Saturday, April 30, 2022

ONL - Bransk 1899 - Scene 9 - 75%

  Shimon: You want a job that brings in money even when nobody else is making any? That might one day make you a rich macher while your brothers are still smoking papyros in the cemetery?

(knocks at the door of Reb Goldberg. Reb Goldberg opens it before Shimon even finishes knocking.) 

Goldberg: Nu? We're doin' a L'Chaim!

Shimon: Alright... L'chaim...

Goldberg: Here, dawh, take these glessen schnopps. 

Shimon: What's the simcheh?

Goldberg: Hashem's justice. 

Shimon: Hashem's justice? 

Goldberg: God is just, and God is merciful. Amen. (swallows schnopps) Trink! Trink!

(Shimon and Yehuda drink) 

Yehuda: Shouldn't we make a brocheh?

Goldberg: We'll do it over the next gless. Here, I got Vodka too. We're gonna get good und shikkered. 

Shimon: Is this a happy getrunken or a sad?

Goldberg: It's the happiest day of my life in nineteen years!

Shimon: Well mazel tov then, what's the occasion?

Goldberg: Your future!

Shimon: Our future?

Goldberg: Well, your future, but if your brother here becomes as good an assistant as you, it'll be his future too cuz gleyb mir this is too much business for one guy. 

(long pause)

Shimon: Reb Goldberg, I don't know what to...

Goldberg: Nu, Yehuda, you gonna wish Shimi a Mazel Tov yet?

Yehuda: Em... Mazel tov. 

Goldberg: See those documents on the desk? Later when I'm good and shikkered and don't care that I'm doing this for a sixteen year old pisher, Shimmi and I are gonna sign this document making a partner out of the best assistant I ever had, and I've had a bunch, making him my heir who gets this business and this house. 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg!

Goldberg; Nu? Who else am I gonna give this to? Thirty-five yar these beyner have been walking every day, back and forth, ahin und zuruck: Bransk, Wysokie, Bielsk, Chiechanowiec, Zambrow, Choroczsz, Bialystok... Last time I traveled much farther than Bialystok I was a year or two older than you. And kinder I don't got much time left. I'm gonna be here two more years to show you everything I know. (pours three shotglasses) Then I'm gonna retire and spend the rest of my time walking ahin and zuruck through Yerushalayim. Here, take a trinken Vodka. Boyruch atoh hashem elokeinu melech haoylom, boreh peri hagawfen. (them: Awmeyn) Boyruch atoh hashem elokeinu melech haoylom, shehecheyawnu v'kiyimawnu v'higiyawnu lawzman hawzeh! (them: Awmeyn!) Come on Yehuda! All the mashkeh down the hatch! Can I call you Yudaleh? You've done something important for me now, I feel like I can give you a more casual name. 

Yehuda: If you're eventually giving me what you're giving Shimon you can call me any name you want. 

(Goldberg laughs) 

Goldberg: Well, let's see if you're as smart as Shimon.  (already pouring more shots) 

Yehuda: Well if Shimon is that smart then you should call me the Tsar! 

Goldberg: Well, Tsar Yudaleh, let's make a l'chaim. For your future and Shimi's! 

All of them: L'Chaim! 

(they all drink) 

Goldberg: (already pouring another for everybody) All these years I've had to take these trinks alone but this is like I've got zuns again. 

Shimon: Well I don't know why I'm surprised, but all this time Reb Goldberg you've never talked about zuns or even that you once were married. 

Goldberg: (pours more) Let's not talk about that until an ander few trinks. 

Shimon: I'm not sure we can handle this much...

Goldberg: Yingeh yids like you need to build up your stomachs. Trinks like this are how you get things done in this business. 

Yehuda: Oooohhhh!

Goldberg: Something I ge-said? 

Yehuda: Well... Not really. 

Goldberg: You wondered how anybody with a conscience can do this business. It's is a wicked business. It's necessary, but you don't see the things we see without it getting to you. But when you're a moneylender who collects, vodka and schnopps are your best friends. You gotta get money from people twice your size. You gotta get money from people who've lost everything. You gotta meet in sketchy taverns with ganawvim and merderers and have eyes in the back of your keppe so you don't get stabbed. You're gonna get punched every week. Emes. These teeth are made from dead prisoners and they're my fourth set. You're gonna get called names a lot worse than Zhid every day. You're gonna ask how a decent person does what we do on every walk you take. But you see how poor people are here? If we didn't do the job we do, people in Bransk would be twice as poor. (pours drinks) Yids come to me all the time, but I charge them 70% what I charge der goyim. So here, an ander trink, to the zuns of Bransk who will live on your help. L'chaim!

Shimon and Yehuda: L'Chaim!

Goldberg: Now there are four types of Jews. You see'em every day from kheyder. The wise Jews, the wicked Jews, the simple Jews, and the Jews who don't know how to ask shit. The wise Jews, they become the Rabbanim, they become kheyder teachers, they become sofers and dayans and khazzins and shammoses. They often have very hard lives, but they're the reason the rest of us live on. All the rest of us do everything we do so they can leyn for us. So here's one, (pours another three) to the khakhamim! 

Shimon and Yehuda: (a little drunk) L'Chaim!

Goldberg: So then, zikher, there are the simple ones. The naarisher amoretzes who don't understand bupkes in kheyder. We need them too and they got a right to work like everybody else. They all work in schmattes and chayes. If they're lucky they become butchers, but they're usually tailors and peddlers... And they always pay back! (pours another three) So to the tawmim. 

Shimon and Yehuda: (more drunk) L'Chaim!

Goldberg: And now, to the ones who dont' know how to ask. They were khaleryehs when you knew'em in school, and they stay khaleryes their whole lives.They're Jews who become homeless schnorrers and shlemazels and shnorrers and shikkers. They'll be asking you for money every day, and you should always keep a few coins in your pockets just for them. They're the ones who tell everybody about you, and the word of mouth from schmendriks like them gives you more business than all the goyisher machers in Bialystok. (pours another three) So to the eyno yodeah lishol. 

Shimon and Yehuda: (still more drunk) L'Chaim! 

Goldberg: And then there are the wicked Jews. Like you and me mein zuns. The kids who understood everything they were reading in Kheyder but didn't care and whose fingers have permanent scars from where the keyder teacher broke them. 

Yehuda: Well the real rawsheh in our family is Ashe...

Shimon: Yudaleh!

Goldberg: (amused) Well then maybe he's the one I should be training, but Shimon pishes ice. He's rawsheh enough. You'll understand soon Yudaleh. The rawshehs of the world are the reason so many Jews die, and rawshehs like us are the reason Jews stay alive. And that reminds me... you're gonna meet all kinds of interesting shiksas on the roads, get to know them as well as you can and pay'em well for what they give you, not just cuz they're fun, but because they're the ones who are gonna tip you off about when you need to sneak out and where to hide. 

Shimon: You never told me any of that. 

Goldberg: That's cuz we never got shikkered before. 

Shimon: You never asked me to. 

Goldberg: You were always bagrisen to my liquor, but you always seemed too interested in the work. 

Shimon: Well.... (seems a little nauseous)

Goldberg: (Walks to other side of room) You're gonna brekhn in a few minutes, make sure you throw up in this, (walks back with chamber pot). After today, save the liquor for when you hit the road. I'll bet you darfed it today. 

Shimon: About that...

Goldberg: I waited this long to give you an assignment like this because there's no way a zextsn yar alt was ready for it, and wouldn't get through it without his brother with him. 

Shimon: You've given me even more hearts-rending assignments than daws. 

Goldberg: Not assignments that can turn as hitsik as that one...

Yehuda: That guy couldn't possibly turn violent. 

Goldberg: The address was 240 Mieczkewiczka? 

Shimon: Yeh. 

Goldberg: Henrik Nowak?

Shimon: Zikher. 

Goldberg: I haven't seen him violent in a long time, but I gave you that knife in the bag for a reason. You're obviously the closest thing I have to a zun and I don't want anything should happen. 

Shimon: Did anything bad happen with your zuns?

Goldberg: They're in a much better place now. 

Yehuda: Amerikeh?

Goldberg: Neyn. 

Yehuda: Palestine?

Goldberg: They're all with Hashem now. It'll be twenty years at Pesach. 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg, I didn't want to assume but es tut mir zeyer leid...

Goldberg: (interrupting) 1881 pogroms, like everybody else. And don't you tell me how sorry you are. We all lost people that year, I lost a few more, but this, here, is like I got zuns again. 

Shimon: Well thank you so much Reb Goldberg, I hope we can live up your naches. 

Goldberg: You will! (pours another) My generation had to get it from the goyim so that your generation wouldn't have to. Your time is gonna be different for Jews. No one's gonna make us eat drek anymore. Not the Bransker, not the Poles, not even the Russians. To your generation! 

