Hello from Sunny Old England, where today's sky is grey, but bright grey, which might be the closest it's come to sunlight in, well, years. (Don't listen to me — I just landed at 7:oo last night, 12 hours later than I was supposed to. We sat in the airport for practically forEVER — which gave me a chance to meet Judith Hauptman, who has some pretty amazing ideas for getting twentysomethings involved in Jewish party life, I mean, holiday life….and really, there is such a fine line between the two).
Getting off the bus, they wouldn't give me my room key because there was a note that I had to see E.J. immediately. I'd just been in airports for 24 hours and Virgin Atlantic is nowhere near as space-age and spiffy as everyone says — after a flight, you're still tired and gross. But I ran to meet her and to fight for my right to shower. A girl said she knew where E.J. was, and the led me through corridors and then through this door that spilled out right onto a stage. EJ was the MC. They were having the Opening Gala, and wanted to know if I'd perform.
So — tired, plane-dirty, and deprived of sleep for the past 24 hours, I ripped of my coat and my Doctor Who scarf and let loose a poem.
My actual show was an hour later. By that time, I'd managed to clean myself up, both body and language, and managed to meet some of the most amazing and insightful personalities that I'll tell you about in my next post, because afterwards we went to this concert that I need to tell you about now.
The amazing and rave-worthy mostly-Jewish-but-with-a-Palestinian-M.C.-and-a-kickass-violinist band Emunah played last night. Imagine a howling jungle beat with fat heavy bass and a Russian diva wailing Shlomo Carlebach melodies over it. A bunch of people took pictures, but I think they're all still too hung over to post them. This was the band's final show with their other M.C., a brilliant lyricist named Daniel Silverstein. "Five years of my life," he kept saying again and again after the show. (Honestly, I don't know how he could talk at *all* after that — I really think he spoke faster than I can type on that last song, a drum&bass beat that sounded like a stopwatch being fast-forwarded.) He also said that he's leaving the band but he's never leaving music, and then alluded to the possibility that he might be moving to New York……!?!?!?!? People in New York — if he does, you have to hunt him down and stand outside his house and listen to every word he says. It'll be worth it.