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Resource Center for Trans People and HIV
https://www.thebody.com/article/religiously-non-conforming-an-orthodox-rabbi-leads
Trans People
Religiously Non-Conforming: An Orthodox Rabbi Leads a Movement for Trans Inclusivity
Positively Aware Dec. 5, 2018
Rabbi Mike MoskowitzPositively Aware
This past summer, Rabbi Mike Moskowitz became the first Orthodox rabbi to serve at the world's largest LGBTQ synagogue, Congregation Beit Simchat Torah, in Manhattan, where he is the Scholar-in-Residence in Trans and Queer Jewish Studies. Rabbi Moskowitz has long supported the LGBTQ community and trans inclusiveness in particular. At the time of his appointment, he spoke about his journey in supporting the LGBTQ community on the podcast Unorthodox_, created by_ Tablet magazine. A lightly edited transcript of his interview with Unorthodox hosts Stephanie Butnick and Liel Leibovitz follows here.
Liel Leibovitz: So here's the thing. When someone imagines the rabbi they might meet in the world's largest LGBTQ synagogue, they don't imagine a dude looking like you, with a black hat and a beard. They don't imagine a traditional Orthodox rabbi. Tell us about the path that got you here.
Rabbi Mike Moskowitz: The path here was actually a very traditional rabbinic trajectory. I was a rabbi of Columbia University, with Aish New York. I was the rabbi of the Old Broadway Synagogue, which is an Orthodox synagogue, right by JTS [the conservative Jewish Theological Seminary]. And I had transgender congregants and a trans student at Columbia that was really struggling. And as a rabbi of a synagogue in Harlem, it's a pretty diverse and progressive space, all things considered.
As I started to meet more transfolks and started to create a space that was trans inclusive, I recognized that I was in a unique position to try to provide some scaffolding to support the trans Jewish experience, so people shouldn't have to choose between a gender identity and a religious identity.
Leibovitz: As you embarked on that mission, I imagine that there were some people in your community who looked at your work and said, "Why are you doing this?" It's highly, if I may, unorthodox. Did you face a lot of struggle going through that?
Rabbi Moskowitz: Internally I did not find any sort of struggle. There was a kind of an invitation to be a light in the darkness where other people weren't. So personally I found a level of clarity and comfort in knowing that I felt like I was doing the right thing. But from the outside there's still tremendous opposition daily, in the emails, on Facebook posts.
Leibovitz: Saying what?
Rabbi Moskowitz: Saying that these things are actually mutually exclusive. You can't be an orthodox rabbi and be supportive of the LGBTQ community. I wrote an article about marching with Pride that I really feel when so many marginalized segments of society are being targeted, that we as Jews have a responsibility to stand up, because we're also targeted as a minority. So the idea that somehow we can be passive or apathetic here -- like you have to choose sides. It's either about standing up for those who are the most vulnerable or recognizing that it's probably just a matter of time before we don't have the privilege and the entitlement and the agency to do something about it.
Leibovitz: How do you respond to someone who goes on Facebook and just angrily rants at you, "But you know being gay is not allowed in the Torah. It's halakhickly bad." [Halakha is Jewish law.] How do you square that? Because you see a lot of people in the Orthodox community who are very sensitive to these issues, but you really took a leadership stand on it.
Rabbi Moskowitz: Gender identity and sexual identity are very different. I think it's very easy to hate things that you don't know and it's really easy to kind of mush all this stuff you haven't been exposed to into one little space. So I think the first thing is to try to create space for dialogue, to try to recognize that the struggles of a gender identity are actually very different, both culturally and socially and also in Jewish law, as one of sexual identity. I deeply believe in the autonomy of each person's relationship with God, that it should be the result of our unique life experiences. If we can't create a safe space for people to be authentic and genuine about who they are in that relationship with God, then what is religion? It's not about me in intimacy with God. So the Torah says what the Torah says and everybody gets to figure out what that means for them as an individual. I think that there's a lot that we as Jews can learn from the trans world about being present in the moment, in the most authentic space and embracing a certain amount of fluidity in our relationship with God.
Stephanie Butnick: I'm curious. Given the sort of rigid differentiation between men and women in ultra-Orthodox spaces, how do LGBTQ issues arise in that world?
Rabbi Moskowitz: Within the gender space many people find it very affirming. For the trans experience to exist, there needs to be differences between men and women, or else there's no space to transition. So when one walks into an Orthodox synagogue you have to make a choice right away. What side of the mechitza [a partition used to separate men and women] do you want to sit on? Because there's so much gender-based spiritual practice for people who find that type of spiritual practice affirming, the challenge becomes one of providing the invitation and the resources to help the individual navigate all of those gendered choices in Orthodox synagogue, about being counted in a minyan [the minimum number of participants required, 10 men, for traditional Jewish public prayer], getting an Aliyah [immigrating to Israel], chevra kadisha [traditional performance of rites for the deceased] issues. There are all sorts of gender-based spiritual practices that make it a little bit more nuanced. Whereas in a more egalitarian space, in that area you don't have to make a choice but you also don't get the affirmation.
Butnick: It's interesting. When you call it affirming, I would imagine it can be very intense and frightening for someone for whom gender identity is sort of a question at a certain moment, to have to choose a side.
Rabbi Moskowitz: One of the things that is really complicated in the way in which Halakha creates a binary around male and female in certain kinds of halakhic spaces -- doesn't necessarily resonate with people who adopt a gender non-conforming identity. And then it's complicated. Ideally a tri-chitza, right? [Leibovitz laughs, Rabbi Moskowitz is making a word play on mechitza basically referring to three genders] allows for those who don't feel like they fit in the binary. I often speak about borrowing language from the queer community. That I was assigned secular, and then identified as ultra-Orthodox, and now I'm some version of religious non-conforming, and that kind of space to be able to be recognized in present tense where I am in a relationship with God allows for it to be much more alive and also conscious and deliberate. If every Jew would be as aware of their religious identity the way in which trans folks are about their gender identity, there'd be no apathy, there'd be no assimilation. It would just be a constant recognition.
Leibovitz: We would be on fire.
Rabbi Moskowitz: That's what we're looking for.
Leibovitz: You wrote a piece for Tablet that I found very moving about the importance of accepting people's choice of their own names and why that actually resonates sort of spiritually as well as civically.
Rabbi Moskowitz: In the Jewish tradition we believe that names are very powerful. That emanates from the power of speech. God said, "Let there be light," and there was. So this world was created through letters and we find this throughout the tradition. You can look at the article. There's a way in which transfolks in having to distill who they are in terms of an identity, especially if there's been a shift into a name, is often the most immediate point of entry in a conversation that either allows for a person to be rejected or accepted. And so when a person speaks about their pronouns and their name, it's not simple in the mind of a trans person. That's one of the reasons why I co-authored it with a transman, is to have it in that first person experience that "hello, my name is" is much more of an exposed experience where there's a posture of vulnerability and fragility for a trans person. So I think one of the things that's really important as an ally is to listen to that voice about the experiences that we have. "Hi. Are you Rabbi Moskowitz or are you Mike?" The stakes there aren't actually very high for me. I don't care. But for a trans person, it represents so much more of the way they're being seen.
Butnick: How does that play out within a Jewish context?
Rabbi Moskowitz: Some people choose a Jewish name or a Hebrew name. We have it within the tradition as something being very powerful. We have it deep within our tradition that if a person, God forbid, is sick, we add a name. Moses changes [Hosea's] name [to "Joshua"] in anticipation of an event. The Torah says that we can no longer call Abraham "Abram." We have to say the new name and not the old name. We find the struggle, it's literally in the struggle with the angel, that Jacob gets a name change from the individual to the communal [he becomes "Israel"] and the mystics that tell us that it was that moment where he went back for the pacham katan -- the smallest, the most vulnerable, the most marginalized. So I think it's in this space of struggle where we try to create new space to uncover the divine will and it's in that place of the progressiveness of Halakha, which is the language of halocho, which means "to go" [also "to walk" or "the way to walk"], which is where the Talmud says God exists -- in this exile. It's in that place with God to explore and to expand in these new spaces. As the world continues to move, how can we allow the Torah to speak in present tense? In the Jewish tradition, a name really reflects the embodiment of being able to be present as one's fuller self.
Butnick: It seems like there is space even within religious Judaism for transfolk, for a questioning. It actually works well within the structure.
Rabbi Moskowitz: I think if we want for there to be space for Jews, then there needs to be space for trans Jews. Because one of those is a choice. Religion, and a religious identity, is an absolute choice of showing up and being present in that relationship with God. Gender identity, sexual identity, those aren't action items. Those are just identities. They just are. So if we force a person to choose, they will walk away from religion. So if we believe that God is everywhere all the time -- "HaShem [an expression for God, meaning "The Name," as Jews are not allowed to utter the name of God] is here. HaShem is there." So then what are we doing? We're just speaking to the reality that God is everywhere. And for each person there's the responsibility to ask the exact same question, "What does God want from me right now in this moment being who I am?" I don't think it gets more religious than that.
Rabbi Mike Moskowitz: rabbimikemoskowitz.com
The Unorthodox podcast: tabletmag.com
Congregation Beit Simchat Torah sponsors "Talk to Me About HIV," a program designed for rabbis, cantors, chaplains and other institutional leaders at Jewish congregations, schools and community centers throughout New York City. The education and outreach program aims to break the silence and stigma around HIV/AIDS. Go to talktomeabouthiv.org. CBST also provides onsite HIV testing once a month as well as a weekly supportive social gathering for adults aging with HIV/AIDS.
[Note from TheBody: This article was originally published by Positively Aware in Nov. 2018. We have cross-posted it with their permission.]
Positively Aware
@PosAware
Positively Aware, published by Test Positive Aware Network in Chicago, provides accurate, up-to-date treatment information for people living with HIV and their caregivers.


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Q: LMS (Lambda-Mu-Sigma) method in R I want to create percentile curves for my data using LMS (Lambda-Mu-Sigma) method. I have following example data. How can 10th, 50th and 90th percentile curves of yvar (on y-axis) vs age (on x-axis) be drawn using LMS?
age = sample(5:75, 500, replace=T)
yvar = rnorm(500, age, 20)
mydata = data.frame(age, yvar)
head(mydata)
  age     yvar
1  61 87.16011
2  58 49.73289
3  65 15.60212
4  71 83.32699
5  33 40.89592
6  18 25.04376

plot(age, yvar)

I came across VGAM package http://www.inside-r.org/packages/cran/VGAM/docs/lms.bcn . Is that the best method to do it? I could not really understand its example code to create simple percentile curve from above data. Thanks for your help.

