PicoBlog

If you’re from outside New York and are not (yet) familiar with the work and soul of Rabbi David Ingber, you should be. Rabbi Ingber is Senior Director for Jewish Life and Senior Director of the Bronfman Center at 92NY (the 92nd Street Y). He also serves as the founding rabbi of Romemu, the largest Renewal synagogue in the United States. Rabbi Ingber founded Romemu in NYC in 2006, following his ordination by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Founder of the Jewish Renewal movement.

Peak: #4 on the Hot 100 Streams: 3.6 million Over on Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs, the podcast I host with Sarah D. Bunting, we’re in the midst of a Record the Year Showdown. That’s a tournament to determine the all-time greatest Grammy winner for Record of the Year, and the very first song we talk about is “Volare” by Domenico Modugno. It won both Rec… ncG1vNJzZmikn6jBtLvNoKpnq6WXwLWtwqRlnKedZL1wrs6bmbJloq6xprjLZq2opJGnsm6%2BxK%2Bgnq8%3D

In 2002, I walked into an acting class that my friend Kimberly McCullough raved about. Her coach, Andrew Magarian, was “something special” and of course I wanted to learn from the best. I came in one Tuesday night to audit his class and as I stepped foot into a very understated, garage style space lined with chairs of students, Andrew was talking with a student seated dead center. He was stoic and strong, funny and deeply warmhearted.

The personal is political. It’s more than just a slogan. It’s a fundamental truth of male-female relationships. When you argue with your husband or male partner, you’re not just interacting with him. You’re interacting with all of his patriarchal socialization. This is why men, especially sexist men, tend to use the same arguments to escape accountability, regardless of the circumstances of their individual relationships. This is part of a series of pieces identifying and deconstructing the weapons men are taught to use in fights.

At first glance, borders — those geopolitical theatres of territorial separation and militarization — appear to have little to do with our notions of love. Yet I read a book recently that opened my eyes to a vivid world I had only seen at a pixelated distance and invited me, invites all of us, to think more deeply about the violence that borders inflict upon our most intimate relationships. In an otherwise hostile immigration policy landscape, families have often been viewed as an exception to harsh enforcement policies.

WHAT IF? As a lover and teacher of history, I have often asked myself “what if” the dominant programs of Jim Crow era Black College football, universities like Florida A&M, Grambling, Jackson State, Morgan State, South Carolina State, Southern, Tennessee State, and Tuskegee, had been integrated into the all white SEC or ACC in the 1960’s and 70’s? True integration that is, instead of having predominantly white schools slowly recruit and subsequently dominate the enrollment of Black student-athletes after de jure segregation ended in the late 60’s?

So, Jason Isbell. We barely have the time. I’ll just say: greatest living folk/Americana/Southern rock/whatever singer-songwriter. Very influential, critically adored, deeply confessional. You think I’m exaggerating? Listen to this. Stunning, isn’t it? But I want to talk about a different Jason Isbell song today, “When We Were Close,” from his latest album Weathervanes. To do that you’ll have to humor me, because it requires a semi-academic tangent into the personal and musical history that birthed this song.

While the pages of rock magazines might give you a more straightforward diagnosis — accidental heroin overdose at the age of 27 — and it's true the act was finalized by a needle, Janis Joplin’s demise came under the grips of something more sinister.  Misogyny killed Janis Joplin.  And 53 years later, it continues dancing on her grave. In September, The New York Times published an incendiary interview with Jann Wenner, co-founder of Rolling Stone and its former editor-in-chief, about his latest book, The Masters, a collection of interviews with seven white male rock stars who Wenner considers the zeitgeist of rock n roll.

Media overload bombarding you with action / It's getting near impossible to cause distraction Dale Bozzio woke up in Frank Zappa’s living room. She was 21 and had been in Los Angeles for about six months, in which time she had sung backup on Zappa’s Joe’s Garage Acts I, II & II and songs like “I Don’t Wanna Get Drafted.” Zappa was touring Japan with Dale’s future husband, drummer Terry Bozzio, at the time; she came to, to the sound of Zappa’s daughter Moon playing the harp.