cellio | Pennsic

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Pennsic

I arrived at Pennsic on Friday of the first week. This was a day or two later than normal, but the schedule worked out reasonably, I think. Besides, I'm told it was sweltering for most of the first week. This was probably the worst weather year in quite some time: very hot the first week, then hot and humid with many storms (that didn't help with heat and humidity) for much of the second week. If this coming week is nice, remember that that would have been Pennsic week if they hadn't changed the dates. Anyway...

Performances

I saw several performances this year. I Genesii (the local commedia troupe) didn't do the "offend all three major religions" trio I thought they were planning on; they found other ways to offend the uptight. :-) Hey, they warned people that the show was not for children... There are, I'm told, two major schools of commedia, which are exemplified by the two troupes that perform at Pennsic. I Genesii is more raunchy and slapsticky; I Sebastiani is more intricate and subtle. Both styles are fun, but the person who tried to schedule these performances back to back clearly didn't get it. Fortunately, they were able to change that, so they performed on different nights. I'm glad I got to see both shows. I really enjoyed I Sebastiani, and particularly their 'Arlequino and, err, the woman disguised as a man (blanking on both names!). There was no Doctore this time. (Bummer.)

The Debatable Choir sounded really good. They did a performance of music by Orlando di Lasso, in all his myriad styles, languages, and bynames. (The guy moved around...) A few months ago I saw the music for one of these pieces (something Chromatica); on paper it looked pretty funky, and I found myself thinking "this is di Lasso and not Geswaldo?!". But it really worked, and I hope they do it again.

If I recall correctly, there were ten people in the choir's performance, only three of whom were men. I'm not sure if one of them is a tenor or if the tenor parts were being covered entirely by women. I remember a time when the basses outnumbered everyone else; that was overkill, but we need to find some more men. :-) (I say "we", but I have a class that conflicts with choir practices for one more academic year, so I can't rejoin the choir until June. And if there's an abundance of women singing tenor lines, well, I'm not going to make that better.)

The Known World Choir was bigger than usual this year -- between 70 and 80 people. They had to add wings to the stage to hold everyone. They did a nice, varied performance. Some years they go for themes and some they don't; this year was sort of in between, in that they'd already assembled the music for their non-theme performance when someone noticed that it was Thomas Morley's 550th birthday and they hadn't included anything by him. Rather than disrupt the full choir, they got a subgroup to perform a few Morley pieces, including the ubiquitious "Sing We and Chant It". (There were four, and I knew either all of them or all but one (I've now forgotten what the others were).)

I was sorry to hear that dr_zrfq, a mainstay of that choir, had gotten sick and wasn't able to sing (or talk much). I didn't manage to connect with him this year. Hey, Zrfq, I hope your malady has passed!

At some Pennsic (perhaps the next one), I would like to perform a concert of Salamone Rossi's liturgical music. If the Known World Choir wanted to do that as a theme I'd happily join in, but as someone who's not in the choir, I don't feel I have standing to request it and say "I'd sing with you if...". That's tacky. And hey, I'd like to sing with them some year anyway, but since I started paying attention there has not been a year when they didn't have a few pieces I'd be unwilling to sing, and I'm not going to do that to a new-to-me director. (With the Debatable Choir it's a known, and worked-around, issue.) This problem isn't surprising, of course; there is a vast body of very pretty music from our period that is rather explicitly Christian. It would be a shame not to sing it. But I, personally, can't.

So anyway, it occurred to me that instead of trying to get an existing group to sing the repertoire I want to sing, I could organize a different group for that purpose. I see this as mostly a one-shot, though if the people are all from my area then we could perform the concert at a few other events too. I bounced the idea off of one local singer who likes it; I'd need to find a few more. Specifically, I need to build part coverage with people who want to sing this material, can sing well alone on a part (there won't be much doubling), and who can pronounce, or be taught to pronounce, Hebrew correctly. (That last turns out not to be trivial.) So we'll see.

Or maybe I could wait another year and talk with the Debatable Choir about doing it once I'm back with the group. We've sung two Rossi pieces in the past; I can't tell whether the rest of the group is open to more. (A previous director agreed to a third, but after another person and I got it neatly typeset and handed it over, it was never heard from again.)

