Zi hot tsi tin mit pek papir, epes mit a knige

[sovay]

1. I got up early this morning for the last MIT Swapfest of the season; I did not find any electronics for myself, but I did get a CD of Talking Heads: 77 (1977) and one of John M. Ford's Star Trek novels I hadn't read. Also discovered Flour, which is a lot farther from me than I'd like. Their scones are amazing.

2. My godmother gave me money for my birthday. Not a lot, but enough for me to order a book: The Worlds of S. An-sky: A Russian Jewish Intellectual at the Turn of the Century (2006), ed. Gabriella Safran and Steven Zipperstein. It arrived last night.

I didn't realize it came with a CD: דאס אויפקומען/The Upward Flight. Including some of Ansky's own field-recordings from shtetlakh in the Ukraine, 1912–1914. Modern recordings also of the songs he collected, wrote or translated—"Der Internatsyonal (fun frantseyzish)"—and incorporated into The Dybbuk. The album's title is taken from his Yiddish of "Mipney ma" ("Makhmes vos"), the Chasidic chant that encloses the play.

That's even more awesome than I was expecting.

3. I never thought about the author of The Phantom Tollbooth (1961). I read an old hardcover that had belonged to my mother; it was missing its dust jacket and there was no "About the Author," just the final illustration of Milo looking out from his armchair, considering the suddenly interesting world. I think this article is the most information about Norton Juster I've ever seen in one place. He has synesthesia. That feels like it makes sense.

4. There will be a Criterion DVD of Godzilla (Gojira, 1954). I approve.

5. I've had three poems rejected in three days. I'll have to write more.

Comments

[sovay]

That book looks AWESOME.

So far, it is.

Some interviews

“Tutsi Frutsi Ice Cream!"

I was just quoting that this morning!

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

1. What an excellent morning!

2. Oh, that book looks fabulous--and a CD! Pure superadded unexpected bliss.

3. I hadn't known that Juster is an architect. Or a synesthesiac. (Is that a word?) Fascinating.

4. Absolutely the caterpillar's spats.

5. How short-sighted of these editors. More poems would be wonderful.

Nine

[sovay]

Oh, that book looks fabulous--and a CD! Pure superadded unexpected bliss.

It's been playing on repeat most of the time I've been home.

How short-sighted of these editors.

Well, one of them I am quite fond of.

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

Congrats on getting the An-Sky book, good choice. They have it at my school library (Simon Fraser U). The CD that comes with it is quite good, I especially like their version of "In Ale Gasn"..

[sovay]

Congrats on getting the An-Sky book, good choice.

I'm enjoying it a lot. I see also that one of the editors has written an actual biography of An-sky, so that's next up when I can afford it.

The CD that comes with it is quite good, I especially like their version of "In Ale Gasn".

I was unfamiliar with almost all of the songs. I love when that happens.

[cannibal-x.livejournal.com]

Since there's no point in lying to a stranger online, I never actually read the book, I was too busy with exams at the time I saw it and just copied the cd ;) But it's been on my "to-read" list--next time I'm back at that library I should give it a go, since you recommend it!

I don't have the tracks on the CD with me, but I remember knowing a few of them from the klezmer scene (of course Alpert and Brotman are two mainstays of the klezmer revival..) and there being a lot of neat "new" ones too, or new russian lyrics to the ones I did know.

[sovay]

But it's been on my "to-read" list--next time I'm back at that library I should give it a go, since you recommend it!

It's worth your time!

and there being a lot of neat "new" ones too, or new russian lyrics to the ones I did know.

I'd heard "Di shvue," but "Mipney ma" was the only one I could have sung off the top of my head. I don't think knowing the tune to "The Internationale" counts.

[gwynnega]

I love Talking Heads: 77 so much. It's my favorite by them besides Fear of Music.

That Ansky book/CD sounds amazing.

Rejections do seem to come in clumps, I find.

[sovay]

I love Talking Heads: 77 so much.

I had the songs, but not on disc, and I have lost too many computers at this point to consider mp3s a permanent form of storage.

That Ansky book/CD sounds amazing.

Highly, highly recommended.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

What I really love from Norton Juster is The Dot and the Line, though I did appreciate The Phantom Tollbooth too.

People in my book group had not heard of the phenomenon of synesthesia. It was fun to explain it to them.

[sovay]

What I really love from Norton Juster is The Dot and the Line, though I did appreciate The Phantom Tollbooth too.

I can't remember if I've read The Dot and the Line—I know the plot, but I have no memory of the text or the illustrations. I'll look it up.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

There's a ten-minute movie online that you can see (with slightly annoying narration)

Characterwise (yes! I'm about to analyze this) the dot is pretty shallow, and why can't the line find someone better?? But I appreciated the basic story of discipline leading to craft, and beyond that, the different illustrations for the different concepts, like "profound" and "eloquent"

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

a Criterion DVD of Godzilla (Gojira, 1954). I approve

the original, not the amurrican one with Raymond Burr inserted?

[sovay]

the original, not the amurrican one with Raymond Burr inserted?

I linked the page; both versions with a bunch of extras, but I (and I suspect most people) would buy it for the original.

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I love the original, and with new subtitles, and some of the extras, I will be putting that on my calendar, getting both versions of the flick is a plus too. I have my Godzilla movies on both VHS and DVD, and I do prefer to have them in Japanese with subtitles.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I picked up a touch of synaesthesia after my stroke in college and now, alas, it seems to have faded again. It is the reason I tend to think of your name -- spoken -- as a particular shade of blue, though you don't wear blue much that I know of; old-milk-paint-on-a-door-in-autumn blue. Nicole had made a chart of what colors I heard and what words I tasted, but I suppose it got lost in a move or scribbled on by a toddler.

I wonder if I went back and looked at my writing if I could spot any of its tics.

[sovay]

It is the reason I tend to think of your name -- spoken -- as a particular shade of blue, though you don't wear blue much that I know of; old-milk-paint-on-a-door-in-autumn blue.

That would be the color of the jacket I wore all summer, I think.

*hugs*

I wonder if I went back and looked at my writing if I could spot any of its tics.

You should let me know.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Glad for the finds, and the book, which sounds brilliant.

Thanks for sharing the piece about The Phantom Tollbooth. I read it as a child.

He has synesthesia. That feels like it makes sense.

It does. I was a bit surprised that he seemed to be talking about it in the past tense--I'd never realised that it could go away, which really seems a bit saddening, somehow. Or did he mean that his colour-number associations have changed since childhood?

4. There will be a Criterion DVD of Godzilla (Gojira, 1954). I approve.

Excellent. There should be.

5. I've had three poems rejected in three days. I'll have to write more.

I'm sorry for the rejections. You should do so.