Neil Fein's Blog

The demo is finished. Next on the agenda:

Inspired by friends who are participating in National Novel Writing Month, also seeing projects like Album-in-a-Day and 24 hour Comics Day out there, I'll be spending November doing my own forced-creativity-crap-art project: One month, four songs.

Ground rules:

• At the end of the month, the songs must be finished, including music and lyrics. I'm setting a rule of no instrumentals, not because I think they're easier to write (they're much, much harder, in fact), but because I'm looking to write songs.


• The songs must be new. No taking of old material and giving it a new coat of paint. While there's nothing wrong with "raiding the archives", it's against the purpose of this exercise: Raw songs, first drafts (or close to it) that I'd be happy playing in public. While I'm of course going to be influenced by earlier music I've written, and they'll probably sound like past "Neil Fein" music, no wholesale lifting from the tape vault in my head is allowed. Think of it as halfway to improv songwriting.


• Songs must be set down in a form that would be accepted by the US copyright office. Essentially, this means either a melody lead sheet with chords and words, or record a demo. I don't need to register the copyrights, but the song must be in an archive-friendly format. This will assure, essentially, that the music is finished enough that I can set it down.


• Length: I'm going to be arbitrary and set down, total songeage must be at least 10 minutes of music. So, for example, if I write four songs that are nine and a half minutes when played, will write an additional song to cover the gap.

Why am I doing this? It's a variation on what I've done in the past when I need to jump-start myself out of writer's block. Instead of writing silly, meaningless songs to give myself an excuse to Not Be Profound with every note and word, I'm putting time aside (as much as I can) and producing songs. Having already put time aside in December for recording, maybe I'll even get a finished track or two out of this. Stranger things have happened, but that's not the point of this.

I'll post about what I write, of course. And I'll appreciate your feedback, even if just to encourage me to keep plugging away.

Tags: music, 1m4s

Simchat Torah, 23rd Tishri, 5766

We ended up not going to shul for Simchat Torah this year, Martha wasn't feeling well, and I was pretty tired. (Not sure if I had yet caught the same bug at that point.) The following weekend, I sat down with two translations of the Torah, the JPS version with commentary, and Richard Elliot Friedman's version, and read the last and then the first readings.

The JPS version is more conservative, but more comprehensive. While Friedman is more literal in his translation, he also points out much of the reasoning behind his translation. Cain crying, "Am I my brother's watchman?" is a pun off of the cherubs watching over the garden, and other iterations of the word. One keeps me from flying off into never-never land. But the Friedman translation is far more interesting.

Also, we took down the sukkah today. We left the wood foundation, until we figure out how to store it, or if we'll take that apart as well. This is an improvement over last year; I remember how the snow looked on the sukkah frame.

Judaism

Keep forgetting to post this, I made a new song for ArtDiff, Late. Orchestral backing behind why I'm running late in the snow. I wrote words and the music for the verses, need music for the chorus. Now need to get the group together in one room to record it, maybe do the chorus music by committee.

Tags: music

Just watched "Silence of the lambs". Martha had never seen it before. It's less creepy, now that 16 years of serial-killer-fascination have crept into American culture.

Kinda sick. (Me, not the film.) Feeling better, but not completely healthy yet. Maybe will actually go out of the house tomorrow.

I mised a great-sounding halloween party; maybe next year.

EDIT: Martha and watched the film after she got home from the party, not in place of.


Tags: movies

Am in the process of uploading neilfein.com; Fetch is doing its job as I type this. Once I do that, this blog will continue to be updated at http://www.neilfein.com/blog.html. Sorry for the delay, folk(s)!


Tags: web, blog, music

Was up until 12:20am re-uploading sites to the new server; Dan is right, the new server is faster.

As of late last night, haboger.org and artdiff.com are back up. Although I need to do a major archiving job at haboger.org, and artdiff.com has link errors; I need to link the song clip titles to the songs that I re-uploaded last night.

Need to upload neilfein.com; will try to get tha started tonight, although no promises about if I'll move the blog back then. Debugging remote auto-ftp is never fun.

Tags: Website, blog

Dan tells me that the new server is up, I'll get started uploading to it tonight.

I may use this opportunity to clean up files, get rid of linkrot and such.

Will post a redirect here when all is happy and good.

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Shemini Atzeret, 22nd Tishri, 5766

We spent Shemini Atzeret, the final day of Sukkot, at Paula and Craig's. The plan was that we would either eat in their sukkah or, if it rained, go outside quickly, say the blessing, then come in. It was too rainy and windy to do either, and since "he who stays in the sukkah when he is excuse from it is an ignoramus", we ate inside.

The evening was more about keeping Max and Joe happy than anything else, actually. My shirt is now in the wash, to get the spit-off out of it. Perhaps wandering in the dessert involves unscented detergent?

