My mother, who is buried in a Jewish cemetery in Greensboro, North Carolina was born in Louisville, Kentucky on January 17, 1927,
On Wednesday of next week, I plan to breakfast in Louisville, search the newspaper morgue of the Louisville Currier Journal to search for my mother’s birth announcement, obtain a Covid virus test, and in the late afternoon interview Kentucky’s new dynamic governor at four in the afternoon.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear tried to veto a proposed bill requiring voters to present photo ID at their polling location. Democrat opponents to the bill pointed to the absence of voter impersonation cases in Kentucky. They felt the requirement for voter ID would reduce turnout among the poor, minorities, the elderly and disabled. Sound familiar?
Kentucky’s GOP legislature overrides governor’s veto on voter ID requirements
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Meanwhile, nationally:
COVID-19 news roundup: As state’s jobless ranks grow, Beshear warns of tough answers ahead
Matthew Glowicki, Louisville Courier JournalPublished 12:37 p.m. ET April 30, 2020 | Updated 8:18 p.m. ET April 30, 2020
Places of worship will be able to hold in-person services and retail shops will be able to welcome customers in May, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced on Wednesday.
Beshear laid out his first phase of a plan for re-opening several portions of Kentucky’s economy on Wednesday. In order to re-open, various businesses must follow public health guidelines set forth by industries and the state in its “Healthy at Work” initiative. These rules include enforcing social distancing, closing common areas and making masks universal for employees, among others.
Under phase one of the plan, manufacturing companies can re-open their doors on May 11, and horse racing can occur without fans. On May 20, places of worship can hold in-person services, and retail shops can welcome back customers. And on May 25, 10-person or less social gatherings can occur, and barbershops can re-open doors.
Here’s what will and will not reopen in May in Kentucky, according to Gov. Andy Beshear
Ben Tobin, Louisville Courier JournalPublished 5:40 p.m. ET April 29, 2020 | Updated 8:17 a.m. ET April 30, 2020
Los Vegas cher LIVE IN CONCERT 7,919,459 views •Sep 1, 2013
Cher is an American singer, actress and television personality. Commonly referred to by the media as the Goddess of Pop, she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry. Cher is known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety of styles and appearances during her six-decade-long career.
— Wikipedia
Cher’s Eulogy for Sonny Bono Delivered 9 January 1998 in Palm Springs, CaliforniaPlease excuse my papers, but I’ve been writing this stupid eulogy for the last 48 hours. And, of course, I know that this would make Sonny really happy. It’s like Den said: “He got the last laugh.” So because I’ve had to write some of it down doesn’t mean that I’m unprepared. It just means that I’m over prepared in that this is probably the most important thing I’ve ever done in my life. Don’t pay any attention [weeping]. This is probably going to happen from time to time. And I also know that he is some place loving this Also, I have to wear the glasses that I made so much fun of him. I called him Mr. Magoo. I said, “You know, you’ve got to get some better glasses. You know, I don’t care if you’re Republican or not, you’ve got to look cooler than this.” So now I have to wear the glasses that I make fun of him for saying. There are a couple of things — I want to tell some stories — but there are a couple of things I really want to get perfect for him. So I have to read. Some people were under the misconception that Son was a short man, but he was heads and tails taller than anyone else. He could see above the tallest people. He had a vision of the future and just how he was going to build it. And his enthusiasm was so great that he just swept ever body along with him. Not that we knew where he was going, but we just wanted to be there (audience laughs). He was also successful at anything he ever tried. Not the first time he tried maybe, but he just kept going. If he really wanted something, he kept going until he achieved it. Once he told me that, when he was a teenager, he got his nose broken six times because he used to get into fights with guys that were much bigger than him. And he said that they would just be beating the crap out of him and would just be keep going back and going back and going back. I said, “Well, why?” And he said, “Because eventually I would just wear them down.” (audience laughs). And if you know him, we all got worn down. Some people thought that Son wasn’t very bright, but he was smart enough to take an introverted 16-year-old girl and a scrappy little Italian guy with a bad voice and turn them into the most successful and beloved couple of this generation. And some people thought that Son wasn’t to be taken seriously because he allowed himself to be the butt of the jokes on the Sonny and Cher show. What people don’t realize is that he created Sonny and Cher. And he knew what was right for us, you know? He just always knew the right thing. And he wanted to make people laugh