Speaking of one-shot performances, I was interested to see announcements for performances this year of miracle plays from the Wakefield Cycle. Miracle plays are dramatized bible stories (Christian, of course) as street theatre; this particular source is a large collection of scripts (or outlines?). Somebody organized several different groups to each perform one play, and the series was to be done in several locations in the campsite. That's pretty cool, and I was looking forward to seeing them.

There were some snafus, though. First, the published start time (in my favored location) and the understanding that the first group had of their start time did not match, and then, once the error was discovered, they decided to go with the later time so people wouldn't miss out. That's fair, but I had shown up for the earlier time (an hour earlier) and there wasn't a lot of shade. Then, I learned that the plays, each about 15 minutes, would be done over the course of several hours, with buskers in between, so if you wanted to see them all and didn't want to try to chase the groups around the site sans schedules, you had to sit in one place for several hours. If one of the locations had been in the marketplace or in the performance tent I might have done that, but the location I'd chosen (which was last on the tour) wasn't a good one for sitting around. So, alas, I missed these.

I ran into Istampitta, Master Avatar's group, in the marketplace a couple times. I enjoy listening to them, and watching them when I get the chance. (Their stage performance was opposite something else I had to be at, unfortunately.) I picked up their new album, which I've now listend to once; more of a review later, maybe, after several more listens. The album includes some Sephardi (Jewish) pieces, so they titled the album in Hebrew (subtitled in English). They didn't include vowels; I infer that the Hebrew title is "Lagalut", though the first vowel could be something else. The English title is "Exiled"; I would understand the Hebrew to be closer to "to be exiled" or "to [the] exile", but I do not claim a perfect understanding of Hebrew grammar and see previous comment about guessing on the vowels. (Lamed, gimel, lamed, vav, taf.) Anyway, good stuff so far; haven't yet read the liner notes, as I've been playing this in the car.

I also ran into an excellent hurdy-gurdy player and picked up her CD, which I haven't yet listened to. She was playing in the marketplace with some of the people from Wolgemut.

I saw Wolgemut (or maybe subsets) a few times in the marketplace. I didn't try to go to their packed-to-the-gills performance; once we're at the point where I can't see anyway, the value of the performance drops off. I enjoy watching them perform in the marketplace. I'm not one of the gung-ho fans like many people I know are, but they're talented and quite listenable. (I like them better when they focus on musicianship more than schtick. Others disagree.)

People

The rain impeded some of my efforts to see people, but I still made some connections. dragonazure stopped by early in the week to let me know that he and ealdthryth were now on site. I spent a while visiting with each of them (but not together). Their camp has a new kitchen trailer (still in progress) that looks like it'll be quite spiffy; they are hauling it, not leaving it at Cooper's Lake, so they can use it at other events. (They live in Atlantia.) I gather it does a number on their gas mileage, but if you camp a lot, it could sure make things easier.

ealdthryth taught me a Japanese (?) technique for making cords. It produces an effect similar to finger-braiding but is much, much more portable. I have, of course, forgotten the name and where to get the one tool that's needed, but if she doesn't read down this far, I can always send her email and ask. :-) It would be nice to have some portable craft for courts, order meetings, etc; the canonical one is embroidery, but I'm not interested in that. Cords can be used for medallions, for fasteners, and maybe even trim in some cases. I'll have to think about how much practical use I'd have for the results, but right now it's a toy.

osewalrus dropped by camp one night; it was good to see him, though I missed Rivka and Aaron. I found mikekn at the games tent (no surprise); we chatted and he taught me a new trick-avoiding game that was quite fun. I missed jducoeur, unfortunately. (loosecanon, Mike delivered your parcel. Thanks!)

I visited dglenn's camp a couple times but never found anyone home. I had a small item for him but couldn't figure out which tent was his and didn't want to poke around too much. Sorry, Glenn; email me your address and I'll send it off to you.

I ran into hlinspjalda and her sweetie briefly in the market and she told me that her apprentice was being elevated to the Laurel. She gave me vigil information, but one of us got it wrong: when I went to her camp on what I thought was the right night, I found no one home. Bummer. Turns out that night one of Dorigen's apprentices was sitting vigil elsewhere, and Dorigen, Hlinspjalda, and I are all friends. So, oops -- would have been happy to go there too, but nights and locations didn't match up.

I went to visit hlinspjalda and family one other time, but close enough to court time that they were pretty busy. I tried to help them with an errand related to the Laurel ceremony but struck out; I hope they were able to work around the problem. (They had not yet heard confirmation from one of the intended speakers; I went to try to find her, failed, looked for a backup, failed again, and ran back to their camp to relay all this.)

Speaking of elevations, the king and queen of AEthelmearc recognized four peers from my barony this war. That's pretty impressive. The stand-out for me was the Laurel for Baron Leonard the Younger. Len has been around forever (he was the local baron when I joined the SCA), and through research and quiet inspiration he's done a lot for Vikings in the SCA. As I said in my polling response, when Len showed up most SCA people got their ideas about Vikings from Hagar the Horrible; he did a lot to change that. Many of us tried to get the East Kingdom to elevate him 15 years ago, but in a large kingdom the "I don't know him" factor was too strong. Len doesn't get to as many events as he used to, but he's still around, teaching and talking with people, and when the king and queen came into our baronial court to serve him with the writ, I don't think there were many dry eyes in the camp.

I'm also very happy about the Pelican for Filip of the Marche, who may be best known for instigating the Pennsic dance floor and running various mailing lists. He does other stuff too. He had received a writ before Pennsic (as had the other two receiving peerages), so this was not the surprise that Len's was. (Though, actually, there were some leaks on Len's; security wasn't as good as it was probably meant to be.)

We had visitors from Ma'ale Gibborim, the shire in Israel. They crashed in my house one night before I got there; ariannawyn and alaricmacconnal graciously played host. I saw them a few times once I got there and it looked like they were enjoying the event. It would suck to travel that far and then not have fun. :-)

I utterly failed to find baron_steffan, which really bums me out because I really enjoy long conversations with him.

Camp

We didn't make many changes to the camp this year -- two new people (one pavillion), no infrastructure changes. The kitchen and pantry work very well; we've worked out setups that work for them. We need to do some small things for next year; one of the dining tables finally died this year, for instance. Someone was smart enough to start a list of things to do for next year while still at Pennsic.

A couple of lug nuts from the trailer went missing. Someone doing a town run offered to take a nut to an auto-supply place to get more like it. That was when we first discovered that both of the lug wrenches, which I saw on set-up weekend, were missing. These are large, not easy to lose. Today during tear-down we confirmed that they are in fact gone; I'd thought that maybe they were just under something. So that's pretty irritating -- not only could I not get new nuts immediately, but now I have to go buy another wrench. I hope they're a standard size.

I had a few first-time visitors to the house, and two or three asked if it was a synagogue (no, it's a house) and if I held services there for Shabbat. I'd be happy to (I mean, I'm davening anyway); the one year I tried to actually organize that I got no takers, so I took the hint. Maybe I should publish a notice next year and see if anyone shows up. (Consensus among the Pennsic Jews seems to be that you might be able to get a minyan Friday night but not Saturday morning, and certainly not on weekdays.)

Before Pennsic ariannawyn noticed that this would be her 30th Pennsic, and alaricmacconnal noticed that it would be his 20th. We all started comparing notes and figured we had a couple hundred years, cumulative, in the camp. We had a party and asked people to add their years to the tally, hoping to get to a thousand, but in the end we didn't quite reach 500. Oh well; it was fun anyway. (Some people said we should have invited such-and-such group or so-and-so, but if you're going to do that, you can just go door to door counting it up. The point was to do it among a group of friends.)

Setup and break-down both took two days this year (Saturday and Sunday of the relevant weekends). I was there for both Sundays, but of course not for the Saturdays. I think we're all moving a little more slowly as the years go by, but it all got done.

We are a sub-group of our barony's camp. For the last couple of years the broader camp has been kind of chaotic, but not this year. The new baron and baroness, and the people they recruited to help them, had things well in hand. Everyone seemed happy.

Food

I got to cook early this year -- that first Friday. That meant I could do fish (among other things) because I didn't have to worry about spoilage. (Once I arrive on site I don't leave unless it's Really Important. Groceries aren't.) Because it was erev Shabbat and because I wanted nice leftovers for the next day's lunch (when I couldn't cook), I cooked more, and more dishes, than I would have otherwise. I made roasted chicken with two different spice mixtures (cooked at home), grilled salmon (also multiple seasonings), red cabbage with apples (an astute observer correctly recognized the trace amount of cinnamon in it), peas and onions, challah, wine, and angelfood cake (with "dipping sauce"). All of the cooked dishes worked fine cold the next day. I had also brought merringue cookies, which we didn't need; I brought them out later in the week when we had a meat meal and a dairy dessert I couldn't eat. So that worked out fine.

