tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38413309978877151632024-03-05T11:09:01.526-08:00alicia jo rabinsadventures of an artist, mother, coffee-lover: on the road and at home.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-59784056636760118382017-04-07T12:38:00.001-07:002017-04-07T12:38:45.059-07:00GIRLS IN TROUBLE CURRICULUM, OR, COME EXPLORE THE SECRET LIVES OF WOMEN IN TORAH!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="m_-1001137926996698776mcnTextBlockInner" style="margin: 0px; padding-top: 9px;" valign="top"><table align="left" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="m_-1001137926996698776mcnTextContentContainer" style="border-collapse: collapse; max-width: 100%; min-width: 100%; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
<tr><td class="m_-1001137926996698776mcnTextContent" style="color: grey; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 18px 9px; word-break: break-word;" valign="top"><span style="color: black;">Dear friends:<br /><br />First: I want to take a moment to acknowledge the suffering and uncertainty happening in the world right now. I believe it is important to keep our eyes open and to continue our work, not as a distraction but as a counter-force.<br /><br />So in the spirit of art, of ancient stories that contextualize modern struggles, of feminism and justice and education, I offer big news from Girls in Trouble headquarters: </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><strong>The first ten units of the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/product-category/study-guide/&source=gmail&ust=1491680157155000&usg=AFQjCNFzoCrRXEJ9TmpZbcL3tqVr7oRPcw" href="http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/product-category/study-guide/" style="color: #00add8; font-weight: normal;" target="_blank">Girls in Trouble Curriculum</a> are complete! </strong></span><br />
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<span style="color: black;">I know, I know, "curriculum" is not the sexiest word. But you don't have to be a teacher to use these - you can also read them as self-study guides or with a friend. And I hope these covers give you a sense that it's more enticing than "curriculum" might imply. These study guides are all about finding the relevance in ancient stories of difficult times, and the power in women's stories.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: black;">Questions? Answers.</span><br /> </h3>
<span style="color: black;"><strong>What is the Girls in Trouble Curriculum?</strong></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="color: black;">Ten in-depth study guides, each about a different woman character in the Torah (aka Old Testament) with some apocryphal stories for good measure. Eve, Miriam, Ruth, Bat Yiftach, Judith, and more.</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: black;"><strong>What is the Girls in Trouble Curriculum?</strong></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="color: black;">Each unit comes as a downloadable digital package (pdf, PowerPoint and mp3) chock full of material about the character through text and art: Torah sources, rabbinic commentaries, visual art, a Girls in Trouble song with detailed annotations and explanations, my own thoughts on the characters, and creative prompts.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black;"><strong> How am I supposed to use it?</strong></span></div>
<ul>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="color: black;">It's flexible, and no background is necessary. Read through on your own as a study guide; use it for teaching a session or series of classes to teens or adults; bring it to a small group like Rosh Chodesh, book club, etc. Or, read one to get ready for an upcoming Torah portion or holiday (hint: Passover=Miriam and Shavuot=Ruth) or to think through a theme you've been pondering (sisterhood, motherhood, growth).</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="color: black;"><strong>How much is it?</strong></span></div>
<ul>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="color: black;">Downloads are free through April (!), thanks to the generosity of the Covenant Foundation, who have supported this curriculum from the beginning, and to whom I am endlessly grateful. (While I’m at it, I am also tremendously grateful to Joshua Venture Group for additional support, and my brilliant creative partners – London-based graphic designer, Uri Berkowitz, and collaborator/assistants extraordinaire Hannah Kapnik Ashar, Mimi Farb, and Rory Michelle Sullivan.) After that they will be $5/unit for individuals, $18 for small groups, and $36 for institutions.</span></li>
</ul>
<div style="line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: black;"><strong>Where is it again?</strong></span></div>
<ul>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="color: black;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/product-category/study-guide/&source=gmail&ust=1491680157155000&usg=AFQjCNFzoCrRXEJ9TmpZbcL3tqVr7oRPcw" href="http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/product-category/study-guide/" style="color: #00add8;" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Here</span></a><span style="color: black;">!</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: black;"><strong>What are the units?</strong></span><br />
<ul>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;"><span style="color: black;">Glad you asked! Scroll down for a summary.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<span style="color: black;">Wishing you all a Passover of liberation. Let me know if you have any questions, let me know if you use it, and please do take advantage of the free download to check it out yourself.</span><br />
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<strong><span style="color: purple;">Miriam in the Desert</span></strong><br />
Miriam is celebrated for her leadership throughout Exodus. But later in the Torah, she is stricken with leprosy and sent away for seven days. How can this story guide us through challenging moments in our own lives? <br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><strong>Eve the Mother</strong></span><br />
Famous for her role as the first woman, Eve is less often considered as the very first mother. What might her complicated experience teach us about the nature of parenthood and love itself?<br />
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<strong><span style="color: purple;">Judith in the Enemy’s Tent</span></strong><br />
Judith, a young widow in a city under siege, saves her people by dressing up and performing a grisly act of violence.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><strong>Lilith: Demoness or Heroine?</strong></span><br />
Lilith’s story does not appear in the Torah, and yet she has been part of Jewish lore for over three thousand years. Mysterious, powerful, her story evokes passionate responses. Demoness or heroine: which Lilith will you choose?<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><strong>Rachel & Leah: Being Sisters</strong></span><br />
Sisterhood is powerful; it’s also powerfully complicated. This unit considers the stunningly complex relationship between two of the most famous sisters in Torah, Rachel and Leah.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: purple;">Yiftach’s Daughter at Stake</span></strong><br />
This is a story of faith, danger, and sacrifice, in which a young girl loses her future because of a few careless words spoken by her father. Yet a careful reading seems to reveal that Yiftach’s Daughter has more agency than appears at first glance.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><strong>Tamar at the Crossroads</strong></span><br />
Deception, sexuality, and a surprising move for power by a woman who seems to have none at all: Tamar’s tale is as dramatic and gripping as the best television.<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><strong>Sarah’s Sacrifice</strong></span><br />
The Binding of Isaac, one of the most challenging stories in Judaism, is even more complex when imagined from his mother Sarah’s perspective. Focusing on rabbinic commentary, song, visual art and poetry about Sarah’s experience, we invite the mother in.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: purple;">Hannah Raises Her Voice</span></strong><br />
What do we do when we want something we can’t have? Should we accept our life for what it is, or try to change it? And how should we approach the Divine – with humility or chutzpah?<br />
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<span style="color: purple;"><strong>Ruth’s Journey</strong></span><br />
Ruth reinvents herself through a series of brave choices, risking failure and rejection to build a new life. What bold choices might we make to transform our own lives?</td></tr>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-56548560546236628812017-02-09T23:39:00.000-08:002017-02-10T10:55:49.539-08:00LET MY PEOPLE GO, OR, THEY WARNED ME ABOUT THIS IN HEBREW SCHOOL<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: white;">Many of us progressive Jews feel a resonance with the protest poster that read, “They warned me about this in Hebrew school.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The story of Pharaoh, the story of Amalek, and the tragedies of the twentieth century are frighteningly resonant to much of what has been happening this fall and winter.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It’s our turn now to read that story, not as a metaphor but as a literal inspiration. It’s our turn to rise up, to struggle in the name of freedom, to watch out for our brothers and sisters, to carry all we hold dear to safety.</span></div>
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<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" data-shortcode="caption" id="attachment_124" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #111111; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 17px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; max-width: 100%; width: 219px;"><img alt="images.jpg" class=" size-full wp-image-124 aligncenter" data-attachment-id="124" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="images" data-large-file="https://newspiritualresistance.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/images.jpg?w=616?w=219" data-medium-file="https://newspiritualresistance.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/images.jpg?w=616?w=219" data-orig-file="https://newspiritualresistance.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/images.jpg?w=616" data-orig-size="219,230" data-permalink="https://newspiritualresistance.wordpress.com/2017/02/10/let-my-people-go-or-they-warned-me-about-this-in-hebrew-school/images/" sizes="(max-width: 219px) 100vw, 219px" src="https://newspiritualresistance.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/images.jpg?w=616" srcset="https://newspiritualresistance.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/images.jpg 219w, https://newspiritualresistance.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/images.jpg?w=143 143w" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: inherit; height: auto; line-height: 1; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; color: #444444; font-family: Lato, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 0.9rem; font-weight: 700; line-height: 18.72px; margin: 12px 12px 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white;">pretty much sums it up</span></figcaption></figure><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">What I learn from Exodus, and specifically from the story of Miriam during and after Exodus, is that this fight is eternal. It happens over and over in the history of the world. And it happens not only on the scale of empires, but also in our personal lives, our families and communities.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I have a musical project called <a href="http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); box-sizing: border-box; color: #0093c2; outline: none; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">Girls in Trouble</a>, where I write songs about women in the Torah. When I sat down to write about Miriam, I decided to focus not on her triumphant song at the Sea, though that would have been the obvious choice.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Yes, that is a great moment, rightfully celebrated by Bible-loving feminists of all stripes (hello, my people!). But the problem is, it’s not a full picture of Miriam’s life. In a much less famous story later on, while the Israelites wander in the desert, Miriam is struck with leprosy, exiled by God, and sent to live outside the camp for a week. We never hear from her again until her death.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I wanted to embrace the full range of Miriam’s experiences in <a href="http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/songs/snow-scorpions-spiders/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); box-sizing: border-box; color: #0093c2; outline: none; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">my song</a>. Her girlhood, watching her baby brother Moses to keep him safe as he floated down the Nile in a basket of reeds. Her experience of crossing the Sea, which (as the rabbis point out) created liberation for the Israelites, but also death for many Egyptians. And her exile in the desert.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I have heard some people express despair, feeling that their phone calls were worth nothing, since they have not stopped the Senate from confirming the parade of unsuitable nominees for top posts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">But there are no guarantees in the process of leaving Egypt, no one-to-one ratio of action to outcome. And even if every single nominee were to be denied, the work would not end there. And even if we are able to get through this time without too much damage to our democracy, the work will not end there either.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Because as Miriam shows us, the journey does not end with the Exodus. As long as we are alive, we are part of this enormous collaborative piece called “human history.” We must remain vigilant and we must participate. I used to think democracy could run itself as long as I voted in major elections. Like so many other Americans, I now see that this was never true. I will not forget this lesson, and I will try to teach my children and grandchildren their responsibility.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Now it is our turn to step up and demand, “Let my people go.” My people: the innocent Muslims denied entrance into our country after two years of vetting. My people: the Mexican mother deported today. My people: the JCC preschools across the country having to evacuate cribs after bomb threats are called in. Let my people go.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-52023757646037134202017-01-30T23:22:00.002-08:002017-01-30T23:23:11.436-08:00THE KING AND THE SCROLL, OR "NEVER AGAIN" IS UP TO US NOW<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis0HweHAF40yrp0hIEArQCM9WIov7HYh_it-gSCDj0X8T3ZLVwdPf65HlPzr6VfzuKbHCL1Tve2bDdA-5BrLkIH8hcLPzc4NSWf3KM8yMDFVItBJG4q9NtL5Gbwgs1lXLLq1UkgGn3BbWc/s1600/2472547083_d0b3d77a70.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis0HweHAF40yrp0hIEArQCM9WIov7HYh_it-gSCDj0X8T3ZLVwdPf65HlPzr6VfzuKbHCL1Tve2bDdA-5BrLkIH8hcLPzc4NSWf3KM8yMDFVItBJG4q9NtL5Gbwgs1lXLLq1UkgGn3BbWc/s320/2472547083_d0b3d77a70.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I’ve been tutoring bar and bat mitzvah students for years. I teach them to chant the Hebrew and we wrestle with the meaning of the text like a couple of regular old rabbis. It’s the best.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">One of my current students is studying Deuteronomy 17, which includes a section about how a king should govern. Usually it’s one of those passages that seems fairly abstract for a preteen, like the chapters about leprosy or sacrifices. But since we began studying this portion in September, she and I have watched in slowly deepening horror as the daily news echoes the ancient words.