so much that he had the confidence to be the butt of the joke because he created the joke. When I was 16-years-old, I met Sonny — Salvatore Philip Bono. And the first time I ever saw him, he walked in this room. And I had never seen anything like him before in my life. Because he was Sonny way before we were Sonny and Cher. He had this thing about him. He walked into this room, and I swear to God I saw him and like everybody else in this room was just washed away in this soft focus filter — kind of like when Maria saw Tony at the dance. And I looked at him, and he had like this weird hair-do between Caesar and Napoleon. As a matter of fact, one of the first things that he ever told me was that he was a descendent of Napoleon, and that his father had shortened the name of Bonaparte to Bono when he came to this country. But that he didn’t want to make too big a deal out of this. Now you have to realize, at this time, he was talking to a girl who thought that Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon. So we were definitely a marriage made in heaven.
Mylene Farmer : Stade de France – Désenchantée (2009) HD 720p
Mylène Jeanne Gautier[1] (French pronunciation: [milɛn ʒan ɡotje]; born 12 September 1961), known professionally as Mylène Farmer, is a French singer, songwriter, occasional actress, writer, and entrepreneur. She was born in Pierrefonds, Quebec, to a French family, and brought up in France. She has sold more than 30 million records in France[2] and is among the most successful recording artists of all-time in France.[3] She holds the record for the most number one hits in the French charts, with twenty to date – eight of which were consecutive.[4] Fifteen of her albums have also reached number one in France. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mylène_Farmer
Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance, primarily arising out of Germany and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Modern dance is often considered to have emerged as a rejection of, or rebellion against, classical ballet. Socioeconomic and cultural factors also contributed to its development. In the late 19th century, dance artists such as Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, and Loie Fuller were pioneering new forms and practices in what is now called aesthetic or free dance for performance. These dancers disregarded ballet’s strict movement vocabulary, the particular, limited set of movements that were considered proper to ballet, and stopped wearing corsets and pointe shoes in the search for greater freedom of movement.—https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_dance
by Isadora Duncan 4.01 · Rating details · 808 ratings · 83 reviewsMy Life, the classic autobiography first published just after Duncan’s death, is a frank and engrossing life account of this remarkable visionary and feminist who took on the world, reinvented dance, and led the way for future great American modernists Ruth St. Denis, Agnes de Mille, and Martha Graham.Documenting Duncan’s own life as a dancer and as a woman—from her enchantment with classical music and poetry as a child in San Francisco and her intense study of classical Greek art in Athens, through the great strides she made in teaching, founding schools, performing, and collaborating with international artists, to her notorious love affairs and the tragic deaths of her own children—My Life reissued here is still as extraordinary as the woman who wrote it more than sixty years ago. —- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/564037.My_Life
Elyssa Dru Rosenberg
Elyssa Dru Rosenberg, the founder and director of isadoraNOW, is a choreographer, dancer and educator who recently relocated to San Diego from New York City, where she was a recognized Isadora Duncan teacher and scholar. Elyssa teaches master classes and workshops in Isadora Duncan’s technique and history at schools and universities throughout the United States including New York University, Tufts University, SUNY Purchase, and the University of California, San Diego. She has performed Isadora Duncan’s work with isadoraNOW, the Isadora Duncan Dance Company, and the Isadora Duncan Youth Ensemble, and has also been privileged to perform the choreography of Ben Munisteri, Fredrick Curry, Deborah Damast, and Daniel McCusker. Elyssa’s choreography and Isadora Duncan reconstructions have been presented at the Joyce SoHo, Symphony Space, the Peridance Salvatore Capezio Theater, Dance New Amsterdam, Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, Movement Research Center, the 92nd Street Y, and various cultural festivals. A fourth-generation Duncan dancer, Elyssa’s dancing has been described as “radiant” and “magnetic,” while her efforts to keep Isadora’s work relevant for a new generation have been praised as “refreshing.” —-http://www.dancehistoryproject.org/index-of-artists/elyssa-dru-rosenberg/
You are here: Home / Joy of Motion / Isadora Duncan’s Autobiography: Chapter One
Isadora Duncan’s Autobiography: Chapter One
Isadora Duncan entered my life in the late 1990s. This was a period of significant change. I lost the ability to run; then walk, as a result of spinal damage caused by radiation treatment that cured me of cancer.
Meanwhile, my physicians were deciding on a form of treatment (that did not work),. While waiting for my physicians to decide how to proceed, I tripped over my feet and fell against the sofa dislocating my right shoulder. At the same time, the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, where I lived, suddenly moved from prosperity to dearth, and I could not find work as a technical writer.
Planning on a temporary California stay to earn enough to pay the mortgage on my family’s North Carolina home, I took up my friend David Phillips’s offer to stay with him in San Francisco. I quickly found work in the Silicon Valley writing a manual on a new KLA-Tancor’s product. The product analyzed silicon wafers as they were being manufactured and identified and destroying damaged wafers. The work was intellectually challenging and my co-workers cheerfully helped me understand the emerging technology. The pay was good. I was able even to purchase my first mobility device—a small yellow Amigo scooter which changed my life by its ability to cross boundaries hitherto limited by my disability. — https://joelsolkoff.com/isadora-duncans-autobiography-chapter-one/
As you know, the name of our shul means Lover of Peace. Now, when the threat of infection is all around us and fear grips us here in beautiful Lycoming County, it is difficult to be peaceful within ourselves.
As we prepare for the siddurim, we can take comfort from the Haggadah properly understood.
The story that comes immediately to mind is that of Rabbi Akivah. The Haggadah says Rabbi Akivah’s sedar lasted until dawn. His followers had to remind him the time had come to daven Shacharis.
–
Scholars explain to us the true meaning of that event noting Rabbi Akivah was helping Bar Kochba prepare for the Revolt— a Revolt that fought the Romans deadly attempt to destroy our people.
Now, the threat to our lives and tradition as G-d’s’ Chosen People is so small as to require a microscope to see it. It is so dangerous that by the time you read this 5,000 residents of the United States have already died and more are expected.
Following Rabbi Hillel’s first rehetorical question, If I am not for myself who is for me, we must all take care. Wash our hands. Avoid touching our face. Have safe distance between and among ourselves. Make sure to open the windows when the temperature permits. Fresh air and sunshine are the best disinfectant.
The second of Rabbi Hillel’s rhetorical questions:
If I am for myself alone, what good am I.
This means we must invent new ways of expressing our love for each other. We must make use of this time to learn Hebrew, read and appreciate the Tanach, study the history of Zionism and the State of Israel we so love. Stand up, sing Hatikvah, And pledge allegiance to the US flag.
Rabbi Hillel’s last rhetorical question, of course, is :
If not now, when.
Remember, we are today united under G-d’s glorious umbrella. It does not matter now in midst of this pandemic whether one’s faith is Judaism, Christianity, Muslim, Buddhist or nothing at all. Never since World War II when I served my country has our country faced as great a danger as it does now.
This Pesach we can learn from Rabbi Akivah’s diligence. The details of the threat may be different.The message is the same. With love and hope we will prevail as a people and as this wonderful United States which we all call home.
Kol tuv,
Marvin Staiman
[Editorial note: Marvin Staiman is the spiritual leader of Williamsport PA’s Synagogue in Williamsport PA. founded as Orthodox, but because women and men sit together rather than being separated, we regard ourselves as traditional.Marvin’s grandfather Kalman was one of the founders of the synagogue in 1907.
