Chapbooks! Purim! Nap!
2005-03-25 18:17Really, the title explains it all. But for those of you who desire exegesis, read on.
My copies of Shade and Shadow, the chapbook, arrived today. They are slender and cute and all mine. With this first attempt there are some small problems, like 28-page chapbooks really need staples in addition to glue binding, and the cover art is a little crunchier than it looked on the screen, and I can't explain where the variable margins came from, but still: I'm rather happy. And these glitches are all minor and easily fixed, so all of you who plunked down $3 for one of these things will receive Version 2.0, fear not. Yay and yay.
As for Purim, last night and this morning I was in New York City, at JTS, and I would like to state for the record that as unlikely a fusion as the Book of Esther, Cabaret, and The Wizard of Oz may sound: in practice, it works. Any Purim spiel that follows the recitation of Haman's comeuppance with a brief sound clip of Margaret Hamilton mid-melt ("I'm melting! I'm melting! Oh, what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?") is all right by me. Or that classic of the New York nightclub scene, "Kavod Makes the World Go Around," as performed by a nun and a rabbi-MC. Or "Two Yidn," by Dorothy and the Scarecrow ("I put on sackcloth, and I say the prayers / I'm in the palace and put on Persian airs / But we're working together / We both want one thing / The king: his ring: chiri-biri-biri-biri-bing!"). Wholly surrealistic in a good way. And the young man who read the ganze Megillah was unbelievable. Unlike most of the other costumes, which were generally either film-inspired or just totally off the wall—I went as the imaginary friend of a certain cantorial student—his was simple: black shirt, black pants, a red silk cape like a magician, and a fantastic black-and-red feathered mask with peacock's feathers above the eyes. So he looked hieratic, ritually masked, and then he read out the story with all sorts of characterization and different voices and narrator's whispers and thunder—and kept the trope all the while. That blows my mind. I am not fluent in Hebrew, but I might have been able to pick up the basic story from his performance alone. I'd never seen anything like that before. Life is a Purim spiel, old chum . . . And they had hamantashn!
And the nap part is really simple. I slept about three, four hours last night in an unfamiliar dormitory and for various reasons I've been traveling all day. So, if you'll excuse me . . .
My copies of Shade and Shadow, the chapbook, arrived today. They are slender and cute and all mine. With this first attempt there are some small problems, like 28-page chapbooks really need staples in addition to glue binding, and the cover art is a little crunchier than it looked on the screen, and I can't explain where the variable margins came from, but still: I'm rather happy. And these glitches are all minor and easily fixed, so all of you who plunked down $3 for one of these things will receive Version 2.0, fear not. Yay and yay.
As for Purim, last night and this morning I was in New York City, at JTS, and I would like to state for the record that as unlikely a fusion as the Book of Esther, Cabaret, and The Wizard of Oz may sound: in practice, it works. Any Purim spiel that follows the recitation of Haman's comeuppance with a brief sound clip of Margaret Hamilton mid-melt ("I'm melting! I'm melting! Oh, what a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?") is all right by me. Or that classic of the New York nightclub scene, "Kavod Makes the World Go Around," as performed by a nun and a rabbi-MC. Or "Two Yidn," by Dorothy and the Scarecrow ("I put on sackcloth, and I say the prayers / I'm in the palace and put on Persian airs / But we're working together / We both want one thing / The king: his ring: chiri-biri-biri-biri-bing!"). Wholly surrealistic in a good way. And the young man who read the ganze Megillah was unbelievable. Unlike most of the other costumes, which were generally either film-inspired or just totally off the wall—I went as the imaginary friend of a certain cantorial student—his was simple: black shirt, black pants, a red silk cape like a magician, and a fantastic black-and-red feathered mask with peacock's feathers above the eyes. So he looked hieratic, ritually masked, and then he read out the story with all sorts of characterization and different voices and narrator's whispers and thunder—and kept the trope all the while. That blows my mind. I am not fluent in Hebrew, but I might have been able to pick up the basic story from his performance alone. I'd never seen anything like that before. Life is a Purim spiel, old chum . . . And they had hamantashn!
And the nap part is really simple. I slept about three, four hours last night in an unfamiliar dormitory and for various reasons I've been traveling all day. So, if you'll excuse me . . .
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