אַ ניקל פֿאַר זיי, אַ ניקל פֿאַר מיר

[sovay]

Apparently I can no longer re-toast myself a signature half pastrami, half corned beef sandwich from Mamaleh's without spending the rest of the evening singing the same-named hit from a 1917 American Yiddish musical. The Folksbiene never seems to have revived it and if the rest of the score was as catchy, they really should. (I am charmed that the composer clearly found the nickel conceit tempting enough to revisit in a later show, but that line quoted about the First Lady, didn't I just ask the twentieth century to stay where we left it?)

At the other end of the musical spectrum, spatch maintains it is not American-normal to be able to sing the Holst setting of "In the Bleak Midwinter," which until last night I had assumed was just such seasonal wallpaper that I had absorbed it by unavoidable dint of Christmas—it's one of the carols I can't remember learning, unlike others which have identifiable vectors in generally movies, madrigals, or folk LPs. Opinions?

Thanks to lunisolar snapback, Hanukkah like every other holiday this year seems to have sprung up out of nowhere, but we managed to get hold of candles last night and tomorrow will engage in the mitzvah of last-minute cleaning the menorah.

P.S. I fell down a slight rabbit hole of Bruce Adler and now feel I have spent an evening at a Yiddish vaudeville house on the Lower East Side circa 1926.

Comments

[mrissa]

Of course I can sing "In the Bleak Midwinter." But I think that "wood as hard as iron/ water like a stone/snow is falling, snow on snow/snow on snow" has special resonance here.

I once did holiday cards that had an ice picture T had taken and said "wood as hard as iron/water like a stone." I am festive. It sounds like many people didn't know what I was quoting. Welp. Ope.

[sovay]

Of course I can sing "In the Bleak Midwinter." But I think that "wood as hard as iron/ water like a stone/snow is falling, snow on snow/snow on snow" has special resonance here.

I mean, under formerly normal climatic circumstances, so would it in New England.

I once did holiday cards that had an ice picture T had taken and said "wood as hard as iron/water like a stone." I am festive. It sounds like many people didn't know what I was quoting. Welp. Ope.

So it may be American-normal by region? Intriguing.

[mrissa]

It may also be, and I hope that you are braced for this theory, as it May Shock You, that your parents and my parents are nerds.

[mrissa]

But no, Pastor Schaff had us sing it, so clearly it can't be--

Oh, beg pardon, I'm getting word that my late beloved childhood pastor Bob Schaff may not be evidence against the "taught by nerds" theory.

[sovay]

Oh, beg pardon, I'm getting word that my late beloved childhood pastor Bob Schaff may not be evidence against the "taught by nerds" theory.

I checked in earlier this afternoon with Existential Comics and felt personally attacked.

[mrissa]

I feel like Existential Comics is just an across the board "just @ me."

(Trust me, this will not be a spoiler.) Yesterday when we finished watching Wake Up Dead Man, M started laughing, and I said, "What?", and he said, "Well, you know, Marissa, it's easy to forget that the average person only knows one or two policies of church governance," and I said, "And the bishop's sphere of influence, of course," and he said, "of course!" (cf https://xkcd.com/2501/ )

[sovay]

"Well, you know, Marissa, it's easy to forget that the average person only knows one or two policies of church governance," and I said, "And the bishop's sphere of influence, of course," and he said, "of course!"

To lend credence to your metatext, I didn't even need the citation.

[mrissa]

I...kind of knew, but sometimes other people read comments.

But they're the other people who are friends of you/this DW, so. well.

[sovay]

But they're the other people who are friends of you/this DW, so. well.

It's just good manners to cite your sources.

[landofnowhere]

*In the Bleak Midwinter* was sung regularly at my home UU church (the UU hymnal lyrics substantially tone down the Christianity of it; I <3 Christina Rossetti but I don't think Christian sappiness is her best look). I don't remember it being on any of the Christmas CDs my family had in our collection growing up, though.

[cgbookcat1]

Well I know it very well, but I have been a choral singer since 2nd grade and I don't remember learning it for the first time!

