Blog Archives

spring into summer

4/27/2014

(Shabbat in the Park, Gezer Park, Leawood KS, June 2013)

I'm preparing for The Incredible June, Redux.

There have been phone conversations with the clergy and Education Director at Congregation B'nai Jehudah in OPK as I compile music and materials for not only the Machane Jehudah day camp but also for a month's worth of services. This time, I will be pinch-hitting as a cantorial soloist. I think it is perfectly okay to admit that I am nervous about this added element. I don't have tons of formal cantorial-type training and have had to learn everything on the fly. I hope I'll do well by everyone. I've been sent recorded materials to help me wrap my ears around the musical minhag (custom) of services at TTBJ, and that will help a lot. But it definitely does remind me of how much I would benefit from a workshop or three on Nusach (liturgical chanting). I would really like to go to such a workshop one of these days, but they are expensive and there is little local support for such things. So for the time being, I keep trying to learn on the fly.

I have, with a friend's help, compiled recordings and lyrics of Israeli pop music for use at camp; prepared music for Shavuot services (which will happen days after I arrive); and materials for what I hope will be a beginning guitar chug (class) for the older kids and a kids' chorus for all ages. It will be a slightly different June this time around but still a lot of work and a lot of fun.

I also went ahead and sent out copies of my songbook/zine to pre-purchasers and thanked them for their support. CD sales have been small but steady as more people find out about my music by word-of-mouth. I also hoped to travel to synagogues in the next year to bring songleading and other music workshops to them. At least two synagogues are interested and are trying to find the money to bring me in. I am hopeful.

There are just three weeks left in my teaching year in Portland. I am wrapping up various lessons and projects with my students and enjoying these warmer days with the preschoolers as we laugh and sing our way through Friday mornings together. It has been a lovely spring. I am looking ahead to a busy and rewarding summer.

(below: morning T'filot (prayers) at Machane Jehudah, 2013)

songbook/zine update

4/20/2014

The first run of the songbook/zine is finished. This batch is in black and white; self-serve publishing at Kinko's is still rather expensive and copying on 11 x 17" paper is more than twice as much as copying on 8.5 x 11".
I did not receive as many pre-purchases as I had hoped and so, while I will create copies with color covers as promised for those who pre-purchased, I will make the rest in B/W.

If you are used to reading zines online or are more familiar with the glossy, high production values of the current crop of indy publishing, the look and feel of my first-generation-styled, DIY creation may surprise you.
The point of zines is simply to get information and creative material out there; so the first generation of zines (from roughly 12-15 years ago) were simple in format. Based on my budget, that was how I proceeded. You will find that, although this zine is very simple in appearance, the printed material is clear and readable. You should have no difficulty reading either the text or the lead sheets inside.

This was an experiment and a labor of love, and it is unlikely that I will do something like this again out of my own pocket. I simply can't afford to give my music away in this manner. I have much to learn about self-promotion and marketing, and this was a very useful learning experience.

The finished zine has 27 pages of original creative content, including lead sheets for eight songs.
I have twenty copies of the zine/songbook available that I will sell for $11 each with postage.
If you would prefer to print it yourself, I will provide you with the electronic files for $9. To purchase, please use the contact link at top. Thanks!

travel is broadening

4/16/2014

I have been pondering questions about travel, connection and community.

This week, I have been thinking about my connection to the Jewish community of Overland Park, KS, a community that is in great pain following shootings at two Jewish community facilities just blocks apart (and not terribly far from the synagogue I will visit again in June). My thoughts since Sunday have swung back and forth between worry for my friends in OPK and preparations for our seder here in PDX, careening between sadness and joy.

This week, organizers of the Boston Marathon are preparing to commemorate the events of a year ago, when last year's marathon was rocked by a terrorist bombing that killed several people and injured hundreds. When the bombing happened last year, my partner gasped in recognition and sadness at the mention of place names she had familiarity with -- the result of having attended graduate school in that historic city. She didn't especially love her grad school experience, but has some fond memories of living in a bustling city filled with history and beauty. (The 2014 marathon will be run on Sunday, April 20th.) The bombing shocked and saddened her deeply and in a slightly more personal way than it did me, because of her connection to the place.