We have, historically, had problems with leftovers not getting used, or getting forgotten in the communal coolers. Someone had a good idea this year: we maintained a list of what was in the communal coolers (item, date added, which cooler). This way, instead of digging around in the coolers, you could scan the list. This, in combination with more of an effort to use leftovers in later dinners, made a big difference.

There is one person in camp who habitually cooks much more food than is needed. She got Saturday night -- early enough for the leftovers to get used. We didn't have an organized dinner on Sunday; I suspect scheduling the over-achieving cook the day before was intentional, but I heard that she noticed. ("Hey, there's no dinner tomorrow; I better make extra...") Oops. :-) (I believe she cooked one chicken per person, and a vast amount of couscous and veggies. The couscous made appearances in the next several dinners. It was good couscous -- lots of nice veggies and stuff mixed in.)

We have lots of good cooks in camp. We have a very nice kitchen setup, but it's still camping-grade. Cleaning cookware to what I consider an acceptable level is a lot harder than at home. This gives me pause both for hygeine and kashrut reasons. People are already going out of their way to accommodate my kashrut needs, so I feel bad about bringing this up, but, once again, I find myself thinking about dropping out of the meal plan rather than impose. I don't want to, but I don't think it's fair to ask that people always cook my food on foil when using the grill, for instance, and not use wooden serving dishes.

Miscellaneous

The same day that I failed to see the Wakefield Cycle and failed to find people for a peerage elevation, I also failed to go to a class. Not my day. :-) I went to the right tent at the right time, and the people filing in were there for a different class, and when I went to find out what had happened I was told "oh, that instructor never showed up for his other three classes, so we're assuming he won't for this one either". They said if he did show they'd find a place to hold the class -- but, of course, students had already been turned away without that information. Given that they publish a list of cancellations each day, I'd've thought they'd've included this.

A friend had asked me to drop in on a different class, on Spanish clothing in the 13th century, because the instructors (friends of hers) had good information for Christians and Muslims but not for Jews and she figured I could help. Broadly, though, (1) not my century and (2) Jews mostly wore what everyone else wore. I told my friend that I knew of a good web site but didn't have its contents (or URL) in memory; she asked me to go anyway. So I did, but the instructors didn't seem to be looking for more input and another student was already bringing up issues for them to deal with, so I didn't butt in. I did get the instructor's email address, though, so I can send her what little I have.

I brought a few bottles of mead for tasting, all around 9-10 years old. They've aged reasonably well. That's good to know -- I can still serve these to people. (I haven't brewed anything new in ages.)

All of the cats seem to have been fine in my absence. The person who took care of Erik said she'll be happy to take him any time -- and would probably give him back. :-)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Wakefield Cycle.... Somebody organized several different groups to each perform one play, and the series was to be done in several locations in the campsite.

I've been muttering for years that this sort of thing would be really cool to do at Pennsic or some similarly extended event. (Especially the idea of getting different groups to put on different plays, but then set up the performances as a sequential cycle.) It's a shame the logistics got awkward -- I hope it doesn't discourage people from trying again. (It's one of those cool ideas that I simply don't have the ability, contacts, or charisma to organize. But I can dream of getting to be a spectator.)

Welcome home!

I am happy to hear about both Baron Len and Flip. Good news :-)

I would love to perform in the Wakefield plays if they were being taken reasonably seriously.

Speaking as one of the musicians for "the Deliverance of Souls", I can tell you that I had the chance to to watch all four Wakefield plays at Pennsic, and despite the scheduling glitches, all four plays were amazing. The actors were phenomenally good and really managed to get the meaning of the middle English words across. The plays were easily among the most medieval moments that I experienced at the war.

The scheduling was an absolute bear though. All the plays took longer to perform than expected, the published times were wonky, and a fourth stop (in the third position) was added late in the game so that the group that donated the money for the sets could have an in-camp performance. I was originally told that I was needed for just a few hours to perform music for three iterations of a 15 minute play. As it was, I arrived at Runestone Park at 9:00 AM and didn't finish at Aethelmearc Royal until 3:30. It was a long day.

Dang, I'm sorry I missed them. The project sounded really cool and I strongly suspected that the first, at least, would be well-done, based on who was involved. (I never heard who was doing the others.) It's a real pity the scheduling was so wonky, though. If one of the stops had been, say, that shaded area behind the barn on the road from the gate to the store, that would have been ok -- shop nearby while waiting for the next show to arrive, and check in periodically. I had gone to AEthelmearc royal and the only shade was in the greeting tent, and after waiting for 45 minutes or so and then being told (1) it would be another half hour and (2) I wouldn't get to see all of them unless I stayed for the next four hours, I kind of lost heart. :-(

I didn't realize until that day that "private"/sponsored performances were an option. Hmm... :-)

(And sorry I missed you! I think I lost track of the fact that you were coming to Pennsic this year...)

There were many logistical problems, but you probably picked the least comfortable location in which to view the plays. Alas!

Hopefully some of the bugs will be ironed out next year. I hear that Robyn and Marion is being performed.

I know that the players were actively seeking sponsors for the performances, and that House Hedgehog funded a large chunk of the cost of the stage/props. In return, they got a private in-camp performance!

Sorry to have missed you too! It is a big war, some things just fall through the cracks. Next year at Cooper's Lake! (I hope).

I know that the players were actively seeking sponsors for the performances

I don't remember seeing anything on the AEthelmearc kingdom list about this. If that's not because I missed something, you might suggest they try that next time. We've definitely got people who would patronize period arts like this. :-)

If I had realized that the model was "sit for an afternoon and wait for the plays to go by", I would have gone to a different location. I thought they were going to be performed in a block, so I went to the location closest to my own camp. Oops, now I'll know for next time. (And the "unscheduled wandering" model better fits my understanding of what would have been done, so that makes sense.)

I think the Aethelmearc kingdom list only allows posts from current members. I tried to send a note to a few of the kingdom lists letting them know that my musical duo (Lion and Lily) was available for engagements at Pennsic, but I think I only managed to post to Atlantia and the Middlebridge for this reason.

Then again, they had some players from Aethelmearc, so maybe that wasn't it. I suspect that they were so overwhelmed with the logistics of production that they forgot to properly publicize the piece.

It also didn't help that the information in the Pennsic booklet was seriously out of date by the time Pennsic came around. On the other hand, the timing was supposed to be a lot tighter; once the plays began at a particular stop, the flow was supposed to be continuous, with the buskers filling in the time involved in setup and teardown for each play. I think that broke down in part due to some of the plays being longer than the others.

I hope they (or others) do more of this (with better logistics :-) ). It sounded really nifty, and real medieval moments are too rare.

I'm so sorry that the logistics were wonky for our production--it was one of the hardest aspects to get right.

When the information was first placed in the Pennsic booklet, we'd had 3 additional plays scheduled (7 plays instead of the actual 4), and it seemed like a good "guess" on when stuff would happen.

I learned a ton producing this, and advertised as much as I could (in SCAtoday.net, The Pennsic Independent, Tribe.net, LJ, various email lists, etc.).

When dealing with a production of this size and magnitude it's so hard to get everything right.

When we do this again in 2 or 3 years I'll definitely make sure I do more of a hands-on blitz instead of counting on folks to forward emails where they think it best.

Any other feedback on the Cycle would be gladly recieved: feel free to contact me at zsofsky AT gmail DOT com.

In Service,
Sofia

Pennsic logistics are hard with one group, and it sounds like you had four. (I hadn't realized that in advance; I thought one troupe was doing the whole set.) Schedule changes that don't make it into the book can make things pretty hard. I saw the paper most days but still managed to miss the change in time.

It sounds like a really nifty project, and I do hope you'll do it again! I want to encourage projects that really try to create medieval (or rennaisance) moments. I'd like to hear about future plans.

I'm still trying to decide if I want to try to get involved again. On the one hand. I've been out of commission since 2004 (and arguably since 2002, "yay" depression); on the other, I've also had anxiety, and it's worse now (working on that, see flocked LJ entries) — anyone who found me "difficult" before will likely be even less impressed now, until I get things sorted.

