Tuesday, May 30, 2023

The Guggenheim on Wheels

Whoosh at Last! AAbq Jew has often mentioned (see January 2019's The L Train and The Jews) - he loves The New Yorker. Always has. Since he was a kid, just looking at the cartoons in his psychiatrists' offices.

Yes, every now and then David Remnick & Co turn out (what Abq Jew considers) a dud issue. But - 'way more often than not - there's a few articles (yes! they publish articles!) and several cartoons that brighten and/or inform Abq Jew's week.

The New Yorker

So let's take a closer look at the issue
of May 8, 2023. The one with not-yet-crowned-when-published King Charles III on the cover. But first - we've gotta talk about the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

Guggenheim Musem NYC

The Guggenheim

Wikipedia tells us - 

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue between 88th and 89th Streets on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. 

It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. 

The museum's building, a landmark work of 20th-century architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, drew controversy for the unusual shape of its display spaces and took 15 years to design and build; it was completed in 1959. 

 Guggenheim

It consists of a six-story, bowl-shaped main gallery to the south, a four-story "monitor" to the north, and a ten-story annex to the northeast. 

 Guggenheim

The main gallery contains a six-story helical ramp
that extends along its perimeter, as well as a
central ceiling skylight. 

Here is a video - featuring Sara Gore! - that provides a memorable introduction to the museum: 

Now, Abq Jew does not wish to speak condescendingly to you, his loyal readers. (That means 'talking down' to you.) But Abq Jew must tell you (he must! he must!) that all New Yorkers already knew this.

That's because all New Yorkers then (1959) living, all New Yorkers ever born, and all New Yorkers ever to be born gathered near Mount Sinai Hospital right after Shavuot and learned all about The Guggenheim. And we all wondered - 

What would it be like to
skateboard down the ramp?

Abq Jew fondly recalls that day (yes, just one day) in August 1968, just after the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia, when Abq Jew (figuratively, not literally) put on his roller skates to visit Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory at The Louvre.

But that was different.

Winged Victory

Winged Victory

As Cole Louison so trenchantly describes in that May 8, 2023 issue of The New Yorker. Published with the headline 

“Whoosh”

And which Abq Jew now displays in its entirety, in complete violation of an entire plethora of US copyright laws, UN resolutions, and international conventions. 

Please, copyright lawyers, consider this fair use - or even a free promotion!

Skateboard

Illustration by João Fazenda

Skating the Gnarliest Ramp of Them All: The Guggenheim

The six-story spiral tempted would-be shredders for six decades, until the museum finally allowed the skateboarder Alexis Sablone in for a night.

At any given time, the Guggenheim may host Kandinskys, Picassos, Pollocks, Mondrians, or af Klints, but the first thing that any visitor who isn’t too boring to admit it thinks about is the ramp, and how much fun it would be to roll down. Frank Lloyd Wright imagined the museum’s six-story helix as 

“a curving wave that never breaks.” 

The building opened in 1959, the same year that the Roller Derby Skate Board débuted. And yet, for the next six decades, perhaps owing to a sense of decorum, or to a competent security crew, no one skated down the ramp.

“A ramp like that—it’s breathtaking,” 

the professional skateboarder Alexis Sablone said the other evening. 

She was standing on the museum’s ground floor, a board at her hip. Converse, one of Sablone’s sponsors, had persuaded the Guggenheim to allow the company to shoot a film, promoting Sablone’s signature shoe, using the ramp. 

The talks took nearly a year; Sablone was kept in the dark. 

“They surprised me,” she said.
“I thought they were going to walk me
into Times Square and unveil a billboard.” 

She looked around, dropped her board, and popped an awkward ollie.

Sablone grew up in New England, where she skated parking lots and garages. As a teen-ager, she starred in “Wonderful, Horrible, Life,” a gritty skate film shot on handheld cameras around Boston, where skateboarding is banned on public property. She is now thirty-six, with short black hair, and lives in Crown Heights. 

In addition to skating (she placed fourth in the street classification at the Tokyo Olympics), she’s an artist and a designer, with a master’s in architecture from M.I.T.; she recently made a 3-D model of the Guggenheim on her computer. 

“A spiral is hard to describe,” she said.
 “The rise and run. A lot harder than a stair.”

The plan was to shoot Sablone in black-and-white sailing down the ramp. “The building is a simple idea,” the director Jeremy Elkin, who wore an orange shirt and a black cap, said. “The piece has to reflect that. That ethos.”

Workers were humping several trucks’ worth of gear up the ramp: lights, tripods, sandbags, Spidergrips, an Arri Alexa camera, an Easyrig that looked like a mechanical giraffe. The walls were bare; the art works had been stored in crates on the ground floor. 

The oculus was dark. Sablone warmed up, landing a few kickflips. She slipped while doing a Nollieheel, landing on her butt, then lay back, looking up. Far above, a camera peered over the railing. Elkin’s radio crackled.

 “O.K.!” he said. “Let’s go!”

At around 11 p.m., Sablone rode the elevator to the top floor (Wright didn’t want visitors to walk up) for a test shot, a simple left-to-right roll through the frame. The shot looked nice—a series of black, white, and gray horizontal curves, from which Sablone emerged like a fin—but there were issues. 

Sablone didn’t want to look down.

 “It would make me dizzy,” she said.
 “The only flat surface is the ground,
so you have no reference points
for where you are in space.” 

She’d also discovered that the ramp was coated in a layer of what she likened to “Masonite dust,” which stuck to her wheels. The skating was fast; the ramp was surprisingly steep.

 “The amount of curvature, the only thing you
can compare it to is a parking garage,
honestly,” she said. 

During the test shot, she’d almost rammed a protrusion. 

“I don’t want to be the first skateboarder to skate
the ramp and the first skateboarder
to break the museum,” she said.

Elkin repositioned the crew and made a new plan. Sablone would start at the top and roll down to the next floor for a full orbit, but stop at the balcony. Then the production would move down a floor and start again.

Sablone bounded back up and retook her starting place. Elkin called, 

“Action!” 

Sablone stepped on her board and started rolling. The rotunda filled with a humming buzz that grew louder as she picked up speed. She leaned like a surfer.

Elkins got the shot, and the crew trudged down the ramp to repeat the drill. They wrapped at around 7 a.m., as the oculus was filling with light. Sablone, damp with sweat, was limping slightly.

 “I grew up skating in the nineties,” she said, smiling.
“I never, ever would expect to be here.” 

Nice Commandments

Wednesday, May 24, 2023

Shavuot 5783

Counting and Counting: Several thousand years ago, all Jews then living, all Jews ever born, and all Jews ever to be born gathered beneath Mount Sinai to hear God speak to us. 

We celebrate this wondrous event every year on the Holiday of Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, exactly forty-nine full days (which are, as we know now, seven full weeks) after the Holiday of Pesach.

Jerusalem

And we recongregate to celebrate Shavuot just one week after we all celebrated Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day).

Shavuot (שבועות‎) occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. This year, Shavuot begins on the evening of Thursday, May 25. The festival days are Friday and Saturday, May 26-27.


Hag Sameach, Albuquerque!
Good Yontif, New Mexico!
Hag Sameach & Shabbat Shalom, Israel!

Hebrew Calendar

About The Calendar

This year, Shavuot Day 2 falls on Saturday, May 27. But in ארץ ישראל (The Land of Israel) - Shavuot ends when Shabbat begins, on Friday night. So in Israel, they'll be reading Nasso on Shabbat, while we in חו״ל (Outside The Land) will be reading Shavuot Day 2.

Which also means that thereafter, the Parsha of the Week will not be the same in Israel as it is elsewhere; Israel will be one week ahead. And it will stay ahead until Saturday July 8, when we join up again for Pinchas.

This, in turn, puts us in sync for שׁבּת חזון, The Sabbath of Vision, so we can observe תשׁע בּאב (Tisha b'Av) together as one.

Hebrew Calendar Facts

In the meantime, Facebook's 
Hebrew Calendar Facts is proud and probably correct to tell us:

This year, Shavuot is on the Friday before Memorial Day (in the US), leading to a 4-day weekend. This has previously happened twice since Memorial Day was established as a federal holiday on the last Monday in May (in 1971): in 1982 and 1996. After this year, it will happen again in 2026, 2050, 2053, 2077, and 2080.

