Re: Dylan and Alex J. Unplugged

[the Cheshire Cat <alanacat...>]

STOP! Please. Your constant insults at Ari only make you look bad.  For
heaven's sake, have some gratitude for the work Ari does, and stop whining
about your review already.

2. Yes, Alex was properly removed. I would have done the same thing on a
list I moderated. One has to have some standards, and insults certainly
break them.

A. Suskin



On Thu, 12 Mar 1998, Kame'a Media wrote:

> Ari Davidow  wrote:
>  I don't think one could make the case that
> > Bob Dylan's music is Jewish. =He= is Jewish, his social
> > concerns and outlook may be those that some of us embrace
> > as Jewish (excluding his Christian period), but there is
> > nothing in his music that ties directly to any Jewish
> > tradition beyond the vaguely prophetic.
> 
> Ari:  I  respectfully request that you DO NOT pull the plug on Alex.  He
> may be abrasive,  but we can learn from him.  As you are under the
> impression that you are doing this somewhat on my behalf,  I must say
> that what you yourself have posted in cyberspace  regarding
> "Transmigrations" is far worse.  You took a dump on the memory of the
> Six Million and casually insulted Holocaust survivors and their
> families. You used my CD (in part) as a vehicle  to push your own
> personal  brand of  brass-balls-and-an-Uzi politics. 
> 
> That said,---
> 
> Are you suffering from post-<grogger> stress syndrome?
> 
> Dylan puts  more Jewishness (honesty, determination and sheer timeless
> poetry)  into one song,  no--one line,  than  a hundred
> pine-reproduction furniture-music klezmer bands could in their wildest
> dreams.   By your half-baked standards, any clarinet-based  band would
> be considered  "more Jewish" than Dylan because that instrument  is 
> more closely tied to (what you call)  Jewish musical tradition than
> electric guitar.   Preposterous. 
> 
> You persist in the childish notion that, in order to be Jewish,  music
> must  wear your preferred syle of musical clothing.   Certain sounds
> apparently  stimulate  your auditory pleasure organs, but you cannot
> muster any real criteria for  your pompous utterances.   Not  everyone
> has had your  bourgeois- suburban brand American-Jewish  background,
> although you would apparently like  that to be so,  because  you seem to
> have a great prejudice (rooted in fear, no doubt) against those who do
> not reflect your idealized Jewish image. 
> 
> I have come to know  you  to be an insecure  person,  threatened  by 
> non-comformity,  both in music and in people's  personal styles,  as was
> made all too clear in  the  meat-cutting exercise you call a <review> of
> "Transmigrations".  
> 
> How many times have you revised  this <review>  by  now  to cover your
> tracks regarding the most obviously  ridiculous stuff?    And I  know
> this has  only  been done because I  had the lack of etiquette to
> actually challenge you.  Am I  supposed to  feel good about "Marlboro
> Man" being replaced with  "strong, silent type".   You'll have to
> enlighten me as to how a guy who sings on every track of his CD  can be
> characterized as "silent". 
> 
> Have you  come to see the presumptuousness of attempting to review a
> Yiddish album when you do not speak the language,  let alone possess 
> any  musical or academic qualifications to do so, save being a fan?  
> 
> Your reviews, even of the bands and singers you like,  are painfully 
> lacking  in  subststance.  (Brown-nosing  is of itself, not  considered
> to be a valid and dominant theme to a review  by  most  competant music 
> journalists).
> Example:  On Adrienne Cooper's album,  one song is referred to as "the
> transcendent 'Zol Shoyn Kumen Di Geule'. "  On "Transmigrations",  the
> very same composition   is disparaged as a "victim's song of
> redemption."  I'd love to have that explained to me.    
> 
> Do us a favor and stick to compiling resources and such.  We all
> appreciate the work you put into that.   And, <Borukh HaShem>, you are
> good at it!   Skill with computers  alone cannot make one a Jewish music
> <maven>. 
> 
> You continue to prove yourself the Pavlov's Dog of Jewish Music
> "writers",
> giddily  wagging  your <shvantz> at those  whose sound resonates with
> you  and, pissing on those you do not have either  the depth or mental
> energy  to try  and understand.
> 
> Wolf Krakowski
> http://www.kamea.com
> 
> "...the embodiment of Old World meets New."  
>                                                            -Pakn-Treger
> (National Yiddish Book Center)
> 
>    "...dangerous and untrue."
>                                                            -Ari
> Davidow's Klezmer Shack
> 

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   0  0 \     /***\      <- Ferret (otherwise known as weaselus snorkelus)
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Alana Suskin,
Mitnaggedet Mama