Passover in the Desert ... CyberFrequencies talks with a woman who tried to scam the email scammers ... Marimbist Naoko Takada ... Anna Russell's twenty-minute Ring Cycle.
Passover in the Desert
UPDATE: This piece is from the 2010 Off-Ramp archive
KPCC's John Rabe talks with two men who will be spending Passover -- which starts Monday evening -- in the desert.
To get back to their religious roots, Michael Chusid and Marc Weigensberg and up to forty other Jews will gather at a spot somewhere in the Mojave for several days. Away from the distractions of the modern world, they'll experience a Passover much more as their spiritual ancestors did, and not incidentally get closer to the earth. COME INSIDE for a link to their group's website, and an explanation of the tent, above.
Michael Chusid writes: "Dwelling in tents helps reconnect us to our 40 years in the desert. This community tent serves as our Sanctuary in the desert. Erecting it is a group effort that helps the individuals bond as a community. We decorate the inside with flags with the colors associated with the 12 tribes of Israel, and you can see four colored flags outside that indicate the cardinal directions. The board over the entry to the tent is painted to symbolize the blood that we put on the doorposts of our homes in Egypt the night that the Angel of Death passed over our homes. The rocks, the sky, the plants, and the critters that attend us are full of mystery and the Divine."
"Dot Conned' -- Diana Grove Scams the Cyber-Scammers
You've gotten those scam emails from the Nigerian prince who will give you his inheritance if you send him your checking account number? Well author Diana Grove almost got caught up in one of those scams. But instead of getting mad, she got even!
Grove tells CyberFrequencies co-hosts Queena Kim and Tanya Jo Miller that she answered every scam mail that came her way. Her goal: to get the Cyber Scammers mad by weaving outrageous tales of why they need to give her money!
Cyber Avatars John Rabe and Karen Fritsche give a dramatic readings of "Dot Conned".
To hear a reading that didn't make it into the book, check out www.CyberFrequencies.com
The Red Book comes to the Hammer; Rabe Family holds on to their copy
Carl Jung's celebrated Red Book may be influential and even beautiful, but according to John Rabe, it's hardly his funniest book. COME INSIDE for details.
The Hammer Museum is exhibiting Carl Jung’s “Red Book” from April 11th through June 6. It’s said to be the “most influential unpublished
work in the history of psychology by many contemporary scholars.” W. W. Norton & Co. has now published a facsimile edition, but there’s nothing like seeing the real thing.
News of the Hammer’s exhibit – the book’s only stop on the West Coast – reminded me of my blog posting from September, which follows below:
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(Carl Jung's "Other Red Book," in its usual place, next to "Schott's Miscellany" and the NYT Almanac.)
I, for one, was not surprised at all when I read the NY Times Magazine story this weekend about the forthcoming publication of Carl Jung's "Red Book," his illustrated account of a torturous break with reality that, Jung said, formed the basis for "all my works, all my creative activity."
Not surprised, because the Rabe family has owned Jung's "Second Red Book" for almost fifty years.
"You might find this mildly amusing," Jung told my father when he gave him this thick volume back in 1950, during one of Jung's frequent visits to my father's house in Detroit. The two would talk long into the night about the subconscious, Freud, and professional hockey, which was one of Jung's secret fascinations. ("Disaster will fall on America if the league expands," was one of his stock pronouncements.)
Inside the book, Jung wrote (in German), "This red book is funnier than the other red book." It's true. There's none of the gloom, doom, paranoia, and frankly depressing musings and dream recitations of the first book. In fact, the second Red Book has always had an honored place in Rabe bathrooms because of its amusing anecdotes, bon mots, and candid observations, all written in his own hand.
-- "Sigmund (Freud) was a bounder who didn't have the breeding to remove the band from one of his wretched cigars before smoking it."
-- "Sachen schauen immer auf Deutsch lustiger." ("Things always look funnier in German.")
-- Vienna is "nice to visit ... if you don't have to drive anywhere. But with traffic? Forget it!"
-- And, my favorite, "Egal wie stark ich versuche, steigt der pulverisierte Zucker immer ganz über meine Weste und in meine Uhrtasche ein." ("No matter how hard I try, the powdered sugar always goes all over my vest and into my watch pocket.")
W.W. Norton contacted us about publishing OUR Red Book, but we're gonna hold on to it for a while.
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After I posted this item, I got several e-mails from excited Jungsters asking, begging for us to publish the book. I didn't have the heart to tell them it was a fraud. Everyone knows (or so I thought) that Jung hated powdered donuts..
My brother James added a comment that was, as usually funnier than my original item:
“Long after I was supposed to be asleep, I remember sneaking to the top of the stairs and listening in. Their discussions were lively and sometimes heated. What I remember most is how they would argue, then it would get very quiet. It didn't last, tho...soon the room was filled with laughter as, in unison, they would recite the only truth upon which they agreed... ‘Camping macht Spaß, bis Sie in einem Zelt schlafen.’ (Camping is great fun, until you sleep in a tent.)”
(Image credit: Illustration from the Red Book by C.G. Jung. © by the Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung. Reprinted with permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.)
Free Concert Sunday by West LA Symphony features marimbist Naoko Takada
Some musicians you have to coax to talk -- or play. They're too shy or they're afraid they won't play perfectly. But talk and music just pour out of Naoko Takada, the Japan-born marimbist whose height is inversely proportional to her talent. She did her interview with Off-Ramp host John Rabe standing at the marimba that dominates her Los Angeles livingroom.
Come see her play for free Sunday, March 28th, at 7pm, at a free concert at UCLA's Royce Hall, as West Los Angeles Symphony maestro Sir Angel Romero conducts Kevin Puts's Marimba Concerto. (Also on the program: San Diego Symphony principal harpist Julie Ann Smith performs with the orchestra.)
COME INSIDE for more info and an exclusive Off-Ramp movie of Takada in action.
Naoko has two more concerts soon. Check the link on the left for one. The other is at the Orange Lutheran High School on May 15 (Saturday) at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door.
Marc Haefele: Before Ring Festival LA, check out Anna Russell
Anna Russell turned a lemon - her damaged singing voice - into lemonade for hundreds of thousands of adoring fans for decades. Marc Haefele says she's the perfect prelude (or antidote) to the upcoming Ring Cycle in Los Angeles.
KPCC's Molly Peterson interviews Pakistani human rights advocate Humaira Shahid
Humaira Shahid is a journalist and a former Pakistani legislator who has been an advocate for women’s rights.
She’s been in the U.S. this year as a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard. During that time. she's lobbied on Capitol Hill, speaking to lawmakers like Senator Barbara Boxer about U.S. policy towards Pakistan.
In Pakistan, Shahid wrote laws banning forced marriages and asset crimes like private money lending, where women are used as collateral for loans.
KPCC’s Molly Peterson caught up with Shahid as she lectured in Southern California as a visiting scholar at Deep Springs College.
Brian Watt visits an Eco Village in LA
An eco-village is a sustainable community where neighbors know each other well and together grow food and make decisions. There are tens of thousands of these “eco-villages” across the world, including the one KPCC’s Brian Watt visited in Los Angeles. (Brian’s piece was originally produced for The Tavis Smiley Show, which airs Friday nights at 11 here on 89.3-KPCC.)