All: L'Chaim! 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg do you do you really think our generation will be different?

Goldberg: Ikh veyst! I know it! Hashem can't let us suffer like that without giving us something better. It took a little while, but after Khmielnitsky and Shabbetai Zevi, Jews thought they were gonna get killed forever, but then everything calmed down for a while. Jews began to learn the Kaballeh and learn that all this, all these tzures, all these tearn, they're have a funt and a purpose. And more importantly, you have a purpose! 

Yehuda: What's our funt?

Goldberg: Your funt is to make money!

Yehuda: I should have seen that coming...

Goldberg: Who do you think is gonna make everything in this town go? That Bransker shul doesn't remodel itself. Who do you think Rabbi Schkop always went to to keep it going? And which family do you think always gave the Rebbe credit with no money down?

Yehuda: Well... I'm guessing it was your father considering that the letters over the aron hakodesh say it's the Ephraim Goldberg Memorial Ark...

Goldberg: My father's name was Schlomo, Ephraim was my son. 

Yehuda: Oy... I'm so sorry.

Goldberg: I told you not to apologize! 

Yehuda: Oy. I'm sor... oy...

Goldberg: Miriam and I had twin sons: Ephraim and Menashe. They were both small like their father, but they looked nothing alike and they had exactly opposite personalities. Menashe was smart, but he didn't give a drek about kheyder or lernen and would always kamf back. Your father would beat the shit out of him and I'd just laugh cuz he did my job for me... But your father always told me that Ephraim was the most brilliant talmid he ever had. He always did what he was told, he always helped his Mameh, he always prayed, he always read. I loved Menashe, even if he was a vilde chayeh, but everybody loved Ephraim. When they were alive I always figured I'd be done by now and home with the eyniklakh while Menashe was doin all this. Meanwhile, Ephraim would be the Bransker rebbe and between the two of them Bransk could become a city as important as Bialystok. But that's not how Hashem works. (pours more drinks) Here, let's toast, to Menashe and Ephraim, the two best boys in the world!

Simon: L'Chaim

Yehuda: And Sh'koyach (they drink). 


Friday, April 29, 2022

Richter's Appassionata

 

So I guess it would be interesting to talk about Richter's Appassionata. Captured on radio in whatever city, it is just about the least underrated performance in history, and yet it's still underrated. It is one of the key recorded documents of the 20th century, history bottled into a single performance.
A lot of people in our time say that the point of art is to resist oppression. The idea that artists particularly have any power to resist the forces of history is absurd, and the grandiosity inherent in that sentiment can get a lot of people killed. Nevertheless, one of the key points of art is at least related to it: a key use of art is not to resist oppression, but to document it, to express it. The artist doesn't just speak for themself, the artist speaks for the silenced.
The systemic shock to classical music listeners hearing Richter for the first time cannot be overestimated. When Richter came to Carnegie Hall, the idea that 'romantic piano' was anything more than a diversionary entertainment was practically gone. Around 1960, if people wanted to hear 'serious musicmaking' there was the austerity of Serkin and profundity of Arrau, but people listened to Rubinstein to be delighted, and listened to Horowitz to break the strings. Rubinstein could be serious, but he leavened his seriousness with huge helpings of diversionary entertainment that was, admittedly, delightful. Horowitz was an entertainer who, like a lot of entertainment, could express very serious hurts and sentiments beneath the surface, but deliberately couched his substance behind so many effects that his pain was almost impossible to hear behind the Ford Thunderbird roars and whirs.
There were serious musicians regularly operating on the North American concert circuit - Firkusny, Casadesus, Cherkassky, Bachauer, Anda... But behind them was a battery of what we now call 'finger jocks', Perfumed Chopinists, Liszt-bros, and Rach-divers who, by and large, were not filling their calendars with particularly serious music (and I'm sorry, but with exceptions, not even Chopin is particularly serious... You can file complaints with HR...). As estimable as were the techniques and sophistication of Bolet and Cziffra and Weissenberg etc., they were not doing particularly serious work. Then there's the issue of Michelangeli, a Mussolini collaborator whose aesthetic I just find repugnantly cold... maybe the problem is me, but maybe the problem is his repulsive aesthetic...
Around the world, there were more exceptions than ever to that rule, plenty of serious artists operating everywhere but America, all the time. But most of them seemed not to be on the regular American circuit. And behind them was a younger generation of 'great white hopes of the piano.' Immaculately coiffed American virtuosos who seemed impeccably trained, but did not live up to their potential because perfection is too high a standard - just about all of them ended in injury or burnout, or much worse.... The biggest fault in them was their teachers - precisely that training which demanded too much of them - music is about truth, not perfection. What was demanded of Fleisher and Cliburn etc. was like asking Icarus to fly too close to the sun.
And then came Gilels, and then came Richter, and from 1960, music in America was never the same. It was a systemic shock, because classical music in America depends on a culture of affluence and bourgeois complacency. Yet here was musicmaking that was anything but complacent. Everything about it was disturbing. It was a reminder that in many parts of the world, classical music was not a signifier of class and striving, but a basic necessity to express pain that could never be risked in words.
I don't know if Beethoven's Appassionata is his greatest sonata, I don't even know if it's in the top 5... But certain minor-key works of Beethoven are 150 years ahead of their time. Late Beethoven, which to me is the entire world, is about 100 years ahead - they're Mahler with 1/100th the instruments, they embrace the entire gamut of what it means to live in the world and the universe. But the three big name sonatas, slightly overvalued and deeply misunderstood though they may be, are really works of the 20th century in full cry - which refuse the consolative affirmation of the symphonies. All three are works of the deepest suffering and blood from a composer who knew what that meant as well as anyone on earth, meant to reach the hearts of people who knew what suffering meant equally well. They are not works of comfort, not even the Moonlight. They are howls of pain, meant to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It's exploitatively irresponsible to hear them as often as we do. They should be heard only in those moments when we really need them.
And there was Richter, with all his tectonic explosions that sound like everything from earthquakes to advancing armies - a veritable reincarnation of Beethoven or Anton Rubinstein who enlisted art into its most valuable service; to document all those ways humans desperately need to be heard and understood. No matter how much Richter esteemed Van Cliburn, he expressed something so much deeper than the way a guy like Cliburn played. This is music about suffering, desperation, death, poverty, isolation and humiliation and terror. You have to be willfully deaf not to hear it. It's musicmaking with moral purpose.
America reacted as you'd expect Americans to react in those years. With anticommunist protests and the potential at every performance for the performances to end with a near-riot. There was something in those Western performances that Americans found deeply provocative. Not just because communism was evil (and it was), but because the Soviet Union showed how trivial were the concerns of American lives in those years, and Americans simply didn't want to hear that message or know the truth, which is that American prosperity is a provocative dance upon an explosive volcano of chaos that's engulfed most every other country on earth.
We were overdue for that chaos in 1960. How much more overdue are we for it now?
...play it loud....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPSnMrN8ft0

ONL - Bransk 1899 - Scene 9 - 40%

 Shimon: You want a job that brings in money even when nobody else is making any? That might one day make you a rich macher while your brothers are still smoking papyros in the cemetery?

(knocks at the door of Reb Goldberg. Reb Goldberg opens it before Shimon even finishes knocking.) 

Goldberg: Nu? We're doin' a L'Chaim!

Shimon: Alright... L'chaim...

Goldberg: Here, dawh, take these glessen schnopps. 

Shimon: What's the simcheh?

Goldberg: Hashem's justice. 

Shimon: Hashem's justice? 

Goldberg: God is just, and God is merciful. Amen. (swallows schnopps) Trink! Trink!

(Shimon and Yehuda drink) 

Yehuda: Shouldn't we make a brocheh?

Goldberg: We'll do it over the next gless. Here, I got Vodka too. We're gonna get good und shikkered. 

Shimon: Is this a happy getrunken or a sad?

Goldberg: It's the happiest day of my life in nineteen years!

Shimon: Well mazel tov then, what's the occasion?

Goldberg: Your future!

Shimon: Our future?

Goldberg: Well, your future, but if your brother here becomes as good an assistant as you, it'll be his future too cuz gleyb mir this is too much business for one guy. 

(long pause)

Shimon: Reb Goldberg, I don't know what to...

Goldberg: Nu, Yehuda, you gonna wish Shimi a Mazel Tov yet?

Yehuda: Em... Mazel tov. 

Goldberg: See those documents on the desk? Later when I'm good and shikkered and don't care that I'm doing this for a sixteen year old pisher, Shimmi and I are gonna sign this document making a partner out of the best assistant I ever had, and I've had a bunch, making him my heir who gets this business and this house. 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg!

