Hasidic Rabbis, Indian Jews, and The Manic Frum Music Report

My latest column on Nextbook: Rabbi Raz Hartman and the songs of the Bnei Menashe tribe of Southeast India.

Three minutes is about the length of my attention span—and the average pop song—and within its limits I have come to expect a dance party, a manic heavy-metal freakout, or an angry but ultimately hopeful statement about love. I could never be a product of the classical era. I need pop music. But there are some experiences that can't be captured in a bite-size musical nugget.

Raz Hartman writes songs that, in length and in musical theme, straddle the division between classical, pop, and religious music. I wouldn’t call it music to meditate to, but that’s only because the term has come to mean music to fall asleep to. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, Hartman’s spiritual inspiration, said other people tell stories to put themselves to sleep—Jews tell stories to wake themselves up. And Hartman's second album, Shuva (his second) is definitely music to wake up to.

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TV Stuff and Free Stuff

First, the free. Courtesy of SimonPulse, by way of Cupcake Witch -- email your favorite fictional couple to pulsespringfling at geemail:

You can say Hava and Charles (ewww) or Candy and Mr. Patterson (double eww) or Jupiter and just about anyone....or, you know, people who are in books I didn't write, as well.

And the TV: I've told you about Chuck, right? At times it feels more like a sanitized TV Show Geeks Should Watch than a TV show that geeks actually do watch...but there are the moments that make it worth everything. And the show's ministering angels really do play a good game of keeping the characters' lives moving in unexpected ways. And then, of course, there are the gimmicks. Like this week, when the episode is shown in 3-D (I shlepped my glasses out of my copy of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier)...

Famous people, socks, and goats.

A truly baffling video advertisement for the 92Y Tribeca, where I host a monthly poetry & music open mic. It was directed by Michael Showalter, stars Paul Rudd, and has a spot from Eugene Mirman, the landlord on "Flight of the Conchords" (and, I'm sure, a bunch of other comedy people I should know but don't). It's very Stella/State humor, which is to say, it's reeeally subtle -- I'm totally down with surrealism and Dada, but this isn't quite surreal, it just has nothing to do with anything. Sub-surrealism? Semidada?

My True, Honest Inner Feelings On Robert Smith of the Cure

There's a new interview with me on Cupcake Witch, a fascinating new young-adult lit blog, which is refreshingly dark and refreshingly not gushy about every manner of YA writing. So far they've covered the new Amanda Palmer album and Poppy Z. Brite's handmade journal collection (side-note: ooogle).

And, me. Marie talked to me about Losers, the underground magazines I used to make, and why I'm so attached to stealing titles of Cure songs for my chapters:

Cupcake Witch: I love how several of the chapters in Losers are named after Cure songs. Did you ever see that South Park episode where Robert Smith comes to save the world from Barbara Streisand and at the end Kyle shouts "Disintegration is the best album ever!"? Do you agree with that statement?

Matthue Roth: You won't believe how long I've waited for someone to ask this question. When I saw that episode -- probably the first time it aired -- I was totally incredulous. Disintegration? Really? Not that I don't like Disintegration, but it feels like the default Cure album, the one for people who've barely heard of the Cure. Pornography is so much better.

But, yes, I was out of my seat and standing on the couch the second that the mecha-dinosaur Robert Smith came on the screen. I think that's one of my life goals -- to get made into a Japanese monster movie on South Park.

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Geek Love Doll

One of Itta's friends, I can't remember who, was hanging out with her yesterday, and their babies were playing -- it's what babies do when they don't have to go to time-consuming offices -- and Yalta was sucking on the head of this. When I saw the pictures, I freaked. It's Elly and Iphy from Geek Love. Oh, the girl has hope.

Back to School

The Friday night show at Stony Brook was amazing -- the rabbi had a huge dinner in his house, like 50 people, and more just kept popping in and out and staying for 5 minutes. The performance itself was so cool. The last time i did a college show, I kind of talked too much about my kid, and people were like, "Uh, he's so old," but this time, the preppy kids who NEVER care about this stuff were into it, and coming up to me afterward, and people were flirting with Itta and me and so I feel pretty damn good about the performance.

And I am only being all ego-boosty because it's Monday and here I am, back at the office job, sitting at my desk and answering calls from people who think that because I have extension 1 and they can't wait for the rest of the message, that means I'm the secretary.