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Our early-fall jokes about how the Torah almost seems to be warning Candidate Trump have morphed into horror as we watch the words transform into dystopian reality under President Trump.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="text Deut-17-16" id="en-NIV-5381" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself…</span><span class="text Deut-17-17" id="en-NIV-5382" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold. (Deut. 17:14-16)</span></span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Many wives? Check. Large amounts of silver and gold? Check. Heart led astray? Certainly.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The power-hungry, unwise, unjust ruler is an eternal type and, unfortunately, a recurring reality. It is a human problem, not specific to the ancient world or the modern world. We learned about it in history class; we learned about it in Hebrew school; and now we are learning about it in real life. It’s our turn to live through it, and our turn to fight.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">After the Torah tells a ruler what <em style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; line-height: 1; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">not</em> to do, it moves on to positive suggestions for leadership. Patriarchal gender-bias notwithstanding, I think this is one of the most beautiful wisdom texts ever written:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span class="text Deut-17-18" id="en-NIV-5383" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests.</span> <span class="text Deut-17-19" id="en-NIV-5384" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the <span class="small-caps" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Lord</span> his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees</span> <span class="text Deut-17-20" id="en-NIV-5385" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel. (Deut. 18-20).</span></span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The king earns the right to reign by copy a scroll of the Torah, carrying it with him, reading it every single day, in a luminous vision of leadership which integrates spiritual wisdom with worldly power.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Unfortunately, this is the opposite of our reality. The behaviors this passage warns against have been happening with eerie consistency over the past few days.</span></div>
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<span class="text Deut-17-20" id="en-NIV-5385" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">“Not consider himself better than his fellow [humans].”</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A true leader must acknowledge others’ humanity. Instead, Trump enacts a de facto Muslim ban.</span></div>
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<span class="text Deut-17-20" id="en-NIV-5385" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">“[Not] turn from the law to the right or to the left.”</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A true leader must use measured, thoughtful justice. Instead, Trump fires Judge Sally Yates for upholding the Constitution.</span></div>
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<span class="text Deut-17-19" id="en-NIV-5384" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">“[T]o revere the <span class="small-caps" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box;">Lord</span> his God and follow carefully all the words of this law.”</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: white;">A true leader maintains dedication to what is true. I’m not saying a leader has to be religious. What is true can be God, or simply a commitment to human dignity. That scroll is a symbol meaning that a ruler must always maintain his humanity, his mortality, his morality, his obligation to do right.</span></div>
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<span class="text Deut-17-20" id="en-NIV-5385" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">Tonight I draw strength from that last line:</span></div>
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<span class="text Deut-17-20" id="en-NIV-5385" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.</span></h4>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Then, and only then. Without justice, no king or President will reign for long, because people will rise up. To fight for justice and demand new leadership that reflects the better nature of our country: that is our job now.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">It is our turn to fight.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">The “never” part of “never again” is up to us.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">photo credit: KOREphotos <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/16493930@N00/2472547083" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); box-sizing: border-box; color: #0093c2; outline: none; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">Scroll of Isaiah from Qumran at Israel Museum</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); box-sizing: border-box; color: #0093c2; outline: none; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">photopin</a> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; border-bottom: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); box-sizing: border-box; color: #0093c2; outline: none; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">(license)</a></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-7532912317189347562017-01-14T15:59:00.001-08:002017-01-25T13:32:44.753-08:00WHOSE NEW YEAR?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I remember one of the first ancient Jewish texts I learned
when I first made my pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I was 21 years old, newly arrived from my somewhat-spiritual-but-totally-unreligious life in New York City.<br />
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I joined
the “total beginner” class on ancient rabbinic texts at the progressive yeshiva
I’d moved to Jerusalem to attend. We started with a snippet called from something called the "Mishnah," from a collection of them called "Rosh Hashana
1:1":</div>
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<span style="background: #e9e9e7; color: #666666; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: 13.5pt;">The four new years are: On the first of
Nisan, the new year for the kings and for the festivals; On the first of Elul,
the new year for the tithing of animals; Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Shimon say, on
the first of Tishrei. On the first of Tishrei, the new year for years, for the
Sabbatical years and for the Jubilee years and for the planting and for the
vegetables. On the first of Shevat, the new year for the trees according to the
words of the House of Shammai; The House of Hillel says, on the fifteenth.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Not exactly the spiritual shot in the arm I had
been eagerly anticipating. It seemed confusing and totally unrelatable.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Different new years for different things? And four of them? And the rabbis couldn't even
agree on when they started?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At first, I was disappointed by this first taste of rabbinic
thought. After all, I’d come a long way, and this isn’t the sexiest spiritual
text. No angels, no reincarnation, no revelations, just some very earthly
details about when to start counting, according to some ancient Babylonian
months that were in themselves mysterious.<br />
<br />
For this I left a perfectly good
nonprofit poetry world job in a city I loved? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But as my teacher guided the discussion deeper and deeper, I
realized that yes – this was exactly why I’d come to Jerusalem. Because by
turning New Years on its head, this text actually challenged everything I had
grown up assuming to be true. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOY_BrQNfDPeNw0FqIfBB8YBVJZL1x-kEGn2lXtxao2y0BfbkfU_M3w3Enj4m8NmGK6pzRCDpAe4zCAT6TDbzkxU06EiG6Acuqhpyyg4B4EHAlTMRcv8Rh-lAwsJ0eUGjRwxc8oT6E9OFK/s1600/search.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOY_BrQNfDPeNw0FqIfBB8YBVJZL1x-kEGn2lXtxao2y0BfbkfU_M3w3Enj4m8NmGK6pzRCDpAe4zCAT6TDbzkxU06EiG6Acuqhpyyg4B4EHAlTMRcv8Rh-lAwsJ0eUGjRwxc8oT6E9OFK/s400/search.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Julius Caesar, not my president.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had never questioned why January 1 marked our New Years. But in Jerusalem I learned that we modern folks use the Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory
XIII, who adjusted it from the Julian calendar, named after Julius Caesar. This calendar began on 45 BCE, when it was imposed on the entire Roman empire. I always assumed the year was somehow "true," but now it seemed pretty arbitrary. I mean, as an American, much
of my cultural heritage is from the Romans, but I’m no more Roman than I am
Babylonian.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The New Years I had grown up with meant nothing in this
worldview, and looking back, that explains a lot: the not-quite-satisfying parties, with their celebrations a bit forced.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The date is one of the most basic ways we anchor ourselves in time, and
that anchor had just been loosed from the ocean floor. I felt dizzy, thinking
about the date I’d known for most of my life as a meaningless accident of
history. What else was an accident of history? What else about my life was
unexamined, handed down by a society which did not necessarily share my values,
or a religion which was not mine?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ever since then, I’ve been mellow about New Years. Case in
point: it’s taken me two full weeks to write this little post marking the
transition into what we have agreed to call 2017. I just couldn’t bring myself
to write “Happy New Year” without pushing back a little bit. I don’t trust the “Happy,”
as our world feels threatened right now by the forces of hate and thoughtlessness,
and I don’t trust the “New Year,” either. What I trust is the seasons, the
cycles of the moon, the cycles of each of our lives, and the practice of
showing up day after day to notice what is happening around us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So instead of wishing you a Happy New Year, I’ll give you a
virtual hug. I bow to you. I am grateful to be alive and on this journey with
you. And I’ll see you at the Women’s March next weekend.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-60156757376864730602016-11-08T21:52:00.002-08:002016-11-09T00:20:52.061-08:00WE ARE NOT THE FIRST TO LIVE IN DARK TIMES<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
"In a place where there is no good person, strive to be a good person."--Pirkei Avot (Jewish wisdom text)</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I read this beautiful injunction above as forbidding despair: just because everything around you is going to shit, does not mean you are allowed to let yourself give up. Just because you are surrounded by darkness, does not mean you are absolved of the responsibility to act with integrity and purpose.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
This teaching feels very timely tonight. It seems that our country is e<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">lecting a neo-fascist, and I am going to write a much more political and preachy post than I usually allow myself. I mean every word.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /></span></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
I just went on a walk around the block and thought about all the moon above us has seen, and what this moment means in the context of longer history. I grieve at this victory for hatred, but more importantly, I feel the imperative to fight on behalf of love, and on behalf of those who will be threatened by this turn of events.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
Growing up Jewish, I always knew I was one step (or, to be precise, thirty-five years and four thousand miles) away from having been born in a time and place where I would have been murdered along with my family because of who we were. Now I feel that we Americans who are grieving and angry must not stop with grief or anger. We have a responsibility to be the conscience of our society in a time when the majority of our society has fallen prey to the temptation of hatred and empty promises. We must take action on behalf of those who will be threatened in this dark time: women, people of color, Muslims, queers, immigrants, and yes, Jews.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
This is a dark time. But walking beneath the moon, I knew that it is not the first time evil has triumphed, nor will it be the last. This is what it means to live in human history. Our very heartbreak is a clear mandate of our responsibility: to be people of conscience. To look out for violence and hatred, to take care of each other. To fight back. To refuse to despair.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 6px; margin-top: 6px;">
I believe we must not give into hate or hopelessness as we head into this dark time. We do not have that luxury. Instead, we must fight for what we know to be right and true, and, at this moment especially, on behalf of those who will be most threatened by this course of human events.<br />
<br />
Love, Alicia (<a href="http://www.aliciajo.com/">www.aliciajo.com</a>)</div>
</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-67663560747357802612016-06-13T12:06:00.005-07:002016-06-13T12:06:52.032-07:00GROW WHAT YOU LOVE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">GROW WHAT YOU LOVE & OTHER THINGS MY GARDEN'S TEACHING ME</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">I first fell in love with gardening when I lived in Western Massachusetts years ago and had a community garden plot. Then I moved to Brooklyn and forgot all about green things for the next ten years, living happily on a concrete shell.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">So living here in Portland, with a yard and garden boxes and a worm compost (aka best birthday present ever) has been quite a rediscovery. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNJR36je7whXMvH_vchxwaQs8oQnMxD_991sLqEmQg-vWpz0XEHbsW3wkRlPumrZN9uyA8GU1l9Ivok9G40D5GjIZtsr915oF-FTFFaYa9GW1iu6h6nevoB9SAjPXJjGL3aGaIA-zi8-e/s1600/IMG_4890+%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhNJR36je7whXMvH_vchxwaQs8oQnMxD_991sLqEmQg-vWpz0XEHbsW3wkRlPumrZN9uyA8GU1l9Ivok9G40D5GjIZtsr915oF-FTFFaYa9GW1iu6h6nevoB9SAjPXJjGL3aGaIA-zi8-e/s320/IMG_4890+%25281%2529.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">oregano, lavender, garlic, thyme, and daughter</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">It’s tremendously fun to learn about a whole new practice as an adult, especially one you can eat, and doubly especially one you can do with two little kids running around. I often feel my garden is literally teaching me. Some of the lessons this month:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">1. Grow what you love.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">As it turns out, there are gardener personalities. Some love the challenge of delicate plants, while others go for the tough, hard-to-kill ones. Some are drawn to ornamental beauty, others are fixated on plants you can eat.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Personally, I like my plants hardy and edible. I have a touch of survivalism and like the idea in a pinch, that we could live off our yard for a few days. And I can almost hear my far-back ancestor foragers murmuring in my blood as I strip the yard clean of raspberries and nibble on sorrel leaves. (Luckily, my dad is into ornamental landscaping. so there is also a lot of flowering beauty in the back yard from his visits in addition to my scrappy bushes.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">I love the idea of personalities expressed through plants. There’s something so compassionate about the sense that there’s a gardening style for everyone - whether it’s a greenhouse full of orchids that require constant tending, or a rock garden with a few succulents who never care to see your face. There is no one-size-fits-all garden. I have a feeling it’s the same with our work lives or love lives or spiritual practices or creative lives. We find what works for us, if we are lucky, and we grow what we love.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOGqGgjwJPD7v9_4JhvbEpb7t6ozyaQHSTT0KzLPEKNcHhbC7XTsSl7-D5AvhvTKbjb3mZWBGFrAx1YXH9Oz9bWIqx2rnQL6Bp5Tsot0ejAkan_JJVLamLuPGT30_OHzc99hRuTaX9aqM/s1600/IMG_4584.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsOGqGgjwJPD7v9_4JhvbEpb7t6ozyaQHSTT0KzLPEKNcHhbC7XTsSl7-D5AvhvTKbjb3mZWBGFrAx1YXH9Oz9bWIqx2rnQL6Bp5Tsot0ejAkan_JJVLamLuPGT30_OHzc99hRuTaX9aqM/s320/IMG_4584.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">peas, radishes, calendula and valerian</td></tr>
