Two Music Masters/Veterans

Yesterday afternoon I had a visit with my old friend and bandmate David Grisman. He was scheduled to play an evening of duets at the City Winery in NYC with John Sebastian. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but given David's musical talent I knew he could blend in with just about anyone in any style of music. I couldn't stay for the performance, but I've always enjoyed working sound checks more than performances anyway. When an entertainer takes the stage for an audience, he's there to perform with his public persona. During a sound check or rehearsal the real deal comes out. He can get angry, happy, annoyed .... whatever. And I don't have to worry about being in anyone's line of sight, I can stand on chairs, or walk around on stage (usually .... yesterday was an exception). 

The music was great, kind of like the duets Grisman recorded with Jerry Garcia, but with a different twist à la Sebastian. Next month Grisman is appearing at the City Winery with bluegrass all-star Del McCoury. I'm really looking forward to that.

Here's some of Dawg and Sebastian:

The End of the Fall Holiday Season

The holiday season begins with Rosh Hashanah and ends with Simchat Torah - the most joyous holiday in the Jewish calendar. Simhat Torah  is not mentioned in either the Torah nor the Talmud. If you would like deeper understanding of the holiday you can read this, which goes into quite a bit more detail than the wikipedia entry for the holiday. It's a day of celebrating the final reading in the Torah Scroll in the book of Deuteronomy and the return to the beginning reading in Genesis. It is not so much of a 'starting over again'  -  the concept of life in Judaism in not cyclical, but linear - so much as a 'new beginning'. After the stock-taking inventory of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with deeply felt prayers for repentance, we now have a chance to begin anew and hopefully do better. The Torah scrolls are removed from the holy ark (usually three scrolls) and members of the congregation dance exuberantly while carrying them in circuits around the room and out into the street. I've never been able to photograph the celebration because any rabbi I've ever interacted with would want me to participate in the observances, and not work (as in take photos). The same is true for the first days of Sukkot and Pesach (I would love to be able to photograph a seder),  Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Shavuot.

The final day of Sukkot, called Hashanah Rabbah, is however accessible to me. I celebrated it in Crown Heights at the Chabad headquarters of the Lubavitch movement. The Sukkat was densely packed with men performing the holiday rituals with the lulav and etrog. In the back of the sukkot there was a special section set aside for women to celebrate the ritual also. But the rooms were so crowded access to the women's section was impossible. I'll have photos of the celebrations in the next blog post.

The streets of Crown Heights were filled with people enjoying a meal in the many sukkot set up by restaurants on Kingston Avenue, and shoppers restocking for the next round of holiday meals.

People enjoying the culinary delights of the neighborhood in the outdoor sukkot:

Shopping for the next round of holiday meals:

Young men shopping for their first traditional homburg:

Shopping for kippot (skull caps) can be daunting if one's husband has a big head:

Everyone in the neighborhood was in a celebratory, super friendly mood:

Sukkot in Williamsburg

Every year on the Sunday of Sukkot the Williamsburg Hassidic community hosts a street fair for kids with rides and carnival games. I spent some time there this past Sunday before going to Crown Heights for the Sukkot service at 770 Eastern Parkway. I hope to be there again (at 770) on Wednesday for the celebration of Hashana Rabbah, the last day of Sukkot.

Here's the pics from Williamsburg:

Sukkot in Crown Heights

Yesterday I spent some time in Williamsburg at the Sukkot street fair, and then in Crown Heights at the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters, 770 Eastern Parkway. At night and well into the next dawn there's dancing in the streets to live music, but it started too late for me to stick around. I had a chance to get some shots in the sukkot after dark and in the dim light.

Street Scenes

Comicon at the Javitz Center this weekend. Time to experiment with that itsy-bitsy flash that comes with the X-T1. 

Just hanging out on 34th Street and Seventh Avenue, waiting for the train back to New Jersey. Lots of pedestrian traffic by the entrance to Macy's. I really enjoyed shooting with the prime 14mm lens. I had the 23mm and 35mm with me, but they didn't make it out of the bag. 

Stop The Hate!

I'd heard about this and several other ads that were to be posted on some 100 buses and two subway stops in Manhattan. I finally found one of the stops today. The other is somewhere in the Columbus Circle area, although try as I might, I haven't been able to find it. If anyone knows, please leave a comment as to it's location.

Recently I've been shooting mostly with my zoom lenses, so today I packed only three primes: 14mm, 23mm, and 35mm. I'd forgotten what a pleasure it was to shoot with these lenses. Decidedly faster and quieter than the zooms. And a considerable advantage in f-stop range.

Holiday Season

Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, is followed ten days later by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement - the most serious holiday in the Jewish calendar. For an introductory and/or in depth discussion of the meaning of these days, click here. Suffice it to say that these are very intense days of retrospection and the taking of personal inventory. They are followed by two holidays that are quite the antithesis - the joyous, celebratory days of Sukkat and Simchas Torah. These days are wonderful to visit the Chabad Lubavitch community in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. Jews from all over the world travel to either Jerusalem or the world headquarters of the Chabad movement in Crown Heights.  I'm looking forward to spending time on Kingston Avenue and the main Chabad building at 770 Eastern Parkway, affectionately called '770' by Jews all over the world.

My previous visits to 770 were limited to shooting in the main room, the bias hamidrash - literally the room of study - that also serves as the main sanctuary of the building. But the building also has offices, smaller study rooms, and some residences. One of the Lubavitch students took me through some of the rooms, one of which was the main communications hub for all the Chabad centers in the world. As you can see, this was set up long before high speed satellite or internet communications were commonly available:

There are many small rooms in which students study the Talmud and socialize:

The beit hamidrash is the nerve center of the establishment. between the main prayer services, held several times a day, people come for individual prayer, and gather to eat, dance, study, and listen to rabbinical lectures:

It's never too early to begin learning: