Friday News Chum: Zombies Can’t Dance the Hora, and They Won’t Take a Check
Well, it’s Friday, and you know what that means: time to clear out the links of interesting news chum that didn’t fit into a themed post:
- Facts About Money. From Forbes: 6 Interesting Facts about Money. One thing the article talks about is the fact that checks may die before cash. I”m one of those folks that still use checks - I print them on Sunday, mail on Monday. Am I the only one left?
- Oh, The Hora! The Wall Street Journal has an article that posits the death of something other than money: The dancing of Hava Nagila at weddings and other simchas. The last wedding I attended was a year ago (Happy Anniversary, Fanny!), and I can’t recall what music they did for the hora. Do you still hear Hava Nagila?
- Be True to Your Shul. When I was growing up, I attended Wilshire Blvd Temple. Being one of the A/V runners, I spent time in the bowels of the building, under Piness, where all the A/V was stored. Although I’m no longer a member, the congregation still has a soft spot in my heart, which is why I found this long article from the Jewish Journal on the renovation of the sanctuary, and the eventual future plans, so interesting. I particularly like how Rabbi Leder got funding for the new work:
Before starting on any part of this project, the synagogue’s board of trustees - which for years had been more focused on expanding its highly successful Westside campus - had to be convinced of the need. Though this was the place from which it drew its name and where the whole congregation came together for the holiest holiday services, the huge investment needed wasn’t a given. They considered selling the property, a concept Leder said he couldn’t stand for. “It would have become a Korean church,” he said. So to make the picture real, he’d take potential funders out around the immediate neighborhood to illustrate his point.
“We’d go to Fourth [Street] and New Hampshire [Avenue], and we’d get out across the street from a beautiful old synagogue that was Sinai Temple, and there’s a gigantic cross on the front of it, just above the Ten Commandments in Hebrew, and I’d just look at people, and I’d say: ‘That’s the other alternative; it’s very disturbing.’ ”
- Detroit: Where the Men are… Dead? A few weeks back, I wrote about the enterprising fellow who wants to build a zombie amusement park in abandoned areas of Detroit. Wonder where the zombies will come from? Evidently, vacant areas of Detroit have become dumping grounds for dead bodies. I shudder what I will read next. Then again, I’m in Los Angeles, so I’ll probably read about a producer making a horror film about dead bodies in a zombie park in Detroit.
- Theatre of Interest. Some upcoming theatre notes for me about shows I plan to ticket. Building on the Detroit theme, there is Silence of the Lambs: The Musical. There’s also going to be a local production of Xanadu: The Musical. Lastly, Celebration Theatre will be doing a new musical called Justin Love.
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