Judaism

Sukkot, 15th through 21st Tishri, 5766
Part D: Sukkot Ends, but Not Really

Epilogue:

From about now until tomorrow at sundown, is the last proper day of Sukkot that isn't also anything else. Day 8 of Sukkot is also called Shemini Artzeret, a holiday that essentially means we're-adding-an-extra-day-to-the-holiday. I've read up on it, and there's no real meaning to it that I can find.

Les and Judith were here today and saw the sukkah, which is getting to bemore and more stuff they've donated. We then went and had a traditional sukkot meal of Le Peep. I think I drank too much coffee, and Martha isn't feeling so hot.

Coming up: Shemini Artzeret and then Simchat Torah, twin holidays of the diaspora.

Judaism

I take it all back. Done with all mixing now (four out of four songs) for the performance demo.

Now need to do the mastering thing in Peak, and then burn CDs. Then I can start sending them out to get gigs (or not get them, as happens).

I think the song order will be: Woke Up On the Fourth, Eyes Up Front, There's That Song, and ending with Never had a Brother.

music

have just completed mixing down two (out of four) songs for the performance demo, they're ready for mastering (i.e., normalizing and editing in Peak). Will do more when my ears recover.

music

Sukkot, 15th through 21st Tishri, 5766
Part C: Using the Sukkah

"Each day of rain has melted another little layer off of the metaphorical Tootsie Pop of my soul."
--Andy Ihnatko, from "Okay...My bad."

Friday night turned out to be cold and sorta-rainy. When enough people had arrived, we all went out to the backyard, and we were surprisingly able to fit nine people inside a 6'x 6' sukkah.

After hanging a work light from the sukkah frame, we did a kiddush over grape juice and a motzi over a round challah. The rest of the evening was spent inside, where we had a nice buffet dinner/dessert with coffee/wine tasting. The chili was a success, and I paid for all the chili I ate, in the morning. But it was worth it.

Martin narrated the wine tasting very nicely, although Eric and I spent much of it in the kitchen, talking about film and religion and soundtracks.

The group had an icebreaker, and the whole thing petered out by about half past twelve. I hope we get to use the sukkah again before the holiday is over; it's a very pretty one this year.

Paula and Craig have asked us to come to their shul for Simchat Torah, and I think we'll do that.

Judaism

I just got an email from my brother-in-law that the server that hosts www.neilfein.com (and, of course, many other websites) has had its hard drive fried. All my websites are backed up, but the site will be inaccessible for a while. In the interim, I've moved my blog to Blogger's gratis hosting service, neilfein.blogspot.com. 

Thanks to those readers who emailed me to let me know about this! 

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Sukkot, 15th through 21st Tishri, 5766
Part B: Decorating the Sukkah

"I can't breathe!" --Neil, in the basement with electric fans running, using spray paint.

"Ow!" -- Ibid, in the backyard, after hitting a finger with a hammer.

When we last left our heroes, we had build the sukkah frame and we had painted a backdrop, a sukkah silhouetted by a large full moon, the moon shining through the gaps in the skakh, with a rocket capsule daytripping to the moon.

The most recent developments are hanging that backdrop as the back wall, with the mural facing inside. We used nails (over which to hang the pre-made grommets in the canvas edges) and string to hold them laterally. After tucking the excess canvas under the sukkah (which I was able to lift with one hand, although barely), we hung other tarps on the sides, using the same techniques.

Martha had found some styrofoam fruits and vegetables; we hung them from the inside roof, along with some fake leaves she found. (Tip: When building a sukkah, design in rails from which to hang stuff. We accidentally did this on one edge, when attaching an extra piece of wood to support the skakh. Will do more of this next year.)

After re-reading the last bit, let me make one point clear: Martha had as much to do with the construction of the sukkah as I did. The final design was hers. This is a woman who wanted, when we got engaged, to register at Home Depot for power tools. My expertise seems to be in figuring out hot to set the joints. (Although I'm not so good when hammering vertically; Marianne came to the rescue for that, when assembling the base.)

The sukkah looks very nice; we even hauled a bench from the front porch around, and placed it in the sukkah. It'll hold 6 people, 8 if they're friendly.

Although it's a more conventional sukkah that we're used to having. I spoke to Rabbi Reed at Hillel about, amongst other items, building an intentionally slanted roof in a sukkah, and she said she'd email me back after the holidays. Imagine, a roof slanted, like a house, with a little chimney... okay, I'm going overboard. A sukkah needs to be able to be built quickly and easily. Two things I've never quite managed to do, between Martha and I and whoever is helping arguing about the best design. This year, add the power going out, and the cats.

Judaism

Sukkot, 15th through 21st Tishri, 5766
Part A: Building the Sukkah

"The rabbis tell us to build a sukkah every year, in order that we might feel closer to power tools." --Neil Fein, in the kitchen after building a sukkah.