Goldberg; Nu? Who else am I gonna give this to? Thirty-five yar these beyner have been walking every day, back and forth, ahin und zuruck: Bransk, Wysokie, Bielsk, Chiechanowiec, Zambrow, Choroczsz, Bialystok... Last time I traveled farther than Bialystok I was a year or two older than you. And kinder I don't got much time left. I'm gonna be here two more years to show you everything I know. (pours three shotglasses) Then I'm gonna retire and spend the rest of my time walking ahin and zuruck through Yerushalayim. Here, take a trinken Vodka. Boyruch atoh hashem elokeinu melech haoylom, boreh peri hagawfen. (them: Awmeyn) Boyruch atoh hashem elokeinu melech haoylom, shehecheyawnu v'kiyimawnu v'higiyawnu lawzman hawzeh! (them: Awmeyn!) Come on Yehuda! All the mashkeh down the hatch! Can I call you Yudaleh? You've done something important for me now, I feel like I can give you a nickname. 

Yehuda: If you're eventually giving me what you're giving Shimon you can call me any name you want. 

(Goldberg laughs) 

Goldberg: Well, let's see if you're as smart as Shimon.  (already pouring more shots) 

Yehuda: Well if Shimon is that smart then you should call me the Tsar! 

Goldberg: Well, Tsar Yudaleh, let's make a l'chaim. For your future and Shimi's! 

All of them: L'Chaim! 

(they all drink) 

Goldberg: (already pouring another for everybody) All these years I've had to take these trinks alone but this is like I've got zuns again. 

Shimon: Well I don't know why I'm surprised, but all this time Reb Goldberg you've never talked about zuns or even that you once were married. Are they in Amerikeh?

Goldberg: Oh,... better.

Shimon: Palestine?

Goldberg: They're all with Hashem now. It'll be twenty years at Pesach. 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg, I...

Goldberg: 1881 pogroms, like everybody else. And don't you tell me how sorry you are. We all lost people that year, I lost a few more, but this is like I've got zuns again. 

Shimon: Well thank you so much Reb Goldberg, I hope we can live up your naches. 

Goldberg: You will. My generation had to get it from the goyim so that your generation wouldn't have to. Your time is gonna be different for Jews. No one's gonna make us eat drek anymore. Not the Bransker, not the Poles, not even the Russians. To your generation! 

All: L'Chaim! 

Shimon: Reb Goldberg do you do you really think our generation will be different?

Goldberg: Ikh veyst! I know it! Hashem can't let us suffer like that without giving us something better. It took a little while, but after Khmielnitsky and Shabbetai Zevi, Jews thought they were gonna get killed forever, but then everything calmed down for a while. Jews began to learn the Kaballeh and learn that all this, all this suffering, all these tears, they're have a point. And more importantly, you have a point! 

Yehuda: What's our point?

Goldberg: Your point is to make money!

Yehuda: I should have seen that coming...

Goldberg: The purpose of b'khurim like us who never paid attention in kheyder is that we make the money so that the ones who do pay attention can keep leyning. That Bransker shul doesn't remodel itself. Who do you think Rabbi Schkop always went to to keep it going?

Yehuda: Well... considering that the letters over the aron hakodesh say it's the Ephraim Goldberg Memorial Ark...

Goldberg: My name is Schlomo, Ephraim was my son. 

Yehuda: Oy... I'm so sorry.

Goldberg: I told you not to apologize! 

Yehuda: I'm sor... oy...

Goldberg: Miriam and I had two twin sons: Ephraim and Menashe. They were both small like their father, but they looked nothing alike and they had exactly opposite personalities. Menashe was smart, but he didn't give a drek about kheyder or lernen and would always kamf back. Your father would beat the shit out of him and I'd just laugh cuz he did my job for me... But your father always told me that Ephraim was the most brilliant talmid he ever had. He always did what he was told, he always helped his Mameh, he always prayed, he always read. I loved Menashe, but everybody loved Ephraim. When they were alive I always figured I'd move to Palestine by ten years ago and Menashe would be doin all this. Meanwhile, Ephraim would be the Bransker rebbe and between the two of them Bransk would have a couple thousand more Jews. But that's not how Hashem works. Here, let's toast, to Menashe and Ephraim, the two best boys in the world!

Yehuda then Shimon: Sh'koyach (they drink). 


Thursday, April 28, 2022

ONL - Bransk 1899 - Scene 9 - Start

 


Shimon: You want a job that brings in money even when nobody else is making any? That might one day make you a rich macher while your brothers are still smoking papyros in the cemetery?

(knocks at the door of Reb Goldberg. Reb Goldberg opens it before Shimon even finishes knocking.) 

Goldberg: Nu? We're doin' a L'Chaim!

Shimon: Alright... L'chaim...

Goldberg: Here, dawh, take these glessen schnopps. 

Shimon: What's the simcheh?

Goldberg: Hashem's justice. 

Shimon: Hashem's justice? 

Goldberg: God is just, and God is merciful. Amen. (swallows schnopps) Trink! Trink!

(Shimon and Yehuda drink) 

Yehuda: Shouldn't we make a brocheh?

Goldberg: We'll do it over the next gless. Here, I got Vodka too. We're gonna get good und shikkered. 

Shimon: Is this a happy getrunken or a sad?

Goldberg: It's the happiest day of my life in nineteen years!

Shimon: Well mazel tov then, what's the occasion?

Goldberg: Vengeance. 

Shimon: Vengeance? 

Goldberg: My vengeance and Hashem's. 


Tuesday, April 26, 2022

ONL: Bransk 1899 - Scene 8 - Draft 2

 (Ewa and Henrik both start crying hysterically, Yehuda and Shimon leave the house, close the door, and you can hear their crying from the other side of the door.)

Shimon: Fuck. You're gonna be the one to explain this to Reb Goldberg.  

Yehuda: You're the one who didn't tell me we were about to take the last zlotys from parents who just buried all their kids. 

Shimon: You never tell the new collectors what they're in for. If you knew what you were in for you'd run away screaming but you get used to it...

Yehuda: Vos?!

Shimon: This isn't the worst housecall I've had to make, and later today I'm gonna go back to get that money. 

Yehuda: Are you meshuggeh or evil?

Shimon: Once you do three or four of these every week it's just another client late on their payments. 

Yehuda: And you want that I should join you on this goniveh!

Shimon: You see any other jobs around these days? 

Yehuda: How can you do this? 

Shimon: It's a good living! Look at the Schneiders! A tailor has no new business. Eventually everybody has their clothes.... 

Yehuda: Shimi how can you do this as a Yiddisher kop?

Shimon: A butcher's a nice living but if nobody's got gelt nobody gets meat...

Yehuda: Shimon, how can you do this as a Jew?

Shimon: Yudaleh, nu? Come on... 

Yehuda: Did you see what was going on in there? 

Shimon: I saw two irresponsible parents who think that prayers are gonna cure their kids. 

Yehuda: You saw two parents insane with troyer. 

Shimon: I saw two parents who borrowed money from Reb Goldberg to get charms that everybody knows won't work. 

Yehuda: Shimi, how can you, as a Yid, try to make money off people's suffering like that? 

Shimon: Nu? What are we supposed tsu ton?

Yehuda: We're supposed to act like Tzaddikim. 

Shimon: Yehuda, all you have tsu ton is think about it for two seconds. Rich goyim don't want poor goyim to get money or understand how money works. 

Yehuda: Nu? So that means we get to steal their last zlotys? 

Shimon: Neyn, it just means that poor goyim are never gonna learn cuz rich goyim won't let'em. So all they ever gonna do is use their money to buy stupid drek they think might work, and it makes them feel better for a little bit. 

Yehuda: But we don't have to help them. 

Shimon: We are helping them! 

Yehuda: You're chazers!

Shimon: We're chazers who're surviving, the only way we can! 

Yehuda: Other Yids are surviving without picking goyims pockets. 

Shimon: You call that survival? 

Yehuda: I call that being what a mensch. 

Shimon: How many Yids in Bransk do you think had three meals a day every day last year? Do you think it was half? How many kinder went hungry a week at a time? 

Yehuda: Nu? Well if that's the choice, then maybe if Hashem wants us to go hungry we should go hungry. 

Shimon: Yehuda what kind of goyisher naarishkeit is that? 

Yehuda: It's what any gute neshawmeh would think when faced with what we just saw. 

Shimon: What we saw was what we want to avoid. 

Yehuda: Feh! 

Shimon: You sound like such a goy right now. They're the ones who say blessed are the poor. You're a man now, so let me ask, have you seen any evidence at all that the poor have any blessings? 

(long pause and sigh)

Shimon: Nu... look, rich goyim tell the poor goyim that money's evil, so they can't handle it. Then they tell Jews they can't own land...

Yehuda: Ikh farshtey nisht, why does that mean we should help gonifs? 

Shimon: We're not the gonifs Yudaleh. 

Yehuda: Who's the gonif then? 

