Oif a meisseh fregt men kain kasheh nit: Don’t ask questions about fairy tales.

PISCES (FEBRUARY 21-MARCH 20): Pisces, symbolized by two fish swimming in opposite directions, exemplifies the dual nature of this mutable water sign. One fish swims toward the spiritual—the world of the dream, the unconscious mind—while the other fish swims toward the material world.

Fish-themed Judaic tales include Jonah and the whale and the Leviathan. In 6 B.C., a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in Pisces even gave Jewish astrologers hope for a messiah.
 
Perhaps the most romantic and certainly the most intuitive of all the signs of the zodiac, you can be weak-willed in matters of the heart. Wise, sage givers of good advice, you are sensitive to beauty and can be overwhelmed by the feelings of others. Your heightened psychic awareness gives you a keen ability to suffer with others—this combined with your patience and listening skills makes you an excellent therapist and friend, but can have the ill effect of distancing you from your own life and feelings. With an innate receptiveness to everything that’s going on around you, it can be hard to see where others end and you begin.

While Passover begins on the day of the first full moon after the vernal equinox (the cusp between Pisces and Aries), Purim (February 23-24) is in many ways associated with Pisces—the Hebrew month of Adar corresponds with Pisces, and Purim itself has many fish themes.

The new moon on March 11 will be in Pisces; on this day there will be six heavenly bodies in your sign: Mercury, Mars, Venus, your ruling planet, Neptune, and the moon as well as the sun. With so many planets in Pisces, you’ll have the world at your feet (Pisces rules the feet)—lucky you!

Famous Pisces Jews: Gilbert Gottfried, Samm Levine, Bugsy Siegel, Rob Reiner, Carl Reiner, Ron Jeremy, Albert Einstein, Lou Reed, Billy Crystal, David Cronenberg, Jerry Lewis, Philip Roth, Yitzhak Rabin, Shalom Alecheim, Rashi, Renee Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor (converted), Joe Lieberman, Zeppo Marx, Kurt Weill, Ira Glass, Harry Winston, Diane Arbus, Rashida Jones, Judith Butler, Chelsea Handler.

ARIES (MARCH 21-APRIL 20): “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” was once the catchall phrase to explain the eternal debate—but hey, the 1990s called, and they want their dichotomy back: Mars and Venus are two faces of the same coin. Your ruling planet Mars returns to your sign on March 11, where it will stay until April 20, while Venus enters your sign on the spring equinox, balancing out aggressive Mars with its lovely light and helping you roll with the punches.

TAURUS (APRIL 21-MAY 20): Your ruling planet Venus will be in compassionate Pisces from February 25 to March 21, inspiring you with dreams of a grand romance. But don’t tempt the gods—zindik nit—focus what you need to do for yourself first before succumbing to the gantseh tsimmes (big confusion) that love can bring. Only you can take control of your life, and outside forces often serve as distractions from doing what you need to do.

GEMINI (MAY 21-JUNE 20): Gemini shiksa goddess Marilyn Monroe said, “it is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not,” and you should take her message to heart. Effusive Geminis are rarely unlovable, but your mazik (troublemaker) tendencies may make you seem like a stranger in a strange land if you fight against them. With your ruling planet Mercury in retrograde until March 17 and in dreamy Pisces until April 13, you will be compelled to confront your spiritual side—which you may have been willfully ignoring for fear of losing yourself. 

CANCER (JUNE 21-JULY 20): Gossiping is the worst habit and the biggest calumny—Loshen horeh iz di ergsteh mideh un gresteh tsoreh—and if anyone’s guilty of it, it’s you. We all know that old habits die hard, but with Mercury in retrograde you may want to watch what you say a bit more carefully. The new moon in your fellow water sign—creative, free-wheeling Pisces—on March 11 pit the two sides of your nature against each other. Loose lips may sink ships, but loosening yourself up won’t do anyone any harm.

LEO (JULY 21-AUGUST 20): No matter how hard you try to be inscrutable, the hitsik (hothead) wildcat within you betrays your true nature every time. Temper, temper you imperious beasts! With so many planets in even-keeled Pisces, you just may get the balm you need to keep moving forward. Remember, if you can’t do as you wish, do as you can—Az me ken nit vi me vil, tut men vi me ken.

