Another week goes by

We left our hero rehearsing songs for the harvest festival on a sad Thursday afternoon. After another long rehearsal on Friday afternoon, the band were ready to accompany the songs during the hour long ceremony. I think that the performance went well, although by the end, I was very tired and could hardly move my left arm (all those barre chords). Here's a photo

I'm the one with the green cap on the right hand side. Isn't it strange that all the wind instruments are played by children (the oldest is 17), whereas the guitars are all played by aging bearded men (I'm the youngest and I'll be 50 shortly!).

We've been in the midst of a three week heat wave which only broke two days ago. Until then, we've had temperatures reaching 37°C outside (nearly 100 degrees F). Of course, our air conditioner stopped working in the first days of the heat wave and as a result the temperature in the lounge has often reached 31°C, making it almost unbearable to be inside. During the week, things weren't so bad, because I could spend all day in my air-conditioned office, but the weekends were tough. Anyway, we've now got a new air conditioner installed - only to find that the temperatures have dropped and we don't need to turn it on. The weather forecast predicts that the great furnace in the sky is going to heat up again on Tuesday.

I went swimming for the first time this season on Sunday evening. We have an open air pool which traditionally opens at Shavu'ot, and from 6:30pm to 7:30pm is an hour set aside for adults who want to swim lengths. After swimming several lengths breast stroke, my left shoulder began aching, so I decided to swim one length back stroke and then stop. Just as well, as that length left me totally knackered, so much so that I couldn't do anything all evening.

On Monday I finally was told some of the songs which are going to be in the children's show in mid-July which is the climax of their bar mitzva year. The person who has been chosen to be the director has - in my opinion - been vacillating and wasting valuable time by not informing us, the writer and musical director, what is needed. As soon as I knew, I set to work. The first two evenings I spent arranging one song in a variety of styles; these will form the incidental music between scenes. Once those were out of the way, I could tackle the closing song. This was ironically the closing song of the Shavu'ot festival (albeit with different words), so its chord structure was fresh in my mind.

After one evening's work produced a two verse version which was very stilted and not really there, I started afresh with a different intro (shamelessly adapted from the opening of Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting") which then led into a much better version. My instructions were "four verses and be bombastic"; my songs don't normally have so many verses, and I try my hardest NOT to be bombastic, so this was quite a challenge. Anyway, by Thursday evening I had an almost complete version, and I spend Friday afternoon polishing it up. By this time I had received the new lyrics and recorded a few takes as a demo.

Earlier on Friday afternoon, I, along with most of the kibbutz and a large number of people from outside, attended the funeral of the member who had died the week before. Jewish tradition prefers that the funeral take place as soon as possible, which is normally the same day or the day after death, but in this case, the body had to be flown back from Russia, and of course the arrangements take time. It was a long funeral in which many people felt inspired to speak. As opposed to non-Jewish funerals which I've seen (on television), all the speeches were made at the graveside whilst the mourners stand under the sweltering sun.

I often have mixed feelings about these funerals. Whilst attending them is a mark of respect, there's no one standing around with a card marking who attends and who does not. The person who should be hearing all the epitaphs is the one person who can't hear them. It's more important - and more personal - to visit the bereaved family after the funeral. I've written about this before at length so I won't go into it again.