So when we talked about the effect of travel on our ability to connect with places, and with people, it came as no surprise to my partner or to me that I would have conflicting feelings about Passover in light of what has happened in Overland Park, a clean and quiet suburb of Kansas City. My friends are all safe, thank goodness -- but their world has been totally rocked. I live two thousand miles away, and my mind and energies have bounced back and forth between sadness for my friends there and the hilarity of the seder we hosted here on Monday night. It's vaguely schizophrenic, this dual-mood energy.

And it has inspired me to think about Israel, and my relationship with the Jewish homeland.

"Next year in Jerusalem!" we shout at the end of our seders in the diaspora, as if we all actively plan to celebrate Pesach in Israel next year. The fact is that I know I will not be spending next Pesach, or the one after that, or the several after that, in Israel. But this week with its magnetic/emotional pull in opposite directions has got me thinking about something my more well-traveled friends tell me all the time: In order to have a relationship with Israel you really just need to go and visit the place. You need to go and meet the people and eat the food and hike the hills and see the holy sites, in order to get a better handle on why this place exists -- why it has to exist, and why Jews around the world had better hope it will always exist. Reading about it in books will tell you only so much, and hardly enough at that.

And so, while my friends in the Kansas City area struggle to come to terms with how their personal sense of safety and peace has been violated this week, and I pray for their safety and well-being from my home so far away, I find I am also pondering my relationship again with the place we call Eretz Yisrael, and with how my relationship with place informs the ways in which I live as a Jew. I have no hard answers -- hell, I can't even properly articulate good questions at this moment -- but I continue to ponder. I hope some answers will become clearer to me before too terribly long, and I hope they will help to inform my next steps.

kol yisrael areivim zeh bazeh

4/13/2014

This morning, near the end of our religious school day, I was facilitating discussion among my 5th graders on the topic: "kol Yisrael areivim zeh bazeh (all Israel is responsible for one another)". Minutes after I wished my students a zissn Pesach and sent them out into the bright spring sunshine, I heard the awful news from Overland Park, KS.

As many of my friends in PDX know, OPK has become a sweet home away from home for me, and I ache at the pain and fear my friends and the whole Jewish community there are experiencing tonight. I am glad my friends are safe, I pray for the grieving families of those who were killed, and hope that in the days to come, ways that I can be of help to my friends there will become clearer.

As I continue with Passover cleaning and cooking here at home, I am reminded that a big part of why we who are free keep telling the story of our redemption over and over each year is to remind ourselves that no one is completely free -- of hatred, fear and everything else that holds us back -- until we all are. We must work together, using whatever gifts are at our disposal, to help make that happen.

I wish all of you a zissn Pesach -- a sweet Passover of redemption, healing and peace.

do i have doubts? about every other day or so.

4/8/2014

In the rarefied air of this alternate universe I voluntarily re-entered about a year and a half ago, I find myself stopping frequently to catch my breath and take stock of where I am.
It's been quite a year, filled with ups and downs. I am in the homestretch of the academic year where I teach religious school. I have established great relationships with new B'nai Mitzvah students. I am compiling materials that will eventually become a songbook/zine. And in less than two months I will return to Kansas for another round of music-making and teaching.
About every third day I still wake up and wonder if I'm on the right track. I still wrestle with questions that have no answers. I struggle to know where I belong -- this seems to shift regularly and sometimes quite often.
I'm saying this just so that people can understand that no matter what, I am still ridiculously human. I stumble, and fall, and worry about what comes next. I worry about how to be my most authentic self, even if that authenticity is rooted in rootlessness. It's a process, a journey, and the destination is not clear. But I keep at it. What else can I do?

update #1 on the songbook/'zine project

4/2/2014

I want to give you an update on the 'zine/songbook project:

First of all, THANK YOU to the following people who have already signed up to pre-order their copy of this very limited-run project:
Sari Peterson
Barb Stambler
Liz Herman
If you want to sign on to this project with a minimum investment of $18, please use the contact tab at the top to let me know. I will then contact you and let you know how to proceed.
I am nearly done with final edits and hope to have proofing done by this weekend. If all goes well, printing could happen by end of April. I will make 25 copies and when they're all spoken for, that's it.
Thanks for your support!