cellio | interviewed by ichur72

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interviewed by ichur72

1. Has it been easy or difficult to deal with non-observant in-laws?

Some of each. Most of my in-laws are remarkably understanding and accommodating; they want to do the right things to make me comfortable but don't always know what those things are. Sometimes they'll ask or I'll anticipate a situation and raise it (or plan to just deal with it); occasionally, like with Shabbat lunch while we were there for Pesach, we'll all just get blind-sided by something. There's goodwill and we all just deal, but of course if they were observant the situations wouldn't come up in the first place.

There are things that are minor enough that I feel bad asking them to make additional changes, but that can still be a bit of a hassle. For example, I haven't figured out what it takes to get a bathroom light left on on Shabbat/Yom Tov; it seems to be a very energy-conscious family. C'est la vie.

One person in the family acts as if she is hostile to observance, but it might just be that she's remarkably self-centered and she would be just as hostile to other constraints. She's one of those classic "how dare you question the ingredients in my cooking; I know what's good for you better than you do" sorts. Since she's pretty snarly no matter what, I haven't felt an urge to probe the situation.

2. What Jewish observances resonate most strongly with you?

Prayer, particularly in community (which you probably already figured out :-) ). Saying blessings before and after eating, and kashrut, for the same reason: they elevate a base subsistence act to one that forces me to be conscious of God. Torah study for its own sake (rather than just to get an answer to a question). Making Shabbat different from the other six days.

3. Have you decided to take on any observance that proved to be more difficult than you anticipated?

One aspect of kashrut has turned out to be harder than I anticipated: eating at the homes of friends/relatives. It's not that I don't trust people to heed my food restrictions if they say they will; my friends and family have gone out of their way in that regard and I completely trust them to do what they say they'll do. But I still feel awkward about it because I am asking them to take special steps and, by its nature, the request is pretty uncompromising. I mean, I cut corners in some cases that I perhaps ought not cut, mostly for the sake of peace in the family, but even so there are limits. Maybe I just don't like saying "no, I can't", and maybe I'm uncomfortable calling down that much of a spotlight. I'm not sure.

Not manipulating electricity on Shabbat has turned out to be very challenging in the summer, and I just plain didn't see that coming. I need breaks from reading but often don't have people to visit with. It would be nice to be able to turn on the TV or stereo. Or it would be nice to punt on daylight savings time so that Shabbat didn't end at close to 10PM in June. (Anyone local who's reading this: this means Saturday-afternoon visits are definitely welcome if you're in the neighborhood!)

There are some challenges from having a non-observant husband, but I think you were asking me about "internal" difficulties more than "external" ones.

4. Who's your favorite SF character and why? (Can be from TV, book or movie.)

Hmm, that's hard. I really feel for Ender; I'm inspired by Manny O'Kelly; I'd like to be Mike Callahan; I'd like to meet Jean-Luc Picard; I'd like to be able to study Kerr Avon. But those are all aspects. I'd have to say that my favorite character (not further specified) is Susan Ivanova from Babylon 5. She's smart; she's direct (some would say blunt); I think we share a lot of personality traits. And she's funny and I think would be a neat person to get to know.

5. What period or style of music appeals to you most?

I'm going to assume that while it's often the name of a very short section in stores and catalogs, "medieval and renaissance" is too broad. Within that, there are two that come to mind immediately. One is the 13th-century estampie (or istampita, depending on language) and saltarello style, which tends to be perky, playable, hummable dance music. The other is also dance music -- 15th-century Italian balli. (And probably the contemporary bassadanza, except that we don't have full music for many of these.) The balli are sometimes perky too, but sometimes they are also elegant and graceful, and the source materials provide room for performers to add improvisation and arrangements on top of what's given that can really shape the character of the piece. I like playing them, I like listening to them, and I like composing them.

I also enjoy 16th-century counterpoint, particularly immitative. It's fun to sing and nifty to (try to) write. Palestrina is the standard exemplar there.

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Would a night light in the bathroom be adequate? A particularly bright one, maybe? If so, maybe you could just carry your own.

Nightlights are what I use at home. I took one the first year and someone turned it off, but I think I could reasonably try that again and ask them to leave it alone. And maybe I can find an out-of-the-way outlet, rather than the one right next to the mirror and overhead light switch. I think I got nailed by habit, not malice, so the trick is to break the habit. :-)

This all seems strange to me, because I was taught that a nightlight is a basic hospitality/safety thing when there are guests in the house-- trying to find one's way to the bathroom at night in an unfamiliar place is awkward at best, dangerous at worst. In fact, maybe phrasing it as a safety thing rather than observance would help?