VIRGO (AUGUST 21-SEPTEMBER 20): All eyes will be on you with the full moon in your sign on February 25. This is a great time to allow yourself a moment in the spotlight for once; after all, too much modesty is half conceit—tsu fil anives iz a halber shtolts. However, with Mercury in retrograde (and in your polar opposite sign, Pisces), you’ll still do well to conduct yourself with the reticence and charm you know best. That does mean you can’t get all farpitzed and let the world bask in your glow.

LIBRA (SEPTEMBER 21-OCTOBER 20): Venus is drifting through languorous Pisces through March 21, encouraging you to patteren tseit (lounge around, waste time) more than usual. This combined with your capacity for dissimulation conceals your true intentions and desires. Libras may have the reputation for being lighthearted lovers, but the mask you wear may be doing you more harm than you think. While it’s great that you can keep a positive mental attitude, suppressing your darker side keeps you from letting others into your heart.

SCORPIO (OCTOBER 21-NOVEMBER 20): Your reputation precedes you, saucy Scorpio—you’ll get what you want by hook or by crook. Oi, a shkandal! (Oh, what a scandal!). While you may not be as thoroughly unscrupulous as your sign suggests, with so many planets in Pisces, another water sign immersed in the waters of the unconscious, your hulyen (hellraiser) impulses could get the better of you. Reign in the danger, but never deny your true nature.

SAGITTARIUS (NOVEMBER 21–DECEMBER 20): With your ruling planet Jupiter still in mischievous Gemini and so many planets in dreamy Pisces, you’d be wise to guard your saykhel (common sense) closely. Surrounding yourself with mamoshes (people of substance) may help you avoid finding yourself at the wrong place at the wrong time. However, if you have a tendency to lead others on, at least have the decency to operate with transparency: if you’re all talk, make sure your partners-in-crime know it. No one likes a con artist!

CAPRICORN (DECEMBER 21–JANUARY 20): Your mantra has been Me krechts, me geht veyter—I complain and I keep going—for longer than you’d care to admit. Saturn’s retrograde through July 7 forces you to confront, and hopefully resolve, issues that have been plaguing you. If you can face your demons head on, you may find that the wild card’s been up your sleeve all along, and the fact that you can keep surprising yourself should be more than enough to get yourself going again, you alter bok (old goat).

AQUARIUS (JANUARY 21-FEBRUARY 20): If you’ve been feeling more kalamutneh (dreary, gloomy, troubled) than usual, you may worry that you’ve reached an impasse in your love life. Fear not, this deadlock may resolve itself at the eleventh hour. Until then, you may just have to grit your teeth and accept that to leiden (suffer) is your fate right now. Focus on all the great things you’ve got going on rather than the bad hand life seems to have dealt you. After all, as Ru Paul says, “If you don’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

What’s Your Sign?
Aquarius, Sign of Contradictions
Capricorn, the Cardinal Earth Sign
Sagittarius, the Adventurous Archer
Stinging Scorpio
Lovely, Lawful Libra
Virgo, the Anxious Maiden
Leo, King of the Jungle

(Art by Margarita Korol)

The post Jewcy Horoscopes: Pisces, the Dual-Natured Water Sign (Feb. 21-March 20) appeared first on Jewcy.

(All photos by Jesse Untracht-Oakner)

There has always been something special about female drummers. More than the way they don’t cross their legs, and more than the way their long (if they have it) hair flails around at the kit; it’s something more spiritual, almost sacred.

In the Old Testament, after the Hebrew slaves were freed from Egypt, Miriam, the first woman in the Bible to be called a prophet, lead a victory dance with her timbrel, an early tambourine and main percussion instrument of the Israelites. Some even speculate it was her drumming that parted the Red Sea. For 3,000 years in ancient civilization, women were almost exclusively in control of sacred music, using the frame drum to conduct rituals and trances for fortunetelling, ecstatic transformations, and mediating between realms. The rise of the Catholic Church brought an end to the female drummer by banning women from music, and it was not until recent history that women returned to music with a new power and great drive.