The configuration we've seen more in recent years is Shavuot starting on the Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend (and continuing through the Monday for 2-day people), which happened in 1985, 2012, and 2015, and will happen again in 2039, 2042, 2066, and 2069.

The extra-rare one is when Shavuot starts on Sunday night, so (the first day of) Shavuot is on Memorial Day itself. This happened in 1974 and 2001, and we won't get it again until 2099 and then 2123. This is rare because Monday is the rarest day of the week for Shavuot (out of the days of the week that are possible).

And one person commented: In 2025, Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) will fall on Memorial Day.

This year, Memorial Day closes our four-day weekend. 

Memorial Day

Memorial Day
Not just sales, barbeques, and pool parties.
Real sacrifice for real freedom.

Tuesday, May 16, 2023

Midge Maisel Mockingbird

Marvelous! Bathtubs Over Broadway! Need Abq Jew mention that he is (so very) often ahead of his time? 

First: In March 2019, Abq Jew published Fall River Now and Then - about Lizzie Borden (of course); about the Chad Mitchell Trio (of course); and then about Michael Brown (wait - who's that?).

Next: In September 2019, Abq Jew published The Night The Well Ran Dry - about Bathtubs Over Broadway (surprisingly); about Harper Lee (surprisingly); and also about Michael Brown (wait - him again?).

Mrs Maisel

Now: We approach the wonderful yet almost-forgotten Holiday of Shavuot (see May 2013's Preparing for Shavuot, et al). And Abq Jew has read Mira Fox in the Forward!

That industrial musical in ‘Mrs. Maisel’ wasn’t a fever dream — it was history

Products like cars and mouthwash inspired song-and-dance numbers that were a staple of American business

It seems like a fever dream. In episode four of the new season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Midge Maisel is at an industrial exposition. Clad in coveralls, she narrates a musical featuring tap-dancing garbage men and a singing trash heap.

It seems so kitschy that it’s hard to believe that shows like this actually existed. But it turns out that the episode is just another example of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s commitment to history; industrial musicals were very real. 

There were entire productions about Xerox machines, Listerine, Johnson & Johnson sunscreen and diesel engines. By the ’60s, they were so common that even products like spark plugs and blank keys had shows. 

Whatever product you can think of — food, machinery, appliances — if the brand existed half a century ago, it probably had a musical. 

You should read Mira

Forward

Mira should read

The Night the SWell Ran Dry
The Night the Well Ran Dry

OK. So here is what Abq Jew wrote:

Do you remember Abq Jew talking about the Chad Mitchell Trio and Michael Brown (see A Song For The Right and Fall River Now And Then)?

Well, before Michael Brown hit fame with the Trio, he made a very nice living, thank you (his and his wife's generosity gave Harper Lee the time to write To Kill A Mockingbird), by writing industrial musicals.

There is now a documentary film about such writers of industrial musicals.

Bathtubs Over Broadway premiered on April 21, 2018 at the BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center as part of the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival. The film's director, Dava Whisenant, won Tribeca's Albert Maysles Award for Best New Documentary Director. 
Comedy writer Steve Young’s assignment to scour bargain-bin vinyl for a Late Night segment becomes an unexpected, decades-spanning obsession when he stumbles upon the strange and hilarious world of industrial musicals. 
Tribeca Jury: “The winner of the Best New Documentary Director goes to a film that we chose for many reasons. The story, the specific subject, the journey into a world we never knew existed. This film also has an element every great film, doc, and story needs...heart.” 
Described as "the most feel-good film event of the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival," the premiere featured post-screening live performances, including a duet about motion-activated faucets that reunited the stars of American Standard's cult favorite industrial show The Bathrooms Are Coming!

You can watch the Bathtubs Over Broadway trailer here; or visit the film's website here. You can now stream Bathrooms Over Broadway on Netflix, too - which is how Abq Jew discovered it.

