The Weir, and Other Stories

[deliasherman]

Do you ever have thematic days?  Like, there's a piece on the radio in the morning about shrimp and then someone posts a shrimp recipe on Facebook and the lady in front of you at the fish shop (yes, we have a dedicated fish shop, Joon's, on the corner of 98th and Amsterdam) is buying shrimp?  In Chateau Riverside, we call this phenomenon a "plate o

Comments

[asakiyume]

Now you've left me dying to hear the stories they all told, and there's no way I'll ever see the play. If you find yourself with a free minute, can you share them? Not here, because people reading here won't want them spoiled, but at forrestfm at gmail dot com? If you don't get a chance, that's fine. I love how you've told this; you really convey the intimacy and the way the stories are a thread of magic/supernatural woven into their lives.

And this:

You can choose to believe or not believe in his fairies, ghosts, and devils--they don't have to be factual to be metaphors, and they'll still be metaphors if they're factual. He has a dandy way with the poetry of common speech, how people naturally go in and out of formality, dialect, or profanity, depending on their audience and their relationship with them.

The first part, about metaphors, oh yes! And the second part: what a treat.

[deliasherman]

The fascination and the power of the stories is as much in the way they're told as in what happens, and I can't begin to reproduce that. Maybe you can find the published play in a library or something--if your own library doesn't have it, there's always interlibrary loan. Because it's definitely a play worth reading.

[asakiyume]

The fascination and the power of the stories is as much in the way they're told as in what happens

I can well believe it, from what you've said!

Maybe you can find the published play in a library or something

--Good idea; I will look for it.

[negothick]

Your Romemu experience sounds quite the opposite from the traditional Yom Kippur liturgy, which demands that we all confess to the same sins in the plural, "Sins that WE have sinned," over and over and over. In alphabetical order, no less.
As our rabbi several times quoted Abraham Joshua Heschel,[misquoted slightly, as it turns out, if wikipedia is correct] "the prophets remind us of the moral state of a people: Few are guilty, but all are responsible."
That's quite different from "my personal story, my unhappiness, my wants, my sins." All are responsible.

[deliasherman]

Oh, we did those, too. Our rabbi somehow manages to emphasize both individual and communal responsibility in his comments on the liturgy. As I said (or didn't say, but it's still true), this is Jewish Renewal, which is kind of Hippie Schul. Lots of Hebrew, lots of singing, lots of feels.