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">2. Leave space.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">I'm consistently surprised by the need to leave space in the garden, and by my own resistance to that need. It always feels a little ridiculous to leave a foot of bare soil between squash starts, or thin cucumber seedlings so that a wide expanse of dirt separates each sprout. I constantly find myself tempted to crowd just a little more in. The blank space bothers me.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">But in a month, or two, or twelve, nothing’s growing the way it should. Peas and calendula and radishes are jostling for space, blocking each other’s light and competing for nutrients. Little by little I’m learning to leave space open, to leave my plants room to grow. As much as they need tending and caring-for, they need space. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">3. Trust time. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">As an artist, I’m used to uncertainty and improvisation, but I’m also used to having some control over the creative process. I contrive deadlines. I grow impatient. I push forward.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">But as a gardener, my power over time is oh so limited. Plants fruit and flower in their season, and all I can do is try to support that process. If I want a lush vegetable garden in August, I have to start early in spring. No cramming, no all-nighters, just slow accretion, orbits round the sun, days lengthening and shortening. Time is my collaborator, and Time will not be rushed. I can decide when to plant seeds, water them, enrich the soil, protect them from weather, and put out saucers of beer to drown the slugs. But beyond that, my collaborator Time is in charge.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">And in our bodies, as in our gardens, time becomes material. I want to respect the marks of time on my body. I don't want to rush my life, nor do I want to fight against the tide to slow it down. I just want to grow in my season, and appreciate each season as it passes.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Wishing you all love, space and time in the gardens of your lives too.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-70878702314503262552016-03-22T10:32:00.002-07:002016-03-22T10:33:31.928-07:00THE LIFE-CHANGING MAGIC OF SACRIFICIAL OFFERINGS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
(originally published as a <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/The-People-and-The-Book-Modern-sacrifices-446819">People and the Book Torah commentary at the Jerusalem Post</a>)<br />
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<b><br />At first sight, sacrifices are not the sexiest topic. But then again, who would have thought that giving away old books and rolling up your socks would be fodder for the bestseller list?</b><br />
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If you have no idea what I’m talking about, the title of this post is a riff on Marie Kondo’s book, "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up". In her book, which has sold over four million copies, Kondo details her theory that giving away stuff you no longer want can be a path to living the good life, eventually achieving nothing less than joy. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihoF75HPBxVCSQy8kaGOVO2fHy-Fueh_z5GZcjRLhasYec7ZDfLijT3FnEQqu2HmzkNsmfjBlEQ5wLc5J_XiBtLA7BKb_9XOLbZRrhn7cPfq6S4fI0FrBSJSGNvX3owGxXsBTMbRBGgIO/s1600/url.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjihoF75HPBxVCSQy8kaGOVO2fHy-Fueh_z5GZcjRLhasYec7ZDfLijT3FnEQqu2HmzkNsmfjBlEQ5wLc5J_XiBtLA7BKb_9XOLbZRrhn7cPfq6S4fI0FrBSJSGNvX3owGxXsBTMbRBGgIO/s400/url.jpg" /></a><br />
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The ancient Israelites had a not dissimilar practice for living the good life, although tidy would not be the word to describe it. This is the practice of offering korbanot, or, as the word is commonly translated in English, sacrifices. <br />
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“Korbanot” comes from the Hebrew root for “closeness,” and one way to think of these offerings is as a spiritual technology for creating closeness, for touching in: to the divine, or perhaps to community. <br />
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However you interpret them, these korbanot are the subject of the Torah portion, Vayikra. They are archaic, complex, bloody, smoky, and seemingly quite distant from our daily lives; it’s been 2,000 years since the Temple was destroyed in Jerusalem, ceasing this practice. But dig a little deeper, and the similarities with Kondo’s book – and the path to joy she offers for our very modern, clutter-filled lives – are fascinating. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoXZSBqnRa5XJwOQbYAdvp31dvbT3qVjbldxiT854mQznd4SkYHaK2E2I2-p10LTQ37zTf8nGOPZKPgqByJSL9Ef6jUCZQO_WqXBzRntQMGMnVu_mfNM6dfn7onyfjDbSjmRFUZWgnUP9/s1600/images.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqoXZSBqnRa5XJwOQbYAdvp31dvbT3qVjbldxiT854mQznd4SkYHaK2E2I2-p10LTQ37zTf8nGOPZKPgqByJSL9Ef6jUCZQO_WqXBzRntQMGMnVu_mfNM6dfn7onyfjDbSjmRFUZWgnUP9/s400/images.jpg" /></a><br />
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The "Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" goes into detail about how to arrange our clothes, books and papers; Vayikra goes into detail about which sacrifices to offer when. The details of either practice can be overwhelming, but the big picture is of a spiritual technology which utilizes letting go as a means to some important spiritual goal – joy, or closeness, or connectedness. <br />
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Through giving away unneeded possessions, Kondo teaches us to let go of our past, of the detritus that follows us through life, in order to be able to see the things we love more clearly, and to release old energy and ideas that no longer serve us. And through the sacrificial system of offering animals, birds, and plants, the ancient Israelites ritualized connection with God, connection with each other, continuity of their cultural traditions, and a way to right spiritual wrongs. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfq957HiWfoFyiv4muoh4_I2X2M14gkYbuzJs1va68SZ9n_1tLbhyphenhyphenDfp9u9x_vSancsYqzMvBR55UhnhDNvKE-jt0wY5sSVZH1ReXDZUHqiO_g6PGjWlKE1sQvJuWdBaxSb9F0VrshIXX/s1600/Offerings972x560.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggfq957HiWfoFyiv4muoh4_I2X2M14gkYbuzJs1va68SZ9n_1tLbhyphenhyphenDfp9u9x_vSancsYqzMvBR55UhnhDNvKE-jt0wY5sSVZH1ReXDZUHqiO_g6PGjWlKE1sQvJuWdBaxSb9F0VrshIXX/s320/Offerings972x560.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
As fascinating as the parallel is, though, there is a profound difference in what, exactly, is being let go of. <br />
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Kondo’s book suggests we get rid of clutter, old clothes, things we no longer need. We are told to give away anything that does not, in her words, “spark joy.” <br />
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The system of ritual offerings suggests the opposite. We offer up davka the things that spark joy: the precious first-born animals of our herds, the first fruits of our labor, even (later in the Torah, and symbolically) our first child. The best and sweetest parts of what we are given, we turn and present back to the divine.<br />
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So, what if we combine the power of these two techniques? I hope the ancient rabbis aren’t rolling over in their graves, and that Kondo isn’t feeling strangely uncomfortable in her exceedingly tidy room somewhere, but it seems to me that their recommendations can be profoundly complimentary. By letting go of objects that don’t “spark joy,” we discover what does. Then, we offer a little bit of those things back. <br />
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Kondo’s instructions are detailed and written specifically for our modern world. How might we translate the life-changing magic of sacrifices into our contemporary lives? Here are a few ideas:<br />
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<i>Breath offering:</i> we can begin our day with a moment of gratitude, directing the first few breaths of each waking day to presence, rather than productivity. <br />
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<i>Attention offering:</i> the next time we are tempted to check email while we are with kids, friends or partners, we can take a moment first to intentionally connect with the person in front of us, before turning to our phones.<br />
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<i>Time offering:</i> when we sit down to schedule meetings in our calendar, we can first schedule in an hour dedicated to caring for others or (equally important) for ourselves, before moving on to work.<br />
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<i>Love offering:</i> when we go on a hike, settle into a massage, or begin a yoga class or workout, we can take a moment at the beginning to send some of this positive energy to someone we know who is in need of healing. <br />
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The life-changing magic of sacrifice is to take what we love, and offer it up - to the divine, to a person, or simply in our own intentions. With all due respect to Marie Kondo, perhaps this age-old practice can spark an even deeper joy than tidying up.<br />
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/ohaliciajo/posts/10153337372280064?comment_id=10153337560785064&reply_comment_id=10153337569760064#"></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-56245494383330858402016-02-09T13:23:00.000-08:002016-02-09T13:23:25.836-08:00THE MAGIC OF PRACTICE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">As an artist, and a spiritually engaged person, I owe much of my life to the practice of practice. And as winter deepens I have been thinking about the gifts of practice, and what practice has to offer that can't be found elsewhere.</span></h1>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">view of Mount Saint Helens from our most recent family "hike," aka toddler ramble, last weekend<br />(a practice we aspire to carry out on nice weekends, with moderate success)</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 24px;">What is a practice? Simple: something we continue to do. We continue through the ups and downs of moods, through waxing and waning energy, through alternating inspiration and boredom, through gratitude and resentment, through apparent "success" and "failure."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">The focus, I think, hardly matters. It could be a long-term partnership, or regular dating. It could be part of a career as an opera singer, or twenty minutes a day of adult beginning clarinet. Olympic-level running, or ten minutes of stretching in the morning. Anything that requires you to show up over and over - which certainly includes parenting, or any kind of caretaking. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">I recently read<em> <u>Into the Wild</u></em>, by Jon Krakauer, for the first time, and reading about the main character's vagabonding vow of poverty, I thought, there's another one. A modern version, actually, of an ancient spiritual practice.<br /><br />So if the specifics of practice are incidental, why does practice matter so much? Because there is magic in it. No matter what we practice, showing up over and over again has a clarifying, almost meditative, visionary effect. It nails us to a specific place, or to put it more gently, it calls us back to a specific vantage point over and over again, from which we can see change revolving around us.<br /><br />The consistency of practice itself is revelatory. That consistency serves as a sort of spiritual-scientific control, showing us what remains the same over the course of months and years (in my experience, very little - it's always humbling to me how almost everything I consider essential to myself changes, except for the fact of living in a body.) And practice teaches us something important about the power of incrementalism - how great a distance can be covered by small repeated actions - and also about breakthroughs, moments of unexpected grace. <u></u><u></u></span></div>
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<span style="color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we enter February and the resolutions (if you make them) fall away, practice is what remains. Small or large, classic or self-invented, it's magic. Consider this a little toast, a grateful bow, a pep talk to all our practices and all they do for us.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-63834799576636677912016-01-20T12:23:00.001-08:002016-01-20T12:23:39.949-08:00IN MEMORIAM, C.D. WRIGHT<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b>“Poetry is the language of intensity. Because we are going to die, an expression of intensity is justified.” --C.D. Wright, <i>Cooling Time</i></b></div>
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The brilliant American poet C.D. Wright <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/01/14/us/ap-us-obit-cd-wright.html" target="_blank">died last week</a>. She passed away unexpectedly, in her sleep, at her home in Rhode Island, at the age of 67. This post is about my brief but profound connection to her. <div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHtqIbzHxXURr9gTf0YzFuZWBC2x3u_HGd7XawaPWsfOyCks2TEtD-SWepcelGRsD389hdnuoYx3dnmGWNdUl7KrkQsyfFsxOk_MYFou512zim_vWtJa_gImBXx-_Vp71gUuZAI_77PKpH/s1600/search.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHtqIbzHxXURr9gTf0YzFuZWBC2x3u_HGd7XawaPWsfOyCks2TEtD-SWepcelGRsD389hdnuoYx3dnmGWNdUl7KrkQsyfFsxOk_MYFou512zim_vWtJa_gImBXx-_Vp71gUuZAI_77PKpH/s1600/search.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />I had <a href="http://violinistalibre.blogspot.com/2015/08/some-thoughts-on-rejection.html" target="_blank">sent out my manuscript for five years getting rejections</a> and the occasional honorable mention (the old story). I believed in my book, but it was a weird book, it didn't fit into any category, I was stubborn about my vision, and it looked pretty unlikely that it would get published. I was 37 years old and felt it was time to let go of this book, which for me meant getting it out in the world in some way so I could move forward. I had begun to look into self-publishing because I felt the work was beginning to turn in on itself. But I'd promised myself I'd keep submitting until I turned 40. When my second baby was two months old, I pushed the stroller to the post office to mail in my manuscript to the American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Contest. Two months later, I got a voicemail from the editor of APR saying C.D. Wright had chosen my manuscript.<br /><br /><br />This is all to say, that C.D. changed my life. Perhaps more than any single person not in my family. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">walking down to the bay with C.D., Aaron and Sylvie (photo by my dad)</td></tr>