Yes, Abq Jew does indeed love bathrooms. Always has. And because he suspects that - secretly or openly, covertly or overtly - you, his loyal readers, may love bathrooms too, Abq Jew proudly presents -

My Bathroom


Created for New Year's Eve 1958.
Recording of My Bathroom is from an industrial musical called 
The Bathrooms are Coming, produced by the American Standard Company
in 1969 and included in the book and accompanying CD, 

 

Which brings us to

Michael Brown

Michael Brown

OK. So here is what Abq Jew wrote:

Don't know much about Michael Brown? Neither did Abq Jew. So Wikipedia tells us:

Michael Brown (14 December 1920 – 11 June 2014) was an American composer, lyricist, writer, director, producer, and performer. 
He was born in Mexia, Texas. His musical career began in New York cabaret, performing first at Le Ruban Bleu. 
In the 1960s, he was a producer of industrial musicals for major American corporations such as J.C. Penney and DuPont. 
Several of his songs have entered the American repertoire, including "Lizzie Borden" and "The John Birch Society," which were popularized by the Chad Mitchell Trio. 
Children know him best as the author of three Christmas books about Santa’s helper, Santa Mouse.
Michael Brown in 1977. He and his wife, Joy, gave Harper Lee
financial support while she wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

But here is Abq Jew's favorite Michael Brown story - and it will likely become yours, too. From the wonderful 2014 obituary that Margalit Fox wrote for The New York Times:

It was the modest windfall from ... an industrial show — a musical fashion show for Esquire magazine in the fall of 1956, Joy Brown recalled last week — that let Mr. Brown and his wife help usher “To Kill a Mockingbird” into being. 
The Browns had met Ms. [Harper] Lee through her friend Truman Capote. Mr. Brown had contributed lyrics to a song in the 1954 Broadway musical “House of Flowers,” with a book by Mr. Capote and music by Harold Arlen. 
By 1956, Ms. Lee, an Alabama native, was living in New York. Her longed-for career as a writer was stymied by the need to pay the rent, and she was toiling away as an airline reservations clerk. 
That Christmas, visiting the Browns, she spied an envelope with her name on it in the branches of their tree. 
I opened it and read: 
You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.
Ms. Lee recalled in a 1961 essay in McCall’s magazine in which she did not identify the Browns by name. 
“It’s a fantastic gamble,” Ms. Lee, in the words of her essay, told Mr. Brown. “It’s such a great risk.”
TKAM
Outside, snow was falling, an odd event for a New York Christmas. I went to the window, stunned by the day’s miracle. Christmas trees blurred softly across the street, and firelight made the children’s shadows dance on the wall beside me. 
A full, fair chance for a new life. Not given me by an act of generosity, but by an act of love. Our faith in you was really all I had heard them say. I would do my best not to fail them. 
Snow still fell on the pavement below. Brownstone roofs gradually whitened. Lights in distant skyscrapers shone with yellow symbols of a road’s lonely end, and as I stood at the window, looking at the lights and the snow, the ache of an old memory left me forever.
Harper Lee


Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Psalm 121: A Song to the Ascents

I Lift My Eyes To The Mountains: So let's talk for a moment about Psalm 121. It is one of 15 psalms categorized as a Song of Ascents (Shir Hama'alot) - although unlike the others, it begins Shir LaMa'alot (A Song to the Ascents). 

The psalm is regularly recited following Mincha between Sukkot and Shabbat Hagadol, and we Jews recite various verses at other times, as well. Psalm 121 has been set to music in several languages - by Felix Mendelssohn, Leonard Bernstein, and many others.

Esa Einai 

Psalm 121 has long been one of Abq Jew's favorites - but only since he heard The Diaspora Yeshiva Band's version - way more than a few years ago. About which - more later.

Other versions? Jewish versions? Here are two of the best.

Nefesh Mountain is a New York-based progressive bluegrass band that bridges elements of American folk and Appalachian bluegrass with Celtic folk and Eastern European melodies. 


Jacob's Ladder is a Boston-based progressive bluegrass band that merges Eastern European Ashkenazic and Sephardic Jewish traditions with their American heritage and musical style.

Let Abq Jew be perfectly clear here: These are wonderful renditions of Psalm 121. Melodic and inspiring and tastefully Jewgrassy. Who could ask for more?

Tachlis

Well ... Abq Jew could. He'd heard it on one of The Diaspora Yeshiva Band's vinyl albums - which Abq Jew owned - way back in the day. The LP was long gone, but TDYB's song was an earworm stuck in Abq Jew's head. For years.

For years, Abq Jew searched YouTube and the rest of the Internet for The Diaspora Yeshiva Band's version of Esa Einai - Psalm 121. Fruitlessly. And then - wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles - just a few days ago, there it was!