Shimon: Who's always the gonif? The rich goyim! The rich goyim make the poor goyim handle the land but tell them they can't have any money, the rich goyim tell us we can have the money but we can't have any land. The goyim make us handle their money because they don't trust each other with their money. So then they kill us for stealing the money they already gave us, but we didn't steal it, we just already have the money they want. We have the money but we can't defend ourselves, so there's no problem killing us or embarrassing us. But if they kill each other over money, the goyim can defend themselves, so if they handle the money themselves, they always go to war over it. 

Yehuda: What's your point. 

Shimon: The point is that this isn't just what we have to do to survive, it's also saving lives. Nu, every time Jews go to a new country, the country always seems to get better. Do you really think it's Hashem who's doing that? It's because we do all the jobs they don't wanna do. We're the money managers, we're the doctors, we're the planners who keep cities clean, we're the businessmen who give people things they need. So we machn gelt. Then we get blamed by the goyim for wanting the money they want more than we do, and they kill us over it, but they're gonna kill us anyway. So if we want any chance to make a decent life, we gotta handle their money. 

Yehuda: Are goyim really that fertummelt? 

Shimon: You don't know the half of it...

Yehuda: Is Reb Goldberg scared of getting killed? 

Shimon: Every day. He has to! The rich goyim are always spending his money. They need more, so they summon Reb Goldberg who gives them the money on interest, they have too much money, they spend it, then he loans them more money. 

Yehuda: What happens if they don't pay back? 

Shimon: They go to jail like anybody... or they have Reb Goldberg killed... one or the other...

Yehuda: Emes can he get killed? Can we? 

Shimon: Sure. It happens all the time. 

Yehuda: Why would you want me to take this job?!

Shimon: You got any other jobs lined up?

Yehuda: Neyn... 

Shimon: You meet many Jews not worried they're gonna die tomorrow?

Yehuda: Neyn...

Shimon: You want a job that brings in money even when nobody else is making any? That might one day make you a rich macher while your brothers are still smoking papyros in the cemetery?

(knocks at the door of Reb Goldberg) 



ONL - Bransk 1899 - Scene 8 - 1st Draft


(Ewa starts crying and Henrik both start crying hysterically, Yehuda and Shimon leave the house, close the door, and you can hear their crying from the other side of the door.)

Shimon: Fuck. You're gonna be the one to explain this to Reb Goldberg.  

Yehuda: You're the one who didn't tell me we were about to take the last zlotys from parents who just buried all their kids. 

Shimon: You never tell the new collectors what they're in for. If you knew what you were in for you'd run away screaming but you get used to it...

Yehuda: Vos?!

Shimon: This isn't the worst housecall I've had to make, and later today I'm gonna go back to get that money. 

Yehuda: Are you meshuggeh or evil?

Shimon: Once you do three or four of these every week it's just another client late on their payments. 

Yehuda: And you want that I should join you on this goniveh!

Shimon: You see any other jobs around these days? 

Yehuda: How can you do this? 

Shimon: It's a good living! Look at the Schneiders! A tailor has no new business. Eventually everybody has their clothes.... 

Yehuda: Shimi how can you do this as a Yiddisher kop?

Shimon: A butcher's a nice living but if nobody's got gelt nobody gets meat...

Yehuda: Shimon, how can you do this as a Jew?

Shimon: Yudaleh, nu? Come on... 

Yehuda: Did you see what was going on in there? 

Shimon: I saw two irresponsible parents who think that prayers are gonna cure their kids. 

Yehuda: You saw two parents insane with troyer. 

Shimon: I saw two parents who borrowed money from Reb Goldberg to get charms that everybody knows won't work. 

Yehuda: Shimi, how can you, as a Yid, try to make money off people's suffering like that? 

Shimon: Nu? What are we supposed tsu ton?

Yehuda: We're supposed to act like Tzaddikim. 

Shimon: Yehuda, all you have tsu ton is think about it for two seconds. Rich goyim don't want poor goyim to get money or understand how money works. 

Yehuda: Nu? So that means we get to steal their last zlotys? 

Shimon: Nu... look, rich goyim tell the poor goyim that money's evil, so they can't handle it. Then they tell Jews they can't own land...

Yehuda: Ikh farshtey nisht, why does that mean we should be gonifs? 

Shimon: We're not the gonifs Yudaleh. 

Yehuda: Who's the gonif then? 

Shimon: Who's always the gonif? The rich goyim! The rich goyim make the poor goyim handle the land but tell them they can't have any money, the rich goyim tell us we can have the money but we can't have the land. 

Yehuda: So then we get blamed by poor goyim for loving money?

Shimon: Nu! A shas pollack this one! 

Yehuda: Are goyim really that stupid? 

Shimon: The rich goyim are a lot smarter than us. They get money und land and armies, und we get killed by the poor goyim because they think we're the ones stealing their money. 

Yehuda: Does Reb Goldberg deal with rich goyim?

Shimon: All the time. He has to! The rich goyim always spend their money. They need more, so they summon Reb Goldberg who gives them the money on interest, they have too much money, they spend it, then he loans them more money. 

Yehuda: What happens if they don't pay back? 

Shimon: They go to jail like anybody... or they have Reb Goldberg killed... one or the other...

Yehuda: Emes can he get killed? Can we? 

Shimon: Sure. It happens all the time. 

Yehuda: Why would you want me to take this job?!

Shimon: You got any other jobs lined up?

Yehuda: Neyn... 

Shimon: You meet many Jews not worried they're gonna die tomorrow?

Yehuda: Neyn...

Shimon: You want a job that brings in money even when nobody else is making any? That might one day make you a rich macher while your brothers are still smoking papyros in the cemetery?

....



Monday, April 25, 2022

ONL - Bransk 1899 - Scene 7 - First Draft


Polish Peasant: Tutaj sa! Here they are! Every time a family has a tragedy the Zhids are here to swoop in like vultures to drink the blood! 

Yehuda (whispers to Shimon): Charming...

Polish Peasant: The Jews are here! The Nowaks are inside. You'll find there is no blood left for you w(v)ampirs. 

(we hear the sounds of a priest intoning last rites) 

Polish Peasant: (suddenly trying not to break down crying) Maria, they're here. 

Ewa Nowak: Oy wychwalac Boga. You come from God in heaven. 

Henrik Nowak: This is what we prayed for. 

Yehuda: (whispers to Shimon) This is not what you told me would happen. 

Ewa: We have the money but we have to ask you...

Shimon: Let's take care of the money first. 

Henrik: Please just listen to what we have to ask. 

Shimon: We really ought to take care of the money. 

Henrik: But if you just listen to what we have to...

Shimon: It's really important that we take care of...

Henrik: If you just listen to what....

Shimon: We'll be happy to listen after but first...

Ewa: PLEASE! If you Jews have an ounce of charity, you will listen! 

Shimon: (sighs) Alright Pani Nowak, what would you like to tell us?

Ewa: You have such eyes for business, and we have such things to sell you. 

Shimon: Oh dear, we should...

Ewa: Look (goes over to furniture and opens drawer)... This broach, it belonged to Henrik's mother and her mother before her. It came from a Boyar who loved Henrik's. 

Shimon: That's very lovely but we really don't have...

Ewa: Or these pisnaki, look at these eggs that were painted by my son...

Yehuda: Wow Mrs. Nowak, those are truly beautiful. 

Shimon: Yehuda! Sha!... They are truly beautiful, but unfortunately we don't have the mo....

Ewa: Or my mother's shawl. She made it when she was pregnant with me, her first daughter, and wore it every day until she died when I was six. 

Shimon: That's truly beautiful but surely you'd want to keep something that means so much to you...

Ewa: Or maybe you'd like what's under the shawl more... (we hear Ewa rubbing Shimon's kapoteh) 

Shimon: Mrs. Nowak, please, my brother and I are respectable people and we know you are too. 

Henrik: Your brother?! Perhaps you would like some smoked cheese to take home to your matka?

Yehuda: That's a lovely offer but unfortunately we can't eat it. 

Ewa: They won't even eat our cheese! 

Henrik: Please Pan Kharlap, we are so desperate. We know we're not good enough for you, but please... we have lived together so long.... surely you see how we are suffering...

Shimon: Mr. Nowak I assure you that we have nothing but regret that we have to do this job but...

(baby starts crying and Maria panics)

Henrik: (shouts) Ewa opiekuj sie dieckiem!

(Ewa leaves to take care of the baby)

Henrik: She goes to our baby, Agnieszka. She is afraid. 

(long pause)

Henrik: This is the only baby we have left. 

(long pause, Yehuda finally says) 

Yehuda: The only baby?

Shimon: (immediately) Yehuda!