A: Simulate data (reproducibly):
set.seed(1001)
mydata <- data.frame(
   age = sample(5:75, 500, replace=TRUE))
mydata <- transform(mydata,
   yvar = rnorm(500, age, 20))

Since the LMS method typically appears to be based on variants of the Box-Cox transformation, which requires positive values, a simpler way to do this would be to use quantile regression.
library("quantreg")
library("ggplot2"); theme_set(theme_bw())
g0 <- ggplot(mydata,aes(x=age,y=yvar))+geom_point()
g0 + geom_smooth(method="rq",tau=c(0.1),se=FALSE,lty=2)+
      geom_smooth(method="rq",tau=c(0.5),se=FALSE)+
      geom_smooth(method="rq",tau=c(0.9),se=FALSE,lty=2)

rq() by itself has the capability to fit all three percentiles at the same time, but you need to use the strategy suggested in this blog post to draw them more conveniently:
model.rq <- rq(yvar ~ age, mydata, tau=c(0.1, 0.5, 0.9))
quantile.regressions <- data.frame(t(coef(model.rq)))
colnames(quantile.regressions) <- c("intercept", "slope")
quantile.regressions$quantile <- rownames(quantile.regressions)
g0 + geom_abline(aes(intercept=intercept, slope=slope,
   colour=quantile), show_guide=TRUE, data=quantile.regressions)

Alternatively it is possible to do this within VGAM, but I'm not sure whether it's what you want/whether the results make sense or not.  The Yeo-Johnson transformation, via lms.yjn, allows you to do this even when some data values are negative, but you might look at ?lms.bcg, ?lms.bcn for alternatives that work for non-negative data.
library("VGAM")
fit <- vgam(yvar ~ s(age, df = 4), lms.yjn, data=mydata,
            control=vgam.control(maxit=100),
            trace=FALSE)

We get a warning message:
## Warning message:
## In vgam.fit(x = x, y = y, w = w, mf = mf, Xm2 = Xm2, Ym2 = Ym2,  :
##  convergence not obtained in 100 iterations

This might be because we're overfitting the data using a 4-knot spline model?
Quantile plot (following example("lms.yjn"))
par(bty = "l", mar = c(5, 4, 4, 3) + 0.1, xpd = TRUE)
qtplot(fit, percentiles = c(10, 50, 90),
        las = 1, ylab = "yvar", lwd = 2, lcol = 4)

This is a terrible hack, but if you want access to the raw values so you can plot the curves yourself:
pcurves <- qtplot.lmscreg(fit,show.plot=FALSE,
                          percentiles=c(10,50,90))
vals <- data.frame(age=mydata$age,pcurves$fitted.values)
vals <- vals[order(vals$age),]
matplot(vals$age,vals[,-1],type="l",lty=c(2,1,2),col=1,
        xlab="age",ylab="")

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


3 billion lives at stake.
2 people who can save them.
1 secret hidden in their DNA.
A breathtaking debut series about one girl's quest for answers in a genetically and technologically advanced future.
There's no gene for RUN LIKE HELL.
When a lone soldier, Cole, arrives with news of Lachlan Agatta's death, all hope seems lost for Catarina. Her father was the world's leading geneticist, and humanity's best hope of beating a devastating virus. Then, hidden beneath Cole's genehacked enhancements she finds a message of hope: Lachlan created a vaccine. Only she can find and decrypt it, if she can unravel the clues he left for her. The closer she gets, the more she finds herself at risk from Cartaxus, a shadowy organization with a stranglehold on the world's genetic tech. But it's too late to turn back. As the pieces fit together it's clear there is one final secret that Cat must unlock. A secret that will change everything.
I received a copy of this book from Penguin in return for an honest review.
This book was a quick read for me, because once you start reading, you don't want to put the book down. My partner has also read the book and he finished reading it in one day, it took me about 2 days because of work!
You meet Catarina, the main character of this book as she is hunting pigeons to look into their DNA as we learn about the coding and changing of DNA to change the appearances and characteristics of things in the world set in this book. Cat is with her father and Dax living in a bunker in the woods until the men in her life are taken from her by Cartaxus, the leading company in genetic tech. Cat is hidden away from the company and her father warns her to never be caught by Cartaxus, so she hides out there surviving while a virus is spreading in the world causing death to many.
Catarina, joins a rival organisation called the skies who regularly hack Cartaxus to release code to cure health conditions for free to people still living in the surface and not in the Cartaxus bunkers. She has a friend Agnes, who she is on her way to meet when she is warned about an unknown vehicle outside her place. Racing to get away from a Cartaxus agent, who her father warned her before he was taken himself, she is injured and then we learn that not is all as it seems.
This agent will becoming integral to the story and there are many twists you may not see coming as we learn more about this virus that is taking over people and the rival organisations.
I really enjoyed this book and read most of it in one sitting, I certainly did not see some of the twists coming. You can put some of the things together with the bits and pieces dropped throughout the book but I was kept guessing which kept me wanting to read on and now I can't wait for the next book in the series.