The Diaspora Yeshiva Band

And we'll get to it! But first - it has occurred to Abq Jew that some of you, his loyal readers, may not have heard or heard of The Diaspora Yeshiva Band. Wikipedia therefore tells us:
The Diaspora Yeshiva Band (Hebrew: להקת ישיבת התפוצות) was an Israeli Orthodox Jewish rock band founded at the Diaspora Yeshiva on Mount Zion, Jerusalem, by ba'al teshuva students from the United States. 
In existence from 1975 to 1983, the band infused rock and bluegrass music with Jewish lyrics, creating a style of music it called "Hasidic rock" or "Country and Eastern".
The Diaspora Yeshiva Band

But TDYB's website tells us more:
The Original Diaspora Yeshiva Band was formed in 1975 by Avraham Rosenblum, a multi-talented composer, singer and guitarist who led the band through several incarnations over an eight year period.  
The group took its name from the noble (although at that time a bit wild and wooly) institution in the heart of Jerusalem where its members studied Torah.  They were among the first wave of Baalei Teshuva, returnees to Jewish religious practice who somehow managed to survive the 60s and return to the fold.

Whenever the band appeared on stage – whether on a Motza’ei Shabbos overlooking the rooftops of Har Zion, or at big venues such as Israel’s Hasidic Song Festival – the players looked pretty Yeshivish (the funky hat or two being the only giveaways). 
But when they turned on their amps and cut loose, it wasn’t Cantorial music that came out, but an original decoction of what they called ”Country and Eastern Music”: Tehillim, Bluegrass, Chassidic Niggunim, and Rock’n'Roll.

And even more:

This was not merely a musical novelty produced for fun and profit.  It wasn’t even an act of rebellion from the Jewish music of the past (or the extremely deep traditional Jewish music of the present).  

It was a natural means of expression for young men who, despite all appearances, weren’t Yeshiva Bochurim from Mir or Ponevitch or Tchebin.  

They were refugees from a secular America that, for all its economic affluence, was perceived to be spiritually bankrupt; and by the grace of the One Above, they had come to Jerusalem in search of spirituality and meaning.  

Having come of age listening to Dylan and the Beatles, Diaspora used the styles they understood best to express their own nascent feelings of love for Hashem, for the Jewish people, and for the land of Israel.

And now -

קכ״א

שִׁ֗יר לַֽמַּ֫עֲל֥וֹת 

אֶשָּׂ֣א עֵ֭ינַי אֶל־הֶהָרִ֑ים מֵ֝אַ֗יִן יָבֹ֥א עֶזְרִֽי׃
עֶ֭זְרִי מֵעִ֣ם ה׳ עֹ֝שֵׂ֗ה שָׁמַ֥יִם וָאָֽרֶץ׃ 

אַל־יִתֵּ֣ן לַמּ֣וֹט רַגְלֶ֑ךָ אַל־יָ֝נ֗וּם שֹֽׁמְרֶֽךָ׃ 
הִנֵּ֣ה לֹֽא־יָ֭נוּם וְלֹ֣א יִישָׁ֑ן שׁ֝וֹמֵ֗ר יִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ 

ה׳ שֹׁמְרֶ֑ךָ ה׳ צִ֝לְּךָ֗ עַל־יַ֥ד יְמִינֶֽךָ׃ 
יוֹמָ֗ם הַשֶּׁ֥מֶשׁ לֹֽא־יַכֶּ֗כָּה וְיָרֵ֥חַ בַּלָּֽיְלָה׃ 

ה׳ יִשְׁמָרְךָ֥ מִכָּל־רָ֑ע יִ֝שְׁמֹ֗ר אֶת־נַפְשֶֽׁךָ׃ 
ה׳ יִשְׁמָר־צֵאתְךָ֥ וּבוֹאֶ֑ךָ מֵֽ֝עַתָּ֗ה וְעַד־עוֹלָֽם׃

Psalm 121

A song to the ascents.

I turn my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come?
My help comes from the LORD, maker of heaven and earth. 

He will not let your foot give way; your guardian will not slumber;
See, the guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps! 