[sovay]

*In the Bleak Midwinter* was sung regularly at my home UU church (the UU hymnal lyrics substantially tone down the Christianity of it; I <3 Christina Rossetti but I don't think Christian sappiness is her best look).

I will check out those lyrics. Not having a home church of any denomination is one of the reasons I assumed the song is just sort of free-floating this time of year. I hadn't thought of Christmas CDs, partly because my family does not have that many. For decades we have decorated the tree to Cirque du Soleil.

[sovay]

Well I know it very well, but I have been a choral singer since 2nd grade and I don't remember learning it for the first time!

I have also sung formally since childhood, but have no memory of learning this particular carol in a choral or solo context as opposed to a freight of other inevitable Christmas music. I can't even blame Britten, since he did his own setting of the text. It wouldn't have occurred to me as mysterious if it hadn't come up.

[alexxkay]

I first became aware of "In the Bleak Midwinter" when Kenneth Branagh titled a film that (rather puzzlingly).

[sovay]

I first became aware of "In the Bleak Midwinter" when Kenneth Branagh titled a film that (rather puzzlingly).

I am currently resenting the absence of that film from Kanopy or Tubi or any other of my normal streaming services! From what I know of the premise, it makes sense to me as a title.

[ethelmay]

Data point: I think it's one of the ones I taught myself out of a book at some point, rather than being one I learned singing carols with the family.

[sovay]

Data point: I think it's one of the ones I taught myself out of a book at some point, rather than being one I learned singing carols with the family.

That is a neat and valid data point. Everyone in comments so far has a different answer.

[moon_custafer]

I can’t recall exactly when I learnt it, although I’m getting an image of the chapel at Mt. Allison University. I did sing in a lot of choirs.

[sovay]

I can’t recall exactly when I learnt it, although I’m getting an image of the chapel at Mt. Allison University. I did sing in a lot of choirs.

I would have expected Madrigals in high school to be the usual suspects, especially since we did Christmas concerts at the Gardner Museum, but it just doesn't click.

[yarrowkat]

i will be the outlier here then and confess i had neither heard, nor heard of, that song before today. as a general rule i run screaming from avoid christmas as a whole and especially its music, so this is perhaps unsurprising. if your regional theory turns out to hold water, i am also from the desert southwest where carolling is (i think) less of a thing than in New England.

[moon_custafer]

*reads the plot summary of the musical*

Then comes an equally startling “revelation”: Yukit is not Yukit, but a disguised Jew, and a litvak (Lithuanian Jew) at that, which itself represented an internal stereotyping for comic purposes.

*an hour later, sits up in bed* —Wait, was Daniel Pinkwater referencing this when he created Heinz, the Chinese Butler in Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death?

[sovay]

—Wait, was Daniel Pinkwater referencing this when he created Heinz, the Chinese Butler in Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death?

Frankly there is no reference so obscure I wouldn't put it past Daniel Pinkwater.

(A con man who claims that his grandmother once looked through a machzor with Queen Victoria practically is a Pinkwater character. I mean you could drop a line like that in Borgel and nobody would blink.)

[muccamukk]

I can't sing anything, but I did think of that song as at least adjacent to Christmas. I certainly only ever hear it in December.

Happy holiday, though! I hope your lamps burn bright.

[sovay]

i will be the outlier here then and confess i had neither heard, nor heard of, that song before today.

Thank you for your outlying data point! For context on my side, I was raised with a handful of consciously celebrated Christmas traditions in a not even part-Christian household, with results like a never-belief in Santa Claus and a knowledge of how to make a roast, a plum pudding, and a combustibly alcoholic eggnog. I don't regret my parents having made this decision, but it does mean that periodically I run into something like this song, where if it is out of the mainstream, someone is going to have to tell me, because I sincerely grew up thinking it was normal to light a twice-steamed and multiply brandy-soaked pudding on fire for Christmas dinner.

[cmcmck]

It is catchy for sure! :o)

A freylichen Chanukah