I just had a lightbulb go off (so to speak): I need to make sure it wasn't Dani who instinctively turned it off! I mean, he doesn't bother them at home, but that training might not carry to an unfamiliar environment.

Next trip up I'll take a nightlight, mention it to the in-laws, and see if it stays turned on. Thanks.

Another thought is to get one of those light-sensor activated nightlights: there is no switch, so nobody can turn it off. But it will turn off automatically during the daytime (if there are windows in the bathroom) or when someone has the main bathroom light on. Unless, of course, it's one of those annoying bathrooms wired so that the outlet loses power when the light switch is turned off. That's the way my bathroom is currently wired, and it's annoying.

Good idea! Thanks!

Another thought: bring a bit of masking tape to put over the switch of the nightlight, as a reminder to those who'd automatically turn it off.

It may be too dim, but there are also those indiglo lights that use very little electricity... and also have no switches.

Once upon a time, my parents had a nightlight for me that was an orange LED encased in plastic. Great little thing... it's still working to this day. I don't know if they still make things like that anymore. (Ya'd think they would, but the problem is that they never burn out, so you never need to replace them!)

But I still feel awkward about it because I am asking them to take special steps and, by its nature, the request is pretty uncompromising. I mean, I cut corners in some cases that I perhaps ought not cut, mostly for the sake of peace in the family, but even so there are limits.

Boy, I hear that. I mean, my reasons are medical, but just as strict.

I sometimes wonder how you manage in restaurants. I go the vegetarian+fish route and sometimes still have trouble; your restrictions are much more severe than that.

I carefully pick restaurants - if I can I call ahead. I have a good sense of what mistakes they make, what foods are easy to modify, and I eat whatever they can come up with.

When I talk to waiters, I tell them it is a medical requirement not a preference, and I ask their advice. It is all I can do. Under some circumstances I eat a few things, and sneak a PowerBar which I keep in my gym bag at all times.

One place I did the unthinkable - I joined a large party, the restaurant could not or would not accommodate me. I got take-out from a nearby Italian place, and brought it back. They were nice about it, I tipped the waiter for the meal I didn't get to order. But it was damned odd...

Your answer to #5 was particularly interesting. I don't have your knowledge of music from that period, but I do enjoy what I have heard. It happens that I'm particularly fond of florid organum, which I first heard in a music history course in college. I end up feeling philosophically conflicted about it, though, because the bulk of it is Christian liturgical music ... does this ever come up for you? I ask because a good bit of the music preserved from the medieval period is from church sources.

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>> I'll listen to music that I wouldn't be willing to perform, just because it's so darn pretty.

I'm with you there. I'm no performer -- my mother tried for years to get me to take up one instrument or another, but I don't have the right kind of discipline to be a musician. (And then there are the problems with the tendons in my arms, but that's another story.) Nevertheless, I love listening -- music can take my head to such amazing places. But I know enough bits and pieces of Latin that I sometimes get yanked out of my reverie with certain types of music. I'll be floating along, thinking, "Ahhhhh ..." and suddenly I start feeling a little squirmy because it occurs to me that this is all about Jesus and Mary.

>> And I don't do things to give the wrong impression, like blaring a mass from my car stereo with the windows down. :-)

Quite an image. It creates a picture in my head of a low-rider car with gold-plated wheel rims cruising around the block with Gregorian chant turned up loud enough to rattle window panes.

Oops -- not fast enough in replacing my comment with a corrected version. Sorry 'bout that. :-)

Quite an image. It creates a picture in my head of a low-rider car with gold-plated wheel rims cruising around the block with Gregorian chant turned up loud enough to rattle window panes.

While it's sometimes tempting to take revenge on the guy sitting next to you in traffic for what he's blaring by countering with something incongruous, chant wouldn't be my choice of ammo. But you're right -- what an image!

>> chant wouldn't be my choice of ammo

It wouldn't necessarily be mine, either. Maybe Bulgarian folk music -- there are some bagpipe tunes on one of my tapes that sound good loud. (At least, I think so.) And then with the singing, many people aren't used to the 2nd and 7th intervals or the nasal tones used, so it would probably turn heads.

