Another review of Lorele's CD

[Lori Cahan-Simon <l_cahan...>]

Dear Friends,

I wanted to share this article that will be in the Spring volume of the 
Feminist Journal "Femspec"--a sort of review of my CD. I can't say I 
understand all of it, but I love how it turned out! :-)

I hope you enjoy reading it--
Lorele
* * *

Songs My Bubbe Should Have Taught Me Volume One Passover
The Lori Cahan-Simon Ensemble

Reviewed by Batya Weinbaum

Total playing time on this Cleveland-produced CD is 47:38.

The mythical remake for feminists seeking a magical real spin is 
Miriams Gezang (Miriams Song, 5:19, #8), which sings the part that 
Miriam had to do with getting us out of slavery and into the Promised 
Land. That was the answer the singer told me when
I approached her and asked her to take out an ad after a Workmans 
Circle Klezmer Orchestra performance in Beachwood, OH, at a community 
center (where I kept having deja vous feelings to a kibbutz) to support 
the Jewish issue of Femspec and so that she could get national and 
international exposure. She said no, as she was a poor struggling 
musician trying to make her living off her music who needed a patron or 
two herself, but would I review the CD. I said yes, inwardly groaning, 
all I needed was to take on more work for myself, if she could tell me 
how the CD fit into the mission of what the journal was trying to 
accomplish. She told me the folklore around Miriams well, kept alive in 
the shtetl, which I dont really recall now, and I took the CD home. But 
in listening to the CD, not understanding a word of Yiddish, but 
enjoying the lilt and the beat, which inevitably gets me up off my feet, 
I felt the recording does more than that. It keeps the fantasy of the 
world of European Jewry alive in our imagination, a world we were all a 
part of, a world that she and I a generation once removed were 
nevertheless touched by, though we never directly shared. Listening to 
her sing, even if it were not the specific tune of Miriams Well, 
activated deep wells and recesses and pools, of a subterranean fantasy 
life, one which flows deeper and faster and hotter and colder, one which 
curls at a pace swifter and in a current beyond the current stone hard 
rigid concrete parking lot cement stone reality that eclipses us in 
which chopped into pieces and fragments we currently manage to live day 
by day now. Some how, tuning into one of the groups greatest fans, I 
inevitably lead chains of spontaneous women dancers of all ages shapes 
and sizes from the audience, in the aisles, down from the hills, across 
the fronts of stages. She touches, moves and activates a cultural memory 
that runs deep. The Multi Phasic Personality Test currently has a 
questiondo you want to be a singer, True False. Perhaps, Loris CD 
isnt about fantasy, but is fantasy, is about keeping fantasy in 
reality, making fantasy about worlds that are past and gone part of our 
current reality. Redefining our present reality by dipping into the past 
and re-orienting the way we relate to present reality. Bringing our 
ethnic otherness into reality. Not drugging it out, isolating it as a 
symptom. Passing it on. Freud would be proud, Lori. Sing on.


Many Jewish Women have turned to Israel and turned to myth as a way to 
push the boundaries of the imagination.
ANNOUNCING THE JEWISH ISSUE!

Focusing on the issues of Jewish women in speculative and science 
fiction, issue 4.2 will contain:
- Gloria Orensteins Vision and Visibility
- A critical examination of Jewish women in Pulp Science Fiction by 
Susan Kray.
- Four pieces of fiction: Marylin Gales Lilith 1996, Sashas Harlem, 
E.M. Broners De-Winging the Angel, and Marleen Barrs Close Encounters 
with the Monica Kind.
- Four selected poems: Marilyn Jurichs Even death is uncertain, Carol 
Roses Ex-nihilo, Karen Alcalys One of those nights, and Lorraine 
Scheins  Goddess of Bergen Belson.
- Artwork by Marion Epstein.
- Several book reviews, inclduing Bob Charlick on Marge Piercys 
Sleeping with Cats, and Phyllis Lassner on Womens Holocaust Writing.

Wouldnt FEMSPEC be great for your classroom?
Bulk rates are available.
To place an order or subscription, please con tact
Caddo Gap Press at CaddoGap (at) aol(dot)com

-- 
You can now hear Lori's new CD, Songs My Bubbe Should Have Taught Me; Vol.1: 
Passover, at: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lcahan Only $15 & postage. Email me for 
more info.
 



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