I guess the test doesn't lie...

via Mobius.

New York Uke Fest

Mark your calendar and save your pennies (tickets are spendy, but it looks like fun!)

New York UkeFest!

Topic: ukulele

Driving

Pete Townshend has posted the fifteenth installment of his novella The Boy Who Heard Music.

UPDATE: All the chapters and many of the comments from Pete Townshend's The Boy Who Heard Music blog have been removed from the blogspot site and archived at his main website:

The Boy Who Heard Music

The Ukelin

Ok, this has got to be both one of the coolest and strangest instruments I've seen in a while. A cross between a ukulele and a violin!

From the Smithonian Institute's Encyclopedia:

"Ukelin" is one of the more common trade names of a type of stringed musical instrument marketed from the early 1920s until about 1965.

Ukelins combine two sets of strings, one group of sixteen strings tuned to the scale of C (from middle C on a piano to the C two octaves above) plus four groups of four strings, each group tuned to a chord. The instrument is meant to be placed on a table with the larger end toward the performer, and while the right hand plays the melody on the treble strings with a violin bow, accompanying chords are played on the bass strings with the left hand using either the fingers or a pick. Each string and chord group is numbered, and sheet music is provided in a special numerical system intended to simplify playing for persons unable to read standard musical notation. [More]

See also: Bob's Ukelin HomePage

Free at Last, Free at Last!

I am officially done with my finals. Today I finished and turned in the 12 page Theology paper I had to write & am officially done with the Fall 05 term. Halleluyah!!

Mobius and The Battle of Armageddon

the battle of armageddon
Originally uploaded by jewschool23.

Mobius the Orthodox Anarchist has posted some great pictures--like this one--of his recent trip to Har Megiddo and Caesarea. Well worth a look!

And I Didn't Even Know Rosie was Jewish...

via Mobius, via Danya

Electric Ukes and Solids

Over at Risa Music I found another uke to add to my wish list (I know, I know, I need to learn to play the one I have. Shut up!):

The Risa Electric Soprano Uke:

They also have these odd looking solid ukes. Not sure what to make of them yet:

The Method

Pete Townshend has posted the fourteenth installment of his novella The Boy Who Heard Music.

UPDATE: All the chapters and many of the comments from Pete Townshend's The Boy Who Heard Music blog have been removed from the blogspot site and archived at his main website:

The Boy Who Heard Music

A Note From the Elves

An odd little elf gave this to me in midtown Manhatten the other night, seemed worth passing along:

Me and My Uke

A recent photo of me and my latest obsession.

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

I was almost afraid to find out, but it looks like I'm safe for now!

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

A new Hanukkah Classic...

My Menorah

While My Ukulele Gently Weeps

This video has been on-line in various places for a while now, but do yourself a favor and check out Jake Shimabukuro's phenominal instrumental ukulele version of George Harrison's While My Guitar Gently Weeps over at Midnight Ukulele Disco:

While My Ukulele Gently Weeps

Jake is to ukuleles what Hendrix was to electric guitars. Really.

Red Star of David or Red Crystal?

File this under things that piss me off:

From PRIMER:

On Thursday, the 192 signatories of the Geneva Conventions decided to adopt a new international symbol - the Red Crystal - alongside the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. Now it seems, for the first time, Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) can join the 182 members of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

The vote "reflects Israel's improved international standing … This is yet another achievement for Israel's diplomacy," gushed Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. MDA itself worked hard to achieve this result, which paves the way for Israel to join international rescue missions.

The new Red Crystal is a simple, bold diamond shape - called a "crystal" at the request of South Africa, since "diamond" had connotations of slavery. MDA will continue to use its current symbol, the red Star of David, in Israel, and internationally can use either an empty crystal or one with a Star of David inside it...

Advocates of the crystal point out that the International Committee of the Red Cross was actually looking for such a symbol, even leaving aside the "problem" of Israel's membership, since the Red Cross was having trouble operating in some Muslim countries under its own symbol. Presumably, therefore, MDA will not be the only member society operating under the crystal in some hot spots; so will the Red Cross.

Despite these pragmatic considerations, we cannot help but feel deeply offended by both this international verdict and our own nation's puzzlingly obsequious embrace of it. Why could there not have been four recognized symbols: a cross, crescent, crystal and the Star of David? Or alternatively, why were the cross and crescent not - like our star will be - forced inside the crystal when operating internationally? There are no good answers to these questions. Evidently even a humanitarian movement, and one which perhaps more than any international body purportedly prides itself on neutrality and impartiality, can baldly discriminate against the Jewish state for decades, and then adopt a "solution" that continues to discriminate against the symbol of the Jewish people.

There is, furthermore, a wider problem with the new arrangement: Rather than rejecting and combatting hatred, it accommodates violence and intolerance. It is no coincidence that, after over half a century of tolerating the rejection of the Star of David, the Red Cross has itself in recent years found it increasingly difficult to operate, and began to seek cover.

Though the crystal is being portrayed as the solution to a general problem, namely places where one symbol or another is not tolerated, in practice the intolerance flows almost entirely in one direction: from the Muslim world against the Star of David and, recently, against the Red Cross too. It is almost impossible to conceive of a situation in which a Christian country, by contrast, would take violent offense to a rescue mission operating under a Red Crescent....

Why should a Red Cross ambulance, whose only mission is to save lives, not be able to operate in Muslim areas? Why does Israel have to beg Muslim countries for the right to openly help their peoples recover from national disasters? Most perplexingly, how has this blinding intolerance become so "normal" that such questions are not even asked?