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The Cimbalom Player: Short Story — Julie Marden
Here's a charming romantic comedy that turns on the presence of an eccentric cimbalom player named Lazlo. Julie Marden is a violinist and she writes fiction about musicians, with verve and wry touch of comedy. She's one of dg's former students at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she has already contributed mightily to Numéro Cinq—see especially her lovely essay on the use of thematic passages in Chekhov's short stories.
Right now, in addition to performing with various professional orchestras, she teaches chamber music to children at the Tufts Community Music School in Medford, MA, tutors Boston area children in reading and math (through the "No Child Left Behind" program), and teaches academic writing skills at an on-line college. On the side, she also performs in amateur theater productions: Clytaemnestra in Euripides' Elektra (in ancient Greek), Puck, Hippolyta, and Snout in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Hermione in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale," and Elena in Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya." She lives with her daughter Nora, their dog Gracie and a cat Panther in Concord, Massachusetts and Walpole, New Hampshire.
THE CIMBALOM PLAYER
By Julie Marden
When Jeff first recognized Nina's voice, he was relieved he hadn't answered the phone. He'd just walked into his two-room Washington Heights apartment, carrying a package of unassembled moving boxes. Nina was leaving a message, offering him a weekend job playing principal percussion in a college orchestra in Vermont.
"The piece we need you for is Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite . . . rehearsals Thursday and Friday evenings, dress rehearsal Saturday morning and the concert Saturday night . . . pays three hundred dollars plus hotel room . . . it would be great see you again, Jeff, how are you? Please let me know right away if you can do this. The concert's in ten days. I'll have to keep calling people if I don't hear from you soon."
Jeff leaned the flattened boxes against the wall. He hadn't seen Nina in over a decade, but her breezy, lyrical voice hadn't changed. Fourteen, fifteen years ago, they'd been students at the New England Conservatory of Music. They'd never so much as made out, but Jeff remembered her thick red hair, sonorous viola playing, and a forwardness that had sometimes puzzled him.
He took a beer from the fridge and brought it to the sofa. He wouldn't take the job. Three hundred dollars to drive three hundred miles to play with an amateur, student orchestra. No wonder he was moving, leaving music altogether. In his twenties, Jeff had gone to conservatory hoping to win a job in a full-time, first-rate orchestra, like the Boston or Chicago Symphony. But he'd never won a job with any full-time, professional orchestra. Now, thirty-seven, he lived hand-to-mouth, job-to-job: a club-date here, a recording session there, the occasional freelance gig, a handful of private students. He wasn't starving, but he'd had enough. In less than two weeks, he was moving back to Hammond, Indiana to live and work with his widower father, who ran the tool and die company that Jeff's grandfather had started in 1942.
Jeff finished his beer and set the can on the coffee table, next to his answering machine. The room was dim. The red light on the answering machine was still blinking. Jeff reached over and erased Nina's message.
By Sunday afternoon, most of the moving boxes were assembled and packed. One remained open, though, parked by the fridge, filling with last minute objects like the fake-copper-rimmed clock Jeff had once found in his parents' attic and brought to his first apartment in Boston. He'd just removed it from the wall by the stove and was lowering it into the box, next to a framed, bubble-wrapped photograph of his mother. The phone rang. Jeff was sure his father was calling. He reached to answer, glancing habitually above the stove, only to see empty air and a circle of clean white paint where the clock had just been. He forgot to speak.
"Jeff, are you there? It's Nina. Did you get my message?"
"I did." Jeff said. "Yes. Nina. Sorry. . ."
"It's okay, Jeff, but I'm in a bind. I still haven't found a principal percussionist. We can pay more now: two hundred dollars more, that's five hundred total. Only we need someone with a car, who can drive to New Jersey and pick up the cimbalom player. You can't imagine how hard it was to find this guy, Jeff. I must have made fifty phone calls."
"Nina, I'm — I'm moving."
"Jeff, did you know there are three people in this country who play orchestral cimbalom parts and one of them just moved to Germany? The other two live in Texas and California and are totally booked. After that it's all gypsies who play in restaurants but don't read music. But one of them gave me the number of the Hungarian Community Center in Daisy Park, New Jersey, and somebody there gave me Lazlo's number. That's our guy, Jeff: Lazlo. It's a miracle! He says he knows the piece, but he doesn't have a car. He works at the Daisy Park Woolworth's breakfast counter. It's too bad if you can't do this, Jeff, you'd like Roberto, our conductor. He'd like you too, he appreciates real talent, believe me. I'm sorry. I know you're busy. Perhaps you could recommend someone? With a car?"
"The concert's next weekend?" Jeff asked.
"A week from last night."
Writing down the rehearsal schedule, Jeff felt an unmistakable squeeze of regret. He wondered if, after all, he should take the job. That might be easier than finding someone else to do it. The extra money made a difference. He'd have to leave for Indiana a few days late, but that was okay; his lease went through the end of the month and he wasn't starting at the factory until after Thanksgiving. Heck, he wasn't going on payroll until January. He studied the schedule again and examined his half empty apartment. He tried to remember what a cimbalom was. Some weird Hungarian instrument, was all he knew.
"Where's Daisy Park?" he said.
"Near New Brunswick. I could get more gas money, Jeff."
"That's okay. Listen. I'll do it."
"Oh my God. Jeff, thank you! Wait till I tell Roberto!"
The following Thursday morning, Jeff pulled up in front of the Daisy Park Woolworth's. A few minutes early, he leaned his head back to soak up some sun. When he opened his eyes, a lanky fellow in a white jacket was peering through the passenger side window. He had brown hair and a pointy nose. Jeff got out of the car. They shook hands. Lazlo's name was stitched across his jacket breast in red, industrial cursive. He smelled of bacon and eggs.
"Any luggage?" Jeff asked.
"Yes, yes. At the house." Lazlo waved carelessly. "But first – to the cimbalom. We take the car, no?" He pronounced the word "tzeembalom," as if it began with a T.
They drove a few blocks down Main Street to the community center, a long concrete building with Hungarian and American flags hanging above its door. Jeff had never heard of a Hungarian enclave in New Jersey, but this building as well as the Magyar Savings Bank across the street and the Little Budapest Coffee Shop down the block made him feel as though he'd slipped into a movie set, or a fairy tale. 'The Fairy Tale Begins,' he thought, remembering the title of the Hary Janos Suite's first movement. He'd noticed it on his music the night before, packing. The strange thing about this fairy tale, though, was how many of the buildings were of the same era as the ones in Hammond: pre-World War Two brick and mortar structures with vintage molding, most of them three or four stories high. Looking down the street, Jeff had only to subtract the Hungarian names from the establishments to imagine himself back in Indiana.
Inside, Lazlo led him down a corridor to a large linoleum-floored room. Against the wall stood a trapezoidal wooden box, latched shut, on four squat legs. It looked like a low, oddly shaped desk or table. A paper garland dangled from its top.
"A few nights ago we had Hungarian party," Lazlo said, sweeping the garland to the floor. "With food, dancing, everything! Wait a minute, I need screwdriver."
While Lazlo searched for the screwdriver, Jeff was tempted to unlatch the cimbalom's top and look at whatever mechanism was inside, but instead, he waited politely and then held the instrument steady while Lazlo unscrewed its legs. Together they carried it to the back of Jeff's station wagon. It made a muffled twang when they set it down.
"Shh, I know," Lazlo said, cocking his ear and patting the wooden case affectionately. "We're going on a trip!"
Jeff thought of the drive ahead, the potentially bumpy roads, the musical hardware that might shake loose. "What about a blanket?" he said, when they went back inside for the legs. "To keep it steady during the drive."
"Yes. Good idea. We'll get one at my aunt's."
"Your aunt's?"
"Yes, where I live. Don't worry, it's close."
Back in the car, Lazlo jabbed and pointed their way around several corners to a thin house with peeling gray paint, a broken window, and a tangle of bushes in the yard.
"Come in for coffee," Lazlo said. "She makes it for everyone."
"No thank you," said Jeff. He wouldn't have minded coffee, but he preferred the comfort of his car. He decided to pass the time listening to the CD of the Hary Janos Suite that he'd bought that week. On its cover a threadbare soldier held forth in a village tavern. Jeff turned on the disc and pulled out the liner notes, which included a quotation from the composer, explaining why the suite opens with what is supposed to sound like a sneeze.
According to Hungarian superstition, if a statement is followed by a sneeze of one of the hearers, it is regarded as confirmation of its truth. The Suite begins with a sneeze of this kind! One of Háry's group of faithful listeners … sneezes at the wildest assertions of the old tale-spinner.
Curious, Jeff replayed the first movement's opening several times, listening to the long chromatic aahhhHH that rose in pitch and volume through the orchestra until it reached a jangling trill from the piccolo, triangle, and violins, and then exploded – CHOO! – with a bang from the snare drum, cymbal, and timpani. Afterwards, a downward thumbnail slide on a piano returned the music to a somber melody in the basses and cellos: grim foot soldiers, setting out for war.
By now, several leaves had dropped onto Jeff's windshield, a mixture of maple and oak. A few swished through his open window. Jeff continued to listen. The six-movement suite depicted Hary Janos's exploits during the Napoleonic wars. In "The Viennese Musical Clocks," for example, the legendary peasant receives a tour of the city from the carriage of his latest mistress, Napoleon's wife. Jeff decided to play the chimes and glockenspiel, the musical clocks themselves, in that movement. Next, Hary Janos sings a love song to his true sweetheart back home. But Jeff fast-forwarded past it because it didn't have any percussion parts. He wanted to hear the snare drum rolls in "The Death and Defeat of Napoleon," in which Hary Janos single-handedly slaughters the diminutive Corsican and swaggers around his body to a parody of the Marseillaise, played on the saxophone.
Still no sign of Lazlo. Jeff fast-forwarded again to the suite's sixth movement, the triumphant finale. He wanted to hear a particular xylophone lick, a tricky flourish of three rapid, hand-over-hand, half-steps, followed by a leap to an E flat, an excerpt he had once practiced over and over for an audition he didn't win.
The door to the house swung open. Jeff turned off the CD. Instead of Lazlo, a woman came out, carrying a brown paper bag and a thermos. She was slender, with gray black hair cropped along her jaw and a short sleeved, green dress hanging below her knees. She walked straight to Jeff's window.
"For your journey," the woman said, holding out the bag and thermos. "Sandwiches and coffee." Her hands were flecked with tiny scratch marks.
Jeff thanked her and took the gifts, averting his eyes from her hands.
"Lazlo's coming," the woman said, uncertainly. She closed her lips and smiled. She seemed to think the wait was normal, even though Jeff had been there for almost half an hour.
Finally, Jeff said: "We have a rehearsal at seven. In Vermont."
"Yes. I'll fetch Lazlo."
She went back in. Jeff sipped some coffee. It was strong and smooth. Then he tightened the lid back on the thermos and got out of the car to sweep the leaves off the windshield. Lazlo emerged from the house with a backpack and a torn quilt. One of his cheeks was splotched red.
Jeff opened the back of the car. "You fall asleep?" he said.
"Can you imagine!" Lazlo said, lifting the cimbalom's large wooden case as Jeff wrapped the quilt around it. "One minute I'm packing my luggage, the next I'm having a dream!"
They drove past New York City in silence. Lazlo looked out the window; Jeff waited to get beyond the heavy traffic. Somewhere in Connecticut, they ate the lunch Lazlo's aunt had prepared: surprisingly tasty bologna sandwiches and several handfuls of fresh raspberries, some still attached to their stems.
"Where are these from?" Jeff said.
"In the yard. Didn't you see?"
"I guess I must have," Jeff said. "So what does she do, your aunt?"
"My aunt? What does she not do?" Lazlo laughed. " She can't sit still, she's got the gypsy blood. Four days a week she works at the florist, and sometimes she goes with my uncle, cleaning the bank and community center. At home she grows the garden, cooks, and she makes Hungarian embroidery."
"Is that why her hands are scratched? From embroidering?" Jeff thought of his own mother, dead twelve years now, how smooth she'd kept her hands, storing lotion in some cabinet or corner of almost every room in the house. Every once in a while, she'd embroidered, too, but she'd never scratched her hands.
"Yes, maybe. Or probably picking berries. But wait till you see my vest. She made it three years ago, with birds and flowers. On Saturday, for our concert, I will wear it over my white shirt and black trousers."
"In an orchestra, we're supposed to wear tuxedos," Jeff said.
"Yes, but I will wear my vest."
In Massachusetts, they drove past a city with a clock tower jutting up from the roofscape, each clock reporting a slightly different time, like a pair of violinists not moving their bows in sync. One clock said three twenty-four. Another said three thirty-two. Jeff's watch said three thirty-five.
When he lived in Boston, sometimes he'd subbed in the orchestra in this town, riding the hired bus that transported conservatory students and other carless young professionals to and from the rehearsals and concerts. Approaching the concert hall, whose fluted columns were visible from the highway, Jeff remembered sitting next to Nina on that bus one time. She'd been telling him about her interest in zoology, and had showed him a book about flying squirrels, which traced the evolutionary trends that created the folds of skin between the animals' arms and sides that allowed them to glide from tree to tree.
"I used to play in the orchestra there," he said, pointing at the hall. "With Nina."
"Nina," Lazlo said. "You mean, the girl who called. She cute?"
"Maybe." Jeff said. "She used to be."
"Big boobs?"
"I don't remember," Jeff said, although he thought he probably did. "Violist." "Violist. Viola. Like big violin, no?"
"Like big violin, yes."
So maybe she does have big boobs!" Lazlo said.
Jeff asked Lazlo if he'd ever played in an orchestra before.
"Yes. With Hungarian orchestra – cimbaloms, violins, clarinets. My uncle plays violin. He teaches us the Hary Janos!"
"I see," said Jeff. "So where do you play?"
"At the community center. We play just a few weeks ago, on October Twenty-three."
"October Twenty-third." Jeff said.
"October Twenty-three, Nineteen Fifty-Six," Lazlo said. "The day the Hungarians fight the Soviets."
Jeff was a history buff. "Okay," he said. "I've heard of that. But the Soviets crushed the Hungarians in Nineteen Fifty-Six." He hoped he hadn't said the wrong thing.
"They did not crush us." said Lazlo. "We showed those bastards who we are. And my uncle moved to America and then my aunt. And now, here I am, driving past cows in a field! But we play all kinds of music on October twenty three, not just Hungarian. We play Frank Sinatra, Dr. Zhivago, 'Memory' from Cats. Hey, do you know 'Bolero'?"
"Of course I know 'Bolero,'" said Jeff. "I'm a percussionist."
Jeff had first learned the snare drum part to "Bolero" in high school. He'd practiced its endlessly repeating pattern, Pa patata Pa patata Pa Ta Pa patata Pa patata patata patata, until his hands were numb. In conservatory, the same year he'd won the concerto competition, he'd performed the part in orchestra with a visiting French conductor. Jeff's teacher, a percussionist in the Boston Symphony, taught him the trick of tapping the drum with dimes instead of mallets at the beginning, holding the coins between his thumbs and index fingers to play the rhythm as quietly and clearly as possible. But with that method a second player has to take over with mallets as the piece grows louder. So Jeff ended up holding the sticks near the tips at the beginning, then creeping his grip back toward the base as the piece went on. "If you can play this quieter than anyone else and still keep the rhythm taut," his teacher had said, "you can win any audition you want."
Jeff switched lanes to pass a truck.
"You know what I figured out?" Lazlo said. "'Bolero' and 'Memory' from Cats, they're both the same!" Lazlo sang the opening of "Memory," then of "Bolero," stretching out the rhythm to make his point.
Jeff shook his head. During his audition years, three times, "Bolero" was the piece that did him in. In Boston, they'd made him play it right after the cymbal crash from Tchaikovsky's Fourth, when his arms and hands were so numb from the vibrating metal, he could barely hold the sticks. In St. Louis, he tried to use his fingertips instead of dimes at the beginning, then transition to the mallets. He'd perfected this in the practice room, but during the audition it proved a disaster. He never started the excerpt better than in Chicago, but during the third time through the phrase, he dropped a stick. They let him start over, but he knew he'd lost the job. By the time Jeff moved to New York, he never wanted to take another audition, let alone play "Bolero," again.
"That's not 'Bolero,'" he said. "You can't sing it like that and still call it 'Bolero.'"
But Lazlo had fallen asleep. He snored lightly through the rest of the drive, leaning with the car as Jeff turned onto the smaller roads that wound past farms and forests to the college town and finally to the inn.
"Brick," Lazlo said, waking up and staring at the three-story, ivy-covered building. "I expected wooden."
"Won't your roommate want a key?" the woman at the desk asked Jeff.
"It's a share?"
"We're booked right up," the woman said, in a crisp Yankee accent, handing Jeff another key.
On stage at the arts' center, not far from the conductor's podium, Jeff and Lazlo reattached the cimbalom to its legs. Lazlo then headed off to the cafeteria, while Jeff inspected the percussion instruments set up in back. The drums weren't bad; the chimes were out of tune. He met a student rolling out the timpani from a storage area.
"Who's playing these?" Jeff asked.
"I am," said the student. Jeff gave him a thumbs-up. He was relieved that the timpanist wasn't another ringer. Together, they re-arranged the percussion section in a long arc: timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, chimes, glockenspiel and xylophone. They put black cloth on a tall stool for the triangle.
By now, other musicians were filtering into the hall. Some went on stage to warm up, more stood in the audience, unpacking instruments, chatting, playing scales. Jeff looked up and saw Lazlo walking down the corridor with a woman: Nina. Her red hair fell to her shoulders. She wore a long, unbuttoned, wool coat. Jeff walked to the edge of the stage. "Smallish boobs," he confirmed, in Lazlo's voice, and then wanted to punch himself. If anything, she looked prettier than before.
"Jeffrey!" Nina said, coming on stage to hug him. "How can I ever thank you? I love Lazlo! He was in the cafeteria, buying grape juice. Come on. I'll introduce to you to Roberto."
At the podium, Roberto was shuffling through his notes, his head bent down, a wispy black ponytail grazing his shirt collar. But he looked up and greeted Jeff warmly. Ten feet away, Lazlo was opening the cimbalom, unlatching the top and lifting it off.
"Let's bring it closer," Roberto said, pointing to an area between the podium and the front of the viola section. "So the audience can see it."
"Jeff was our star percussionist at New England," Nina said, while Jeff and Lazlo moved the cimbalom. Half out of embarrassment, Jeff lowered his face to study the instrument's construction, the paired metal strings that stretched lengthwise across most of the instrument: thick copper strings in front, narrower steel ones in back, each pair gradually becoming shorter. The thinnest, shortest strings ran in a different direction across a triangular corner. From a small compartment underneath, Lazlo produced two long, skinny mallets with soft, white woolen heads. They looked like magnified Q-tips. He struck two strings, one at a time.
"Fantastic," Roberto muttered. "Almost eerie, no?" He looked at his watch. "Where is everyone? The rehearsal starts in five minutes. Nina told you we're starting with the Kodaly, didn't she?"
Jeff nodded.
"Good. I don't want to fuss with it tonight, just read through to find the problems. We can fix those tomorrow and Saturday. I've got to spend some time on the concerto. The soloist is flipping out – and she's our concertmistress!"
Jeff walked back to the percussion section. He was glad that he and Lazlo only played in the Kodaly and could go back to the inn at the break. But when the concertmistress stood up to signal the oboist's A, his nerves flared. He was late for his first entrance on the snare drum, marring the famous sneeze. In the second movement he missed the octaves on the chimes, playing discordant sevenths instead. Roberto gave him a quick smile: here was a problem to be fixed. Jeff was annoyed with himself, but he liked the way Roberto worked the orchestra. "With me, please," the conductor begged the strings when they dragged during an accelerando. "Make the crescendo during the long note! You'll tune that chord during the break, yes?" he urged the woodwinds and brass. He seemed determined to get through the piece without stopping.
But he didn't get his wish.
As the third movement began, Jeff had just realized that Nina was the person playing a viola solo, when he looked up and saw Roberto land an open palm in front of Lazlo.
"Go. Now!" Roberto said, trying also to bring in the clarinet. "Two after Letter A," he barked, leaning and gesturing toward the violins. He started singing Lazlo's part, hoping that would help. But Lazlo didn't play. He sat frozen, his elbows sticking out like chicken wings, his mallets motionless in the air. Roberto waved the orchestra to a halt.
"Are you lost?" he said to Lazlo.
Lazlo lowered his mallets and lifted his head. "What are you doing with your arms?" he said.
A brief, shocked pause took over the orchestra. Roberto stepped off the podium and walked to the other side of Lazlo's music stand.
"You come in here, at Letter A," he said, pointing a finger at Lazlo's part. "The D major trills on the off beats. See?"
"Yes, D major trills." Lazlo said, searching his instrument and repositioning his mallets.
Roberto stepped back to the podium almost wearily. "Letter A," he said. "Tutti."
This time Lazlo played the D major trills, only he played them longer than made sense, and then stopped. He kept looking at his music and then at Roberto, but he didn't play. Roberto resorted to singing Lazlo's part again, while Lazlo sat quietly, looking straight ahead. Jeff was relieved when the movement ended and they went on to "The Death and Defeat of Napoleon." Strangely enough, Lazlo sprang into action during the fifth movement. He hammered away confidently, even when the rest of the orchestra drowned him out or played at a different tempo from his. It made sense that he would know the Hungarian dance movement. Jeff suspected that this was what Lazlo referred to as "The Hary Janos."
By now, Jeff's nerves had calmed down. During rests, he'd sorted out the remaining percussion assignments, making sure not to take all the good parts, just the hard ones he felt expected to play. "It's all yours," he told a student, pointing to the bass drum note that ended the entire piece.
At the break, he was saying goodnight to Nina, who looked worried, but hoped he and Lazlo could join her for an outing on Saturday, when Roberto strode up.
"He's a bust!" he said. "A total disaster."
Jeff tensed.
"Who's a bust?" Nina said.
"Who do you think?" Roberto said. "That cimbalom player!"
"Don't say that, Roberto," said Nina. "It's only the first rehearsal. Can't you work with him? Maybe he was confused."
"Confused? Did you hear what he said – what am I doing with my arms? He's clueless!"
"You should see yourself, Roberto, you're like an octopus up there! And he played well in the fifth movement."
"Of course he played well in the fifth movement; it's practically the Hungarian national anthem. But I need him in the third movement! The cimbalom solo! It's crucial — the core of the piece."
"Can't you work with him, Roberto?" Nina said. "You don't know how hard it was to find him. Jeff drove all the way from. . . "
But Lazlo was walking up. "If possible," he said, "for the concert, I will wear my special vest. The audience will like it – very Hungarian, with birds and flowers."
Roberto turned to Nina. " Look. I'll meet for half an hour tomorrow at eleven, but if it doesn't get better, you're hiring a pianist to cover the part."
"He's really a softy," Nina said, after Roberto left. "We're all tired. I'm sure the audience would love your vest, Lazlo. And Jeff, it's great to see you again." She put her hand on Jeff's shoulder. "Sorry about the double room," she whispered. "The inn's booked solid." Then she pulled him closer. "I'll call you in the morning. I think I'll need your help!"
Jeff was exhausted. "Goodnight, Nina," he said.
Despite its formal exterior, the inn was a cozy affair. A small dining room, with round tables and yellow tablecloths, occupied a corner of the ground floor, across from a bar. In the morning, Jeff was seated at one of these tables. He'd left Lazlo asleep and come downstairs to get breakfast and listen to his messages on the payphone; his cell phone was of no use in this town. His father had called, hoping Jeff would be home in time for supper on Sunday – his sister and brother-in-law were coming. "The men painted your office," Jeff's dad added. "Brightens it up a bit."
Turning his eggs with a fork, Jeff looked out the window at the lawn and the row of pine trees behind it. He hadn't told his father about going to Vermont. He didn't see how he could get back to Hammond until Tuesday at the earliest.