OK, so I wouldn't actually do this. But I have thought about it. ;)

I end up feeling philosophically conflicted about it, though, because the bulk of it is Christian liturgical music ... does this ever come up for you?

Oh boy does it come up.

Ok, first off, it's not a factor for me for instrumental music. Well, I wouldn't join a consort performance of Christmas carols even if there's no singing, because that's just too strong an identification, but most of the instrumental music I like is secular and most of the rest, if it's sacred, is not at all obviously sacred to the casual listener. The stuff I do instrumentally just doesn't sound like it could have emerged from a church.

Vocal music, on the other hand, has caused me problems. When I was still a member of the local choir there were pieces I was not comfortable singing. I dropped out of the choir each year for the Christmas concert and its prep, but there is lots of non-Christmas Christian music so this came up at other times of the year too. I was not the only Jew in the choir and we ended up mostly doing music that was either secular or non-specifically religious. (For example, we had no problem singing Byrd's "Deo Gracias", those being the only two words in the song, or assorted "Allelujah" variants.) I simply sat out the objectionable pieces. I caught some flack, but it didn't force me out of the choir.

Drawing the line was sometimes hard. For example, on the surface "Stella Splendens" is just about a bright star. But c'mon, we all know what star they're talking about. So that's a "no". What about "St Thomas Honor We", a song about a saint? The author of the text clearly shares the saint's faith in "Christ", and that is transmitted to the singer by proxy, so no. I eventually realized that there's a simple, but incomplete, rule: any song from this period containing the word "Christ" is going to be a problem. Similarly, I have yet to see a song about Mary that wasn't a problem -- it's all about the mindset. Jesus is obviously God; Mary is obviously the mother of God. It's part of the context of the song. If anyone wrote secular songs about Mary, I haven't seen them.

So far I've been talking about performance. I'll listen to music that I wouldn't be willing to perform, just because it's so darn pretty. I like some of Byrd's and Palestrina's masses. I like most of what Anonymous 4 performs. I'm ok with this -- I'm a music geek who is clearly listening to it as music and not as liturgy, and I'm pretty secure in this aspect of my own religion. That is, I don't feel that I'm "sneaking around" with God -- not that one could -- or that I'm doing something that God will be displeased by. And I don't do things to give the wrong impression, like blaring a mass from my car stereo with the windows down. :-)

So my own conclusion is that listening as I do is not avodah zarah, but performing would be.

A couple of questions for clarification and thought.

Last year the Pennsic Choir did some Psalm settings by obviously Christian composers, but since the text was straight out of Psalms, am I correct in thinking that you would be okay with singing them?

Going a bit further, the "Sanctus" prayer in the Mass has a text that probably comes straight out of Jewish tradition. Not even an implication of Jesus or the Holy Spirit. (The "Benedictus" text that immediately follows could be interpreted as an implication of Christ; I'm referring strictly to the "Sanctus" part that ends with "Glory be to Thee, O Lord Most High" or the first "Hosanna in the highest" depending on the exact text.) If this were sung on its own, without any of the other Mass parts, would you be okay with singing it? (My first guess is that you would *NOT*, but it's a gray enough area to be worth asking if one is curious. Which I am.)

I would be fine with singing the psalm texts set by Christian composers in any not-explicitly-Christian context, yes. (For example, I wouldn't sing them as part of a mass. Not that that's likely, but it could happen at Pennsic.)

Sanctus does come from Jewish liturgy; it's called Kedusha there. Ironically, once upon a time (in my pre-Jewish but definitely-not-Christian days), I wanted to compose the ordinary of a mass as a musical exercise. (All the great renaissance compoers did it, after all...) I chose Sanctus to start with specifically because it didn't make me twitch the way the Jesus texts did. I never could bring myself to do the rest of the ordinary, though.

Would I sing a Sanctus now? That's a tough call, and I think it would depend on context. Basically, if the people we're performing for could infer that the performers are Christians, I wouldn't sing. So that would rule out any church context (duh) but also a performance for "average American folks", because so many people assume that we're all good Christians here in this country. On the other hand, at an event like Pennsic or an SF convention, enough religions (and "weird" subcultures, for that matter) are represented that I don't think people would automatically assume Christian belief. So I might sing Sanctus under those conditions, but I'd have to think more about it. I'd be more likely, I think, if the performance also contained at least one obviously-not-Christian song, not so much for balance but to raise doubts in anyone who would have otherwise drawn the incorrect conclusion about the performers.

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