“Drumming is healing and cathartic. You get to bang and make a lot of noise, how can that be bad?” said Mindy Abovitz, who as creator and editor-in-chief of Tom Tom Magazine, the first magazine about female drummers, is forefronting the movement to bring women beat makers to the spotlight. Abovitz is a female drummer herself, for the wild all-female post-punk trio Taigaa, as well as at least eight other mostly female bands, and she was also the featured drummer for Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn’s recent whimsical video “The Forest,” that was filmed at Mirah’s parent’s farm in Vermont last year.

Abovitz, 31, who is self-taught, started playing drums when she was 20, after her friends pooled together to buy her a drum kit. Previously, she had been banging on anything she could find. She moved from Gainsville, Florida to New York where she began teaching at Rock Camp for Girls, working at East Village Radio, at a guitar shop in Williamsburg, and taking Brooklyn’s indie-rock scene by storm.

With long brown hair and eyes as green as leaves, Abovitz has a strong jaw, a button nose, and a consistently raised eyebrow that seems to say, “I get you” with skepticism and empathy. She also has meekness and sass. Like that Israeli cactus cliché, she is prickly, but sweet, giving off a no-bullshit approach, and a confidence that if she can dream it, she can do it, even if it means publishing a magazine in a time where that seems more difficult than parting the sea.

Born to Israeli parents and raised as an Orthodox Jew, her world shifted focus upon entering public high school. “I had to quickly get my bearings and become a normal kid,” she said. It was there that “the world around me came into focus” and she began to embrace anarchist punk culture. Being a self-identifying Israeli-Jew was not easy in the radical scene, whose leanings tend towards Palestinian rights, and when I asked her if she experienced a clash she said, “It wasn’t easy.”

Abovitz is not one to hide her identity or roots. Her family had lived in Israel before it even became a state, which Abovitz commented was “hardcore.”

“I’m Jewish/Israeli. It’s undeniable. I’m part of the Cohen tribe. I’m not going anywhere,” she told me.

Her family is very supportive of her work, even when they don’t exactly understand what she does. When her saba, the Hebrew word for grandfather, asks her if she plays music at Bar-Mitzvahs, she replies, “Saba, I have a magazine. Saba, I don’t play cover songs.”

Coming from a family that she calls “creative and businessy,” Abovitz thanks her parents for teaching her hard work and to “do the best with what you have,” she said. It’s not easy to have very much when working in the magazine publishing business, but instead of being discouraged, Abovitz spends her energy making Tom Tom available to more people in more places worldwide.

As is, the magazine is not sustainable, but she’s rallied the support and help of around 1,000 people, without whom it could not exist. Along with her parent’s insistence on hard work, her radical-anarchist adolescence taught her that if you want to make something happen, you should just D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) or D.I.T (Do It Together) and though Tom Tom’s much sleeker and shinier than a zine and the production value is much higher than staples and a photocopier, Tom Tom Magazine is a punk collaboration at its core.

All things have to start somewhere and Tom Tom started as an online blog after Abovitz became bothered by the lack of legitimate representation of women in the media. “It just dawned on me that we female drummers need a place to connect and communicate and promote ourselves and that’s how Tom Tom emerged,” Abovitz said in an interview with GearPipe last April.

She began raising money from benefit shows until he had enough to print the first issue. “This thing is going to keep going because of all the people who think it should be in existence,” she said, and compared the project to crowd surfing.

With four issues and a fifth one coming out next week, the quarterly magazine offers interviews with female drummers, features, and even though it contains practical technical advice, the magazine is still accessible to those who may not be female or drummers. I had heard the criticism that the magazine is all pictures of pretty hipster drummers, but I don’t think Abovitz is to blame for so many female drummers looking good.

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Last week marked the close of the 20^th anniversary of the New York Jewish Film Festival.  The festival –which ran from Jan 12^th through the 27^th, — featured a variety narrative and documentary films that were screened at the Jewish Museum, The JCC in Manhattan and the Walter Reade Theater.  Here’s a rundown of some of the festivals highlights.

