Summer Job

Well, it's official. I have my summer job. I was planning on going back to Minneapolis for the summer to work at Camp TEKO one last time. Before I tell you what my job is going to be, I will quickly recap what I've done there so far.

In four years, I have had more than four different positions. Counselor, Sports Specialist, Overnight Staff, Avodah Unit Head (this is the pre-Counselor-In-Training program for entering 9th and 10th graders), Overnight Unit Head. Additionally, I've been a Bus Captain, Yom Yafeh (Judaic Programming) Co-Programmer, Assistant Song Leader, Camp Photographer and I'm sure I left something out, somewhere. No, I'm not going back to run camp. Tracy does an amazing job and I'm excited to work for her one last time. I don't think Temple Israel would want me to do that. Plus, there's that little thing that I'm involved in for the next four and a half years.

Why am I so excited about this?

Because my job is going to be, Music Specialist! That's right. Monday through Friday for eight or so hours a day, I will get to play and teach music to campers. I'm so glad I've been compiling so many variations of different songs and different melodies this year. I'm excited to teach all of this great Jewish music to campers! It's going to be great! I mean, I can't imagine doing something else with my summer this year!

Kid A & Winter

I don't understand why I have this association, but Kid A, by Radiohead will always have an association with winter for me. It could be that the first time I heard the album was in the winter. Maybe it was the number of times I played it while driving to and from Fargo, thanks to Kaitlin for that high number of drives, many of which were in the winter. It might have something to do with the album cover, or just the quiet, calm sounds of the first tracks. I really have no idea the real reason, and maybe it is a combination of all of them.

I'm sitting here in Jerusalem with a nice warm cup of coffee reading an assignment or two for class tomorrow and one of those songs popped up on my iTunes. It felt very out of place to me. I looked out the window to a bright sunny day, and realized that I still have all the windows open wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The current temperature is 68 and it's supposed to get a lot warmer today. I'm left wondering, where is winter? What happened to Jerusalem being freezing? All I heard about the winters here, before I came, was that it gets much colder than you will anticipate. Be prepared. The houses don't keep heat during the winter because they are designed to stay cooler in the summer. What is going on?

From what I've heard floating around, this winter is abnormal. It's actually getting dangerous for the agriculture of Israel because there hasn't been any rain yet. I was really excited the first time I was poured on, because it hasn't really since I arrived. I'm sad to say that it hasn't really rained here since then either. The drought is so bad that for last Thursday, the Chief Rabbi of Israel made it a fast day, for those who listen to him, and told people to say additional prayers for rain. I take that with a grain of salt, or two, since I don't really follow much of what he says, but it demonstrates the nature of this problem.

There was a story in the Jerusalem post this week that blamed the recent butter shortage (yeah, there is a butter shortage right now) on the heat. Apparently, according to the story, in heat like this the dairy cows do not produce as much milk, or the right byproducts to create butter. I guess that explains why the butter was so expensive for me to buy to bake blondies last week.

Now before my friends and family back in Minnesota start complaining about the fact that I'm sitting here in a comfortable climate and they're stuck in a freezer with a potential snowstorm for Thanksgiving, (although I'm not sure how the weathermen could predict that over a week away) I miss the snow. I miss the cold. I miss the seasons changing. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I'm still wearing sandals and I'm going to go play football outside this afternoon. I just feel strange not bundling up to leave the house.

Until the "bone-chilling" rains set in, I guess I will just have to listen to a different album while I do my homework.

Occupy My Mind

A large chunk of my family started doing one of those, "15 random songs from your iTunes library" notes on Facebook. Since I'm looking for a way to occupy my mind for a little bit, I decided to do one on here.

The first 15 songs, on random, that came up on my iTunes are;

Artist, Song Title, Album Title

blink-182, Apple Shampoo, Dude Ranch

The Beatles, For No One, Revolver

The Offspring, Gotta Get Away, Smash

Led Zeppelin, The Lemon Song, Led Zeppelin II

Spacehog, I Want To Live, The Hogyssey

Godsmack, Voodoo, Godsmack

The Arctic Monkeys, Brainstorm, Favorite Worst Nightmare

weezer, Dope Nose, maladroit

Synergia, Lekchbek Otakch, Tzoakim Al Ahavah

Dispatch, Prince of Spades, Who Are We Living For?