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I'm embarrassed to say I hardly knew her work at all before last fall (I've always been a bit of a patchy reader). Then, of course, I began reading her and could not believe I hadn't before. I related so strongly to her words, her work, her politics, her way of writing about sexuality, about travel, that I was actually relieved not to have known her work, because I would have suspected myself of trying to ape her style, I would have experienced a profound anxiety of influence. It was an odd feeling, a little mysterious, to discover this voice that was a wise and fully realized and shining version, in some ways, of what I was trying to do.<br /><br /><br /><br />This past fall, we <a href="http://violinistalibre.blogspot.com/2015/12/touring-with-kids-photo-journal.html" target="_blank">took our two kids (ages 1 and 3) on an East Coast tour,</a> with my parents helping out, so that I could do readings for the book, and we could do concerts for our new album (since my husband plays bass with me). I knew that we would be driving by Providence, and I wanted to visit C.D. if possible, to pay homage, to meet her and thank her and make a sort of pilgrimage. I wrote and asked if it was OK to come by, and she said yes. I warned that we would have rugrats with us, and she responded "I love rugrats." </div>
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So we drove to her home outside Providence. We piled out of the minivan. I was sort of stricken by shyness and barely said anything, but C.D. talked with my mom about her kitchen cabinets, talked with my dad about the rocking chair her furniture-maker son built, talked with Aaron about real estate and gentrification, talked with Sylvie about 3 year old stuff. We all walked down to the bay near her house and watched the sunset together. It was spectacular - unusually so, she said. Orange sky, with a swath of dark charcoal gray across it. </div>
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C.D. gathered handfuls of shells and gave them to Sylvia, who carried them in a small bag throughout the rest of our tour. We walked back to her house, she gave Elijah a small wooden box that smelled of perfume, I walked slowly around her beautiful schoolhouse home full of art and books and the life of the mind and beautiful objects. We said goodbye, I sent her a thank you note, I said I was looking forward to seeing her on the West Coast.<br /><br /><br /><br />That's all. I know so many have longer deeper connections and are grieving C.D.'s loss in a more personal way, and I send consolation to those. I don't really have any words except gratitude for her work, her generosity, her brilliance, and the way she changed my life.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">the sunset we saw together<br /></td></tr>
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<br />Rest in peace, C.D. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-8865471182491316312015-12-22T10:30:00.000-08:002015-12-23T13:40:48.246-08:00TOURING WITH KIDS: A PHOTO JOURNAL<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I toured a fair amount before having kids. Always in a van or car or plane, never in a tour bus or even a Sprinter. Some hotels, lots of floors and couches. It doesn't exactly sound like a family friendly situation, but I always figured I would somehow continue to tour with kids too. Call it stubbornness, determination, dedication, dumb luck, wanderlust, or genetics - I can't quit this artist life and for me, that means touring.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWJLtT1V5wGBBoK1UNy1bHY16QsYSrQrbgYkLZQa2gL7nMQrDInUzz7u9HyzUlfAZ0Ovilmb4OQUKeYRMKRnZgMGnJX5xl7LDuFjTinyotEn8lUCZ7CZND2_Eb7ir2PnEoqkK0-PkgE6f/s1600/IMG_2647.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHWJLtT1V5wGBBoK1UNy1bHY16QsYSrQrbgYkLZQa2gL7nMQrDInUzz7u9HyzUlfAZ0Ovilmb4OQUKeYRMKRnZgMGnJX5xl7LDuFjTinyotEn8lUCZ7CZND2_Eb7ir2PnEoqkK0-PkgE6f/s320/IMG_2647.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">music gear + stroller + <i>Frozen</i> suitcase on Williamsburg sidewalk</td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisxbhmDuKdFbQDzb0sdRfOg9Pfx8mMIaSkGC4zI1QReqNEA5xFRVeTMRzTthjkluFL2L9yCKDYprIFhRb7RFq27-F94jbN0tP-ZFT3ok_fbdaex38HjH4PwvHkg_sc54RECjwqobw9VuZI/s1600/IMG_3005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisxbhmDuKdFbQDzb0sdRfOg9Pfx8mMIaSkGC4zI1QReqNEA5xFRVeTMRzTthjkluFL2L9yCKDYprIFhRb7RFq27-F94jbN0tP-ZFT3ok_fbdaex38HjH4PwvHkg_sc54RECjwqobw9VuZI/s320/IMG_3005.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">at the beginning of a very long day on planes, trying to keep our senses of humor<br />
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Since both <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Divinity-School-Alicia-Jo-Rabins/dp/0986093882" target="_blank">my poetry book</a> and our <a href="http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/girlsintrouble" target="_blank">new Girls in Trouble album</a> came out this fall, and my Girls in Trouble Curriculum was due for some travel piloting, we decided to really go for it with an East Coast tour, rather than the fly-in's I've been doing since our first child was born three years ago. And since my husband Aaron is my partner in life and <a href="http://girlsintroublemusic.com/" target="_blank">Girls in Trouble</a>, that meant the whole family was coming. And so it was that the four of us - me, Aaron, our 3 year old, and our 1 year old - boarded on a plane, along with my violin and my daughter's new <i>Frozen</i> suitcase, for the East Coast Family Circus Tour.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hebuugK0G-zOejW1YbpAAFBAzEEkrgLIrvySBZym_ZnZnQI_oCqiLfEqmZAWnXTQB_2HTN8gH6t5lSrtsQhlFaXWJHxzePthaV4ZkkRcPgFfw-foeU0f3UebfJ0OhVDP0IrIFOqPO2GB/s1600/IMG_2520.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hebuugK0G-zOejW1YbpAAFBAzEEkrgLIrvySBZym_ZnZnQI_oCqiLfEqmZAWnXTQB_2HTN8gH6t5lSrtsQhlFaXWJHxzePthaV4ZkkRcPgFfw-foeU0f3UebfJ0OhVDP0IrIFOqPO2GB/s320/IMG_2520.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">our veteran traveler</td></tr>
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Logistics might be boring to some people, but if you know me you won't be surprised to hear I not-so-secretly delight in them. Which is a good thing for a DIY artist, because logistics are essential to any good tour, and if you're touring with two little kids, they are doubly so. We were prepared to hire a tour nanny, but my angelic parents offered to come along and help.<br />
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So: I rented a minivan. I booked family-friendly airbnb's with full kitchens. (I also hired a babysitter to help out during actual performances so my parents could have some time off.) And I tried to be very careful in the gig booking. We only went to places we already had close friends or family and knew fairly well: Baltimore, Brooklyn, Cambridge. We spent a few days in each place, doing multiple performances/tapings/teaching sessions in each city, rather than moving on every day as we used to.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In the van, with a bottle</td></tr>
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And I am happy to say that although it was extraordinarily grueling for everyone involved - us, my parents, my kids - it was also a truly wonderful tour. Touring with kids is different, and I'm not gonna lie, it's definitely hellish in some ways, but it's actually better in others. The kids would go crazy if we sat around at our airbnb resting or checking our email or whatever, so we were always out. We explored neighborhoods, found playgrounds, tried new coffee shops, went to museums, had amazing playdates with friends' kids, amazing family hangs with friends who don't have kids, and sampled a wide range of ice cream up and down the Eastern Seaboard. <br />
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Some highlights:<br />
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-walking three blocks from our airbnb on the Williamsburg waterfront to play our official release show at the Living Room, then staying up late with Aaron and two dear friends eating french fries and drinking cocktails and talking about race in America (yes, serious discussions over a cocktail is my idea of a raucous afterparty)<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1pEoUcvuKehoYgGklZAYIaPykLQxltJjM1-sKtZVu0qxYqY9uX-1GX4oOwnn4_WEzq7P9V0aRSTsde57BRXGoP0JYh0OEQzEla0ugEenusK6TC9mFisZAgQG-aBAEk1ytd0uRR7YiKS6/s1600/IMG_2636.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1pEoUcvuKehoYgGklZAYIaPykLQxltJjM1-sKtZVu0qxYqY9uX-1GX4oOwnn4_WEzq7P9V0aRSTsde57BRXGoP0JYh0OEQzEla0ugEenusK6TC9mFisZAgQG-aBAEk1ytd0uRR7YiKS6/s320/IMG_2636.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">quick rehearsal in a rental practice space in Bushwick with our beloved east coast drummer David Freeman</td></tr>
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-a detour off I-95 to meet C.D. Wright, the incredible poet who selected my manuscript from a blind-judged contest, which is how it got published after so many years. My entire family tumbled into her house and we all walked down to the bay to watch the spectacular sun set while my three year old gathered seashells. (I had an attack of paralyzing shyness and was glad my family was there to talk while I blushed and mumbled. This was an almost mystical pilgrimage for me; no photos of this one.)<br />
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-getting to perform and read at Harvard, with a discussion guided by the wonderful English professor, Dr. Elisa New, who invited me to come in and talk about Leonard Cohen and Kenneth Koch at a taping session for a poetry initiative in a media studio the next morning, where I got to sit in a Harvard chair and feel fancy.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">storming the gates</td></tr>
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-hanging out with dear friends in Baltimore and New York, sometimes briefly, sometimes for hours, often with kids<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjRlvHT80Bg8QWAoFNueNLIyMiPRhozrSF8ClcDR9aCE-htci76qGvdBYpfMA4q9ewrNivqqExX4OYPQAEQCDjumG1kUbJ9YvIoUYaqo-6py3wpTac255nFHoKQydMXUzOS_yDYAXygCe/s1600/IMG_2586.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsjRlvHT80Bg8QWAoFNueNLIyMiPRhozrSF8ClcDR9aCE-htci76qGvdBYpfMA4q9ewrNivqqExX4OYPQAEQCDjumG1kUbJ9YvIoUYaqo-6py3wpTac255nFHoKQydMXUzOS_yDYAXygCe/s320/IMG_2586.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">about to walk over the Williamsburg Bridge with Elijah and Filip and some much-needed iced coffee</td></tr>
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-walking over the Williamsburg bridge with Elijah in a carrier (and my dear poet-friend Filip Marinovich) to make a pilgrimage to the New York Earth Room and give Bill, aka the Earth Room Man, who is in TWO poems in my book, with a copy and a hug. Without warning. I've barely met him before. He was very gracious about the whole thing.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcDok3CLwOgdKPAjnA_BMTT6HyOhi8DVq4F_jAK6LGm41z4t6pDGXADPWlav5REe0Ve9l5nWUiJ9K-yPe8W7N9v2zhH1gGlGLnDd1rYK3L0-_P3fI3U-GWE-xo6FpAfnO_S-eS84LL5EFN/s1600/IMG_2606.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcDok3CLwOgdKPAjnA_BMTT6HyOhi8DVq4F_jAK6LGm41z4t6pDGXADPWlav5REe0Ve9l5nWUiJ9K-yPe8W7N9v2zhH1gGlGLnDd1rYK3L0-_P3fI3U-GWE-xo6FpAfnO_S-eS84LL5EFN/s320/IMG_2606.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">with the Earth Room Man</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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-reading poems in Baltimore with Tracey Knapp, my book twin from San Francisco, and my high school and middle school teachers (this is Alan Reese, my 7th grade English teacher and a great Baltimore poet)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKkVst0qyQpzsBzGHxzaorAmWq28OUEp5fFrRgjq5Is8J_8VqoYHEXXYDOT6IqJdyQo7zm7VrskN5hv1-M29Bj_P6K4S8PO61mdjBpEjr8uiMhm9fpuHO_40EyqkdqpQbtjjOi0Ceu4Pe/s1600/IMG_2811.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="font-size: 12.8px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYKkVst0qyQpzsBzGHxzaorAmWq28OUEp5fFrRgjq5Is8J_8VqoYHEXXYDOT6IqJdyQo7zm7VrskN5hv1-M29Bj_P6K4S8PO61mdjBpEjr8uiMhm9fpuHO_40EyqkdqpQbtjjOi0Ceu4Pe/s320/IMG_2811.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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-Elijah taking his first steps at Jascha's apartment in Park Slope (special thanks to Jascha for hosting us when we couldn't find an airbnb for our second NYC leg!!!)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3-LtPLl7PPPY1qfmZQH1Qd9EKBECwb6m_u-PSMfIT1oronFrpf8C7LPYG9799-5WqeF9YPmMJ_sW080967bx3auIH3_2H7JQmRrOqxAUjskWcPDmlYUD9QEcbyc8wOQBIwwRqdidRWYe/s1600/IMG_2754.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY3-LtPLl7PPPY1qfmZQH1Qd9EKBECwb6m_u-PSMfIT1oronFrpf8C7LPYG9799-5WqeF9YPmMJ_sW080967bx3auIH3_2H7JQmRrOqxAUjskWcPDmlYUD9QEcbyc8wOQBIwwRqdidRWYe/s320/IMG_2754.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">we love you Jascha</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXl9GFc6gyHT_iYHWOm2rbtSYpz_SRw-qoe66oLcG3HOleVDMA8Ghkot4JSfm4PuSjnn5ZZpD5tZ6l3NF-beczXLeROBTc11oB_FNSO6j2hfwqZKVrlhV9af8ohao39ArRcnKst0vhvrDn/s1600/IMG_2704.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXl9GFc6gyHT_iYHWOm2rbtSYpz_SRw-qoe66oLcG3HOleVDMA8Ghkot4JSfm4PuSjnn5ZZpD5tZ6l3NF-beczXLeROBTc11oB_FNSO6j2hfwqZKVrlhV9af8ohao39ArRcnKst0vhvrDn/s320/IMG_2704.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">tour essentials</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgme4VEMI4y-iwsGCT_DfB74C5VSSYEhCYtSlRY46hh32iEPdHoUHZ0KF_V9xJ2TIYCSTxqiuEYnh_12UliVNYsXCpSVCm6Jn0ck-jXFJNyqC6t32qkczzUYsKvTemaRVJOdMfsigtybQVl/s1600/IMG_2692.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgme4VEMI4y-iwsGCT_DfB74C5VSSYEhCYtSlRY46hh32iEPdHoUHZ0KF_V9xJ2TIYCSTxqiuEYnh_12UliVNYsXCpSVCm6Jn0ck-jXFJNyqC6t32qkczzUYsKvTemaRVJOdMfsigtybQVl/s320/IMG_2692.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">backstage selfie with the Talmud @ the harvard hillel</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9B_96WuFUp5U6IgIH4ocBCi8dO7-LTnTiNqoKGbBOFYJ58BP6qmqEhemD3bwBOLnBbg9eUJQuBpCCh3sh6eiqx67xWEyNOgsaaLTFU15Gx79KgWeoGX180he9BtlbgUNennuWyMk43hP/s1600/IMG_3016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK9B_96WuFUp5U6IgIH4ocBCi8dO7-LTnTiNqoKGbBOFYJ58BP6qmqEhemD3bwBOLnBbg9eUJQuBpCCh3sh6eiqx67xWEyNOgsaaLTFU15Gx79KgWeoGX180he9BtlbgUNennuWyMk43hP/s320/IMG_3016.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">almost home!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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I want to especially thank Aaron for making this all possible. The truth is that I consider fall 2015-fall 2016 as an extended book/album tour, so I'll still be out a lot in the coming months. But we can only handle so much mayhem - I'll be out alone, and not more than three or four nights at a time. Whether they're with me or at home, a huge part of how I am able to tour with kids - or with kids at home - is due to Aaron's support and full partnership as a parent. All the love.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-67452634953853120732015-12-16T15:31:00.002-08:002015-12-16T16:10:55.549-08:00WRITERS BLOCK REMEDIES & MIDWIFERY GODDESSES<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIy2BP7zvWuglZZSCtqgqwHvjdJGgaPoWgj2heCfMYMa9Gb6xcFA3fib-tbfvM64yhvgjHdfnMqmHRRLcoquyQb34l_OfumlfFuK6ku_Ejz12kzr5IPdz6NAmdWPhIbJEbc_WY0aUKzS3/s1600/debutpoets.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIy2BP7zvWuglZZSCtqgqwHvjdJGgaPoWgj2heCfMYMa9Gb6xcFA3fib-tbfvM64yhvgjHdfnMqmHRRLcoquyQb34l_OfumlfFuK6ku_Ejz12kzr5IPdz6NAmdWPhIbJEbc_WY0aUKzS3/s320/debutpoets.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I've been reading <a href="https://www.pw.org/content/fractures_through_time" target="_blank">Poets & Writers Magazine</a> for years. I used to buy it off newsstands in NYC, then in airports on tour, and finally I started to subscribe. I always mark up their contest section, in the back of the magazine, with highlighters and Sharpies, so that I remember to check back near the deadline. In short, Poets & Writers Magazine is what led me to the many contests <a href="http://violinistalibre.blogspot.com/2015/08/some-thoughts-on-rejection.html" target="_blank">my manuscript didn't win</a>, and finally to <a href="https://www.aprweb.org/news/2015/03/05/alicia-jo-rabins-awarded-2015-apr-honickman-first-book-prize" target="_blank">the one it did. </a><br />