Henrik: Typhus has killed all of our anolki. Ewa believes she is cursed, that she has given typhus from one of her children to the next. One, then another, then another, whom we moved to our room. They freeze, they cried, they suffocated, and then they're gone.... This stol had five children around it last Christmas. They would say the Ave Maria, we would serve them Broscht and herring and noodles, Ewa would bake her Kolaczkis, and we would sing the carols: Bog sie rodzi, wsrod nocnej ciszy, Lulajze Jezuniu (breaks down crying) they would make such a noise.... They will never make noise again...

Yehuda: I'm so sorry Mr. Nowak. 

Henrik: We took our children to every healer, we bought every ikon and charm, we had our house blessed by spirits and washed by holy water and oil. That is why we borrowed money from Pan Goldberg. 

Yehuda: Did you ever take your children to a doctor?

Henrik: We did not, we were too ashamed. What would our friends think? But we should have. No traditional medicine has worked. 

Yehuda: You really ought to have your daughter seen by a doctor. 

Henrik: That is why we sell you these wears. They are the best things we can give. 

Yehuda: Shimon, please...

Shimon: (yells) Yehuda what did I tell you?!

Yehuda: (yells back) You didn't tell me this!

Shimon: I'll explain later. 

Yehuda: You need to explain now! 

Shimon: Don't make friends with the goyim! 

Henrik: Don't make friends with the goyim... I'm the one who's supposed to be too good for you but you don't make friends with me.... 

(long pause) 

Henrik: Alright, I'm not good enough for you... I'm just a poor man who lost everyone he loves... Look at me!... Spit on me, call me Zhid, kill me, but please, do not take away the only money we have left... 

Yehuda: We're not gonna take your money...

Shimon: Yehuda! 

Henrik: O bozhe moi! Bless you. (cries and kisses their hands and feet) You are the apostles of Christ.  EWA! 

Yehuda: We have to leave. You go be with your daughter, and please, take her to a doctor right away! 

Henrik: You be remembered by St. Peter at the gates of heaven... EWA! Pozwalaja nam zatrzymac pieniadze! 

(Ewa starts crying and Henrik both start crying hysterically, Yehuda and Shimon leave the house, close the door, and you can hear their crying from the other side of the door.)

Shimon: Fuck. You're gonna be the one to explain this to Reb Goldberg.  

ONL - Bransk 1899 - Scene 6 and Scene 7 - Beginning

 The grandfather clock of the Wolf's house transforms into a distant church bell. We follow Shimon and Yehuda walking in the woods.) 

Yehuda: It's noon. 

Shimon: (sarcastically) b'emes?

Yehuda: I'm just saying it's later than it should be. Isn't it?

Shimon: It's not late. 

Yehuda: But the balebos said be back by 1. 

Shimon: The balebos will wait. 

Yehuda: The balebos was very specific about what time we need to be back. 

Shimon: The balebos will understand. 

Yehuda: But it's already noon!

Shimon: It's not that late. 

Yehuda: What do you mean it's not that late? It's noon and we haven't even gotten daw yet!

Shimon: We'll get there when we get there. For the goyim it's noon for us it's whatever time they say. 

Yehuda: For us it's noon too. 

Shimon: For us it's whatever time the goyim tell us it is. 

Yehuda: Well for the goyim it's noon. 

Shimon: You obviously don't know goyim. 

Yehuda: I've known enough. 

Shimon: If you've known enough you'll know that it's whatever time they tell you it is. 

Yehuda: What time will they tell me it is?

Shimon: Ask them.

Yehuda: Shimi, if the goyim think it's noon, why wouldn't it be noon?

Shimon: You're a greycer mensch Yudaleh, figure it out. 

Yehuda: Because...

Shimon: Becaaaaause....

Yehuda: Because... 

Shimon: Koom on...

Yehuda: Because goyim lie to us?

Shimon: Emes! You got it! If we were still in kheyder Tateh would give you a stupid frize. 

Yehuda: What are they gonna lie about?

Shimon: That they don't have the money, putz. 

Yehuda: Why wouldn't they have the money?

Shimon: They never have the money. 

Yehuda: They don't?

Shimon: That's what they always tell us. 

Yehuda: But they're lying?

Shimon: They're always lying. 

Yehuda: Why would they lie to us?

Shimon: You can't possibly be as much of an amoretz as you look. 

Yehuda: Seriously, why would they tell us that unless they...?

Shimon: Because they don't want to pay us the money!

Yehuda: But they have the money?

Shimon: Of course they have the money! They usually have it because we gave it to them! 

Yehuda: OK... Ot azay.... Nu, so how we gonna get it from them?

Shimon: We get it from them by waiting. 

Yehuda: What do you mean?

Shimon: We get it from them by not leaving. 

Yehuda: You mean, we just stay there? In the goyim's house?

Shimon: Emes. 

Yehuda: Why would that help?

Shimon: If you're a goy do you want Jews on your lawn?

Yehuda: If I'm a goy I'd eat some pork first. 

Shimon: Yehuda, we're Jews, we're Zhids, seeing us on their lawn makes questions. 

Yehuda: Makes questions?

Shimon: If Jews are visiting you, something's usually wrong. 

Yehuda: What's wrong?

Shimon: Like maybe you owe money. 

Yehuda: That's a question?

Shimon: Or maybe you've made some bad friends. 

Yehuda: Like Jews?

Shimon: Sure, like Jews. 

Yehuda: Every goy beats us up and we're the bad friends?

 Shimon: Not every goy beats us up. 

Yehuda: If a goy a reason, he'll beat us up.  

Shimon: Not every goy is a Kowalski. 

Yehuda: Every goy is a Kowalski, they just don't know it yet. 

Shimon: A Kowalski? Not every goy is a merderer...

Yehuda: Tell any goy in Bransk that we're secretly carrying bags of gold around everywhere, see how quickly those nice farmers cut through us with that knife you got in your zak. 

Shimon: But why would they believe we've got bags of gold? They see how poor we are. 

Yehuda: Not all of us are poor. You been to the Wolf house lately?

Shimon: And how many Bransker live like Wolfs except Mrs. Wolf?

Yehuda: The point's there are rich Jews.

Shimon: How many rich Jews are there in Bransk?

Yehuda: Well there's the Wolfs and then...

Shimon: According to the Bransker we're rich Jews.

Yehuda: Who thinks we're rich Jews?

Shimon: You see many families that can afford eleven sons? 

Yehuda: That's luck!

Shimon: They all know about Ezra. 

Yehuda: Ezra.... why isn't he giving us money again?

Shimon: He's still giving us money. 

Yehuda: Not as much as he used to. 

Shimon: We can make our own money now. 

Yehuda: You call this money?

Shimon: It's a job. 

Yehuda: We should have become rabbis. 

Shimon: You wanna be like Tateh and spend your life beating up vildeh chayehs?

Yehuda: You've been to the Rabbi's house, somehow he's living pretty grays.

Shimon: How many Rabbis become a Rebbe with their own court?

Yehuda: What about Z'vulun, he's an illui. 

Shimon: Even if he's the smartest Yid in the world, and he might be, he has as much chance of becoming a Rebbe with his own court as Mameh does. 

Yehuda: Well there should be more Rebbes' courts. 

Shimon: Why would that be?

Yehuda:  A town who wants to have machers always has a rabbi who's a macher. 

Shimon: How's that working out for us?

Yehuda: It would be worse if we didn't have a famous Rabbi. 

Shimon: He's not famous

Yehuda: Rabbi Schkop was. 

Shimon: He's not Rabbi Schkop. He's not even related to Rabbi Schkop. 

Yehuda: He will be when he's older... What's it take to become a famous Rabbi? 

Shimon: Well first you need to get a Bar Mitzvah...

Yehuda: Seriously, if Jews had more Rebbes there would be more machers.  

Shimon: If Jews had more Rebbes there wouldn't be enough following to make machers. 

Yehuda: Is that the heus up ahead?

Shimon: Yeah. It's yenem. 

Yehuda: What am I supposed to do?

Shimon: Zey shtil like a good Yiddisher kop, let me do the talking, and learn the ancient Jewish art of debt collecting. 

Yehuda: Ancient?

Shimon: You ever hear about a shtetl without debt collectors?  

Yehuda: Ancient makes it sound like it's in the Toyrah. 

Shimon: Of course it's in the Toyrah! 

Yehuda: It is? 

Shimon: What do you think Moshe was doing?

Yehuda: Wasn't he taking the Yids out of Egypt?

Shimon: Richtig. He was taking the Yids out of Egypt by sending Pharaoh a bill of how many wages he owed. 

Yehuda: I don't remember that passage...

Shimon: Neither did Pharaoh. 

(we hear a large man coming up to them) 

Yehuda: Are we about to talk to Pharaoh?

(they get stopped by a large man) 

Polish Peasant: Tutaj sa! Here they are! Every time a family has a tragedy the Zhids are here to swoop in like vultures to drink the blood! 

Yehuda (whispers to Shimon): Charming...

Polish Peasant: The Jews are here! The Nowaks are inside. You'll find there is no blood left for you w(v)ampirs. 