Jeff had been looking forward to his new employment. He'd grown up at his grandfather's factory, worked there during summers, including one when he tried to design a die for tambourine zils. He didn't mind the windowless office; he wanted the company to survive. Even living with his father seemed a reasonable step. Eventually, he'd buy his own house and start looking for someone to share it with: a nice, levelheaded, affectionate, smart woman. But would he find her?
Jeff scraped the remaining eggs onto a piece of toast. He thought about Nina. She was certainly smart, but he wasn't sure about levelheaded. She had a good heart, though. What had brought her here, anyway? He thought he'd heard from an old conservatory mate that she'd married a college professor. But she obviously wasn't married anymore; she said she lived alone in a condominium. For a jealous second, Jeff wondered about Nina and Roberto. But he'd noticed the flash of Roberto's wedding ring during the rehearsal last night and somehow knew there was nothing to worry about there.
Jeff hadn't noticed Lazlo coming down the stairs. Now he was pulling a chair out. "Nina woke me up," he said. "On the telephone. She wants you to call her. Not me, you!"
It hadn't occurred to Jeff that Nina might want Lazlo to call her. He waited a minute, then went back to the phone booth.
"Roberto can meet us at one o'clock now, not eleven," Nina said. "That gives us more time."
"Time for what?"
"To teach Lazlo his part."
"But how? He can barely read music. "
"What are we going to do, send him home on a bus? And I think he could pull it off. You heard that sound. Anyway, I'm meeting with him, and I hope you'll join us. You'd probably help more than I could."
Jeff looked back at Lazlo. It bothered him to feel sympathy right now.
"Ok. Give us a half an hour."
"Thanks, Jeff. You're a love."
"No. Just a chump."
After Nina hung up, Jeff called his father's office and left the hotel number with the secretary. Back at the table, he told Lazlo as tactfully as he could about the extra rehearsal. Lazlo received the information calmly, but up in the room, he took out his vest. "Maybe I'll bring this," he said. "Why not?"
A quarter of an hour later, back at the concert hall, Jeff had to admit that Lazlo looked authentic in his vest, playing "Lara's Theme," from Dr. Zhivago as soon as he removed the lid from the cimbalom. It might have been better had he gone straight to the Kodaly, Jeff thought, but he couldn't help noticing how natural the mallets looked in Lazlo's hands. When Nina arrived, she couldn't stop talking about the vest. "Oh Lazlo," she said. "It's beautiful." She admired the fine stitching, the birds that climbed the vines and peeked out from behind their elliptical leaves. "You should come back some day and play at a party."
"Jeff would have to drive me," Lazlo said, poking Jeff's arm with his index finger.
"You'll have to take the bus," Jeff said. "I'll be long gone."
"What do mean, you'll be long gone?" Nina said.
"I'm moving, didn't I tell you?" Jeff said. "To Indiana."
"What? You get a job at IU or something?"
"I'm going to work for my Dad."
Nina looked suspicious. "Doing what?"
"Making machine parts."
"It's a tool and die company. My family's run it for sixty years."
"There isn't anyone else who can keep it going?"
"Not with my last name," said Jeff.
Nina took out her viola. "All right Lazlo," she said. "You're going to learn that friggin' third movement before Roberto gets here, okay? What's 'Dal' mean anyway?"
"Dal" said Lazlo. "That means song. Maybe a love song."
Nina played the opening phrase. "It's a sad song," she said. "But lovely. It's like an old person singing."
"Or a young person," Lazlo said, "singing old song."
"So let's hear it," Jeff said.
This time Nina began the piece for real. Following along with Lazlo's part, Jeff started conducting and counting to help Lazlo know when to play. "That was you," he said, after Lazlo missed his entrance.
"Sorry guys," Lazlo said.
"You played this last night, remember?" Jeff went to the piano and played Lazlo's first notes, the D and F sharp trills.
Lazlo found the notes and played them. "I know how to read them, too," he insisted. "Just not so fast."
"So maybe you can learn this by ear." Jeff said. "Let me see your music."
Jeff looked at the part. For much of it, the notes were simple and repetitive, trills and arpeggios that accompanied the melody in the strings and woodwinds. Usually there were rests between the changes. Surprisingly enough, within an hour, Jeff taught Lazlo the bulk of the movement, memorizing each phrase and demonstrating it on the piano,. He gave him a short lesson on following a conductor, what a beat pattern looked like. ("Don't ever ask a conductor what he's doing with his arms again!" Nina said.) Then they reached the long cimbalom solo at the end.
"What is this crazy music?" Lazlo said.
Nina laughed. "Crazy music," she said. "Don't you love it?"
"I don't know," Lazlo said. "But it doesn't love me."
Jeff studied the jagged line of ascending notes at the beginning of the solo. These led to a restless version of the melody, dense with clashing harmonies. Jeff imagined the player's hands jumping wildly from string to string. Finally the music assembled into a jumbled cluster, out of which poured a cascade of notes that landed on a low, low G. On the page, the tiny black shapes spilled down the staff; they looked like lemmings, hurling themselves off a cliff.
For Lazlo, Jeff simplified Kodaly's original as much as he could.
"Don't try to play every note," he said. "Just make sure you end on the right one." He leaned into the cimbalom and pointed at a pair of thick copper strings near the front. "That's the G there," he said. "Right?" Lazlo struck the string and nodded.
They worked through the cadenza one more time, then went back to the beginning, none of them noticing when Roberto arrived. "Bravo," he said, mounting the stage, after Lazlo, at Jeff's discreet signal, made his second entrance. When Roberto started conducting, Lazlo kept going. Jeff made a fist in the air. He gave Lazlo another secret cue when it was time for the solo.
Clearing his throat, Lazlo found his opening notes and bounced the tips of his mallets over the strings, haltingly at times, too fast at others, skipping and improvising through what he couldn't remember or play, until he came crashing down to the final G.
Roberto sighed. "Well," he admitted. "That's an improvement. It can only get better, right? It might not be a bad idea to listen to a recording, though."
"There's one in my car," Jeff said. "We can listen this afternoon."
"Now what about the fifth movement?" Roberto said.
"No problem! That's what I know!" said Lazlo. "We play it October Twenty Three."
"What?" said Nina.
"The Hungarian uprising," Jeff said. "October Twenty-third, Nineteen Fifty-six."
"The day the Hungarians got our buts kicked," Lazlo said, a touch defiantly.
"Let me hear it," said Roberto.
That night, with the full orchestra, the suite began to take shape. Roberto fixed a host of intonation, balance, and ensemble problems. At Jeff's suggestion, he developed a system of cues for Lazlo. When he pointed with one finger, Lazlo came in; two fingers and Lazlo stopped and got ready for his next entrance. Clearly, with his eccentric rhythm and inabity to read his part, Lazlo was not cut out for orchestral playing, but he had a good ear, and the cimbalom was heard some of the time. The solo was herky-jerky at best, but it was already better than in the morning.
Jeff made enough mistakes himself that he wished he'd practiced his own part that afternoon, instead of listening to the CD and going out for hamburgers with Nina and Lazlo. He made up his mind to practice the next day, even if it meant forgoing Nina's excursion. What was the point anyway, with Lazlo there? Or even if Lazlo weren't there? In three days, he'd be in Indiana. After the rehearsal, Jeff sat in the bar past midnight. When he went to bed, he slept fitfully, dreaming he was in a car with his father, taking machine parts to be repaired.
A rehearsal at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning poses difficulty to both college students and professional musicians. So Jeff was at least pleased that, at this one, the Kodaly was scheduled last. The orchestra provided free breakfast, too: a backstage array of bagels, cheese, coffee, and orange juice. Jeff and Lazlo walked in to what remained of this while Mendelssohn's violin concerto received its finishing touches. Lazlo could scarcely believe the student soloist was heading to medical school. "What a violin player! She could be famous!" he said, munching his bagel. Jeff said nothing. At the break, he went on stage to warm up, only to be approached by the student percussionist, asking for a lesson on the bass drum.
"Use your whole body, not just your arms," Jeff told him. "The sweet spot's just off center. Hear the difference? That way the sound widens before it melts." It was easy to say these things when he wasn't the one doing them. He let the kid practice and joined Nina, Lazlo, and Roberto up by the podium. Lazlo, wearing his vest, was comparing "Memory from Cats" to "Bolero" again. Nina tried them on her viola.
"I see what you mean," she said, "only the rhythm's wrong." She smiled. "Remember when we played 'Bolero' at school, Jeff? You would have loved it, Roberto. This guy was incredible."
Jeff blushed. That French conductor had asked him to play "Bolero" 's opening measures so quietly that every resting musician had to sit dead still for him to be heard, while the cellists and violists plucked their accompaniment with the smallest motions possible. The piece had grown from there, a fifteen minute crescendo in which the entire orchestra became one huge percussion instrument, hitting, scraping, plucking, blowing, and pulsating with that same rhythm Pa patata pa until the trombones' final cry of agony and release.
Jeff stared at Nina. "Still like flying squirrels?" he said. "Flying squirrels – yes, yes I do. And I remember showing you that book, too. I had a flying squirrel in my house not so long ago – the cat must have brought it in – I'd never seen one alive before. He was gorgeous, not beady-eyed and creepy, like regular squirrels. He had soft, round eyes, and was graceful. You should have seen him glide down from the mantelpiece when I tried to catch him. It made me think – I know this is weird – of someone – a lover – pulling a blanket over me."
Now Nina was blushing too. "How did we get onto this? Yes, 'Bolero.' We all thought you'd become the principal percussionist of the Paris Opera after that concert."
"Yeah, yeah," Jeff said, turning to go to his place. Roberto had already stepped onto the podium. Just this last rehearsal and the concert, Jeff told himself. Try to concentrate. But the more he concentrated, the worse he played. His arms grew tight. His back hurt. He tried to pull himself together while Roberto rehearsed the third movement, the "Dal."
"Strings," Roberto said. "Play with more delicacy, please. Quiet down when the cimbalom comes in. There's only one of him; there are forty of you! It's beautiful, this movement, the essence of the piece. First the viola solo, just the song, unaccompanied. It's Hary Janos, the soldier, singing to his sweetheart back home. It's sad, but it's a love song. Then the cimbalom comes in, with the clarinet and strings. Incredible atmosphere. Like trees and wind. Finally you get the melody, finally you take over. Suddenly no more Vienna, no more soldier's life. Just lying in a field, touching his girlfriend's hair, pulling the blanket over her." Roberto winked at Jeff. "When the cimbalom comes in alone, the music internalizes – that cadenza! — until everything comes crashing down. He wakes up and it's over. No countryside, no girlfriend, just mud and war. The melody returns with the strings and clarinets, but it fades away, only a memory. Good God! Listen to me! Let's play it again. The whole movement!"
After the rehearsal, Nina invited Jeff and Lazlo to her condominium for lunch and a hike.
"You and Lazlo go ahead," Jeff said.
"Je—eff?"
"I have to practice, do some other stuff."
Jeff watched Nina and Lazlo leave the hall. Then he went outside and walked around the town green and bought a sandwich. He knew he should get to work, but he kept thinking about other things, like where Nina and Lazlo were and calling his father. He went back to the hall and practiced his parts as slowly and calmly as he could. In the late afternoon, he drove back to the inn.
Up in the room, about to lie down, Jeff saw that Lazlo had dropped by, leaving his vest on his bed. The phone rang. Jeff knew it was his father. He hesitated, then picked up, but his voice couldn't sound. His father said "Hello, Jeff? Jeff? Is that you?" But Jeff couldn't speak. He held the phone in the air, away from him, trying to moisten his throat. He didn't know how long he stood there, but at some point he realized that his father must have hung up. He felt ashamed and confused. The room, with the typical furnishings of a country inn – the flowery wallpaper, matching white bedspreads edged with pompoms the size of acorns, a thickly varnished table and desk – now seemed unpleasant and awry. Jeff paced. He walked into the bathroom, saw himself in the mirror and abruptly walked out. The phone started ringing again. Jeff didn't answer. He walked over to Lazlo's bed and looked at his vest. He saw the birds and leaves and pictured the hands, the scratched, strong-looking hands that had created them and had offered him sandwiches and coffee. "For your journey," she had said.
