Gimmie a Slice with Everything...

Got the final word from Ira at the top of the week. The new slice will have five songs, none of them suggested via this blog:

• Vi Lang
• Lomir Undzer Shul Bagrisn
• The Loco-motion
• It's My Party
• You Won't See Me

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed, both because we got blanked, and also by what the inclusion of these particular songs represents. (But not the songs themselves. For what it's worth, I think they're all quality tunes.) I should mention that Ira and I have been emailing back and forth for the past couple of months, and he gave me a few early notices that this was probably what the slice was going to look like. I would also ask people to remember that teaching the music involves a whole other set of criteria that doesn't necessarily jive with how you and I select our faves.

Having said that, it's hard not to look at these tunes and wonder if this particular playlist isn't already on file somewhere in the back of Maddy's House. Loco-motion is the fifth Goffin/King song in the slices; You Won't See Me is the twelfth Beatles song (eleven Lennon/McCartney's, one Harrison, in case you're keeping track). And while I'm hardly qualified to challenge the inclusion of the two Yiddish songs (and Vi Lang is a particular favorite), without a solid cultural context propping them up, I'm a little skeptical as to how much play they'll actually get.

There's a much larger debate in play here, one that's been going on (albeit quietly and civilly) for some time now. Given the limited resources camp has to work with, what's the best way to keep the cultural program from drifting towards irrelevance? It's a very difficult issue to grapple with; even more so where music is concerned. There are so many questions for which there are simply no good answers. Case in point: over the last 20 years, many of the artists whose lyrics advocate the kind of radicalism championed at Kinderland (i.e.: Public Enemy, Ani DiFranco, Rage Against the Machine) perform in ways that are not at all conducive to a group sing-along model. If at some point contemporary music is added to the slices, then how to address the absence of so many relevant voices? And if those artists are being excluded for the sake of practicality (no small consideration in a setting like camp), then what does make the cut? Would anybody really be satisfied if the last 30 years of protest music were represented with songs like Billy Joel's Allentown or U2's Pride (In the Name of Love)?

Anyway, this is a much heavier discussion than I'm willing to have right now. We here at Kinderslice Music do not see our mission as standing athwart the Tolland canon, yelling STOP. Especially not when there're awesome tunes to be spun. I don't particularly care what Ira thinks; you guys came up with some truly awesome selections, and I want to use this final pre-camp post to showcase some of the ones I thought were especially aces. A week from now, in some undiscovered parallel universe, the Inters will have their first music period of the summer, and no song will be impossible... that's the KassaNostra's dream, anyway: a slice with everything, as it were.

So first of all, let's talk about the Indigo Girls. I've never really been a fan. In fact, my formative camp years coincided with their biggest releases, and the memories of overzealous rendition after overzealous rendition of Closer to Fine still haunt me. (Rule of thumb, people: the more you like a band, the more the person sitting next to you probably doesn't.) But I will gladly prostrate myself to the higher mind for the right of any folk artist to ditch the psychobabble and write a kick-ass rocker, and with that in mind, I really, really like Dane's suggestion of Shame on You, the lead single off of 1997's Shaming of the Sun. Of all the proposed new tunes, I think this one would be the most fun to actually sing (or even better, walk past a group of eleven-year-olds tearing through it). The social relevance factor is off the charts, even as this country's attitudes towards undocumented aliens get stupider by the minute. And for those of you unfamiliar with Chicano Park, check it out – it gives the Paul Robeson Playhouse a run for its money. Really, sixty-something years after the fact, this song would be the perfect bookend for Woody Guthrie's Deportee. Nice choice, Dane. And I say that as someone who would just as soon avoid a Nomads Indians Saints revival. Be worth it, 'tho, if it got this number into the canon.

Indigo Girls: Shame on You



Next up, a private request by little Nicky Jahr for Billy Bragg's personal anthem, Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards (from 1988's Workers Playtime). Much like the Indigo Girls, comrade Bragg is one of those artists who'd be a natural for Kinderland icon status, if only his timing were a little better. A quick perusal at an actual copy of the slices reveals that the earliest entries (pgs. 1-26) are mostly pulled from Rise Up Singing, which also came out in 1988. Consequently, anyone who started hitting their stride in the late 80s gets the shaft. (Far as I can tell, the most recently released song in the slices is Gerry Tenney's New Underground Railroad: self-released in 1985, with a wider release on Holly Near & Ronnie Gilbert's 1987 LP Singing with You.) I only point this out because Bragg is the rare artist who effortlessly mixes sarcasm, incurable romanticism, unabashedly progressive politics, and an amiable outlook on everything. "You can be active with the activists/Or sleep in with the sleepers." It's more than just a lyric; it's an ethos. Sometimes I still can't believe we let this dude slip through the cracks.