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So I was tremendously honored to have <a href="http://powells.com/biblio/62-9780986093890-0" target="_blank">DIVINITY SCHOOL</a> selected as one of ten <a href="https://www.pw.org/content/fractures_through_time" target="_blank">"most compelling debuts" of 2015</a> by Poets & Writers. My caricature (looking rather like a funky rabbi, which maybe I am, in some way) is beside those of some truly incredible poets - to name one example, I remember the first time I heard <a href="http://rickeylaurentiis.com/" target="_blank">Ricky Laurentiis</a> read at Bread Loaf and I had one of those tingly "this is the future of American poetry" feelings.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipyU4szqa9wMr7qvfZIYwCoGVc9vPghlYrmVHy9ULM1iA1jEPJn4k9N6jC5aVX_YqY_fE82tOlYVO2ntEBIqLg3jxA41HKLIPsi5LwJpBOpB4dbUmMncmMyKZtoJuOXWfiOJnuCjLw1IX8/s1600/APR+Rabins+Cover+7x9_jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipyU4szqa9wMr7qvfZIYwCoGVc9vPghlYrmVHy9ULM1iA1jEPJn4k9N6jC5aVX_YqY_fE82tOlYVO2ntEBIqLg3jxA41HKLIPsi5LwJpBOpB4dbUmMncmMyKZtoJuOXWfiOJnuCjLw1IX8/s200/APR+Rabins+Cover+7x9_jpg.jpg" width="155" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">my baby. artwork by Arrington de Dionyso.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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They asked us "debut poets" - which makes me feel like a debutante, a funny term after 20+ years of writing seriously, but somehow true nonetheless - to answer some questions about our influences, processes, etc. Here's <a href="https://www.pw.org/content/fractures_through_time" target="_blank">the whole article</a> if you want to hear my full answers and read what the other poets have to say. Meanwhile, I'm excerpting a few quotes below in case you are short on time:<br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">Writer’s Block Remedy</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">: Because I usually write in a stream-of-consciousness mode and edit later, I don’t really experience impasses. Something is always happening, even if it’s only the breath. I did stop writing for three years in my early twenties, though. I had studied poetry intensely in college and felt like I had strained my reading and writing muscle, and that my relationship to writing was too ego-based and needed a dramatic reset. I completely let writing go and promised myself I would only start again if it returned naturally, without any pressure or ambition or intention. I was glad when it came back a few years later, and my relationship to poetry was transformed. I guess it’s important to me to maintain some paradoxical mix of being stubbornly devoted to poetry, enough to forge ahead despite setbacks and rejections and silence, while also holding the whole endeavor lightly. </span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">Advice:</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;"> The best advice I ever got was at an artist training from Creative Capital: If you aren’t getting rejected from 90 percent of the things you apply to, you aren’t aiming high enough. It flipped the script for me so that rejections meant I was doing my job, rather than failing at it. Along the same lines, I try to separate the work of being an artist into two parts: my writing self, who is sensitive and passionate and all that stuff, and my personal assistant self, who just sits down with a cup of coffee and submits poems without any emotional investment. Or, to put it briefly, play the long game.</span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">What’s next:</b><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;"> I’m writing my second book of poetry, about motherhood and giving birth and gardening and midwifery goddesses and how psychedelic the whole experience of pregnancy, birth, and early parenthood is. I’m also touring with my songwriting project Girls in Trouble</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;"> </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">(we just released our third album), and with my solo chamber-rock opera </span><i style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff. </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">And</span><i style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;"> </i><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.9492px; line-height: 22.0136px;">I’m slowly moving towards writing a nonfiction book I’ve been mulling over for a while now.</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-25416101322325457682015-08-18T16:23:00.000-07:002015-08-18T16:23:00.248-07:00SOME THOUGHTS ON REJECTION<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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About ten years ago, I went to a <a href="http://www.creative-capital.org/" target="_blank">Creative Capital</a> artist
training where they said something that changed my life. “If you’re not getting
nine rejections for every ten submissions you send out,” they said, “you’re not
doing your job.”</div>
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Hearing that transformed my practice as an artist. It
shifted the way I saw rejection, from a sign that I was failing to a sign that
I was succeeding. I was doing my due diligence to get work out in the world. I
couldn’t control whether it got published or accepted, but I could control
whether it went out. My job was to make the best work I could and put it out in
the world. Failure was not getting rejected; failure was failing to press send
online, or to push my baby in a stroller to the post office and mail off
another copy of my manuscript.</div>
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That is what propelled me to submit over and over, for five
years, when it would have been quite reasonable to have stopped, when I was
actually about to seriously consider self-publishing, when Divinity School
finally met with one of those <a href="https://www.aprweb.org/news/2015/03/05/alicia-jo-rabins-awarded-2015-apr-honickman-first-book-prize" target="_blank">magical acceptance letters</a> after dozens of rejection letters (many from much smaller
publishers, which just goes to show, you never know what can happen.)</div>
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(I want to acknowledge here that I am lucky that I had the
$30 in my bank account to devote to these contests a few times a year. This is
a privilege and I’m grateful. If you can’t do this - then do all the free ones!)</div>
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Here’s the funny thing: all those years, no one except me
saw those rejection letters. And now that <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Divinity-School-Alicia-Jo-Rabins/dp/0986093882" target="_blank">the book is coming out</a>, I know it
seems like it just waltzed into the world. I know this because I’ve watched
others’ books magically appear: an excited post, a few hundred likes, and
voila, a book is born!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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It looks like a magical transformation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">It does not look like opening another rejection letter and pushing "send" on a new submission anyway. But that's how it happens.</span></div>
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<o:p><br /></o:p></div>
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Sometimes it feels like being an artist - maybe being anyone
with a public persona - maybe being anyone, these days, with a Facebook account
- means standing behind a giant screen. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or a billboard. </div>
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The world sees the front: everything that worked out, the
cute baby pictures, the albums that got put into the world, the books that got
published.</div>
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From where I stand, though, I see the backside: the
scaffolding, the paint buckets, the old brushes no one bothered to wash
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The kitchen encrusted with
lentils from last nights’ dinner. The hundreds of rejection letters over my
lifetime, the dozens of rejections of this very book: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“we carefully considered all submissions
and regret to inform you that....”. </div>
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I remember watching the <a href="https://vimeo.com/26790078" target="_blank">Dixie Chicks documentary</a>
years ago. After they insult George Bush at a show, they suddenly can’t fill
stadiums anymore. That was another aha moment for me as an artist: even from the heights of great success, rejection and failure
continue to be part of life, so I better get used to it now!</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I wanted to put this out into the world, to make it very clear that this book is born out of the ashes of rejection after rejection. Maybe some people get lucky and just have success all the time, but I think that's pretty rare. I think rejection and failure is part of the daily experience of being an artist, of being alive. We have to sail straight into it, to use it as wind, to either ignore or embrace it, and most of all, to know that we are not alone. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-62202099559897803952015-08-04T15:38:00.003-07:002015-08-04T15:38:58.843-07:00CALL FOR ARTISTS - POETRY VIDEOS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Dear </span><span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">visual artists, animators and other movie making types: come join me in a project of making short poetry videos! </span><span style="line-height: 19.3199996948242px;">Think music video, but for a poem; instead of MTV, PTV. Animation? Live action? Paper dolls? Abstraction? Found footage? All great.</span></div>
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Here's how it works: you choose a poem from the manuscript I'll send you ("Divinity School", also available for pre-order <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Divinity-School-Alicia-Jo-Rabins/dp/0986093890" target="_blank">here</a>!), I record a mp3 and send it back to you for the audio. You can add sound as long as people can still comfortably hear me re<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">ading the poem.</span><br />
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This will be a year-long project, so if you are backed up for the next few months, there is still time to participate. Just choose a month that works for you. So far we have artists from England, Sweden, NYC and Portland participating.<br />
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The wonderful <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/margolis" target="_blank">Zachary Margolis</a> - creator of the animated set for the Kaddish for Bernie Madoff show - will create titles and edit front/back matter on for consistency. You are welcome to do whatever you want with the video (exhibit, post, etc). On our end, we will post videos monthly and plan to have a screening next year in Portland and maybe NYC.<br />
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Join us! It will be as fun as sharing a cup of coffee together at the Waffle House.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-32977856229818464022015-06-16T15:47:00.001-07:002015-06-16T15:56:41.861-07:00COVER ART COVER ART COVER ART<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I didn't mean to release a book and an album at the same time, but it just kind of worked out that way. And I feel so lucky to have visual artist friends doing this exquisite cover art! Here's a little behind the scenes glimpse. </div>
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First, my first poetry book, now available for pre-order on <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780986093890-0" target="_blank">Powell's</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Divinity-School-Alicia-Jo-Rabins/dp/0986093882" target="_blank">Amazon</a>:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMe6bZiScrvUr2Z4-FpXd543VFoj_tvEEUjxv23yOxEVixc_f6Lqo94lZkM9ROJ39nsWOJlWnhY3sJqNLuRMLXoulYQeBXuLEKtdN59i0RD6s_M-5HUwExjpAHQWQZJA3UK_9PTSu92f9w/s1600/APR+Rabins+Cover+7x9_jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMe6bZiScrvUr2Z4-FpXd543VFoj_tvEEUjxv23yOxEVixc_f6Lqo94lZkM9ROJ39nsWOJlWnhY3sJqNLuRMLXoulYQeBXuLEKtdN59i0RD6s_M-5HUwExjpAHQWQZJA3UK_9PTSu92f9w/s200/APR+Rabins+Cover+7x9_jpg.jpg" width="155" /></a></div>
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Arrington de Dionyso, creator of the beautiful image above, is an Olympia, WA-based visual artist and musician. I would describe him as a "visionary." He was the lead singer of Old Time Relijun, a beloved K Records swamp-punk bank with whom Girls in Trouble bassist Aaron Hartman (also known as my husband) played bass for 20 years. He's also a dear friend who held one of the chuppah poles at our wedding. And he made this gorgeous piece. (Thanks to Valerie Brewster for the book design too!). I feel like Arrington's art perfectly reflects the themes of the book - being a young woman, mortality, the line between mysticism and daily life, blood, fire, nature, beauty, and naked bodies.</div>
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And below is the new Girls in Trouble album cover (the album is also available for <a href="https://girlsintrouble.bandcamp.com/" target="_blank">pre-order on Bandcamp</a>) by Portland-based visual artist and musician Julianna Bright: </div>
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Julianna, besides being a beautiful soul who I am lucky to call a friend, is a drummer and singer and maker of exquisite art. You can actually commission portraits on <a href="http://juliannabright.com/" target="_blank">her website</a>! </div>
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The back of the album features a gorgeous piece by my long term dear friend in the weird creative life, <a href="http://jenpharris.com/" target="_blank">Jen P Harris</a> - a bit hard to see under the words, this doesn't really do it justice, but she is so. so. good.</div>
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Tying it all together here...Arrington did the cover art for Girls in Trouble's first album, on the left (the original drawing, a wedding gift, hangs above our bed here in Portland). Jen, of the back cover art, did the design for that. For #2, center, our friend <a href="http://www.davidjpokrivnak.com/" target="_blank">David Pokrivnak</a>, an artist and designer and musician who we met on tour in Youngstown Ohio when he graciously hosted our band, did the cover art and design. And you can see how nice they all look together on our dining room table! </div>
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Deep thanks to my visual artist friends for realizing my original dream of a Girls in Trouble triptych. And a poetry book. September, here we come.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-68347839273957438052015-05-15T11:58:00.004-07:002015-05-15T14:50:49.551-07:00RUTH AND SELF-REVELATION<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: left;"><i>This post is a little word-heavy. But, for those of you who are into deep thoughts/women in Torah/personal growth:</i></span></div>
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Recently I’ve been thinking about the story of Ruth.
