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Friday, July 27, 2012

World's Greatest and More Nigel Hall

No one ever called me with the times.

I speak truth when I tell you I heard this song - - and liked it - -  from 2002 for the first time ever yesterday.  If his Wiki entry is accurate that R. Kelly is the King of R and B, then where have I been the past ten years?

Oh, right, starting and raising a family.  Since I don't listen to pop radio or watch commercial tv, that might play a role, too.




And yet.

I still contend that Nigel Hall is, like my friend the Coach stated recently to me, the best soul singer out there today.  But of course I always go for the low-lying fruit.






This video is more like a montage of  a show.  Of course I love Nigel's voice but check out Adam Smirnoff, "Shmeeans" (in baseball cap), on guitar...got to love those facial expressions.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Yiddish Farm

Jews are farming today.  Jews care about the environment.  That's old news.  The Jewish Farm School has been farming since 2006.  Hazon, the premier Jewish environmental organization, has been educating and bike riding for longer.

But now comes the Yiddish Farm where you can not only farm in a Jewish tradition, but speak and learn Yiddish at the same time.  It is bringing together Jews from all walks of life.  And it's quite a spin on the organic farm trend in our culture.




Naftali Ejdelman, along with Yisroel Bass, founded the Yiddish farm a couple of years ago.  This year they are farming the land in Goshen, New York, along with about 10 other full time residents.    We are fortunate to personally know Naftali, and are thrilled for the coverage about Yiddish Farm in this week's Forward.

Now what about this music video filmed there?


Purple is a True Color

My ideas and thoughts are numerous and the desire to connect all of the technicolor is often overwhelming.  Is life better in black and white?  I am not sure.  But sepia does have that nostalgic feeling that we all love.

Last weekend my new friend Holly, at our shabbes lunch table, shared her explanation as to why the color purple is so powerful:  It contains red and blue which is both hot and cold.  It is the perfect blend.  It is the perfect color.  The perfect stuff is my own addition.  Holly's simple and eloquent explanation resonated with me.

If only the daily grind of life could be that perfect blend of blue and red.

I was thinking of my childhood friend MiktheFish who loves purple.  And my friend the PurpleGirl who loves purple.  And Adam Purple, the famous squatter featured in a 1972 issue of National Geographic.  And of Prince and Purple Rain.  And of all the great people who are drawn to purple.    Of course the film The Color Purple and the book on which it was based  (oh, the Israel politics in that link...I am so saddened to learn that Alice Walker believes that Israel is an apartheid state and won't issue a copy of that book in Hebrew.  It goes so much deeper than that.  Zionism is not Racism, doesn't the world get that already?).  Yeah, I didn't forget the Purple People Eater.  What do you think I am, a bad egg?  Not me...I am neither the type to scream out "I want it now" (Veruca), nor am I the type to say, "can it, you nit!" but Violet was.  And Violet Beauregard also loved purple.

Thank God for trusty spin class, where I heard a souped-up spin-worthy version of the tune below.

Thanks, Cyndi.

Note that her hair has a purple sheen.

On Purging, Winona Ryder and J.D. Salinger

Many years ago I was terribly impressed upon reading about Winona Ryder's habit of collecting old copies of Catcher in the Rye that I decided I wanted to do the same.  Of course I loved Holden Caulfield just as much as the next gal, but I never thought of the Winona's very clever idea of collecting them.  Since I always had great respect for her work and style, this seemed like a great idea.  Not that I didn't trust my memory, but of course I did my online research about this topic, and indeed she spoke a few years ago about how many of her old interviews referenced J.D. Salinger.  My desire to collect them, though, ended up growing to a few other titles, as I grew to love Salinger dearly the more I read him.  In the mid '00s when Stango and I lived in New Haven, the city where I birthed Concealed Light and the Wolfman, I would envision myself in the 1950s waiting on the train platform in New Haven, as was detailed in a different seminal Salinger book Franny and Zooey.  Girl can dream.

Then reality struck:  it wasn't so easy in the mid 90s to simply pick up used editions of Catcher in the Rye anywhere in the northeast.  Sure I had the time as a single working woman, but visits to bookstores in Cambridge, Providence and New York City were all quickly visits in vain.  Ithaca?  Maybe.  Toronto, Burlington and the Berkshires were better scouting sites.

I write all of this because while Concealed Light was away at camp in July I managed to purge out lots of unneeded items from clothing to toys to books.  I believe at least 10 bags of stuff were donated.  Probably will regret one or two of them, but in keeping with Miesian minimalism of less is more to which I strive, I was happy to see it all go.

But not my Salingers.

They stay.


my 2 paperbacks and a hard copy of Catcher in The Rye
Funny thing about the original reader of this book I purchased in a used book store probably in the Berkshires is that I knew David Barash!  Nice guy.  I think I told him once that I had his high school copy.
  
Do I care that there is fraying on the binding?

From my hardcopy of Catcher in the Rye:  not a first edition but I imagine this was published for a book club or library edition.  Still a pretty good find for minimal money:  I could not afford to spend more than $15

So, the hardback isn't in great condition.  I don't care!
Worthy reads in their own right.   Did Wes Anderson study the Glass family and contemporize them in his various films?  
My Salinger collection as a whole.  I know, this is a modest collection.  We're not talking to Sotheby's, people!