He picked up the vest and held it in front of him. Each bright leaf, each flower, each stitch was a different shape and size. The embroidered birds peered into the room with piercing red eyes, as alive as any cackling flock in a cornfield back home. He put it on. It seemed almost unthinkable, unmanly to put on a piece of clothing that belonged to someone else, especially so odd and costume-like a garment as this. Only the vest didn't seem that way anymore. For a moment, Jeff considered taking it off, but he decided not to. He felt good wearing the vest in this room with the air growing dark. He lay down on his bed.
In his sleep he heard the laughter, the door creek open, the voices.
"Come on, Nina. Let me pull the blanket over you."
"Lazlo, you're crazy. The concert starts in an hour!"
"Oh, please. Just once more, one more kiss."
Their bodies thudded softly on the mattress.
"Oooooohhhh. Mmmmmmm."
Carefully, Jeff inched himself towards the wall, then turned and looked across to see Lazlo's hand winding through Nina's hair. He shut his eyes. What should he do? Let them know he was there? Crawl under the bed? He remembered the vest. He should take it off, of course, but he didn't. He heard a grumbling sound. A light flicked on.
"Hey…!" Lazlo sat straight up. "What do you think you're doing?"
Jeff jumped to the floor. "I could say the same to you!"
"I'm so embarrassed," moaned Nina. Then she saw the vest. "Oh my God, Jeff. You look adorable!"
"Take it off. Please." Lazlo was less charmed.
Jeff stared back at him.
"Why should I? I believe your aunt made it for me," Jeff hardly recognized his thoughts.
"What did you say?" said Lazlo.
"I said your aunt made the vest for me."
"Please again, take it off."
Jeff stood there, stubborn and silent.
"Jeff," Nina said. "Come on. It's Lazlo's." She slid off the bed and reached to put a hand on Jeff's shoulder, but he stepped back.
"This is a little too strange," he said, slowly taking off the vest and handing it back to Lazlo. "I wasn't trying to steal it. It was lying on the bed. I only wanted to put in on. Then I fell asleep, and you two lovebirds came in. Why don't you look around next time?"
Lazlo stepped toward Jeff.
"Oh stop!" Nina said. "What's wrong with Jeff putting on your vest, Lazlo? And what's wrong with us kissing? You wanted to practice. We wanted to have some fun. We talked, we laughed, we smooched. You'll both be gone tomorrow. So what's the problem?"
"There isn't one," Jeff said. "We have a concert to play. You have to be there sooner than we do."
"I know," Nina said. "Like in half an hour. Lazlo, thank you for the walk. I'll see you guys later." She gathered her purse and shoes and hustled out of the room.
Jeff and Lazlo cleaned up and got ready. They left the door to the bathroom open, going in and out in towels, shaving, peeing, dressing, and combing their hair without a word. Neither spoke until they were walking through the parking area to Jeff's car, when Lazlo softly punched Jeff's shoulder. "You and me, we're brothers," he said.
That evening, Kodaly's Hary Janos Suite received a standing ovation. From the fairy tale's opening sneeze, which Jeff punctuated precisely on the snare, to the final bass drum boom, which the student player struck perfectly off-center, the performance was a true if not total success. In the second movement, the flutes and trumpets paraded their tunes around the conjured squares of Vienna while Jeff's glockenspiel octaves chimed out the hour. Later, the saxophone's portrait of Hary Janos gloating over the defeated Napoleon caused Roberto and several members of the orchestra to smirk. Roberto stretched the slower tempos of the fifth movement, the proud Hungarian dance, like candy; in the faster section, Lazlo's skinny mallets pranced along the cimbalom's strings like the legs of a marionette. But the suite almost unraveled in the "Dal." It started well enough: Nina played one note of her solo slightly off pitch, but her sound filled the hall – and Jeff's heart – with melancholy. Jeff shut his eyes to listen, then opened them to watch Lazlo find his notes for the first entrance, and at Roberto's cue, play them no problem. He made his second entrance no problem, too. But when it came time for his solo, when Roberto waved the rest of the orchestra silent and subtly pointed, Lazlo didn't play. For four, five, six eternal seconds, the hall was still; no one even sneezed or coughed. The music itself seemed to have dropped its jaw in bewilderment.
Jeff's cheeks grew hot. Was Lazlo doing this on purpose? Was it his own fault for putting on Lazlo's vest and making such ridiculous assertions? He didn't think so. Roberto looked around the orchestra, trying to cue people in again, as if the cimbalom cadenza had already broken the love song's spell. But just as Roberto's arms went up, Lazlo's arms went down. He played the opening arpeggio, then fumbled through an awkward smattering of notes until he landed on the low G. Roberto, his face a mixture of dismay and relief, gestured to the strings and clarinets. The suite picked up from there; the music survived its accident, perhaps even growing in purpose and energy.
After the concert, Jeff thanked Roberto, said goodbye to the other percussionists, and returned to the stage to collect his sticks. To his surprise, a small crowd had gathered around the podium. He wondered if they were looking at the score to the Kodaly, checking to see if there really were a seven second long pause in the middle of the third movement. But then he heard the music and saw Lazlo in the midst of the swarm, still wearing his vest, a dealer in a bazaar. He was playing "Lara's theme" from Dr. Zhivago.
"The mallets are little feet," Lazlo said when he finished, holding out his sticks for everyone to see. He showed them how with a fast wrist action and the doubled strings he could hammer the same note over and over again. Next he played a Hungarian folk song, using the sticks with the softer heads. He played "Embrace Me, My Sweet Embraceable You," which Jeff's mother had once sung along with Judy Garland in the living room at Jeff's home in Indiana. Jeff heard snatches of her voice, "I love all the many charms about you; above all I want my arms about you; . . .you and you alone. . ." He couldn't remember the rest of the words. Lazlo recounted the history of his cimbalom, made in Budapest and smuggled over to this country by his uncle in the fifties. Eventually, the crowd drifted away until only Jeff and Lazlo remained on stage.
"Here," Lazlo said, handing Jeff the mallets. "You play."
Jeff looked at him. "You want me to?" he said.
"Yes, I want you to." Lazlo offered Jeff the mallets.
Jeff took them. He stood before the cimbalom, then slowly picked out a scale and a few broken chords. The part to the Kodaly lay open on the stand.
"Can you play this?" Lazlo said, turning the pages back to the solo.
"Why?" Jeff said. "You did fine."
"I had my moments," Lazlo said. "Like up on that mountain with Nina – you should have seen us."
"I'm glad I didn't."
"Listen. You play whatever you want. I'm going to the reception for cookies. I'll leave my vest here; I don't want it to get foody. I don't even care if you wear it."
"I'm not going to wear it," Jeff said.
After Lazlo left, Jeff played through the solo, finding his way slowly, trying to understand each note, what it was saying, where it was going. The notes shaped themselves into phrases, phrases whose eerie dissonances seemed to pull the world apart by its roots right there on the all-but-abandoned stage. Sensing someone's presence, Jeff turned and saw Nina standing in the wings, holding her viola case by its black leather handle, her coat all adrape and blended into the gathered curtains. Her fingers were long, slender, and pale; her wrist emerged delicately from her coat sleeve. For a moment he thought he saw tiny scratch marks on her hand. He looked away, then back again. But Nina was gone.
Maybe she'd stepped behind the curtain; it waved and rippled slightly. Jeff wondered what to do. Should he acknowledge her and say something? Or should he forget that she might be there, forget about her completely? He did neither. He played – first the melody, then the rhythm – "Bolero."
—Julie Marden
2011, Fiction, NC Magazine, Vol. II, No. 8, August 2011
11 Responses to "The Cimbalom Player: Short Story — Julie Marden"
John Lowry says:
I enjoyed the story very much. As an orchestral player myself I found it quite believable, and have had experiences, perhaps not quite so colourful, with players of accordion, mandolin, saxophone, sometimes even pianists who are unaccustomed to our over-disciplined style of rhythm. Of course I knew there would be trouble as soon as Jeff let Nina and Lazlo go without him… Unfulfilled ambitions haunt so many of us musicians. There was somewhere that I thought a hyphen might be better between two words, but I can no longer find it…
Marty Kluger says:
I loved "The Cimbalom Player". Julie's writing portrays graceful sensitivity in how the three main characters relate to each other to form a very interesting triangle of friendship and withheld friendship. This glimpse into back stage lives of three free-lance musicians affords readers insight as to how it really is by someone who has been there and done that. Most memorable is how the percussionist protagonist (Jeff) visits their shared musical world while simultaneously treading on the cross-roads of his promising past, stagnated present and alternative futures. But lucky for Jeff, an unlikely companion musician in the form of a folksy cimbalom player becomes his alter ego and seemingly (let the reader decide) prevents him from travelling the more secure and conventional future path in favor of keeping to the road less travelled.
Find here a new creative voice on the short story scene that you should not miss!
Lovely. Thanks Julie!
Jill Crawford says:
Fun story! I like the characters very much and felt like I knew them. I'm glad the Cimbalom player lived near New Brunswick (I know one that does). Also, it was cool to get in the middle of Hary Janos Suite. I love that piece and it was fun to hear the music in my head as you described it through Jeff and Roberto.
Julie Thacker says:
What a pleasure to read Julie Marden's new story. Lazlo, the cimbalom player, is one of the more charming characters I've encountered in recent fiction. In this lovely depiction of the world of orchestral musicians, Lazlo serves as counterpoint to Jeff, the protagonist, as Jeff prepares to leave his career as a free-lance percussionist behind and return to the Midwest to assume the mantle of his family's tool and die business. In Lazlo's company, Jeff and his friend Nina are reminded of the deep pleasure of playing from the heart, and how even mistakes can lend beauty to a performance and to a life.
Thank you Julie for sharing these characters and their poignant, funny little weekend. I'd love to don that vest for an afternoon…
Jonathan Lavery says:
I very much enjoyed this story.
It was entertaining
It was funny
It was interesting
It was bittersweet
It was a little fatalistic
I especially loved the evanescent ending where Nina departs as a ripple and Jeff as a rythm, tres poetic!
cjl
Harry O'Donnell says:
Very apropos story for me! I'm not sure how I navigated to the site, but it had to do with researching something about cymbalum. Back in the late 90ies, at some music historical function in central NYS, there was a man with, reputedly, the very cymbalum used to record the soundtrack for Dr. Zhivago. The man told a story of having acquired the instrument in, perhaps, Hungary, and that it had to be "disassembled" for shipping for some reason. I have come to believe that this man was Derek Bell, himself, the member of the Irish group, "The Chieftains." Bell is the one who played the cymbalum, imitating the balalaika, for the Dr. Zhivago soundtrack. Looking at pictures of Bell and my remembrance of the man at the musical/historical function seem to match. Could any light be shed on any of this? The gentleman did play "Lara's Theme" on the cymbalum for us. I can't specifically remember him stating that he was the one playing for the soundtrack, but he did say it was the very cymbalum used. I suspect it was, indeed, Derek Bell. Anyway, interesting how the story fits my quest!
Julie Marden says:
A belated thank you to all who have commented on my story and to all who have read it as well. It's wonderful that such a variety of readers are enjoying it. Usually I thank people via email, because I assume after reading and commenting, they don't come back to read more comments. But I don't know all the commenters' email addresses. To Mr. O'Donnell, I have to say that I had no idea who played cimbalom for the Zhivago soundtrack; I always thought it was a balalaika! I once heard someone play Lara's Theme (a tune that will always haunt me) on a cimbalom, though, at an orchestra rehearsal, but it wasn't Derek Bell.
Thank you again to all who have made their way to my story.
http://members.shaw.ca/chieftains/derek.html
Hi again, Julie. As you can see form the last line of third paragraph via the link, Bell did, indeed, play the cimbalom to imitate the balalaika in the Dr. Z soundtrack. Unfortunately, I likely will never know if it was Bell I heard telling the story. BTW, enjoyed your story very much!
Thanks, Harry! Interesting to read about Bell, and I'm glad you liked my story.
Poems from Domestic Love — Karen Mulhallen Saddened & Riddled with Nostalgia — Douglas Glover