Thursday's decision on the new symbol was, in a step almost unheard on such issues, taken by a vote rather than by consensus. Over 20 Muslim countries, led by Syria, voted no. For these countries, even hiding Israel behind a crystal was plainly too much tolerance. And in the end, it was not just Israel that attempted to hide itself from a hatred in many Islamic countries so deep it extends even to those who would save their own peoples' lives. It was the entire West as well...

To read the full article, see the pro and con views by the Moden David Adom and the Wall Street Journal and vote in an on-line poll on the subject go to PRIMER's page on the subject.

The Glass Household

Pete Townshend has posted the thirteenth installment of his novella The Boy Who Heard Music. As a side note, unrelated to this novella, Pete has reposted a selection of songs (mostly demos, some of which were never completed) in MP3 format that were available on his site a few years ago: Pete's Diary: 20


UPDATE: All the chapters and many of the comments from Pete Townshend's The Boy Who Heard Music blog have been removed from the blogspot site and archived at his main website:

The Boy Who Heard Music

I'm Dreaming of a White... Hanukkah

Jews Kick Ass

I've always known, but its nice to see others have figured this out:

Jews Kick Ass @ www.highfidelitydisco.com

A Bit of the Applause

Since today marks a quarter century since his murder I thought I'd post a poem I wrote many years ago (around 1988 to be precise) about John Lennon. Its been available on-line for many years in the Art & Poetry section of Bagism, a Lennon site I used to frequent once upon a time.

A Bit of the Applause
(For John Winston Lennon)
by John W. Leys

You were the Walrus
Then you were John
You were the Dreamweaver
And now, you are gone

You were a poet
You were a man
They call you a god
They don't understand

They mourn your death
Say you died for the cause
When All you wanted
Was a bit of the applause

Yet Another Depressing Anniversary...

25 Years Ago Today... on 8 December 1980 John Lennon was murdered in front of his home here in NYC.

John Winston Ono Lennon
1940-1980

"Hold on world, world hold on
It's gonna be alright
You gonna see the light

When you're one
Really one
Well, you get things done
Like they've never been done
So hold on"

- from "Hold On" by John Lennon (1970)


Strawberry Fields in Central Park, Summer 05

12-7

Remember Pearl Harbor

Photos via DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER

In Memory
of
Lefty Wilbury
(aka Roy Orbison)
23 April 1936 - 6 December 1988

The View This Morning

(Click the above image for the full sized version)

Looking up North Broadway from my room at JTS

Nothing and Everything

"Can you hear me Josh? Do you remember what I said to you then? God, He was just over there outside the Black Hole– still is, I have a message...."

...

"....He doesn’t want to go back into the Big Black Hole! We must help Him to never forget where He’s come from, what He’s been through. He can never be ‘nothing’ again. He’s gotten too used to being Everything."

- from The Boy Who Heard Music by Pete Townshend

"I have learned it. Known who burned me
Avatar has warmed my feet
Take me with you. Let me see you
Time and life can meet
Rumor has it. Minds are open
Then rumors fill them up with lies
Future passing. Nothing lasting
I try to scream, 'cause nothing dies.

Nothing is everything
Everything is nothing is
Please the people, audiences
Break the fences, nothing is

Let's see action. Let's see people
Let's see freedom. In the air
Let's see action. Let's see people
Let's be free. Let's see who cares..."

- from 'Lets See Action (Nothing is Everything)' by Pete Townshend

Everything, the:
God the Infinite. The Everything, being everything, includes the Nothing. (1a)
God, the Infinite; the Everything, being infinite, includes the Nothing. (1b)

---

Nothing, the:
The infinite shadow of God, Who is the Everything. (1a)
The infinite shadow of the Everything (God). (1b)

- from Baba's Words, The Master's Glossary compiled by Frank Davis

God is in everything that exists, though everything that exists is not God. It is present in everything, and everything comes into being from it. Nothing is devoid of its divinity. Everything is within it; it is within everything and outside everything. There is nothing but it.

---

In the beginning Ein Sof [אֵין סוֹף, without end; God] emanated ten sefirot, which are of its essence, united with it. It and they are entirely one...

Ein Sof emanated one point from itself, one emanation. This is Keter [כתר; crown], called Ayin [אַיִן], Nothingness, on account of its extreme subtlety, its cleving to its source, such that being cannot be posited from it.

---

Ayin, Nothingness, is more existent than all the being of the world. But since it is simple, and every simple thing is complex compared with its simplicity, it is called Ayin... Being is in nothingness in the mode of nothingness, and nothingness is in being in the mode of being. Nothingness is being, and being is nothingness.

- from The Essential Kabbalah by Daniel C. Matt

"You are everything
That is real,
Everything that is good;
Everything that is not."

- from 'You Are' by John W. Leys

Fragments

Pete Townshend has posted the twelfth installment of his novella The Boy Who Heard Music.

UPDATE: Brian in Atlanta has posted his "Cliff-Notes" to Fragments.

UPDATE: All the chapters and many of the comments from Pete Townshend's The Boy Who Heard Music blog have been removed from the blogspot site and archived at his main website:

The Boy Who Heard Music

Ginsberg

Stacey over at Enlighten Me posted some pictures of herself and her cats. Since I have several pictures of myself posted in this blog I'll just post one of my cat, Ginsberg (named for the poet).

Here he's doing what he's best at: napping. His other favorite activities are watching TV (He particularly likes Batman, Krypto the Superdog (especially the episodes with Streaky the cat in them) and the Muppet Show), eating and howling like a banshee (hence the name!).