El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos),
The Vision of Saint John, ca. 1608–14, oil on canvas, 87 1/2 x 76″. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Public domain.
I will remember 2020 not as a year of looking but as a year of listening. For months as the pandemic overtook New York, ambulance sirens sounded at all hours in strange choruses. When the sound of the sirens would break occasionally or fade into the distance after dawn, it was replaced not by eerie silence but by birdsong: the shrieks of the blue jays, the playful cheeps of the sparrows in the bushes, the eeks, chirps, and oddly varied sounds of the grackles everywhere. I wondered then, Were these sounds always here, and it was we who were made quiet? I rarely left my neighborhood of Ditmas Park, in Brooklyn, except to take my partner, Kate, pregnant with our second child, to appointments at the Manhattan hospital complex that was itself a hive of sirens that grew louder each time we approached. In my memory the siren
King Cakes for Mardi Gras, all things Yiddish, and a travel pass for future savings
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Updated January 20, 2021, 12:00 p.m.
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CELEBRATE KLEZMER AND ALL THINGS YIDDISH
You donât have to travel to Amherst to celebrate the 40th anniversaries of the Yiddish Book Center and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, both institutions have joined to present â40 Years in Yiddishland: The Yiddish Book Center celebrates the Klezmer Conservatory Band,â a 90-minute video broadcast that will include a historical overview of the bandâs history, along with rollicking-good concert footage from over the years. Video excerpts will include acclaimed productions such as âA Jumpinâ Night in the Garden of Edenâ (1986); âThe Fool and the Flying Shipâ with Robin Williams (1991); two PBS Great Performances specials; tribute greetings from well-known KCB collaborators, including Itzhak Perlman and