Jean and Marvin have been married for 72 years. Jean continues to read avidly and is devoted to literature. The couple are the pillars of our synagogue.]
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
—30–
From The Woman Who Fell from the Sky by Joy Harjo. Copyright c 1984.
April 1, 2020
By Elizabeth Lund Correspondent
Joy Harjo is the 23rd poet laureate of the United States and the first Native American to hold that post. A member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and an acclaimed musician, she has published nine books of poetry and released five award-winning CDs. After her inaugural reading in September 2019, she traveled extensively, performing solo and with musicians for audiences of various backgrounds and political affiliations. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she is a Tulsa Artist Fellow.
Q: Why are poems so necessary?
Poetry tries to hold all aspects of human memory – grief, failure, love, joy – and moves toward a liminal space in the borderlands between here and there, in between yes and no, what was and what is to come. The great paradox is that poetry uses language to create a place you can go when human words fail.
We go to poetry to find a road to understanding, and not just any road – it must be compelling, and take us somewhere we’ve never been before. Even before the pandemic, sales of poetry books had gone up. The audiences for poetry have grown dramatically since the last national elections four years ago.
Q: You have described poetry as a conversation of the soul. How is poetry “soul talk”?
Just about every poet out there – from Walt Whitman to Emily Dickinson to Marilyn Nelson – is ultimately writing a conversation with their soul. Each one has a different patterning, of course, a kind of sound frequency you can hear. And every poem has poetry ancestors.
My own poetry ancestors include a great-grandfather who helped me enter the realm of poetry. He was a good speaker and I think some of my sense of language comes from him. I have some of his handwritten pages of sermons. I also consider Emily Dickinson a forebear. I hear her in her phrasing, a single human voice rising from the seclusion of a room or darkness or loneliness.
The whole country seems to be in that kind of place right now, so quiet you can hear the collective heart. We might feel especially alone because we have been individually isolated. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. All sound becomes magnified; that’s when we can really listen.
Q: Why is listening important?
Listening is the tool required for life, and for any art. It doesn’t matter if it’s literature, painting, or architecture. You might listen with your eyes to color or to the line or just shape. But it’s all about listening with all of your senses.
Q: How did you come to love poetry?
I didn’t start writing poetry till I was almost 23. But I came to poetry as a child because my mother, with her eighth grade education, loved and read poetry, mostly Tennyson and the visionary Blake.
She also wrote love-song lyrics – ballads were her form – and worked with some of the best country-swing musicians.
What I have discovered is that most traditions of poetry have their roots in music, and when you go back to those roots we all have, you’ll find poetry hanging out with music and hanging out with dance. They form a threesome.
Q: When did you start writing?
I started writing poetry around the time of the Native American Renaissance, which began in 1969 when N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa novelist and poet, won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. I was an art major at the University of New Mexico and had an eye towards a career in art, which made sense since I had a grandmother and a great aunt who were painters. Then I started attending poetry readings, and discovered Native poets. That’s when I realized that poetry was part of me, and could reflect my own life as a Native person.
Q: As poet laureate, do you feel that you provide the same validation for other Native writers?
This position has made it possible for me to open a door of self-affirmation for Native Americans, who still don’t see themselves represented much in the culture. This position has enabled me to open a door for many. I represent poetry and the power of what poetry can do: It can speak across chasms, through gunfire. It has saved lives – including mine – and enlarged countless levels of meaning. I am only one of many gifted poets, one of many Native poets, one of many voices who have something to offer in these times and in timelessness.
Q: How would you describe the gift of poetry?
Every gift comes with sacrifice. There is always something demanded. To take care of the gift of poetry demands listening, even when it seems as if there is nothing or no one there. It remembers listening to history and beyond history. It means walking a road of language alone, until you teach someone how to hear you. My mission is to take care of the gifts that I carry, to develop and feed them, and then to share them. We must all take care of our respective gifts, because with them we will find the answers to our problems. With poetry, we can sometimes sing the answers.