(we hear the sounds of a priest intoning last rites) 

Polish Peasant: (suddenly trying not to break down crying) Maria, they're here. 

Maria Nowak: Oy wychwalac Boga. You come from God in heaven. 

Henrik Nowak: This is what we prayed for. 

Yehuda: (whispers to Shimon) This is not what you told me would happen. 

Maria: We have the money but we have to ask you...

Shimon: Let's take care of the money first. 

Henrik: Please just listen to what we have to ask. 

Shimon: We really ought to take care of the money. 

Henrik: But if you just listen to what we have to...

Shimon: It's really important that we take care of...

Henrik: If you just listen to what....

Shimon: We'll be happy to listen after but first...

Maria: PLEASE! If you Jews have an ounce of charity, you will listen! 

Shimon: (sighs) Alright Pani Nowak, what would you like to tell us?

Maria: You have such eyes for business, and we have such things to sell you. 

Shimon: Oh dear, we should...

Maria: Look (goes over to furniture and opens drawer)... This broach, it belonged to Henrik's mother and her mother before her. It came from a Boyar who loved Henrik's. 

Shimon: That's very lovely but we really don't have...

Maria: Or these pisnaki, look at these eggs that were painted by my son...

Yehuda: Wow Mrs. Nowak, those are truly beautiful. 

Shimon: Yehuda! Sha!... They are truly beautiful, but unfortunately we don't have the mo....

Maria: Or my mother's shawl. She made it when she was pregnant with me, her first daughter, and wore it every day until she died when I was six. 

Shimon: That's truly beautiful but surely you'd want to keep something that means so much to you...

Maria: Or maybe you'd like what's under the shawl more... (we hear Maria rubbing Shimon's kapoteh) 

Shimon: Mrs. Nowak, please, my brother and I are respectable people, as we know you are. 

Henrik: Your brother?! Perhaps you would like some smoked cheese to take home to your matka?

Yehuda: That's a lovely offer but unfortunately we can't eat it. 

Maria: We know we're not good enough for you, but please... we have lived together for so long.... surely you see how we are suffering...

Shimon: Mrs. Nowak I assure you that we have nothing but regret that we have to do this job but...





Sunday, April 24, 2022

ONL - Scene 6 - Second Draft - Too Long

The grandfather clock of the Wolf's house transforms into a distant church bell. We follow Shimon and Yehuda walking in the woods.) 

Yehuda: It's noon. 

Shimon: (sarcastically) b'emes?

Yehuda: I'm just saying it's later than it should be. Isn't it?

Shimon: It's not late. 

Yehuda: But the balebos said be back by 1. 

Shimon: The balebos will wait. 

Yehuda: The balebos was very specific about what time we need to be back. 

Shimon: The balebos will understand. 

Yehuda: But it's already noon!

Shimon: It's not that late. 

Yehuda: What do you mean it's not that late? It's noon and we haven't even gotten daw yet!

Shimon: We'll get there when we get there. For the goyim it's noon for us it's whatever time they say. 

Yehuda: For us it's noon too. 

Shimon: For us it's whatever time the goyim tell us it is. 

Yehuda: Well for the goyim it's noon. 

Shimon: You obviously don't know goyim. 

Yehuda: I've known enough. 

Shimon: If you've known enough you'll know that it's whatever time they tell you it is. 

Yehuda: What time will they tell me it is?

Shimon: Ask them.

Yehuda: Shimi, if the goyim think it's noon, why wouldn't it be noon?

Shimon: You're a greycer mensch Yehuda, figure it out. 

Yehuda: Because...

Shimon: Becaaaaause....

Yehuda: Because... 

Shimon: Koom on...

Yehuda: Because goyim lie to us?

Shimon: Emes! You got it! If we were still in kheyder Tateh would give you a stupid frize. 

Yehuda: What are they gonna lie about?

Shimon: That they don't have the money, putz. 

Yehuda: Why wouldn't they have the money?

Shimon: They never have the money. 

Yehuda: They don't?

Shimon: That's what they always tell us. 

Yehuda: But they're lying?

Shimon: They're always lying. 

Yehuda: Why would they lie to us?

Shimon: You can't possibly be as much of an amoretz as you look. 

Yehuda: Seriously, why would they tell us that unless they...?

Shimon: Because they don't want to pay us the money!

Yehuda: But they have the money?

Shimon: Of course they have the money! They usually have it because we gave it to them! 

Yehuda: OK... Ot azay.... Nu, so how we gonna get it from them?

Shimon: We get it from them by waiting. 

Yehuda: What do you mean?

Shimon: We get it from them by not leaving. 

Yehuda: You mean, we just stay there? In the goyim's house?

Shimon: Emes. 

Yehuda: Why would that help?

Shimon: If you're a goy do you want Jews on your lawn?

Yehuda: If I'm a goy I'd eat some pork first. 

Shimon: Yehuda, we're Jews, we're Zhids, seeing us on their lawn makes questions. 

Yehuda: Makes questions?

Shimon: If Jews are visiting you, something's usually wrong. 

Yehuda: What's wrong?

Shimon: Like maybe you owe money. 

Yehuda: That's a question?

Shimon: Or maybe you've made some bad friends. 

Yehuda: Like Jews?

Shimon: Sure, like Jews. 

Yehuda: Every goy beats us up and we're the bad friends?

 Shimon: Not every goy beats us up. 

Yehuda: If a goy a reason, he'll beat us up.  

Shimon: Not every goy is a Kowalski. 

Yehuda: Every goy is a Kowalski, they just don't know it yet. 

Shimon: A Kowalski? Not every goy is a merderer...

Yehuda: Tell any goy in Bransk that we're secretly carrying bags of gold around everywhere, see how quickly those nice farmers cut through us with that knife you got in your zak. 

Shimon: But why would they believe we've got bags of gold? They see how poor we are. 

Yehuda: Not all of us are poor. You been to the Wolf house lately?

Shimon: And how many Bransker live like Wolfs except Mrs. Wolf?

Yehuda: The point's there are rich Jews.

Shimon: How many rich Jews are there in Bransk?

Yehuda: Well there's the Wolfs and then...

Shimon: According to the Bransker we're rich Jews.

Yehuda: Who thinks we're rich Jews?

Shimon: You see many families that can afford eleven sons? 

Yehuda: That's luck!

Shimon: They all know about Ezra. 

Yehuda: Ezra.... why isn't he giving us money again?

Shimon: He's still giving us money. 

Yehuda: Not as much as he used to. 

Shimon: We can make our own money now. 

Yehuda: You call this money?

Shimon: It's a job. 

Yehuda: We should have become rabbis. 

Shimon: You wanna be like Tateh and spend your life beating up vildeh chayehs?

Yehuda: You've been to the Rabbi's house, somehow he's living pretty grays.

Shimon: How many Rabbis become a Rebbe with their own court?

Yehuda: What about Z'vulun, he's an illui. 

Shimon: Even if he's the smartest Yid in the world, and he might be, he has as much chance of becoming a Rebbe with his own court as Mameh does. 

Yehuda: Well there should be more Rebbes' courts. 

Shimon: Why would that be?

Yehuda:  A town who wants to have machers always has a rabbi who's a macher. 

Shimon: How's that working out for us?

Yehuda: It would be worse if we didn't have a famous Rabbi. 

Shimon: He's not famous

Yehuda: Rabbi Schkop was. 

Shimon: He's not Rabbi Schkop. He's not even related to Rabbi Schkop. 

Yehuda: He will be when he's older... What's it take to become a famous Rabbi? 

Shimon: Well first you need to get a Bar Mitzvah...

Yehuda: Seriously, if Jews had more Rebbes there would be more machers.  

Shimon: If Jews had more Rebbes there wouldn't be enough following to make machers. 

Yehuda: Is that the heus up ahead?

Shimon: Yeah. It's yenem. 

Yehuda: What am I supposed to do?

Shimon: Zey shtil like a good Yiddisher kop, let me do the talking, and learn the ancient Jewish art of debt collecting. 

Yehuda: Ancient?

Shimon: You ever hear about a shtetl without debt collectors?  

Yehuda: Ancient makes it sound like it's in the Toyrah. 

Shimon: Of course it's in the Toyrah! 

Yehuda: It is? 

Shimon: What do you think Moshe was doing?

Yehuda: Wasn't he taking the Yids out of Egypt?

Shimon: Richtig. He was taking the Yids out of Egypt by sending Pharaoh a bill of how many wages he owed. 

Yehuda: I don't remember that passage...

Shimon: Neither did Pharaoh. 

(we hear a large man coming up to them) 

Yehuda: Are we about to talk to Pharaoh?

(they get stopped by a large man) 

Polish Peasant: Tutaj sa! Here they are! Every time a family has a tragedy the Zhids are here to swoop in like vultures to drink the blood! 