The Beach Boys, I Get Around, All Summer Long

Sublime, Caress Me Down, Sublime

Third Eye Blind, How's It Going To Be, A Collection

Fuel, Empty Spaces, Something Like Human

Flogging Molly, The Ol' Beggars Bush, Swagger

I'm not sure what the point of this is, but I found some songs I hadn't listened to in a long time...

In Joshua's Shoes: The Sounds of Zion

Israel is an interesting place with all of the various cultures that are around here. There are crazy smells and even cooler is the incredible range of sounds that you can hear around the city.

I wrote a blog post for TCJewfolk about it, and it went up today.

Check it out here, Sounds of Zion, and tell your friends.

Me? A Choir Boy?

I've played musical instruments since I was 11 years old. I always enjoyed singing, but I didn't want to be one of those kids that was in choir and in band. That would have been way to much music for high school. What I didn't realize back then was how much fun it really is to sing.

My last year in college I needed to fill out my schedule and took a singing class and I have to say that it payed off so far. I was approached by one of the cantorial students to sing with them during the High Holy Days. While I am not claiming to have a great voice, I jumped at the chance to sing and to hopefully learn from these very talented students while I have the chance to sing with them.

I had so much fun on Sunday in the first rehearsal, but I also found my limitations, where there are quite a few. For example certain notes at the bottom of the Bass Clef and below the staff are a little tough to hit correctly. Certain high pitches tend to fall a little flat. I also have a hard time looking at a note and putting the specific pitch into my head to get it though my voice.

Luckily I had talked to Dave, one of the School of Sacred Music (SSM) students about this on Wednesday night last week. His advice was to just play around with a guitar or piano, pick a pitch on the staff and try to hit it with my voice. Eventually I won't need the guitar. I played around with this exercise a little bit this afternoon. While I don't know if I've actually improved, I'm having a lot of fun with it and can't wait for the next chance to learn, practice or rehearse.

L'Shalom,

David Broza at Sultan's Pool

I had never been to an outdoor concert before and I had no idea what to expect. Having heard some of Broza's music (I only have his greatest hits CD) I knew he is an incredible guitarist, but I had no idea what to expect. I didn't spend any time wandering the art fair before heading down towards the amphitheater, we were hungry after Havdallah and needed grab a bite to eat before the show.

The Sultan's Pool Amphitheater sits below the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and is a large space that easily accommodates a large stage. We thought we needed to be there really early and as it turns out, it was a good idea to get there as early as we did. We got to stand incredibly close to the stage.

Not only was it awesome to be there with a good sized group of HUC students, with a guest appearance from Steph, the show was incredible. Sorry 311, I think you've just lost out to David Broza as the best concert I've ever seen.

There was just an intense passion on Broza's face as he belted out his songs in Hebrew and Spanish. Without taking much of a break from his showmanship, he played for almost two-hours. Keeping the crowd near me moving and entranced at the music he was making. It was incredible. Then there was the music.

I spent a lot of the show staring at his fingers trying to understand how me makes them fly across the strings with such speed and accuracy. At times It really looked like he wasn't even touching the strings his fingertips were flying across the neck so quickly. The band included a variety of other instruments ranging from a simple, wooden flute, saxophone, trombone, trumpet and violin. You could tell the group was having a lot of fun playing together.

The violinist also could dance. In her Flamenco shoes and very Spanish looking dress, Broza got up from his stool and gave her a lot of room. Then she started dancing. I commented to some of my friends around me that I hadn't seen anything that cool since the summer I was in Spain. She was fantastic at it. Broza clearly was having fun with it and danced with her and encouraged his bass player to do the same. They were just having a good time.



They finished off with a great song and a very extended ending complete with solos from every member of the band which was a lot of fun. Then the crowd continued to shout for an encore, which Broza happily obliged. I took some video of it, but we were too close to the stage and the bass overpowered the input on my camera. With the same enthusiasm of the rest of the night he told the crowd that we needed to be quiet so he could tune his guitar. After getting into a groove he concluded with the song Mitachat La'Shamayim (Under The Heavens). After playing to the crowd, Broza turned up the passion one more time and the song took on a new life of its own. It was absolutely insane.