March 2, 2004
ROCKIN' BOWLING:
New Purim party music! (Paul Wieder, 3/02/04, Jewish World Review)
The main theme of Purim, says the Megillah, is "v'nahapachu," or "turnabout." And the main activity of Purim is… making noise! So what better time to explore some of the new Jewish music that is turning the (turn)tables and standing music's Hamans on their triangular ears:The Rabbinical School Dropouts ear-popping CD, Cosmic Tree. The standout track is its irrepressible opener, "Dung Gate." The Arabic-tinged big-band sound is made by, well, a big band: 10 musicians on 18 instruments, ranging from a trombone to a tabla to a toy piano. Fun is the objective, as evidenced by the titles themselves: the swinging-in-the-shuk "Mosquito from Megiddo," the lounge jazz of "Nuclear Jet Set," and spacey tango "Warp to Level Three." [...]
Purim is a time when, as a great Jewish poet has said, "The first one now/ Will later be last… For the loser now/ Will be later to win." It is a day of masks, surprise endings and turnabout. So this Purim, surprise yourself and your guests with some of the endless supply of innovative Jewish music. You just may end up enjoying the whole megillah.
No religious holiday is more mystifying than Purim, when children gather in the Temple basement and throw ping-pong balls at goldfish bowls in hopes of winning one. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 2, 2004 10:04 AM
I liked your comment about Purim....Purim is one of the classic Jewish
> holidays: "They tried to kill us. They failed. Let's eat." I guess
> the "Purim Carnival" grew out of the festival's celebratory nature. I
> don't know when the goldfish got involved. But I did win one when I
> was in the 1st grade. Actually, I won 2, but when we got home and set
> them free from their Baggie into a little bowl filled with rocks and a
> little ceramic castle, one of them immediately chewed the tail off the
> other, who promptly died. I named the survivor "Mr. Meany" (hey, give
> me a break....I was 6), and he lived until I was 12 or 13.
>
> Another story: at our Temple, the game booths were manned by the kids
> from the older Sunday School classes (maybe 12 years old and up). At
> our booth, you could win a fish by shaving a balloon, using a safety
> razor, without popping it. We noticed that ALL of the kids were
> winning, and we quickly ran out of goldfish. How could it be, we
> wondered, that all these little kids had a steadier shaving hand than
> the best barber in a western movie? Well, it turned out that our
> teacher had been worried that the little kids might cut themselves, so
> that morning, she removed the blades from all of the razors. Even
> Ozzy Osbournse could have won a fish shaving a balloon with a
> bladeless razor.....
>
> (No, the teacher's name was not Dick Gephart.)
Mr. Judd:
I could of sworn hurling ping pongs at hapless goldfish was a Catholic pursuit.
Posted by: Buttercup at March 2, 2004 4:26 PMI really, really, really dislike Purim.
Posted by: David Cohen at March 2, 2004 9:11 PMWell, well, looks like someone never won a goldfish...
Posted by: oj at March 2, 2004 10:39 PMWe see that some people observe a supposedly-religious holiday in late winter dedicated to fooling around and general silliness.
But enough about Mardi Gras...