Yehuda (whispers to Shimon): Charming...

Polish Peasant: The Jews are here! The Nowaks are inside. You'll find there is no blood left for you w(v)ampirs. 

(we hear the sounds of a priest intoning last rites) 

Polish Peasant: (suddenly sounds on the verge of crying) Henrik, they're here. 

Henrik Nowak: 


ONL: Bransk 1899 - Scene 6

 (The grandfather clock of the Wolf's house transforms into a distant church bell. We follow Shimon and Yehuda walking in the woods.) 

Yehuda: It's noon. 

Shimon: (sarcastically) b'emes?

Yehuda: I'm just saying it's later than it should be. Isn't it?

Shimon: It's not late. 

Yehuda: But the balebos said be back by 1. 

Shimon: The balebos will wait. 

Yehuda: The balebos was very specific about what time we need to be back. 

Shimon: The balebos will understand. 

Yehuda: But it's already noon!

Shimon: It's not that late. 

Yehuda: What do you mean it's not that late? We haven't even gotten daw yet!

Shimon: We'll get there when we get there. For the goyim it's noon for us it's whatever time they say. 

Yehuda: For us it's noon too. 

Shimon: For us it's whatever time the goyim tell us it is. 

Yehuda: Well for the goyim it's noon. 

Shimon: You obviously don't know goyim. 

Yehuda: I've known enough. 

Shimon: If you've known enough you'll know that it's whatever time they tell us it is. 

Yehuda: What time will they tell us it is?

Shimon: Ask them.

Yehuda: Shimi, if the goyim think it's noon, why wouldn't it be noon?

Shimon: You're a greycer mensch Yehuda, figure it out. 

Yehuda: Because...

Shimon: Becaaaaause....

Yehuda: Because... 

Shimon: Koom on...

Yehuda: Because goyim lie to us?

Shimon: Emes! You got it! If we were still in kheyder Tateh would give you a stupid frize. 

Yehuda: What are they gonna lie about?

Shimon: That they don't have the money, putz. 

Yehuda: Why wouldn't they have the money?

Shimon: They never have the money. 

Yehuda: They don't?

Shimon: That's what they always tell us. 

Yehuda: But they're lying?

Shimon: They're always lying. 

Yehuda: Why would they lie to us?

Shimon: You can't possibly be as much of an amoretz as you look. 

Yehuda: Seriously, why would they tell us that unless they...?

Shimon: Because they don't want to pay us the money!

Yehuda: But they have the money?

Shimon: Of course they have the money! They usually have it because we gave it to them! 

Yehuda: OK... Ot azay.... Nu, so how we gonna get it from them?

Shimon: We get it from them by waiting. 

Yehuda: What do you mean?

Shimon: We get it from them by not leaving. 

Yehuda: You mean, we just stay there? In the goyim's house?

Shimon: Exactly. 

Yehuda: But won't they beat us up?

Shimon: Not every goy is a Kowalski. 

Yehuda: Every goy is a Kowalski, they just don't know it yet. 

Shimon: Every goy? Not every goy is a merderer...

Yehuda: Tell any goy in Bransk that we're secretly carrying bags of gold around everywhere, see how quickly those nice farmers cut through us with that sickle you got in your bag. 

Shimon: But why would they believe we've got bags of gold? They see how poor we are. 

Yehuda: Not all of us are poor. You been to the Wolf house lately?

Shimon: And how many Bransker live like Wolfs except Mrs. Wolf?

Yehuda: The point's there are rich Jews.

Shimon: How many rich Jews are there in Bransk?

Yehuda: Well there's the Wolfs and then...

Shimon: According to the Bransker we're rich Jews, you see us eating with silver forks lately?

Yehuda: You've been to the Rabbi's house, somehow he's living pretty grays.

Shimon: You would too if your followers insisted on giving you everything they have.  

Yehuda:  And why shouldn't we. A town who wants to have machers always has a rabbi who's a macher. 

Shimon: How's that working out for us?

Yehuda: It would be worse if we didn't have a famous Rabbi. 

Shimon: He's not famous

Yehuda: Rabbi Schkop was. 

Shimon: He's not Rabbi Schkop. He's not even related to Rabbi Schkop. 

Yehuda: He will be... What's it take to become a famous Rabbi? 

Shimon: Well first you need to get a Bar Mitzvah...

Yehuda: Is that the heus up ahead?

Shimon: Yeah. It's yenem. 

Yehuda: What am I supposed to do?

Shimon: Zey shtil like a good Yiddisher kop, let me do the talking, and learn the ancient Jewish art of debt collecting. 

Yehuda: Ancient?

Shimon: You ever hear about a shtetl without debt collectors?  

Yehuda: Ancient makes it sound like it's in the Toyrah. 

Shimon: Of course it's in the Toyrah! 

Yehuda: It is? 

Shimon: What do you think Moshe was doing?

Yehuda: Wasn't he taking the Yids out of Egypt?

Shimon: Richtig. He was taking the Yids out of Egypt by sending Pharaoh a bill of how many wages he owed. 

Yehuda: I don't remember that passage...

Shimon: Neither did Pharaoh. 

(we hear a large man coming up to them) 

Yehuda: Are we about to talk to Pharaoh?

(they get stopped by a large man) 

Polish Peasant: Tutaj sa! Here they are! Every time a family has a tragedy the Zhids are here to swoop in like vultures to drink the blood! 

Yehuda (whispers to Shimon): Charming...

Polish Peasant: The Jews are here! The Nowaks are inside. You'll find there is no blood left for you w(v)ampirs. 


Friday, April 22, 2022

Underrated Classical Musicians: Karel Husa

Only in America.
I've made this point before, but Karel Husa is one of the most American stories in all of music. No American composer wrote more emotionally difficult music. His language is basically the language of Schoenberg around 1910. His music is as lacerating and technically difficult as Wozzeck. It speaks to the trauma of the entire European experience in the 20th century. And yet it found huge success here. How? Because it's written for Concert Band. This is a composer who found success by using the language of Erwartung and Pierrot Lunaire in the ensembles of John Philip Sousa.
Only in America!
Concert Band is, I believe, the future of American orchestral music, and has been for a hundred years. It is so underutilized by American composers who should know so much better. It is the least fashionable ensemble and yet it practically guarantees performances. It is still a blank slate waiting for an American Haydn to completely recreate American classical music. The repertoire is still so underdeveloped that it still subsists on arrangements of orchestral and pop music, and the original music is still the general purview of such august names in music history as Frank Ticheli and H. Owen Reed. Orchestras may die out, but the marching band will always be the most sophisticated musical ensemble in every small American town. There will always be three to five rehearsals every week in the autumn, where it will always take the time to figure out how to perform music in 7, 9, and 11 while moving in formation during halftime.
Only in America.
Jim Svejda, whatever his political nuttiness, is as musically knowledgeable as a summer day is long, and he routinely referred to Husa as the greatest living composer. I didn't agree - there are always far too many claimants, but he knew whereof he spoke. This is perhaps the only composer in the world who threaded the needle with the golden thread sought by nearly every composer of his Cold War generation: he wrote the most complex atonal music, and was beloved for it.
Only in America!

Thursday, April 21, 2022

Live Lupu

 So the last few days I've been listening to any live Lupu performance in terrible sound I can get my hands on. Lupu was already a favorite, but he was just another favorite. But now I've been absolutely transfixed on a level I've never been. THIS is the Lupu about which everybody voices awe.

Of course the famous studio stuff is great, but it's also flawed and peculiar in a way nobody talks about. It always reminded me of Emil Gilels's famous recordings - the moments of greatness and mastery were always somehow interrupted, and there was a weird bipolarity between the quiet intimacy and the loud virtuosity that often have little to do with each other. Yes, of course the quiet touch is exactly as masterly as everybody talks about, but there's a reason everybody talks about that and not about his loud playing, which often sounds as though he's playing another piece.
But live is not that. Live is never that. This is like all my very favorite artists (not necessarily the greatest, just favorites): this is Kubelik and Busch and Monteux and Fricsay, this is Moisewitch and Solomon and Firkusny and Cherkassky. What we're hearing is 'risk management.' It is the ability to take the most astonishing risks in the moment of performance, and seemingly land every one of them with a quantum level of control. I have no idea how it's done, but everything is simultaneously spontaneous and planned, controlled and yet soaring with absolute freedom.
My late 'best musical friend' Mark Beaulieu would occasionally sing the praises of Abbado, a love I never shared. He said that in live circumstances, Abbado's the mixture of control and spontaneity was like 'tracing how water moves on a flower pedal.' That's exactly how I felt hearing Mariss Jansons in concert. Everything always felt spontaneous in performance, and yet millions of details came out in the most incontrovertible inevitability. But that seems to be Lupu's level of performance awareness, and it is the most enlivening feeling in musical performance.
Listen to this D. 960. I never thought I could tire of this piece, but I've listened to it so many times at this point I'm almost sick of it. I thought I've become exhausted by it and couldn't find a pianist who'd give me anything more in it. Objectively speaking, the pianist who comes closest to my conception of this piece is Curzon. I love Firkusny, I love Brendel, I love Schnabel and Kempff, de Larrocha, Badura-Skoda, Kovacevich, Schiff, and of course, Lupu...
But here it is. A performance that tells me this piece is about something different than I thought it was. Leaving aside all of Curzon's obvious ability with color, what I appreciate about Curzon above all the others is the 'comedy.' This work is every bit as serious as we think it is, but real seriousness includes fun. In Curzon, you almost hear the burlesque house in the outer movements, and for once, Curzon is a pianist who does the scherzo at a real landler tempo. When I hear Curzon, I think of Beethoven's 4th symphony, a comedy with constant dark interruptions. Curzon's Schubert meets death with smiles.
But for once, here is a performance that is truly everything people say D. 960 is about. Here is Alex Ross's 'trill of death.' Under Lupu live, this is truly a poem about death. You feel the sickness, you feel the terror, you feel the depression, you feel the anger, you feel the compassion and forgiveness and peace. It meets Curzon's smiles with frowns, and if Curzon gives a perfect etching of Schubert planned from the outside, Lupu illuminates it from within with light from heaven.