I'd also been thinking that I don't want to get involved with stuff on Shabbat, but I think I got Told (if you catch my drift) to lighten up a bit. Last weekend was "interesting".

So, still sorting myself out, but you might have a tenor in the future and so might the Debatable Choir. :)

I think I want to look up that Istampitta album.

Speaking of: I think "le-galut" (which in English idiom would be "in exile") does reasonably translate as "Exiled" for this purpose.

And finally, welcome back. :)

Japanese (?) technique for making cords. : Kumihimo . (My friend, (then gf) Rachel learned it last year. Makes nice cord, very pretty, very easy. They have plastic dials for it, and you can make them from other stuff too-

I wasn't at Pennsic this year, due to work. Coworker made it, but no time off for me... Seems like the weather wasn't so much fun this year...

Dude. I would love to be a part of a performance of Salamone Rossi Hebreo, in any capacity possible. Dude. :)

Coming to Pennsic next year? :-)

I sure hope so!!! :)

I have missed Pennsic. And my far-away SCA friends. It has been too long.

Given that they publish a list of cancellations each day, I'd've thought they'd've included this.

Yea, and I'm very, very sorry you had this issue. It's a tightrope, and you hit, honestly, one of the 3 or so major on-site boo-boo we made. We canceled a class that the instructor didn't want canceled, and in finding a way around it last-minute, I saw that Missing Teacher's class was in that tent during that time.
The deal is that we don't officially cancel classes when the instructors don't show up; but given Missing Teacher's track record that year, we thought it was a good bet s/he'd not come for this class. And what we were trying to tell people, and I know because I was running A&S Point during the vast majority of this, is that there's a good chance s/he'd not arrive. If you wanted to attend, hang tight, and he'd have the tent if he showed up; otherwise, we'd allow the class we screwed-up, which had also attracted a bunch of people despite being canceled, to have the space.

If someone at Point, or one of the accidentally-canceled class's students, didn't give you a fair impression of how we were trying to balance the cock-up, I'm sorry. Hell, that might even have been me, given the chaos of that moment. And if you think the "Nth strikes and you're NOT out" policy is unfair to students, I'd agree -- and the problem becomes "when do you call it for a teacher, esp. when we don't have resources to track these issues properly -- yet?"

Sorry to babble on about what might have been a minor incident for you. Even more sorry if it caused you any distress.

Oh! FYI: I happened to become friendly with one of the teachers of the Spanish class you mentioned, and am already good friends with the other. The teacher I met this year, happened to explicitly tell me they are, indeed, looking for someone to give the Jewish perspective on their work. I'd wager they'd be sorry if you got a different impression, and I would encourage you to send them the info.

It was not a major problem, and I'm sorry if my post caused you any grief. I assume no-show teachers are pretty uncommon. I figured it was a decision that was made "on the ground", so to speak, not a carefully-considered decision by the folks in charge. (I didn't know that the other class was an accidental cancellation -- I just assumed it was a last-minute addition.) Thanks for letting me know what had happened!

You weren't the person I talked with. (Actually, I completely forgot that you were running things or I would have tried to meet you.) It was a woman who seemed to be trying to deal with too many things at once, so I just tried to ask my question and get out of her way.

Spanish class: thanks; I'll drop them a note. If I had anything substantial to say I would have spoken up, but it wasn't a topic I was prepared for, so about all I could say was "I can email you some stuff I found on the way to my own century", and I can do that as easily without disrupting the class. :-) (And, as I said, my strong impression is that there weren't distinctly-Jewish styles of dress at that time and place.)

The Japanese braiding is kumihimo. You can get the 6" foam disk from http://www.braidershand.com/disk.html. I got the small one from Hobby Lobby. You can also get them online at http://www.tonercrafts.com. They are called weave wheels. They recently added a video on how to use it.

Thanks!

I am glad you had a pleasant War, and that you got the parcel.
Perhaps I will be out there soon and we can spend an evening.

What a shame about the Wakefield Cycle, it was one of the activities I most looked forward to. The poor troupes.

Perhaps I will be out there soon and we can spend an evening.

Cool! Please let me know if this happens so we can get together.

Actually, the kitchen/shower trailer is Griffith and

victoriapringle's. I simply helped build it.

Oops. Thanks for the correction.

Transcontinental has published a bunch of Rossi settings (edited by Josh Jacobson), if that helps. And I assume you know about Zamir's Rossi CD.

Thanks for the pointer; I'll check out Transcontinental. When I was looking for published editions a few years ago all I could find was a French edition. Hebrew trnasliterated into French is not intuitive for me, and the music itself is a little small anyway, so I re-typeset three pieces for our choir. (I did my own transliterations after identifying the relevant Hebrew; I just wasn't ready to wrap my brain around the French...) This process is time-consuming and can introduce errors, so I'd love to not have to do it.

Apparently I didn't know about the Zamir recording; I just checked the Rossi section of my CDs and didn't find it. Ordered now.

I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to you much due to explosive toddler, but it was nice to at least say hello to you. :)

It was nice to at least be able to say hi. I understand "explosive toddler" and commend you for putting dealing with that above socializing and shopping. (Sad that this is worthy of comment these days...)

A) the Debatable Choir would be HAPPY to have you back, female tenor or not, whenever you're available. Unless we get koredono or Degan back, we only have female tenors now, plus Pavel occasionally jumping to tenor, but the other basses really could use Pavel's depth and quick sight-reading.

B) I'd be interested in seeing what you've got for Rossi. So far the two pieces the DC has done (I don't think I saw the third one, so please do send a copy my way!) were very nice but kind of similar, so if there's more diversity among his other pieces that would be better for a full concert. If we can't make it work for the Debatable Choir, I'd be happy to be one of the voices in your smaller group, though rehearsals would have to work around kids...

C) Can you indicate what needs to be done to improve food hygiene in Polyhymnia? I think people would be willing to make modifications, so please don't just drop out of the food plan without allowing us to discuss it.

A. Oh, I figured the choir would take me back regardless; I was just observing that this might not actually help with part distribution. :-) (I couldn't tell for sure but I thought I had Pavel pegged as a bass.)

B. I can give you two of the pieces easily. Kathy did the final round of proofing/typsetting on the last one and her version of the software is newer than mine, so I can't read it. But we can get it from her. (And I'm sure I've got a paper copy here somewhere...) The book I have is a French edition and Hebrew transliterated into French is weird, hence the re-typesetting. I've just learned (in another comment) that there's a better edition available now, so I'm going to hunt that down.

And thanks! I'd love to sing these with you.

C. Ok. I fear sounding whiny; I don't want other people in the camp to feel like I'm being too pushy or something. But I can discuss it with you and then you can help me decide if I'm out of line, ok?

The Hebrew could be either liglot (a kal/pa'al verb) or l'galut/lagalut (to an/the exile).

And every year I say I'll make next years pennsic, but we'll see. I haven't made it yet. Getting enough of a contingent to band together on kosher food would be a major help in that direction if you ask me.

Hebrew: thanks. Dani immediately assumed it was a noun, while I assumed it was an infinitive or participle + preposition. It's so hard to tell sometimes, at least for me.

The challenge with kosher food at Pennsic is simple logistics. Either everyone has to camp together (and most people have established groups they want to camp with), or you have to figure out how to coordinate meal times/locations across a campsite of several hundred acres. And there aren't enough of us for it to be worth a food vendor's effort.

I'm sorry I missed you this year. We were in B-01, on the corner of Bannockburn and Agincourt, as usual. (I saw your invitation to dinner only after I got back from Pennsic). Given the weather and my propensity for dehydration issues (I nearly bought the farm in a Woods Battle back in the day), I was never inclined to walk down the hill to the Serengeti in the heat of the day, and in the evenings I was always over-committed (one night I had to be in fully seven places at once: I wasn't...) I'm grateful for LJ; it's a way to keep in touch, but it certainly doesn't compare to chatting face-to-face on a Pennsic afternoon. Sigh. There's always next year, I suppose.

I, too, was pretty sluggish during the hottest parts of the day. More than once I set out to find your camp only to have the sky turn gray a block away. It's like the clouds knew!

My problem with evenings -- aside from scheduling -- is that when it's muddy, as it was for most of my time there this year, I don't go far from camp without a seeing-eye apprentice or the like. Once too often I've fallen in invisible-in-the-dark mud or wet grass at Pennsic. :-( (Lanterns at polite levels of brightness don't help enough.)

I love it when we can actually have long rambly face-to-face conversations. LJ and email help, but it's not the same. Next year, I hope!

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