Re: Wedding of two Jewish musicians, featured in NY Times

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

What a sweet story.  Nu, who played the wedding?
Lorele

Marvin Margoshes wrote:

>  
> The New York Times Sponsored by Starbucks 
> <http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1012>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>           June 29, 2003
>
>
>     Annette Ezekiel and Jeremy Parzen
>
> By KATHRYN SHATTUCK
>
>
> A NNETTE EZEKIEL drifted into her 30's prepared not to marry. "I was 
> completely accepting of that," she said. "My mother is divorced, and I 
> was used to being on my own. I'm a tough girl."
>
> Last year, Ms. Ezekiel, a classically trained pianist, dancer and 
> linguist, who tutors children in French, had a vision. While playing 
> her first wedding as the vocalist, accordionist and de facto leader of 
> Golem, a klezmer-rock band, she looked around the Metropolitan 
> Building, a converted warehouse in Long Island City, Queens, and 
> decided that if she were to marry, it would be there.
>
> Not that she ever would.
>
> That was early February. That month, Golem was booked at Makor, a 
> Jewish center on the Upper West Side, as the opening act for Les Sans 
> Culottes, a group of faux-French rockers with names like Maurice 
> Chevrolet and Celine Dijon. Ms. Ezekiel was backstage, chattering 
> nervously, as she is wont to do before a show, when she started 
> discussing "The Producers," the Mel Brooks-Thomas Meehan musical, and 
> how Mr. Brooks's humor reflected her view of life.
>
> "I was talking, but no one was listening," she recalled. Or so she 
> thought, until Jeremy Parzen, a k a Cal D'Hommage, reared his 
> dyed-blond head and exclaimed, "The Producers!" Moments later, the two 
> burst into a medley of the show's songs.
>
> "Everyone thought we were completely crazy," she said. "And I was 
> thinking, who is this rock guy who loves show tunes like me? I also 
> secretly wanted to be with someone Jewish, though I never would have 
> admitted it. I could tell by the way he was singing that he was."
>
> The next day, Mr. Parzen sent her an e-mail message: "I loved singing 
> `The Producers' with you. Let's hang out some time." She squealed: 
> "Oh, my God, this is it. I knew right then he liked me."
>
> A garage-trained guitarist who turned a Ph.D. in Italian literature 
> into a job writing about Italy's food and wine, Mr. Parzen had then 
> been smitten with Ms. Ezekiel for more than a year, since playing 
> another gig together, though they had not yet spoken.
>
> "By the time it came to Feb. 23, I was wondering, how can I talk to 
> this young woman?" he said. "I was captivated by her performances. I 
> loved her music. And I had the biggest crush on her."
>
> After that first message, they corresponded by e-mail for a month, 
> leaving Ms. Ezekiel to wonder if he was going to ask her out.
>
> Date 1: A dinner invitation. "I went to his apartment, and he had an 
> elaborate three-course Italian meal waiting for me," she said. "We 
> listened to `The Producers' and drank Champagne. It was the most 
> romantic evening."
>
> The next day, he left for Italy, but not before she asked him to a 
> Passover seder at her mother's house in Jackson Heights, Queens, the 
> day of his return. He accepted.
>
> "I thought immediately, `What did I do?' " she said. "I called him and 
> said, `You know, it might be too much, and you're coming from the 
> airport and maybe you shouldn't.' "
>
> Date 2: Fast off the plane and freshly showered, Mr. Parzen made the 
> car service wait. "I realized I didn't have a jacket on," he said. "I 
> thought, `I think this is the girl I'm going to ask to marry me.' I 
> went back inside and put one on."
>
> Date 3: The next day, Mr. Parzen summoned Ms. Ezekiel to Central Park 
> and confessed his love.
>
> Last Sunday, they were wed at the Metropolitan Building amid tables 
> piled with fruits and vegetables and named for places like Tbilisi, 
> Minsk, Miami Beach, Jerusalem and Astoria. In a white gown gathered at 
> the hem and a long, lace-trimmed veil, Ms. Ezekiel evoked a tiny 
> Russian ballerina as she and Mr. Parzen twirled to the wails of klezmer.
>
> Judith Parzen, the bridegroom's mother, said: "One day I sat Jeremy 
> down and reminded him that he always said he didn't want to have 
> children. And he looked at me and said, `Not until I met Annette. 
> Think of how talented our children will be!' "
>
>
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