various artistic tendencies I do think it would be, essentially, the queer Prufrock; there would be story under the poetry.... somewhere. (Some people in the equation are actually very good at "a plot," but I am "folks talking in rooms" all the way down.)

Maybe that'll be the plan in 2021, absent needing to run a printing press for a resistance movemnt.

[sovay]

Do you think that is a word one can use about non-Jewish assembly of old things, or do you think it is one of those culturally bound words?

Revisiting this question: I think these people were fucking zamlers for America. They saved the truth when they didn't know how it was going to end.

[sara]

He's not my senator right now but I am proud to have voted for him. And of course the Oregonians grabbed the paperwork on their way out the door. We are a sensible people.

[sovay]

And of course the Oregonians grabbed the paperwork on their way out the door. We are a sensible people.

The record matters. I am glad of your Oregonians.