Red Shirley

While it’s not so far fetched an idea that Lou Reed might try his hand at directing, the idea that his first film would feature Reed himself doing an interview does seem a bit odd.  Reed, a man known being the most difficult interviewee in the world sits down with his cousin Shirley on the eve of her 100^th birthday to talk bout her experiences immigrating to America from Poland.  Shirley talks about leaving Poland following war-related pogroms and heading to Canada.  In Canada she learns the mandolin but quickly leaves, finding it too “provincial.”  She then makes her way into the United States illegally and settles as a dressmaker in NYC who gets involved in workers rights issues.  The interview is filled with some rather awkward moments that almost gives it a bit of a Warhollian feel, but mostly Reed’s affection toward his relative and the history inherent in Shirley’s story make it well worth watching.

The Human Resources Manager

An interesting look into the current state of Israeli cinema, The Human Resources Manager is a look into the world of an HR rep at Israel’s largest bakery.  After a company employee dies in a suicide bombing, the HR Manager must make recompense in order to save face for the company.  In doing so, he finds himself identifying with and admiring this person whom he’s never met. The film stars Mark Ivanir whose role in Schindler’s List began his career and is directed by Israeli film vet, Eran Riklis.

Eichmann’s End

I once found myself courting a young woman and somewhere along the line, I overheard her making anti-semetic remarks.  Instead of ending the courting process there, I soldiered on with even greater zeal.  I’m not sure if I had some kind of Jewish vengeance fantasy embedded in my subconscious, but I at least figured that after she’d fallen for me, I could unveil my Jewishness, thereby causing her to re-think her prejudices.

Adolph Eichmann managed to escape custody after the war and eventually found a safe hiding spot in Argentina.  Massad, The Avengers, anyone with an interest in bringing Nazi’s to justice remained unable to track him down for years.  In Eichmann’s End, we are told the story of how Eichmann finally met capture when his son began dating the daughter of a local Holocaust survivor.  The film is something of a narrative/documentary hybrid, telling this tale through a series of interviews and re-enactments.  This story itself is extremely thrilling and Eichmann’s End tells it with style.  The re-enactments are well acted and the casting seems dead on.   Eichmann’s end is an absolute highlight of the festival.

The Socalled Movie

Josh Dolgin is a hip-hop/funk/klezmer musician known as “Socalled.”  This documentary follows him on a klezmer based European cruise, then on to the Apollo theater in Harlem, and through artistic ventures in Montreal.  There are some very interesting choices in this documentary.  In particular, the way the subject of Dolgin’s sexuality is introduced is subtle and somewhat enigmatic at first.  The film really acts an interesting look at the creative process in general in a way that’s similar to The Devil in Daniel Johnston, minus the neurosis. Dolgin’s innate charm carries the film, but camera work and presentation are extremely well executed.  The screening of this film at The Walter Reade Theater featured a live performance by Socalled on keyboards and accordion along with an accompanying vocalist.

(Images via The Jewish Museum)

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In our attempt to look at Jewish cultural figures and their impact on society, we pit them against each other like two artistic gladiators.

This week we match two icons of rock: Bob Dylan and Lou Reed

I don’t think I’m the only person who wonders what it was like when Bob Dylan met Lou Reed.  And I don’t think it’s weird to wonder what the two most important Jewish musicians of the 20^th Century think of each other.  Thoughts like these are likely the product of spending too much time reading about and listening to rock n’ roll. You actually find yourself caring deeply about hypothetical meetings between people you’ve never met, and in my case, writing about them.

Here are the facts I know for sure: The Velvet Underground started around 1965.  Bob Dylan put out his self-titled debut album in 1962.  Dylan moved to New York to be Woody Guthrie.  Lou Reed was taught poetry by the late Delmore Schwartz and started out as an in-house songwriter for Pickwick Records.   After all of that, the rest is history and you’ve probably read it all before.

But for the sake of my argument, here is a condensed lesson: Dylan would eventually go electric, become the voice of a generation, get into a motorcycle accident, come back and go folk again.  He’d find Jesus only to re-find Judaism, and eventually put out the worst Christmas album ever.

Lou Reed would spend almost a decade being the heart of the Velvet Underground; otherwise known as the band that every band since will cite as an influence.  He’d go on to a successful solo career in the early 70s then create the noise album, Metal Machine Music, that thousands of music snobs would claim to like.   In the 80s he’d release a few albums that a lot of people tend to forget, all while growing a really horrible mullet, until finally ascending to his position as god of New York art rock in the 90s – a position he holds to this day.