For one thing, there’s a song about her on the new Girls in Trouble album
(which comes out in fall). More pressingly, we read her story on Shavuot, the
holiday which celebrates the revelation of the Torah, which is fast
approaching. And I've been thinking about Ruth as a model for self-revelation.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tissot</td></tr>
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In the Jewish tradition, Ruth is commonly understood as a
convert to Judaism, and a model for future converts. This makes sense; she is a
Moabite who insists on returning to the land of Israel with her mother-in-law
after her husband dies, and the rabbis assume that she adopted the customs of
the Jewish people. Indeed it seems that she’s integrated into the Jewish
society.<br />
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This year, I’m interested in looking at Ruth’s
self-transformation in a broader context. We think of “conversion” as changing
religions, but that’s only one example of self-transformation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even within a religion, someone who
grows up Orthodox can leave it (I can’t wait to read <a href="http://www.powells.com/biblio/9781555977054" target="_blank">Shulem Deen’s new memoir of leaving Hasidism</a>) and of course, plenty of
people make the opposite journey, from secular to religious - including, to
some extent, yours truly.</div>
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And outside of religion, there is plenty of self-revelation
to be had in the course of a lifetime. Despite everything that lies outside our
control, we have so much power to change our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We begin and end relationships. We change jobs or careers;
we change our relationships with our bodies; we heal past traumas; we go on
adventures; we become parents; we change our relationship with parenting. We
change our point of view on our life, and that changes our life. And as the
rabbis say, “Meshane makom, meshane mazal” - change your place, change your
destiny. Having recently moved across the country myself, I can attest this to
be true. </div>
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For me, moving, as part of self-revelation, has involved equal parts excitement and loss. Letting go of the past to fully embrace the present is a crucial part of growing and changing. So easy to say and so hard to do. In this midrash, Ruth Rabba 2:22, the rabbis describe Ruth's embracing of Judaism first by having her mother-in-law, Naomi, detail what she has to let go of: </div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“For where you go, I will go”: Naomi told Ruth: “My daughter, it is not the way of Israel to go to theaters or to circuses, but only to synagogues and study halls. Nor is it the way of Israel to go more than two thousand cubits on the Sabbath.” Ruth said: “Where you go, I will go.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Naomi said, “My daughter, it is not the way of Israel to dwell in a house without a mezuzah.” Ruth said, “Where you dwell, I will dwell.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Your people will be my people”: these are the rules of punishments and warnings. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“And your God will be my God”: these are the rest of the commandments. </span><span style="color: #777777; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<o:p>First Ruth has to agree to let go of her current life: the Roman conventions of the theater and the circus, the unmarked house, the behaviors prohibited by Torah. And only then does Naomi teach her the rest of the commandments. And then Ruth continues to act fearlessly (directed by Naomi, yes, but acting alone): creeping into a powerful man's tent in the middle of the night, marrying him, and conceiving twins who will eventually lead to the Messiah. However you understand the Messiah, it seems to me to be the ultimate idea of human revelation. In Jewish tradition, he will arrive on the back of a donkey (pictured below) - maybe this means on the back of the hard spiritual and emotional work we each do in our daily lives, we are each working towards some ultimate transformation. </o:p></div>
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So here's to letting go of what's old, letting in what's new, and fearlessly transforming our lives and revealing our most joyful, fullest selves as spring blossoms into summer. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-54327169375488915652015-02-02T09:11:00.004-08:002015-05-15T12:14:13.400-07:00POETRY BOOK NEWS<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #d12f19; font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 29.5pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Poetry.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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of you who know me well know that I’ve been writing it for a very, very long
time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #d12f19; font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 29.5pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Those
of you who actually live with me (or are poets yourself) know that part of
being a poet is sending out your book, over and over, to contests which then
send you a nice rejection letter, or a form rejection letter, or occasionally a
semifinalist-but-sorry letter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Last month, I got a phone call that <span style="font-family: Calibri;">on my approximately 75th try (maybe
a slight exaggeration) it worked: m</span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">y
poetry book, DIVINITY SCHOOL, won
the <a href="https://www.aprweb.org/news/2014/12/30/congratulations-2015-aprhonickman-first-book-prize-winner-alicia-jo-rabins" target="_blank">American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize</a> and will be
published on September 1, 2015.</span></div>
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have been dreaming of this day since I was a teenager, and this exact
manuscript has been rejected many, many times.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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to know that it will be in bookstores means more to me than I can
say.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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It's almost disorienting, after such a long creep forward, to jump into book-land so suddenly. And I wanted to be transparent about how it happened (revise, submit, receive rejection, rinse, repeat). To offer<span style="font-family: Calibri;"> this as an example for why it’s worth forging stubbornly ahead. For you, for me, for the projects to come, for all the knock-downs along the way, and for holding on to the dream.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-78392106849336400532013-12-28T08:30:00.000-08:002013-12-28T08:30:13.647-08:00goodbye, 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Dear friends, dear listeners, dear diary, dear NSA, dear archives, dear cache, dear universe:<br />
<br />
2013 has been quite a year. We moved from North Brooklyn to North Portland. Our little girl went from barely crawling to verbally requesting "hot tea." <br />
<br />
Leaving the familiar structure of my life (NYC, the east coast, living within a few hours of my family, my east coast friends and community, and the newness of early motherhood) has been a profound deconstruction of my life as I knew it. To be honest, it has been a real struggle, though shot through with plenty of joy too. Thank goodness for the support of my friends and family. For yoga. For walks in the woods. And for art. I wish all those things for all of you in 2014. <br />
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Meanwhile, here's a little 2013 roundup. It's a lot of information. It may well only be interesting to me, my mother, and maybe the most ardent fans. But time flies and leaves no trace, I'm terrible at keeping a journal these days, and somehow it feels right to name what happened this past year in music, writing, and teaching. <br />
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<br />
A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADOFF<br />
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This hour-long piece, <a href="https://vimeo.com/63545087" target="_blank">a chamber-rock opera meditating on the intersection of finance and spirituality</a>, premiered in 2012 and is continuing to grow and change. Which is basically an artist's dream. This year I performed the show in DC with the amazing original band (Colette Alexander, David Freeman, Lily Maase); we recorded a live studio version in NYC, to be released this winter. Meanwhile I am revising the piece somewhat radically, working on a solo version for the West Coast premiere, <a href="https://www.artful.ly/store/events/2022" target="_blank">Feb 6-9 at Portland Playhouse</a>! I'm really excited for this new version, and lucky to be working with excellent collaborators - the show is produced by <a href="http://boom-arts.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Boom Arts,</a> featuring full-length projected animation by <a href="https://vimeo.com/50236227" target="_blank">Zak Margolis</a>, and directed by the brilliant <a href="http://maureentowey.com/home.html" target="_blank">Maureen Towey</a>, who helped me develop the earliest incarnation of the show. <br />
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WRITING<br />
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Turns out that while touring and performing is rough with a toddler, writing (at least the way I do it, in short bursts) is relatively easy to arrange, especially with a supportive partner at home. So - I got to restore my focus to writing and publishing poems in 2013, an unexpected side benefit of motherhood. I was honored to win the 2013 Matt Clark Poetry Prize from the New Delta Review for my poem, <a href="http://ndrmag.org/poetry/2013/02/how-to-travel/" target="_blank">How to Travel</a>, from the Manuals series - such an honor. More of these Manuals poems appeared in T<a href="http://www.dzancbooks.org/the-collagist/2013/5/27/how-to-confess-an-affair.html" target="_blank">he Collagist</a>, The <a href="http://ilanot.wordpress.com/alicia-jo-rabins/" target="_blank">Ilanot Review</a>, and Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics. I gave readings on KBOO Community Radio and for Portland's <a href="http://www.loggernaut.org/" target="_blank">Loggernaut Reading Series</a>. Also, I dove headfirst into personal essays, which I have been eyeing longingly for some time, with my <a href="http://www.kveller.com/blog/parenting/torah-momentary-let-there-be-mama/" target="_blank">Torah Momentary</a> over at <a href="http://kveller.com/" target="_blank">Kveller</a>, a weekly series of Torah commentary through the eyes of a new mother.<br />
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GIRLS IN TROUBLE<br />
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Improbably, <a href="http://girlsintroublemusic.com/" target="_blank">Girls in Trouble</a> continued to tour despite the fact that the band is largely comprised of Sylvie's two parents! We flew back and forth across the country with our wee one to perform our usual combination of clubs, conferences, universities, and homes: this year we played at Limmud NY, the University of Utah, Fairfield University in Connecticut, the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Association Conference, the Oregon Jewish Museum, K Records' Helsing Junction Festival in Washington, Cherry Sprout grocery store in Portland, and in some other lovely living rooms and underground venues. We couldn't have done it without our families and friends who helped us along the way (thanks, Mom!). We just found out we were awarded a grant from the <a href="http://www.racc.org/about/racc-awards-661543-nonprofit-organizations-schools-and-individual-artists-arts-related-project" target="_blank">Portland Regional Arts and Culture Council</a>, which will partially support creating a new album in 2014! So, GIT album 3 is now seriously in the pipeline. We just need to line up the rest of funding, and then we will really dive into recording the third album!<br />
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TEACHING<br />
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One huge upside of moving to Portland is that I've had the privilege of teaching in the local Jewish community, which I've found to be warm, creative, and lovely. Thanks to their warm welcome, I have a whole crop of wonderful Portland bar/bat mitzvah students, and I got to officiate a bat mitzvah in a Portland rock club. I'm teaching the Melton Foundations curriculum for day school parents at Portland Jewish Academy, and to my delight, I was invited to officiate a bat mitzvah in Walla Walla, Washington, where they keep their Torahs in a gun safe because that was the only secure storage available within a couple hours' drive! I've also continued to work over Skype with tweens, teens and adults in other states. Finally, I was thrilled to teach once again at <a href="http://www.g-dcast.com/studio/" target="_blank">Studio G-dcast</a>, in residence at SF's <a href="http://www.thecjm.org/" target="_blank">Contemporary Jewish Museum</a>, where undergrad and grad school artists animated complex Torah stories in <a href="http://www.g-dcast.com/waiting-for-ewe/" target="_blank">3 minute shorts</a>, and I've continued to lead workshops on women in Torah alongside Girls in Trouble performances. For years, teachers have been asking me for a curriculum based on GIT songs, and in 2014 I plan to begin work on that project - but that's for another post. <br />
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Well, there you have it. Goodbye, 2013. You were challenging and sweet. I wrestled. I gave in. I wrestled. I relaxed. I wrestled. I learned a lot. I was stretched, and blessed in that stretching. Goodbye, dear friends, if you've gotten this far down. I love you. See you in 2014.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-65866481054198087102013-04-08T13:21:00.003-07:002013-04-08T13:21:16.989-07:00Upcoming performances and yet more thoughts on vulnerability...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Hi everyone. I wrote a mailing-list email today that was really just as much of a letter/blog post than anything, so I'm posting it here. If you'd like to join the list, I'd love to have you; there's a link on www.aliciajo.com.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Dear friends,<br /><br />Greetings from beautiful, gray Portland. I haven’t written you in a while so this is more of an actual letter than just a show-listing. I’ll list the news + shows first, and then you can get on with your busy lives, or digress with me below.<br /><br />First, the wonderful Mustafa Bhagat created a trailer for my Madoff show! If you’re near DC, come see the live performance on May 4 at the Washington Jewish Music Festival; otherwise you can find the trailer <a href="http://t.ymlp306.net/msuafaqbqmavaemaiauqq/click.php" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">here</a>. I’m excited to announce that we’ll be heading into the studio to record the full show soon for digital release, too. A still from the show:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0SApbodUSrbwqCP7LkWJ8VStWDMEwCBeDFWuxuRv4tKji2BRH3SyG9XwxJhFjEVFT_QXvtLMiPzOTYe5RYFNgYqszVoPGuNdE15Pj1N488pXlg2rvJ09I-tKMKVD0DF_LS9gna-IAEuX/s1600/madoff_handsdown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT0SApbodUSrbwqCP7LkWJ8VStWDMEwCBeDFWuxuRv4tKji2BRH3SyG9XwxJhFjEVFT_QXvtLMiPzOTYe5RYFNgYqszVoPGuNdE15Pj1N488pXlg2rvJ09I-tKMKVD0DF_LS9gna-IAEuX/s320/madoff_handsdown.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /><br />Second, I’m currently accepting a few new bar/bat mitzvah and adult Torah students. Some of you already know that I love to teach Torah online, which enables me to work with students anywhere. I call it Personal Torah: creative, meaningful bar/bat mitzvah preparation and Torah study, and start-to-finish help for unaffiliated families creating their own ceremonies (or preparing for synagogue ceremonies.) I even have a <a href="http://t.ymlp306.net/msearaqbqmalaematauqq/click.php" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">website for my teaching</a>, yes I do! Feel free to share.