Why I Can't Listen to Murray Perahia

 Right after Radu's death, his pianistic bff Murray Perahia turns 75. For my entire adulthood so far I have tried to adapt myself to Perahia's playing, and failed miserably. Over the years I have learned to desperately love the playing of other 'Very Serious Pianists' who used to somewhat revolt me like Brendel and Schiff, and in just the last 48 hours, Radu Lupu has come to seem like an ideal even beyond what I ever thought he was.

What has irritated me in the past about guys like Brendel and Schiff is how little the wider world mattered in their artistry. Other pianists have huge repertoire and overwhelming personality in everything they play. Sometimes these pianists do too, but even among the ones I love, it sometimes seems as though something as profane as a personality would violate the sensibilities of these priests of music.
There is a specific type of pianist who wears his or her modesty with a Capital M, and fills their recitals with little but Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, with some Bach or Brahms thrown in occasionally to spice things up - or Schumann if they're feeling particularly adventurous. If there's Liszt or Chopin, it's to make a point about their more 'musicianly' qualities which crasser pianists ignore, and therefore antithetical to the populist spirit of these two ultimate piano composers. There's nothing Russian in their concerts, there's rarely even any Debussy or Ravel, and an extreme paucity of 20th century music, let alone 21st...
Music is a temple to them, and wonders of the wider world pass them by completely. They're possessed of musical sensibilities so fine that no idea can violate them, and therefore nothing learned from their performances, no new insights, just high-minded perfection without any trace of kitsch, which might ultimately be the most kitschy quality of all. But of all those high-minded pianists, there is none quite so gratingly 'high-minded' as Perahia.
Brendel, Schiff, Lupu, all three come from the Austro-Hungarian lands where Mozart and Schubert are the lingua franca. The music of their homes is a perfectly legitimate way to process the trauma of growing up in their fatherlands. And if their conceptions once seemed studied and imposed, they have come to inhabit the music far more simply and naturally with age. But no such evolution has happened to Murray Perahia. His playing is still just conventionally exquisite like a luxury chocolate.
Perahia is not from bombed out Budapest or provincial Romania, he's from the fucking Bronx... He grew up not just around Bernstein and Rubinstein but with the sounds of Jazz, R&B and Brill Building echoing everywhere. There was a whole world of music surrounding him on every streetcorner, and it seemed to have no effect on him at all. Manny Ax, Peter Serkin, Jeffrey Kahane, Garrick Ohlsson, they all took on the wider world of music with all its experiments and innovations, but Perahia took no notice and simply played on as though he has to pass another Juilliard performance jury tomorrow.
After 75 years, Perahia has never given a single performance with a single phrase which could possibly be construed as being in questionable taste. He's the perfect product of America's A-list musical education, with pedigrees of studying with Serkin and Schneider and Casals and Horszowski, and has never given a performance that could disappoint such fine teachers. He is, in a word, the ultimate 'High Priest of the Piano', and has rarely given a performance with so much as an interesting idea in it.
Maybe all of this is Freudian....

Monday, April 18, 2022

For Radu Lupu

 


This live sonata from Lupu at 29 is particularly one of the greatest Schubert recordings ever made. One of the greatest piano recordings ever made. One of the greatest experiences you can have in music....
I never heard Lupu live as an adult. I saw him at 11 or 12 do Beethoven's First Piano Concerto with David Zinman. I have much more vivid memories of Zinman's pre-performance talk, in which he claimed that Lupu agreed to a taped interview rather than talk on the stage. Zinman played the tape, and it was clearly Zinman doing what must ostensibly be a Radu Lupu impression, in which he answered with monosyllables that got increasingly absurd. Zinman and Lupu were apparently good friends - I'd imagine Zinman did the talking....
I may have heard him at 15 do Beethoven's 4th piano concerto, I'm not sure, but I should think by 15 my memories would be extraordinarily vivid, and I have no memory of it except that I saw a Beethoven 4 sometime around then. In college, I was supposed to hear Lupu with the National Symphony doing Mozart 24, again conducted by David Zinman, who always gets the best soloists. Lupu sadly cancelled, and instead we heard Peter Serkin. I remember that Zinman was wonderful - as his Mozart always was, while Serkin was perfectly adequate, but he was no Lupu.
Everybody who heard Lupu live said that recordings could not possibly do him justice. What must his live playing have been like then....
Like all the greats, the broadcasts of Lupu's live playing showed a player clearly different in substance from his great but sometimes over-meticulous studio recordings.
We tend to think of Radu Lupu as one of the great exponents of tradition - performing the most traditional Austro-German repertoire in its traditional contours, but doing it to an unparalleled standard.
But the truth is he was anything but a standard-issue Austro-German player. He studied not in Germany but in Soviet Moscow with the famed Heinrich Neuhaus - a Polish pianist who taught both Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels, and in some ways he was much more a Gilels/Richter successor than Schnabel or Kempff. For all Lupu's fame in Schubert, Brahms, and Mozart, it was undermentioned that he sometimes brought a virtuoso ostentation that was a little detrimental to the spirit of these inward composers. I have to admit, among the Very Serious Pianist set, I prefer Brendel and Schiff. Neither of them have Lupu's gift. Lupu was a genius of the piano, Brendel and Schiff are 'merely' transcendent artists. But the skilled artisan has to work harder, see more, travel further. Brendel and Schiff are both much plainer pianists, and were forced to magnetize audiences by delaying their gratification until they see the whole view; whereas a genius like Lupu or Richter often seemed to play as a series of a million transcendent instants. Their performances don't have Lupu's thousand moments of infinity, but over spans of a half hour, they take us to infinity note by note, and by the end, they (I think) show us a longer, more secure view to the world beyond the world.
The contradiction of an artist like Lupu is the same as artists like Lipatti, Gulda, Casadesus, and Josef Hofmann. He's simultaneously a pianist completely at the service of the music rather than himself, and also a pianist whose uniqueness has absolutely indefinable magnetism. His other great teacher was the wonderfully named Floria Musicescu, who also taught Dinu Lipatti. Hearing Lupu was as though we got to hear Lipatti age. It is the same mix of self-effacement, poetry, quietude, and the hint of Romani ostentation.
So long as the classical piano repertoire exists, Lupu gets his own page in the chapter of our time. When a great pianist like Zoltan Koscis died, everyone was shocked, and yet the mourning was rather muted. Objectively speaking, Kocsis was without a doubt the better pianist. He could do literally anything. His repertoire surpassed Lupu's by an exponent. Kocsis never missed a single trick - digitally or intellectually. Intellectually speaking, he understood everything there was to understand a piece of music and played his whole repertoire right up to the fourth dimension in which the idiom is mastered. He was an awesome artist in every respect.
So why is the grief for Lupu so much more palpable? Because Lupu put listeners directly at that fifth dimension, where music is not just mastered for its own sake, but is there to put us in touch with still higher things.
Music is not just on earth for its own sake - it is there to express, and it takes on the characteristics of the person who expresses it. Kocsis was another genius. To an extent I'm not sure any pianist has ever reached, you heard every salient characteristic of every composer in every bar Kocsis ever played. But you can also hear the chip on Koscis's shoulder vividly - as though the psychological price of that work ethic was present for all to see. For all his mastery and understanding, Koscis couldn't help but put his furious temper in every bar.
Lupu was the quietest, most withdrawn of people, and those quiet moments of his playing were what we valued. In those many many moments when he brushed the keyboard like a celestial harp, he embodied the fifth dimension of music; where we see with our ears.