So why do we pit Lou Reed vs. Bob Dylan on the theoretical battleground? They both seem like old curmudgeons who are totally aware that their legacies will be preserved in the great pantheon of rock music.  Both men began making music by trying to be their idols, but would far exceed the renown of their role models.  Really, they’ve had careers that run nearly parallel.  So without any more rambling, the breakdown:

Better songwriter: We aren’t going to pussyfoot around this, because Dylan and Reed are known for a certain style of lyricism.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1987, Reed said that he wanted “to bring the sensitivities of the novel to rock music.” He chose to do this by writing about things like personal relationships, heroin and transvestites.  Dylan defined the unrest of the 60’s with songs like “Masters of War” and “Blowing in the Wind,” but also wrote a ton of brilliant, stream of conscious songs may be some of the best poetry of his time.  But next to the brilliance, there were a bunch of Dylan songs that were probably exactly what they sounded like: a mess of words strung together during a speed binge.  Of course you could argue that is the brilliance of Dylan, and who am I to argue?  But Lou Reed could write wacked out drug murder dirges like “Sister Ray” and then a blissful ditty like “Sweet Jane.”  He might have a rough persona, but Reed wrote some of the tenderest songs I’ve ever heard, along with some of the dirtiest and most visceral ones ever recorded.  Could Bob Dylan have made “too busy sucking on my ding dong” sound somewhat eloquent?

Winner: We give this one to Reed.

Cultural Significance: Is it really possible to measure Bob Dylan’s impact on American —hell— world culture?  I mean he’s Bob Dylan.  Along with maybe only The Beatles and Muhammad Ali, few come close to being the cultural embodiment of the 1960’s.

While Lou and The Velvets inspired thousands of would-be musicians to pick up instruments and start bands like The Ramones and Nirvana, they can’t really compete with Dylan.

Winner: Dylan.

Better twilight career: Again, tough one.  You could argue that Dylan has had several different kinds of later careers.  Some might consider everything after Blonde on Blonde to be his later years.  This is really tough but I’m going to say that since Reed had only a few really exceptional moments after releasing the most depressing album ever in 1973 (Berlin), that Dylan never really stopped putting out a good album every few years.  So…

Winner: Dylan.

Relevance today: Again, how do you really compete with Bob Dylan’s legacy?  He’s Bob Fricken Dylan.  However, we are going to give this one to Lou.  Only because how many horrible Bob Dylan covers are there out there compared to fantastic covers of Velvet Underground songs?

Winner: Lou Reed.

Better singer: Okay, asking if Lou Reed is a better singer than Bob Dylan is like asking if crayons taste better than White Out.  But listen to “Pale Blue Eyes” and tell me you aren’t moved by Lou’s little tremble in one of the most gorgeous and saddest songs ever written.

Winner: Lou.

Better overall catalog: Once again the whole “He’s Bob Dylan thing” comes into play, and it’s nearly impossible to really make this argument. But which catalog, in its entirety, would you rather spend a whole day going through? Bob Dylan’s starts off sounding all raspy hillbilly in New York, but later his voice ends up literally sounding like an eternally chain-smoking Grim Reaper.

Still, Reed’s consistently done the same awesome growl for about 50 years now.

Winner: Reed.

Result: Bob Dylan and Lou Reed have always been anti-establishment.  Even though they issue copies of Dylan albums along with your social security card, he’s made a career of really not giving too much of a shit about what anybody thinks, and that’s commendable.  Meanwhile, Reed is the epitome of the New York artist and the guy that nearly every musician (except for the ones that want to be Dylan) wants to be – whether they know it or not.

Should coolness really be the deciding factor?  Is that even possible to calculate?   Is it really Dylan’s fault that he’s a living deity?

No.  But Reed has kept at being reliably unreliable throughout his entire career, while Dylan keeps us guessing at his next incarnation, even if it is shitty/creepy Santa.  His canon is undeniable, his songs unmistakable, but when you’re at the point that you’re hearing “Just Like a Woman” in an elevator, you really need consider giving the Dylan worship a rest for a little while.

Winner: Lou Reed

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