The LORD is your guardian, the LORD is your protection at your right hand.
By day the sun will not strike you, nor the moon by night. 

The LORD will guard you from all harm; He will guard your life.
The LORD will guard your going and coming now and forever. 

Abq Jew Credit

Yes, Abq Jew did indeed take a few precious moments to create this video and post it on his YouTube channel

The opening image, BTW, is Painted Horse at Sunrise, by Placitas artist Lisa Avila. Who will be showing off her work at the upcoming Placitas Studio Tour.

Placitas Studio Tour

And why, Abq Jew hears you ask,
is The Diaspora Yeshiva Band's Esa Einai so good?

Banjo Request

Country & Eastern!
Raucous Rock'n'Roll!


Wednesday, May 3, 2023

Harry Belafonte Dies at 96

Only the Best: Barrier-smashing singer, actor and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, who once boasted of being “the most popular Jew in America” because of his rendition of a Hebrew classic, died Tuesday [April 25] at his longtime Upper West Side home. He was 96.

Harry Belafonte 1957

Thus reports Lisa Keys for JTA. Who continues:

The New York City native was the one of the first Black artists to achieve widespread commercial success in the United States, and while he was raised Catholic, his life frequently dovetailed with Jewish causes, values and people. 

Among Belafonte’s many Jewish connections — which included brokering a meeting between Nelson Mandela and Jewish leaders in 1989 — was his marriage to his Jewish second wife, dancer Julie Robinson. The couple, who were married from 1958 to 2004, raised two children, Gina and David.

In 2011, Belafonte revealed in his autobiography, “My Song: A Memoir” that his paternal grandfather was Jewish. 
Belafonte’s parents were both Jamaican immigrants: his mother, Melvine, was the child of a white mother from Scotland and a Black father, and his father, Harold George Bellanfanti, who later changed the family name, was the son of a Black mother and white Dutch-Jewish father. 
In his book, Belafonte describes his paternal grandfather, whom he never met, as “a white Dutch Jew who drifted over to the islands after chasing gold and diamonds, with no luck at all.” 

Now, for some of you, Abq Jew's younger loyal readers, your first encounter with Harry Belafonte may have been the soundtrack of the 1988 Tim Burton film Beetlejuice. Others of you - Abq Jew's older loyal readers, who have known Harry Belafonte for a long, long time  - will find this hard to believe.

Day-o! But we continue. With the best rendition of The Banana Boat Song ever to appear on screen. As everyone knows.

When it comes to Harry Belafonte, there is (in Abq Jew's family tradition) the double album Harry Belafonte at Carnegie Hall (recorded April 19 and April 20, 1959) - and then there is every other Harry Belafonte album in the world.

Belafonte Carnegie

For those who may not remember - wait! How could you not remember? Anyway, Wikipedia tells us:
Belafonte at Carnegie Hall is a live double album by Harry Belafonte issued by RCA Victor. It is the first of two Belafonte Carnegie Hall albums, and was recorded on April 19 and April 20, 1959. The concerts were benefits for The New Lincoln School and Wiltwyck School, respectively. 
The album stayed on the charts for over three years [and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 1959 Grammy Awards].  
The Rolling Stone Album Guide wrote that the album captured "a spectacular live performance."
Here are a few of the songs on that magnificent album, to this day considered by many the greatest recorded concert by an individual performer.

Mama Look a Boo Boo. A delightful children's song (NOT), particularly memorable because Belafonte sings the phrase "or is it the fact that I'm ugly?" Who in God's name was he kidding? Hah!

Man Smart, Woman Smarter. Another delightful song explaining the facts of life. Memorable because Belafonte sings the phrase "You meet a girl at a pretty dance" - showing how the folk tradition works, how words can be bent or moved to fit the musical beat.

Hava Nagila. When it comes to singing Hava Nagila, there is Harry Belafonte - and then there is everyone else. Harry Belafonte himself (of course!) put it best:

When you find a song that says ‘Let us rejoice,’ there’s no better song to leave an evening with. Hava Nagila tells us who we should be and what we, in a fundamental sense, aspire to be — peoples of love and joy and peace.

But wait

Matilda. Did you think Abq Jew would forget? The whole mishpoocha now! 

Sing out the chorus! Sing a little louder! Sing out the music!

Memory blessing