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


In the past when doing web development, I would usually use something like WAMP to get me a development environment to work locally. However these days with the proliferation of web development technologies, there are just too many tools to have running on your machine. I work in Windows, and having PHP, Ruby, Django, Node, Grails and whatever else all on my system path starts getting a little unwieldy.
Enter virtualisation to the rescue. With VirtualBox and a Linux distro you can build yourself a self contained development environment with all your favourite tools. With a little work, you can customise it just how you like, including getting Git running.


East China's Shandong Province and Shanghai Municipality have announced plans to bring soccer instruction to more school children, part of China's plan to become a world power in the sport.
Shandong is expected to have 2,000 schools that offer soccer instruction by 2020, a move to improve students' physical fitness.
Authorities in Shandong also aim to offer students more choices of which sports they pursue, by allocating sufficient physical education teachers and updating equipment and facilities, local newspaper Dazhong Daily reported on Tuesday.
East China's Shanghai will offer soccer instruction at more than 1,000 schools by 2020 as part of a push to allow students with talent and interest in soccer to receive comprehensive training.
Authorities in Shanghai recently held a meeting and approved the program, thepaper.cn reported on Monday.
According to the national Ministry of Education, soccer training will be offered widely in primary schools, with talented students being funneled to more specialized schools as they go to middle and high school for further studies.
A total of 50,000 schools will feature soccer by 2025, under a national plan.
From 2015 to 2017, China invested more than 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) in pushing the development of soccer in schools across the country, chinanews.com reported in June.
Fan Zhiyi, a famous retired player, said that the development of soccer among youth must be premised upon helping young people develop and grow, Xinmin Evening News reported on July 14.
He said a good coach can inspire young people and help them find joy in the sport.


This beautiful ring makes an elegant contemporary statement while being easy to wear. Light runs across the curved, highly polished form of the ring, while the two layers of struts create eye-catching Moiré patterns.
Inside a textured finish provides contrast and can remain silver or be plated yellow or rose gold for a rich flash of colour.
Sits 1.5cm above the finger and can be made any UK or US size. Out of stock sizes can be made to order, please allow 4 weeks for silver, 5 weeks for gold plated.


The picture above is one part of avr dragon schaltplan, entitled entwicklerboard programmer und software. You can make a comparison with the avr projekte tinyclock, or even compare it with the chris rock.
Greyish are dominant on this entwicklerboard programmer und software due to table below. Then dark indigo & silver color scheme is make it perfect. Combination beetween brownish grey, dark taupe, purple brown, mud brown and dark grey are wraping around the room.


text:
Home > Administration > Principal Eryn Warne
Email: eryn.warne@mpls.k12.mn.us
Room: Main Office
I am proud to be part of the Edison team, serving our students, staff and families. The 2018-19 school year marks the start of my 6th year at Edison—I served as an Assistant Principal for three years before transitioning to my current role. I love Edison because something great happens here every single day. I am blessed to be part of such an incredible school with amazing students who truly impress and inspire me.
Prior to Edison, I served as the Fine Arts Coordinator for Folwell School, Performing Arts Magnet in Minneapolis. I was also an Adjunct Instructor for the Communications Studies Department at St. Cloud State University. Additionally, I have ten years of teaching experience at the High School level: I was a Language Arts and Theatre teacher at The Main Street School of Performing Arts in Hopkins, and an English Teacher and Theatre Director at Woodbury High School. For me, the Arts were a driving force in my life as a student, teacher and school leader; I encourage all students to connect with their personal passion, whether it's Arts, Athletics, volunteering, or anything else that motivates and brings joy.
I have a Bachelor of Science in Theatre and English from St. Cloud State University, a Master's in Speech and Interpersonal Communications from New York University, and I earned my K-12 Principal License at Hamline University in St. Paul.
My son Miles attends Marcy Open--he's a proud future Tommie!
Click here to visit us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @MPS_Edison


Exactly what Skin psoriasis Causes and Chance Aspects?
Exactly what are Psoriasis Therapies?
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Skin psoriasis will not be an infection and therefore seriously isn't communicable. Coming in contact with this afflicted skin tone and then in contact somebody else will likely not broadcast skin psoriasis.
What Are Psoriasis Results in and Threat Variables?
The actual defense mechanisms takes on a vital purpose throughout skin psoriasis. In psoriasis, a specific subset associated with Testosterone lymphocytes (a kind of leukocyte) uncommon trigger soreness from the skin color and various parts of the body. These kind of Capital t skin cells develop the bodies toxins that induce skin cellular material in order to boost and making adjustments to modest skin color blood vessels, causing ultimately within improved running oral plaque associated with skin psoriasis.
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You work in your inbox, not in Salesforce. No one has to force you to use email. You want to because it enables you to connect with customers and it's easy. We think Salesforce should be just as useful and just as simple. At Cirrus Insight, we bring Salesforce into the inbox – to save you time and make you more productive. Now you can see and update Salesforce as you work, automatically sync emails and appointments to Salesforce, track email opens, set follow up reminders, create and update Salesforce records like leads, contacts, and opportunities, schedule sales calls, and more.
Since our inception, Cirrus Insight has been dedicated to making the sales process easier for those actually doing the selling. Flight Plans is the natural progression of that goal.
Flight Plans is marketing automation software for sales reps. You can build sequences of emails, calls, and tasks to reach customers. That means always being able to execute your winning sales playbook.


So I've always had this weird theory about luck.
I've thought for a long time that everyone has a certain amount. Some people–everyone knows someone like this–can win $50 from every $2 scratch-off lottery ticket they buy. They can randomly approach a slot machine, put in $10, and walk away with $200 a few minutes later. They have a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
Other people don't bother buying lottery tickets, because they've learned that all that scratching will be in vain. They walk into a casino* knowing that they'll be losing money, but that's okay because it's a fun time with friends. They seem to always be a few miles away from the right place, and a few minutes away from the right time.
I've always belonged in the latter category. I have, in my life won the following things in chance-type games: a stuffed animal from a claw machine, and three books. No, really. That's it.
So I've always figured that I have a certain amount of luck, and it's just saving itself up for something big. This is my way of making myself feel better when everyone around me seems to have the luck of the Irish, and I have no such thing–even though I actually am Irish (like 1/8, but still).
I went with my mom, brother, and sister to a Special Olympics basket party fundraiser this past weekend. 163 baskets, for which I had around twenty tickets. Also, the other usual stuff, like 50/50 tickets, door prizes, and something I really wanted: a chance at a lottery wreath or a money tree. I was very impressed with the turnout–there wasn't a free seat in the whole place, and the final prize for the 50/50 exceeded $600.
As they called out the winning number for each basket, I enjoyed watching my sister work with the other athletes to deliver baskets to the winners. Every time she went down that center aisle, she'd get this little grin, like, "Look what I'm doing!" She laughed and joked with the other athletes. She had, in short, a spectacular time.
I reminded my mom several times that I'm not lucky, I wouldn't win anything, and I was fine with that because A.) I'm really used to it and B.) it's for a great cause.
And then my number got called for a basket. It was a cute little gardening set, morning glory seeds, gardening gloves, and garden decorations, and I also spotted a tiny planter with forget-me-not seeds. Perfect for the moment, because it gives me yet another reason to look forward to spring–and gives me something to plant in the meantime.
Two baskets. I gave the coffee basket to my mom, as I've been on a tea-buying kick lately and really just don't have room for any more.
I went about the rest of my evening, visiting some friends and going to a coffee shop to write. Finally, I go home, and open up my gardening basket to see what little treasures were hidden from view.
I find a bag of potting soil at the very bottom, which will come in handy not only for the forget-me-nots planter, but also for the other tiny planters I hadn't seen: sunflowers and lucky clovers.
I'm not a terribly superstitious person–although I did privately christen the black cat that roams my mom's neighborhood and always crosses my path on really rotten days "Bad Luck" (his real name, per his tag, is "Coaltrane", har har).
But sometimes life just throws something at you, and you kind of have to wonder, you know?
So I'm off to plant my lucky clover. But I still won't buy any lottery tickets. Some things never change.
*The only casinos I've visited have been either on reservations or in PA, and these had only slot machines (the one on the reservation had a few table games, if I remember right, but not many).
**This especially threw me off because, just a moment before, I'd remarked that I could really use a cup of coffee. Oh, Universe, you're so silly!
Apparently all you need to do to be lucky is to believe you will be. Sounds so simple, doesn't it? Congrats on those baskets! How fun!
Ha! Well, maybe that's my problem. Although I spent the entire event saying, "I won't win anything," and did.
Kristy: Disproving years of research, one day at a time.


text:
Nats close deal with Capps
WASHINGTON - Reliever Matt Capps reached a preliminary agreement early Thursday on a $3.5 million, one-year contract with the Washington Nationals.
Capps can earn an additional $425,000 in performance bonuses for games finished under the deal, which was reached about 12:30 a.m. The pitcher's agent, Paul Kinzer, said the agreement is subject to a physical that will take place in the first week of January.
"This was the opportunity for him to be a closer and he decided the wanted to stay in that role," Kinzer said.
The 26-year-old Capps became a free agent this month when the Pirates decided not to offer him a contract for 2010. The right-hander earned 27 saves last season, while going 4-8 with a 5.80 ERA. He struck out 46 batters in 54 1-3 innings.
Kinzer said the bidding lasted through Wednesday night and that Capps turned down a two-year offer from the Nationals, believing he will have a good season and put himself in position for a higher 2011 salary. While Washington was the favorite, other teams also tried to sign Capps.
"There also was the Cubs," Kinzer said. "The Mets expressed some interest, but it was very late. We very down the road with it, and it would have been a setup role, too."
Capps made his major league debut in 2005 and has career totals of 67 saves, a 19-19 record and 3.61 ERA, all with the Pirates.
He would start earning his bonuses with 40 games finished and would get the full amount with 65.
He gives the Nationals an experienced closer as they work to rebuild a bullpen that was among the team's biggest problems in 2009, when Washington finished 59-103, the worst record in the majors. It was the second consecutive year that the Nationals lost more than 100 games.
Mike MacDougal was signed in May and finished the season as Washington's closer, getting 20 saves and going 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA. But the Nationals did not offer him a contract for next season.
Instead, general manager Mike Rizzo has set out to rebuild the bullpen, trading for New York Yankees relief pitcher Brian Bruney and now bringing aboard Capps.
Those are part of a busy offseason that also has included this week's signing of free-agent starting pitcher Jason Marquis to a $15 million, two-year contract, and the earlier $6 million, two-year deal given to free-agent catcher Ivan Rodriguez.
The Nationals also have an agreement on a minor league contract with reliever Eddie Guardado, who would get a chance to make the team in spring training.
The 39-year-old left-hander known as "Everyday Eddie" appeared in 48 games for the Texas Rangers last season, going 1-2 with a 4.46 ERA. Guardado has 187 saves in a career that began in 1993.
-AP Sports Writer Ronald Blum in New York contributed to this report.


