I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes

It's continuing to be a month. Here's what's doing:

Book project is close, oh so close, to being done. Finally finished the text file last Thursday and shipped it to the printer... aaand, developments over the ensuing several days are resulting in the distinct possibility that we will switch printers (but still have the original place do the case binding, which is the main thing I really need them for, because hardly anyone does ultra-short-run case binding for a reasonable price). Really hoping that this will get settled in the next day or two, that I'll send the finalized cover files on Monday, and that it will be mostly out of my hands after that (the author will do the proof review).

Blue Hill Troupe's spring show program (which is essentially also a 144-page book) is in fact at the printers! Text and cover proofs are coming Friday, but I won't be looking at those either, as I'll be at Lunacon. But I'll be on call to make any changes or replacement pages they need to send back, so if you see me sitting at the MuffinButtons table with a big laptop out, that's probably why.

I got a reasonable tax refund, which among other things will... cover the gum surgery I'm scheduled to have a week from Friday. :-P

Yesterday was Rosh Chodesh Nisan, and my synagogue organized a special minyan (ETA: video coverage from JTA! and articles in the Forward and the Daily Beast...) in solidarity with the Women of the Wall, which is a group of women in Jerusalem who hold a morning prayer service at the Kotel (Western Wall) each month on Rosh Chodesh -- and because they pray wearing tallit and tefillin, it offends the ultra-Orthodox establishment, so they keep getting arrested. Our minyan was supposed to be held in Union Square Park, but because of the rain, we had it in the sanctuary at T&V after all. I didn't stay long enough to hear any actual rallying speeches or anything, just through Hallel and then I had to scoot out to work. But the really awesome thing is that, as it later transpired, the Women of the Wall had invited three female Members of Knesset to join them at the Kotel that morning -- so they brought their diplomatic immunity and NOBODY got arrested, for a nice change.

And this morning, I successfully unlocked an achievement that was 6 to (technically) 18 months overdue: transferred my Massachusetts driver's license to New York State. (I tried to do this back in October when the MA one expired -- on my 40th birthday -- but come to find out, NYS requires you to present a Social Security card in order to transfer an out-of-state-license. No discussion, no exceptions. I hadn't had a copy of my Social Security card since, like, applying for my first passport in high school... so I had to get a new copy of that first, and, well, delays. But now I have all the things!)

And justom's show opened last week, so paradoxically, he's been home more and earlier in the evenings, and things have been quite mellow and pleasant. I get to go on Sunday night (directly on unloading from Lunacon).

Oh, and, lest I forget: I am suddenly this week also working on a ketubah for sanpaku and gansje, and I just sent them a draft, so now I can finish this entry and go to bed. :-)

I'm joining the synagogue choir at Town & Village this year, and the first rehearsal was tonight! It was great.

I went there for Day 1 of Rosh Hashanah last year (diligent readers may recall that justom has close family friends who belong there and invited me/us). And in addition to really liking the service and the rabbi (who later, in a classic "small Jewish world" moment, turned out to be a childhood buddy of SCO#1, but that's another story), I actually really enjoyed the cantor and the choir. Which is a big thing for me because I normally am turned off -- almost by definition -- by anyplace that has a cantor, let alone a choir. But this cantor was a terrific young(ish... younger than me, anyway!) woman with great kavannah and an amazing voice that just, I don't know, fits really well with my personal davening style. And the choir was a lay choir performing from the bima (no microphones, no instruments) for just a few selected sections of the liturgy... which, not for nothing, happened to include two or three of my favoritest pieces from my own longstanding High Holiday choir gig back in Boston.

( Sidebar on my High Holiday choir history )

And we did one in that category right away tonight: Samuel Naumbourg's "Ana Tavo" (a.k.a. Ono Tovo) -- though I don't know if I'd have heard it there on Rosh Hashanah, because it's particular to Yom Kippur, the introduction to the Vidui, or confessional.

Ana tavo l’fanecha t’filateinu v’al titalam mi-t’chinateinu, she’eyn anachnu azei fanim u-k’shei oref lomar l’fanecha, "Adonai Eloheinu v'elohei avoteinu, tzadikim anachnu v’lo chatanu" -- aval anachnu chatanu.

Let our prayer come before you, and do not turn from our pleas. We are neither so arrogant nor so stubborn as to say to Your face, "Lord our God and God of our fathers, we are righteous and have not sinned" -- rather, we have sinned.

It's a poignant little passage that often gets zoomed past on the way to the Vidui, and the musical setting here lends all the more poignancy to the text. I'd link to it for you all if I could find a sample. Maybe Cantor Shayna will send me the MP3.

(Or, y'know, if anyone needs a place to go for holidays, you could come and hear it.)