Sukkot isn't actually 8 days long -- kinda sorta. The 8th day is Shemini Atzeret, the 9th is Simchat Torah. These two holidays, particularly Shemini Atzeret, are often thought of as part of Sukkot.

And before we celebrate the holiday of Sukkot, we have to build one. Many folks go to a community sukkah in a synagogue or JCC, or at a friend who is building one.

(need a summary of what a sukkah is.)

Martha and I have built 4 sukkahs together. (That's actually incorrect usage, the plural of sukkah is sukkot, but that's the name of the holiday. Hence the common sukkahs to refer to the plural.) The first, in 5763, was made of leftover 2x4s from Jenn's yearly Haboger sukkah. In 5764, after a suggestion from Judith, was made of PVC pipe, which we recycled for 5765. The PVC sukkah was easy to build, but it blew apart too easily. This time of year is always windy, and our backyard makes this worse. In 5765, we tried using quick-dry concrete to anchor the sukkah, but it collapsed anyway.

So we're back to wood. We had much canvas to use for walls (aka sails), and Judith and Les donated a pair of skakh rolls to us in 5764, made of bamboo, for the roof.

Over the High Holidays, we made a plan. There had been a lot of rain; if we were unable to build a sukkah, we would try building one outside over the cellar stairs, outside. If we couldn't even do that, we'd go to a shul sukkah. But, if the ground dried up, we'd make a wood base, then build the PVC frame on top of that. On Saturday night, we made a trip to Home Depot and bought the 2x4s and a circular saw (power tools! yes!).

Sunday morning, we went for our traditional Cheapo Sunday Brunch, then went home, all fired up to start cutting wood with our shiny new circular saw. The power was out on the entire block.

Argh. We manually sawed everything and made the base without incident. When we got to the point when we needed to make something to attach the piping to the base, Martha suggested we just keep working with wood. Long story short, we ended up making two more trips to the hardware store, made the whole thing out of wood. And as soon as we cut the last piece of wood, the power came back on. Heh. Of course.

I did try something new this year. I had read that you can, at least in theory, make an entire sukkah with no nails or screws, using rope to bind the pieces together. I didn't do that, but I attached the roof to the support beams that way.

Last night, we decorated, and painted a picture of a sukkah silhouetted by a large full moon, with what is meant to be a rocket rocketing to the moon.

This Friday, we're having a few folks over for a private wine tasting in the sukkah. I didn't invite Haboger, for various reasons, but I'd like to point out to anyone who needs a sukkah to go to, that we're not excluding anybody, we're just not making this an official event. If you need a sukkah to go to, email me, it's all cool.

More to come...

Judaism

Yom Kippur, 10th Tishri, 5766

Why do I fast? As an agnostic, skeptical, observent Jew, this question is relevant. I can also ask, why do I keep kosher, why won't I spend money on Friday night, and why do I go to services, but these are other issues. Related, though.

On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we have been commanded by God to fast. The Talmud also tells us not to "anoint" ourselves (perfume, etc.), wash, bathe, wear leather, and possibly other restrictions. Yom Kippur stands in stark contrast to the celebratory Rosh Hashana, and the harvest festival Sukkot. Perhaps Yom Hashoa is the only other non-celebratory holiday I can thin of offhand, although for vastly different reasons.

I take epilepsy medications, so I have a very, very small amount of water with them. (Enough to get them down my throat.) If I get a headache, I will have an advil, since I'd rather be able to concentrate on the liturgy. I used to have a slice of bread, since my medications require I take them with food, but I didn't feel the need for that this year. What this boils down to is getting as close to fasting as I can manage.

Again, why? Because I tried it four years ago, and found the whole experience, fasting, going to temple, going home for a break, more temple; to be a break in the routine, and it gives me a chance to think. Who do I need to fix things up with this year? What do I need to work harder on? When will we start building the sukkah?

The holiday truly is a break in routine, and I find it very valuable as that in of itself. It also plugs me into the community for a day. When a group of people are all fasting, it creates a bond.

And it makes you think, while you're in temple, going through the list of sins that we as a community have indeed done (someone, somewhere did all of these things, is the theory). Just the stuff for the web:

This year, I realized just how little progress I've made on my music. I'm still at a loss how to fix it, but I've brought a renewed urgency to the problem. I also realized that Martha and I will be entering a very, very rocky time in our marriage, when she starts working and we have less tome together. We'll need to fortify against that.

Judaism

Rosh Hashana, 1st and 2nd Tishri, 5766

There's an expectation that, the more important something is, the longer it will take. Every year, I take two days off from work for Rosh Hashana, and one day for Yom Kippur (assuming they don't fall on weekends). It can be argued that Rush Hashana is by far the less important holiday, it simply being a celebration of the Jewish New Year.