The Health and Personal Social Services (Amendment) Bill was introduced into the Assembly on 23 November 2015. The Committee Stage began on 2 December 2015.
Minutes of Proceedings can be found here.
Minutes of Evidence can be found here.
Written submissions can be found here.
Others Papers can be found here.
Research Papers can be found here.


The penalty round at Yahoo has begun.
Yahoo didn't just suffer one massive data breach last year, but two — and there is evidence that the firm ignored warnings that the breach was underway until it was far, far too late. And as of yesterday, the punishments started rolling out.
Mayer has additionally chosen to give up her equity grant for 2017. How much that amounts to exactly is unknown — but the minimum figure (based on the terms of her contract) would be in the neighborhood of $12 million.
Mayer is not alone in the penalty box — Ron Bell, Yahoo's general council, resigned following an independent investigation into the breaches. That investigation concluded that Yahoo's legal team had enough information to begin investigating the hack as far back as 2014, but did not chose to "sufficiently" review the issue.
Between Yahoo's two major breaches last year — around 1.5 billion consumers worth of data was hacked.
The breaches threatened to upend Verizon's deal to buy Yahoo's core internet assets for $3.8 billion. After extensive negotiations, the two firms settled on cutting the acquisition price by $350 million and splitting the cost of any legal liabilities. That figure is high — but far below the $1 billion discount some analysts though Verizon would seek.
According the filing, Yahoo is at present facing around 43 class action lawsuits.


text:
Die Herrschaft Alteburg mit Sitz auf der Altenburg bei Altenburg, heute ein Stadtteil von Reutlingen (Baden-Württemberg), wurde 1437 von der Reichsstadt Reutlingen gekauft.

Im Jahr 1802 kam die Herrschaft Alteburg mit Reutlingen unter die Landeshoheit von Württemberg.

Literatur
 Gerhard Köbler: Historisches Lexikon der deutschen Länder. Die deutschen Territorien vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. 7., vollständig überarbeitete Auflage. C.H. Beck, München 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54986-1, S. 11.

Alteburg
Alteburg
Alteburg
Geschichte (Reutlingen)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Phase 2; Calibration 2; 9th Glyph Hypothesis
Archive WT Thoughts & Theories
nmsSpaceManSpiff August 1, 2017, 6:18am #1
I am hypothesizing that we will receive an email on Wednesday. It is no coincedence that symbol matches the phase of the moon. However, it is reverse, we are entering the Waxing Gibbious phase, in the middle of the week, with the middlemost glyph. Perhaps the error in symbol due to an error with loop15. It is also no coincidence that Saturn will be visible August 2, and the moon can help guide your eye.
Be sure to let the moon guide you to Saturn (and the nearby star Antares) on August 2, and then again at the month's end: August 28, August 29 and August 30.
EarthSky | Updates on your cosmos and world – 2 Aug 17
Identify Saturn near moon on August 2 | Sky Archive | EarthSky
On August 2, 2017, use the moon to locate the ringed planet Saturn as darkness falls. Miss 'em tonight? Try again tomorrow night.
Edit: Saturn came up earlier, as the Symbol was written in the "notebook"
ekult August 1, 2017, 6:24am #2
it's a glyph, and i feel like it should be referred to as the 9th glyph, because that's what it's numbered on the site, but that would confuse everyone now
Fixed the title. I did'nt realize it was the 9th…
Raist August 1, 2017, 6:27am #4
Might want to indicate in your title that it's a hypothesis or something. Kinda reads like it's available.
Fixed and placed into appropriate category. I'm tired and over anxious
Which was glyph 3… Just looking at the source now… They skipped Glyph 3
it was the etarc link
edit: it's funny you mention the waxing gibbious though, another ARG made by A&S informed players they would email players codes on the 'waxing crescent' which was around 24 June
DuckDuck August 1, 2017, 7:25am #9
but was the etarc link a solvable puzzle? or was it just a link to etarc?
DevilinPixy August 1, 2017, 7:41am #10
Was just a link
ekult August 1, 2017, 7:48am #11
it was just a red link but the red indicates it was unlocked somehow
for example the latest red glyph is numbered as 8u.png
and the next locked white glyph is numbered as 9.png
DuckDuck August 1, 2017, 7:48am #12
for some reason that bothers me to include it as a 'glyph' per se, since it is unique in the sense it wasn't a puzzle revealer. just my 2 cents tho. it obviously looks like a glyph and everything, i get that. i'm probably over thinking the whole thing!
Stonio99 August 1, 2017, 12:42pm #13
Glyph 3 was the red button. We are all murderers.
Shark4 August 1, 2017, 1:32pm #14
I don't see 1 million in my bank account tho…
MacForADay August 1, 2017, 2:18pm #15
Well, one thing is for sure, this is all going to have to accelerate at some point. The S.M. PDF said Waking Titan would conclude in August, but so far we've never solved more than 1 glyph per week. With 8 glyphs remaining, there is no way we will finish in 4-5 weeks unless they start to come faster.
toddumptious August 1, 2017, 3:48pm #16
nmsSpaceManSpiff:
I'm tired and over anxious
Ah yes, Waking Titan Syndrome, I am very familiar with it XD
Nice hypothesis manfred!
Stonio99 August 1, 2017, 5:18pm #17
Agreed. I've had fun with WT and all of you…but I'm ready to play new content in the game.
SlowRiot4NuZero August 1, 2017, 5:30pm #18
I have a theory that the remaining glyphs will have to be solved separately by each Atlas Pass class designations. Different V4 classes may hold different clues? Who knows.
There's definitely a ''silence calls the storm'' vibe going on right now…
nilloc14 August 1, 2017, 6:23pm #19
Ah, and Saturn's largest moon is Titan, which will also be visible… Interesting.


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I've Never Seen The Israel-Palestine Conflict Illustrated More Profoundly Than This
A short animated film satirizing and abbreviating the history of divine claims to Palestine. Don't miss the viewers guide, below the video, that will tell who is who.
Who's Killing Who? A Viewer's Guide
Because you can't tell the players without a pogrom!
This generic "cave man" represents the first human settlers in Israel/Canaan/the Levant. Whoever they were.
What did ancient Canaanites look like? I don't know, so this is based on ancient Sumerian art.
Canaan was located between two huge empires. Egypt controlled it sometimes, and…
….Assyria controlled it other times.
The "Children of Israel" conquered the shit out of the region, according to bloody and violent Old Testament accounts.
Then the Baylonians destroyed their temple and took
the Hebrews into exile.
Macedonian/Greek
Here comes Alexander the Great, conquering everything!
Greek/Macedonian
No sooner did Alexander conquer everything, than his generals divided it up and fought with each other.
Ptolemaic
Greek descendants of Ptolemy, another of Alexander's competing generals, ruled Egypt dressed like Egyptian god-kings. (The famous Cleopatra of western mythology and Hollywood was a Ptolemy.)
More Greek-Macedonian legacies of Alexander.
Hebrew Priest
This guy didn't fight, he just ran the Second Temple re-established by Hebrews in Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile.
Led by Judah "The Hammer" Maccabee, who fought the Seleucids, saved the Temple, and invented Channukah. Until…
….the Romans destroyed the Second Temple and absorbed the region into the Roman Empire…
….which split into Eastern and Western Empires. The eastern part was called the Byzantine Empire. I don't know if "Romans" ever fought "Byzantines" (Eastern Romans) but this is a cartoon.
Arab Caliph
Speaking of cartoon, what did an Arab Caliph look like? This was my best guess.
After Crusaders went a-killin' in the name of Jesus Christ, they established Crusader states, most notably the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
Mamluk of Egypt
Wikipedia sez, "Over time, mamluks became a powerful military caste in various Muslim societies…In places such as Egypt from the Ayyubid dynasty to the time of Muhammad Ali of Egypt, mamluks were considered to be "true lords", with social status above freeborn Muslims.[7]" And apparently they controlled Palestine for a while.
Ottoman Turk
Did I mention this is a cartoon? Probably no one went to battle looking like this. But big turbans, rich clothing and jewelry seemed to be in vogue among Ottoman Turkish elites, according to paintings I found on the Internet.
A gross generalization of a generic 19-century "Arab".
The British formed alliances with Arabs, then occupied Palestine. This cartoon is an oversimplification, and uses this British caricature as a stand-in for Europeans in general.
The British occupied this guy's land, only to leave it to a vast influx of….
European Jew/Zionist
Desperate and traumatized survivors of European pogroms and death camps, Jewish Zionist settlers were ready to fight to the death for a place to call home, but…
PLO/Hamas/Hezbollah
….so were the people that lived there. Various militarized resistance movements arose in response to Israel: The Palestinian Liberation Organization, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
Backed by "the West," especially the US, they got lots of weapons and the only sanctioned nukes in the region.
Guerrilla/Freedom Fighter/Terrorist
Sometimes people fight in military uniforms, sometimes they don't. Creeping up alongside are illicit nukes possibly from Iran or elsewhere in the region. Who's Next?
The real hero of the Old Testament, and right now too.
If you're feeling this video as much as we are, pass it on to anyone who needs a dose of historical perspective on the situation.
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Credits: Nina Paley, This Land Is Mine
Category: Truth