<br /><br />Finally, Girls in Trouble will be on the East Coast in October for some performances, so if you would like to bring us (or me) to your community for shows, teaching or a mini-residency, that’s a good time since we’ll be local! Write <a href="mailto:girlsintrouble.booking@gmail.com" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">girlsintrouble.booking@gmail.<wbr></wbr>com</a> if you’re interested.<br /><br />Now the <b>SHOWS:</b><br /><br /><b>GIRLS IN TROUBLE duo show in Portland</b><br />Sunday April 14, 2-3 pm, at the Oregon Jewish Museum<br />$10/$5, tickets + info <a href="http://t.ymlp306.net/msmaaaqbqmaxaemafauqq/click.php" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">here</a><br /><br /><b>A KADDISH FOR BERNIE MADOFF in Washington DC </b><br />Saturday May 4, 9 pm, as part of the DC Jewish Music Festival<br />a full performance of my new song-cycle about Bernie Madoff<br />and the intersection of finance and spirituality.<br />$20/$15, tickets + info <a href="http://t.ymlp306.net/msjataqbqmaiaemaiauqq/click.php" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">here</a><br /><br />And now, I digress.<br /><br />For the past three months I’ve been settling in and getting used to the slower pace here. Taking care of my little one and writing poems and having band practice in our basement and reading library books and hanging out at our local playground. Girls in Trouble played a show at an independent grocery store this weekend, a bill with our friend Arrington de Dionyso as well as an existentialist stand-up comic, nestled among the produce and bulk aisles – it was very lovely and yes, very Portland. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /><br />Being an artist and a mother is a fascinating combination so far. Giving birth has redefined my priorities and sense of time, but also made me even more stubbornly committed to creating and writing and performing. It’s a delicate and perhaps impossible balance, and yet, it happens. Being a mother is forcing me to be less of a perfectionist and more of an actionist (if that’s a word). It doesn’t really matter whether I do something perfectly, but that I do it. And since perfection is impossible, this is beginning to seem like the only sane way to live.<br /><br />I miss NYC like crazy and am excited to visit as often as humanly possible, but also am really enjoying being here in the city of my birth, Portland. One good part of living in a much smaller city (and maybe also moving east to west) is that resources – time, money – go a little bit farther out here. So I have been taking advantage of that by going out to see art every chance I get. I got to see the fantastic NYC poet Eileen Myles read last week, something I never managed to do when I was actually living there, and took a trip to Seattle this weekend to see a dear friend perform in Young Jean Lee’s mindblowing theater work, Untitled Feminist Piece. I can’t stop thinking about that show. If you get a chance to see it, do. Naked and brave in every sense of the word. It felt like a personal challenge and encouragement to go deep, to perservere, to head straight into vulnerability and fear, and be honest about what I find there.<br /><br />And that’s the news from Portland. I hope you all are well and enjoying the blossoms. Hope to see some of you in DC!<br /><br />Yours in spring,<br />Alicia<br /><br />ps: I’m also back on twitter after a long absence, so if you’re there, come say hi at @ohaliciajo.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-40324467622822966792012-12-13T11:43:00.001-08:002012-12-13T11:45:45.911-08:00THE FASCINATION OF WHAT'S DIFFICULT<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Wow. A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff, the chamber-rock-opera I've been working on for the last two years thanks to grants from the <a href="http://sixpointsfellowship.org/">Six Points Fellowship</a> and <a href="http://www.lmcc.net/residencies/swingspace">Lower Manhattan Cultural Council</a>, is complete. No sound recordings ready to post yet, but it looked like this:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg322y39KjG8UfyUJq9ZMW4TUIIf_Qf8Y9CSr15fahKQbzU_OST8mYWH-HBrlKThacdbyupsxLpPORk0IfePE5HTfmNi_8jGFqa3CA25JefMN0wZ_74gQG2KqxSl9ZNIOJZetVmjh2bm4pZ/s1600/madoff_live_aaron_photo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg322y39KjG8UfyUJq9ZMW4TUIIf_Qf8Y9CSr15fahKQbzU_OST8mYWH-HBrlKThacdbyupsxLpPORk0IfePE5HTfmNi_8jGFqa3CA25JefMN0wZ_74gQG2KqxSl9ZNIOJZetVmjh2bm4pZ/s320/madoff_live_aaron_photo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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I feel like it's a bit unusual to speak frankly about the creation process, but creating this show was all-consuming, and one of the most challenging things I've ever done. Surprisingly to me, this show about a giant Ponzi scheme turned out to be the most personal piece of art I've ever created. The timing - happening the same year as my daughter's birth - may be part of it, and also feels appropriate (and a bit of a double whammy), because creating the piece felt like a birth too. A culmination and integration of all the training, both formal and informal, of my life so far: playing classical violin; writing and arranging rock songs; writing poems and nonfiction; performing; looping; singing; Jewish texts; spiritual study and practice; and, most recently, reading countless books about Bernie Madoff while becoming a mother (weird combo for sure). <br />
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And also to my surprise, while the creation was deeply challenging, the performance was just...<i>fun</i>. I hear that's how it is in theater. My friend Filip pointed me back to Yeats' poem <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172058" target="_blank">The Fascination of What's Difficult</a>, which felt, in the days leading up to opening night, exactly right. <br />
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But it looks like we will be performing the show again in other cities this year, and I am unequivocally glad. I'm also beginning to think about fundraising to make a studio recording of the show, since I think it would live well in that medium, and it'll enable the piece to travel to places where I'm not physically able to go due to the restraints of the body, the budget, etc.<br />
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I'm tremendously grateful to my artist-collaborators and interviewees for helping me realize this piece, and to my family for supporting me in moments both quotidian and extreme. And now, onward, to Portland. I'll probably write more about my complicated feelings about leaving New York soon, and I'll let you know when the next performances of A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff will be. As a wise monk said to me during my writing process: "The only transcendence is fully embracing the ups and the downs."<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-53849617484938661352012-07-26T11:13:00.000-07:002012-07-26T11:17:33.655-07:00WHERE MY BABY MEETS BERNIE MADOFF<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well, it worked. The baby grew inside me as we toured the US and Europe (mostly Italy), she finally came into the world (two weeks late), we named her Sylvia Tallulah, and now she is three months old and nicknamed Sylvie and loves coming to band practice (with headphones on). In this picture I think she looks like a train-hopper who would go by the name Ramblin' Syl.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I've been thinking a lot about how she relates to <a href="http://www.lmcc.net/artists/swingspace/alicia_jo_rabins_a_kaddish_for_bernie_madoff/">the Madoff piece</a> I'm working on. On the surface - so distant. A little deeper - so very close. It's difficult to say that everything is connected without sounding facile or reductionist, but that's it. Everything is connected. Every single thing. I can almost see the strings these days. There is a special kind of postpartum vision, a blood red vision, a vision of meat and light. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's from this space that I'm composing new songs about FBI agents, therapists, and Buddhist monks (and their perspective on Madoff), and assembling the team who will be working with me to help me realize this project. Our little family, and therefore <a href="http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/">our band</a>, is based in Portland Oregon for the summer. Having lived in the concrete-bound lands of Bushwick, Brooklyn for the past 3 years, I can really appreciate seeing trees at this moment, this very moment, when I look up and out through the window of the walk-in-closet which is my office and also where we change the baby. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Everything is connected. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-60877690603131827242012-01-28T16:11:00.000-08:002012-01-28T16:22:23.307-08:00A SEVEN-MONTHS-PREGNANT TOUR IN EUROPE<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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A two week tour of Europe at seven months pregnant? Sure, why not...?!</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">hey--it's me! on the Tube!</td></tr>
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We began our tour in England, where as you can see they have very cute pregnant logos. I had been invited to teach and perform with <a href="http://www.girlsintroublemusic.com/">Girls in Trouble</a> (in trio incarnation, with with the remarkable David Freeman on drums) at the <a href="http://www.limmud.org/">Limmud Conference</a>, an unparalleled, all-volunteer festival of Torah study, late night discos and political debate.<br />
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Needless to say, over two thousand British Jews studying, dancing, and drinking Guinness for a week--at this case, at the University of Warwick in Coventry--deserves its own blog post. For now, I will just say that it was an incredible experience for all of us in GIT; the love flowed along with the Guinness, and I am profoundly grateful for the help, support, loaned body pillow, borrowed guitars and drums, and the amazing energy of the Conference, which Aaron and I carried with us for the rest of tour.</div>
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After a couple nights staying with our dear friend Nina in London, we flew to Turin to start tour with a night off on New Year’s Eve, during which we wandered downtown from our hotel, noticed a stream of people flowing towards a central square, and ended up celebrating with what seemed to be everyone in Torino. I must say, they know how to decorate a town center in Torino-- </div>
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and New Years in the streets is pretty awesome without open container laws. Each group of friends had their own champagne bottle and plastic cups, and toasted 2012 as a massive Italian big-band played on the square.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Torino just after midnight, 1/1/12. A little hard to see how many thousands of people are celebrating.</td></tr>
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The next day we were picked up by Roberto, who (not to be too melodramatic) I will forever think of as our angel. Roberto is a fantastic musician, a classics grad student, and a friend of Monique, our Italian booking agent. When he heard we were planning to travel by train, he offered to drive us for the first week of our tour – AND to host us on a day off at his parents’ house in a small town – AND to set up an intimate house concert, which turned out to be magical and one of our favorite nights of the tour. Roberto ended up also translating, sourcing an emergency electronic converter for us, doing sound, and becoming a close friend. I only hope we get a chance to repay some of his extreme hospitality one day.<br />
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There is a really awesome community of artists and friends in Roberto's small town. A musician-designer friend cooked dinner for all of the performers in the kitchen and we all ate together, family style,<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">delicious risotto and vegetables for all the musicians in Roberto's family's kitchen before the show...</td></tr>
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before we all headed up stairs for one of the best nights of tour - the other groups performing included a harp duo (during which the baby was kicking delightedly), and a theater artist-songwriter who lent me his loop pedal because I didn't yet have a converter, and whose lyrics made everyone laugh hysterically and made me kick myself (in time with the baby's kicks) for not speaking Itallian. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Duo of beautiful harpists, apparently the baby's favorite music yet, based on kick counts.</td></tr>
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After the house concert, we slowly worked our way from Torino to Florence, with Roberto our angel at the wheel of his Fiat, and Zorba (which somehow became the baby’s in-utero name) dancing away inside me. Awesome things: the food of course, and the sometimes shocking roadside restaurant decor; <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aaron and Roberto at a random restaurant by the side of the road in Central Italy</td></tr>
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the wine and coffee (which in Italy even pregnant women are encouraged to enjoy, in moderation of course, don't send me angry emails); the afternoons walking around old cities, even the ones we weren’t playing in – Bologna, Ferrara; and meeting up with friends (Henry and Francesca!) for an afternoon of coffee and castle-ogling.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the moat in Ferrara</td></tr>
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Not-awesome: coming down with a serious cold and not being able to take real medicine for fear of hurting wee Zorba.<br />
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This cold actually began on our last stop in London, but by the third day of Italy tour it had fully taken effect, and taken most of my voice with it. Being sick on tour is never fun, but it was especially depressing not to be able to sing except for a few notes in my lower range. Despite lots of homeopathic Italian-pharmacy treatment, I struggled with this the whole time. But, while I was frustrated that most of my voice was not really working and I had to rewrite all the melodies within a five-note very low range, at least we never had to miss a show.<br />
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We continued traveling south, played close to the Leaning Tower of Pisa<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I may be about to sneeze on you, but I am still really psyched to see this leaning tower I've always heard about.</td></tr>
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and, a few nights later, a couple blocks away from the Duomo in Florence (so we got to do a lap around it after the show, all lit up at midnight!)<br />
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We also played at a bar called Die Hard; we noticed on the way there that whereas most of the venues wrote "2 drinks per person" on our drink allowance, the owner of that one had written "Drink until the alcohol is gone." We discussed what that might mean.<br />
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It all made sense once we arrived. Throughout the evening Aaron and Roberto were strongly encouraged to try a variety of increasingly performative shots, culminating in the grand finale, in which they had to take a mouthful of one liquor, to dip a finger in a shot of something else, light that finger on fire, and put the flaming finger in their (own) mouth to extinguish the fire. I was very glad to use Zorba as an excuse to avoid that particular cultural experience. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">pyrotechnic mixologist. great cook.</td></tr>