This year, Martha and I rang in 5766 by attending services at Rutgers Hillel. High holiday services are notorious for lasting hours upon hours. Really, they're not that long, with the exception of Yom Kippur evening services. Time stretches...

We also went to dinner at my Mom's in the evenings. The "festive meal", as we refer to it, AKA the mishpokhe meal, is probably the more important part of the holiday. Just as a wedding is not complete without a party where we make the bride and groom look silly, holding them on chairs up in the air while dancing in circles, the meal is the integral part of the celebration. With the exception of the blowing of the shofar, everything really is at the meal. Unlike Yom Kippur, coming up a week following, which is all about prayer and fasting. More on that in the next post in this series.

Speaking of which. I'll be posting a series of articles this year, covering the major Jewish holidays and what I did on them. This is the first, and more will follow. This is partially something I cooked up while sitting in shul, partially inspired by DAS's blog posts of late, and I think it gelled while talking with Rabbi Esther Reed about plans for a last-ditch sukkah.

So please, don't consider these proper bloggy blog entries. Even though I'm using my blog to post them, I'm not going to abide by my rule, no editing unless it's on the same day, or for typos or fixing links. That is, only for these articles. But you can see them as in "first draft" form here.

Eventually, I'll put up a section linking the whole thing together, and link these to each other as proper articles. (Things like turn this preface into a proper introduction article.) But for now, I'll leave them as blog entries. Let's pretend this article went up last week, shall we?

Rosh Hashana kinda leaves us dangling; the holiday has many links, such as the aforementioned shofar, to Yom Kippur yet to come. (And after that, Sukkot.) During the in-between "days of awe", we're meant to be thinking about what we'll really be thinking about during Yom Kippur: How is my life going, what could I be doing better? How did I fail this year? Who did I honk off, and how can I fix it? And so on.

I have a pretty good idea what I did right and wrong in 5765; I'll post more on that in the Yom Kippur article. For now, enerybody, have a happy and healthy 5766, and please pass the salt.

Judaism

Last night, we went through the demo tracks I recorded. Most of them sounded good. I did a little bit (a very little bit) of editing to get rid of the occasional sour note.

At Bruce's urging, I re-recorded the demo for There's That Song, playing guitar and singing live, to a click track. (Blarrgh.) Will listen to it soon, but I think it's an improvement over what I had.

I finished a mockup of the CD case and booklet. Anyone know where to find semi-gloss paper, heavier than normal printer paper but not as heavy as cardstock? Will need it to print out the booklets and J-cards on my inkjet.

Also. I don't have quite enough music for the final album, I think. If I finish the demo on time, the plan is to spend November writing as much music as possible -- more on that later if I finish the demo on time.

It's also time to start playing open mics again, to get back into the swing of performing. Any requests, my silent/nonexistent readers? If your town has an open mic that's not on a work night, let me know.

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Another friend has taken the plunge into the blogosphere. DAS has started with posts on politics and the high holidays.

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To those family and friends who read this page: Happy 5766! I hope everyone has a new year that is all you might wish for, and that the world is a better place for it. to anyone else who reads this page (from the page count, somebody is), all my best wishes.

All of my friends: Thank you for being my friend, and I hope I've shown that I'm yours. Family: You guys don't read this page anyway, but I love you all. (Yeah, despite that. Okay, that too.)

For those who are wondering why all the sudden sweetness and light, and generally have no idea what I'm talking about, it's the Jewish New Year, aka Rosh Hashanah. A time of year when we jews generally let old grudges go, and forgive people for whatever boneheaded things they did. This usually takes the form of "whatever I did this past year that honked you off, whether I realized it or not, please forgive me."

Everyone, enjoy your 20,000 hours in shul, and try to come away from the experience with something new. The time is always exhausting, but disturbingly illuminating for me. (Kinda the point, particularly for next week.) If you don't go to temple, just spend some time thinking about what you did right and wrong this year.

If I've done anything wrong to any of you, I'm profoundly sorry.

Despite whatever good reasons I may have had at the time. To paraphrase Trudeau parodying President Bush, I'm not gonna play the blame game here. In particular, there have been minor rifts in Haboger, some of which were my fault, some were not. I'll do what I can about that.

The zero comments I will likely get will make it seem like I'm far more of an ogre than I like to think I am. (That's something I need for next year -- a readership!)

Oh, and I'll exercise more, and I will write more songs this year. And I'll try to figure out what the hell I'm doing about shabbes observance this year; while I still do it, it's become a little too fluid. (Maybe that's what it needs to be for me?) And it would be nice to finally find a shul.

5765 kinda sucked balls in a lot of ways, so 5766 has to be better, right?

Right?

Judaism