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We bid a sad farewell to Roberto in Florence and continued on to Rome, where we played at a lovely club called Le Mura and got to have dinner with our friend Rachel.<br />
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By the end of that night I really wasn’t feeling great. We had a day off the next day, and were desperately trying to find a place where I could sleep late. The excellent sound engineer, Paolo, turned out also to be something of an angel and took us to his family’s house north of Rome, where he lives, at 2:30 am.<br />
We ended up staying for two nights so I could rest and recuperate, and meeting his parents, who took great care of us. Paolo’s mother actually turned out to be a professor of American literature who loves twentieth century poetry, so we had some great conversations. I tried to repay at least part of their generosity with a fireside fiddle concert the second night, and the gift of our albums. </div>
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The next morning, Paolo took us to the train station and we did the seven-hour ride (comfortable compartment! Mediterranean out the window almost the whole way!) down to Sicily. The train itself actually rolled onto a large ferry and crossed the Strait of Messina, and then dropped us off in Messina, where we were met by a lovely group of people who took us out to traditional Sicilian food.<br />
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I thought of my Grandpa Al, who had taken a semester off of college to work on a Merchant Marine ship. They were docked in Italy, and on off-hours, he would walk with his fellow sailors through the streets of a town draped in swastika banners. Still, it came as a surprise when World War II was suddenly declared, placing the American ship in enemy waters. They had to turn off all their running lights and motor as quietly as possible out of the notoriously dangerous Strait of Messina, escaping both notice from the Italians, and shipwreck on the rocks below and to either side. <br />
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We, however, were quite comfortable taking the (fully lit, very safe) ferry back and forth between Messina and Reggio Calabria, where we played at an incredible restaurant and performance space called Locanda I Tre Farfalli. We joked with them about starting a branch in Brooklyn; I would happily eat their fried eggplant every night.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Zorba looking out at the strait of Messina, where my grandfather sailed maybe 70 years ago.</td></tr>
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After two weeks of coughing, we figured it might be prudent to go to the doctor, so we stopped by a hospital near where we were staying in Messina. How did we spend an hour there and then sneak out rather than looking for a doctor with a stethoscope? Well…</div>
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<li>The ER people sent us to Building F, where the elevator doors opened and the first thing we saw was a man lighting a cigarette in the hallway.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Even the doctors we found in the smoky hallway couldn’t figure out what the paper from the ER meant. They banged on a couple doors and finally produced a nurse who seemed equally confused.</li>
<li>This somehow ended with me and Aaron sitting in a small room and a doctor looking in my ears (fine) and then taking a long black plastic tube, rinsing it in cold water, and coming at my nose. No, per favore, dottore! They seemed amused that I wouldn’t let him stick this unsanitary tube in my nose.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>Finally they shrugged and moved on to the throat exam. A nurse brought a small silver dish with a cottonball, squirted something on it, and set it on fire with a lighter. The doctor held a dentist’s-mirror-looking-implement in the flame for a while, wiped it off, and stuck it in my mouth. Throat fine.</li>
<li><span style="font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span>But he couldn’t listen to my lungs because he was an ear, nose and throat doctor. Only pulmonologists had stethoscopes. I would have had to go back to the ER, explain again that I had a cough and wanted someone to listen to my lungs, and get another reference, to who knows where.</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GET ME OUT OF HERE!</td></tr>
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It seemed more dangerous to hang around that place than to just continue on (and I really was doing fine, just wanted to be safe) so rather than return to the ER, we headed down to the bus station, glad to have a clean bill of health for my throat and ears at least. We boarded a bus, passed Mount Etna--which had recently erupted although I could see no trace of it--and finally reached our furthest south stop, Catania. Aaron had been excited for Catania since we first learned we were going there, and I think it was my favorite stop of the tour. We played at a space which had been an opulent theater but was destroyed by bombing during WWII, and had been largely empty ever since except for intermittent use as rehearsal space. A group of artists recently took it over, basically squatting in it (as an art-space rather than a living-space), and, entirely unpaid, have poured energy into creating this incredible theater. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Teatro Coppola=awesome.</td></tr>
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When we played there, they had had a full month of performances, with all donated labor (performers, sound crew, the women sewing stage curtains when we arrived) and all proceeds going to the theater renovations. It felt like a sacred space, with a lovely audience who felt like friends somehow. </div>
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The next day we walked around beautiful Catania a bit, admired the famous elephant-obelisk statue, and then went to a local studio so I could record some violin on a song in Sicilian dialect written by Cesare Basile, who took care of us in Catania and is a legendary local (and touring) musician as well. I’ll let you know when it’s released this spring, I am very excited to hear the rest of the songs.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the engineer setting up mic's. really cool hand built drumset in the background.</td></tr>
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So. Adventure complete (and the cold was, happily, proclaimed harmless by my Brooklyn midwife who had no problems locating a stethoscope despite not being a pulmonologist). Grazie mille to Monique, Roberto, Paolo, Cesare, and everyone who took care of us on the road. I wonder if the baby will come out with some sort of affinity for Italian food and culture – I wouldn’t be surprised. I guess we’ll just have to return with him/her and see.<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-34811312439769932432011-10-12T09:07:00.000-07:002011-10-12T09:13:36.489-07:00Dear blog, are you there? It's me, Alicia.I'm sure I'm not the first person to make that pun.<div><br /></div><div>I have my hands in three projects right now, which is exhilarating and challenging. I'm preparing for a monthlong <a href="http://myspace.com/girlsintroublemusic">Girls in Trouble duo tour</a>, as well as some European shows in winter including our return to Limmud. I'm deep in the creative process (with requisite hair-pulling, 4 am bolting-awake, and moments of glee) for my performative song cycle about Bernie Madoff, currently working hard on the libretto thanks to a fantastic playwriting workshop with my sister-in-law Karen Hartman. (Playwriting! Who would have thought!) And I am still in the revision process for my first book of poems. </div><div><br /></div><div>And working on other, supreme creative projects a little more out of my hands, which will be revealed soon. </div><div><br /></div><div>Good thing it's fall, probably my favorite season for working. An overcast, drizzly day in Little Skip's, my neighborhood cafe, where the M train rattles by overhead like a reminder of technology and history all at once: the perfect place to write another page of libretto, confirm another show for tour, try another order for the book. Wish me luck.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-85658595942899472932009-11-18T11:49:00.000-08:002009-11-18T12:12:56.865-08:00CIRCLING THE MIAMI BOOK FAIRLast weekend I travelled with my friend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Apocalyptic-Swing-Karen-Michael-Braziller/dp/0892553537/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top">Gabrielle Calvocoressi</a> to the Miami Book Fair.<br /><br />Many adventures were had, but among the most amazing was a magical night on one of the little islands off Miami Beach. Our host, the poet Tom Healy, knew our album had come out, and asked me which song I'd dedicated to Gaby's birthday (which coincided with our record release show last week). I told him about Marble Floor and the story of Chana. (I also happened to be sitting next to a <a href="http://www.philliplopate.com/index.html">famous poet</a><a href="http://www.philliplopate.com/index.html"> dude</a> at the moment, who turned to me and asked, "Do you have a song about Tamar?" "Yes, Desert, the first one on the album!" The table was curious about Tamar's story and he told it perfectly. I was impressed. I wanted to talk to him about Torah, but I was too shy, so I just kind of followed him around.)<br /><br />I didn't even tell our host that Chana was my Hebrew name, but he almost seems to intuit it in this <a href="http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2009/11/hannah-and-her-sisters.html">beautiful blog posting</a> he wrote on the Best American Poetry blog, and sent me a link to the next day. The dessert to the dessert.<br /><br />The next night Gaby and I met a circle of Miami poets who were, across the board, sweet, thoughtful and smart. Their community seems incredible and made me a little jealous. They took us to the Cuban restaurant on No Name Harbor, in a state park in Key Biscayne; the families of one of the poets, David, runs the restaurant and has for years. We had a ceviche the likes of which I have not tasted since Honduras; heard tales of catching 80 mahi mahi in a single fishing trip; and then went to the family's home to watch the Pacquiao-Cotto fight. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtAXA1tTPGm-Xbk6XBu5O3DGgH_gn7Mwc3c9e3bOp_yd3LH-6YbjbikxmvwQwC1_l18nRqXAcsKWh4mVCPhS7wguucL9KDT_QDGX5yrRtZBW4YeaSGbUpdrSDr7nKYKW4EUbxBO_WhqYDj/s1600/Pacquiao-CottoPromotionalPoster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 321px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtAXA1tTPGm-Xbk6XBu5O3DGgH_gn7Mwc3c9e3bOp_yd3LH-6YbjbikxmvwQwC1_l18nRqXAcsKWh4mVCPhS7wguucL9KDT_QDGX5yrRtZBW4YeaSGbUpdrSDr7nKYKW4EUbxBO_WhqYDj/s400/Pacquiao-CottoPromotionalPoster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5405538740698182242" border="0" /></a>My first boxing match. In the middle of a state park. I had to try hard not to cry (those last few rounds seemed unnecessarily violent) but I also kind of loved it, to my own surprise. Training. Discipline. Perserverance. Presence. It made me want to go write.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-85120699084270332282009-11-04T15:32:00.000-08:002009-11-05T02:42:19.376-08:00LET THE BLOGGING RECOMMENCE<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnxC9ivIvIyFtj3_RpqH755XBwnQfNY5FK5vzpz6d9-Dsk0l_eU_WoihjtyoIhN-K1rYxcaCkcLTldflV5lshi2HLTJZTV5xpeV9Wfn3-fvlZ0D9tfhXA50doqGlEYHEnb-g4-hR-ijLw2/s1600-h/briefer1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 286px; height: 309px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnxC9ivIvIyFtj3_RpqH755XBwnQfNY5FK5vzpz6d9-Dsk0l_eU_WoihjtyoIhN-K1rYxcaCkcLTldflV5lshi2HLTJZTV5xpeV9Wfn3-fvlZ0D9tfhXA50doqGlEYHEnb-g4-hR-ijLw2/s400/briefer1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5400395885022084210" border="0" /></a><br />I've taken a couple seasons off of blogging. After the month I spent playing at Central American orphanages, schools, amabassador's residences and national theaters (see the blog posts below this one), I felt like I didn't have much to say. With a few exceptions, my touring had resumed the regular patterns of backstages, highways glimpsed from van windows, and microwaved egg-and-cheese-on-a-multigrain-bagels from a certain donut chain with surprisingly good coffee; not as fascinating as the adventures we in the Hoppin John String Band had in the world of Mr. Peters, King of Brukdown, staying at the same hotel as Los Tigres del Norte during the early days of H1N1, and mentoring a teenage-all-girl marimba orchestra in rural Guatemala.<br /><br />But Taylor Bergren-Chrisman, fantastic bass player from HJSB/Golem/other bands, is heading back out to parts unknown on a similar musical ambassadorship, and it's making me miss certain things about those days: among them, by-the-hour itineraries, and blogging. Plus, I just returned from a brief but amazing European tour with <a href="http://myspace.com/golemrocks">Golem</a>, and I felt like I should really be writing about playing Usti Baba with Serbian musicians in Strasbourg, or playing klezmer music to a packed house of young Germans on a Monday night, or an impromptu late night performance in a cavern-bar in Paris our first night there (where we were actually recognized by the bartender!)<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LrCuRl94wQ0&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LrCuRl94wQ0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br /><br />Final inspiration for blogging again: it's release week for my new project, <a href="http://myspace.com/girlsintroublemusic">Girls in Trouble</a>, a song cycle/band about Old Testament women. A lot of my friends and fellow-artists seem to have books, gallery shows, albums, all kinds of new things coming out right now. So between Girls in Trouble, and the amazing art my friends are making, and the conversations we're having about how to make a living as an artist, and wanting to open that conversation to anyone who's interested in joining, here I am.<br /><br />For good luck, I started this post with a Frankenstein image drawn by my grandfather, the comic artist Dick Briefer. He died when I was a little girl, but he was a true artist who somehow managed to make it work, whether that meant drawing famous comic books, or caricatures at the mall. This one goes out to him.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3841330997887715163.post-22753219627888783482009-05-19T15:05:00.001-07:002009-05-19T15:10:46.898-07:00last day of the tour!!!!Dear readers! <div><br /></div><div>I am going to post an outtakes-and-credits blog, including some post-tour highlights from the 3 days Sean and I spent in Antigua, and some of the crazy political turmoil going on during the week we were there -- a murdered lawyer, an accusatory video, thousands of demonstrators, maybe you heard about it. It was a really big deal.</div><div><br /></div><div>BUT first: this is the last song of our last concert, at Universidad del Valle. We had sang it at the afternoon workshop, and the teacher had asked us to perform it again at night, saying the country needed prayers for peace right now:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; white-space: pre; "><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZtG6yxdvSvY&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZtG6yxdvSvY&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></span><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16px; white-space: normal; ">Our sound man, Rolando, had specially requested "Jumbalaya," which he heard growing up in Mexico. So for the encore, we invited a bunch of students, teachers, and even an embassy intern up on stage to help us out!!!</span><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; white-space: pre; "><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5aQ1OLGhSmE&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5aQ1OLGhSmE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10px; white-space: pre;"><br /></span></div><div>Thus ended the last concert of our tour. Sarah and Taylor left in the morning; Sean and I continued on to Antigua. More about that soon............</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0