Billy Bragg: Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards



And for those of you stymied by the cold war-heavy lyrics, here's Bragg in 2007, with an updated version. Note that we're still waiting for that great leap. Note also that the waiting is still the best part.

And now, your indulgence, please, while I take care of some mea culpa business.

To the anonymous wag who asked me in back January about the Maddy Simon/Tomoyuki Tanaka connection: sir... madam... I sincerely beg your forgiveness. The KassaNostra has few rules, but one of the biggies is, "don't take the readers for granted." And yet that's exactly what I did in your case, writing off your legitimate query as a facetious attempt for a quick laugh. It shames me that I took this long to attempt to make things right, but here goes: I'm Bruce utilizes the melody of what Kinderlanders recognize as the qua-qua-qua-qua-quarter song that Maddy has been teaching for decades. I can't locate a source for that specific version of that song. Gershwin includes the melody as a brief part of An American in Paris in 1928. Different versions of it – all substituting bubblegum for the class warfare angle – have turned up. Ella Fitzgerald cut a version with Chick Webb in 1939 (on the Decca label). Dean Martin (Capitol), Teresa Brewer (London) and the Andrews Sisters (Decca) all released it in 1950. That there are different versions (with different writers) suggests it really was a traditional song in the public domain long before any of these artists ever got to it. But that melody has been ubiquitous throughout, so there are a number of sources for it that FPM could've tapped. Again, profuse apologies, and a request for your patience: I'm gonna need a little time to dig into this Ugly Casanova mishegas.

Meanwhile, the Brother of KassaNostra (who also shall remain anonymous) (and who, this one time only, shall be dubbed the KassaBROstra), sent me a whole list of suggestions, many of which were of the old-timey variety. You read through the slices long enough, you sometimes forget that people just singing about getting through their troubles with a smile can be a stronger act of insurgency than singing about revolution in the streets (hell, that could practically be Woody Guthrie's epitaph). But those old-timey-ers knew it. They laughed at the Titanic going down, reveled in train derailments, and sang wistfully of their weariness. You do that with enough feeling, and you don't even have to tack on a join-the-union chorus. There's a reason that songs like Midnight Special, Do-Re-Mi and Dark as a Dungeon are camp standards. Hank Williams might very well turn in his grave if we ever put him in the slices, but I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive is, plain and simple, one of the best songs ever written. And Gillian Welch has a catalog full of tunes about the ravaging effects of poverty –Tear My Stillhouse Down, One More Dollar, Red Clay Halo, etc. etc. However, I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll, off of 2001's Time (The Revelator), is more fun to sing, and hits on a Kinderland maxim if ever there was one: sometimes you gotta want to shout to be heard. Thanks, Butch. Keep lookin' out for them pumas.

Hank Williams: I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive

Gillian Welch: I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll [live]

San Jose Sam gets to be president of my West Coast fan club for life for sending me this suggestion: Tom Robinson's Glad to Be Gay (a lost classic off his Rising Free... EP from 1978). In post-Sex Pistols England, the Tom Robinson Band bridged the gap between punk and new wave, challenging the ennui of the former and the apathy of the latter with songs about politics and social justice as their rallying cry. Robinson – who was open about his orientation for the entirety of his career (although he now classifies himself as bisexual) – wrote the song for a London pride parade. The EP reached #18 in the UK, despite the song being banned by the BBC. This is a great song, and a great choice for the slices, as it attacks both anti-gay bigotry and the complacency of those who allow it to happen. It's amazing (and a little depressing) how many of the lyrics are still relevant today.

Tom Robinson Band: Glad to Be Gay [live]

I'm going to end with a suggestion of my own, although a couple of different people have also mentioned it to me since I started this blog. In a growing field of old-timey Americana bands, Old Crow Medicine Show is just plain weird. Every time I read an interview with lead singer Ketch Secor I feel like I'm listening to the kid of the banjo guy from Deliverance. But they've covered Union Maid and Deportee, and played the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. And they wrote I Hear Them All, which might be the best protest anthem of the last decade. Much like Bragg's Great Leap Forwards, this isn't about a specific issue or event, but rather encapsulates the worth of progressive values, and does it beautifully. And I cannot possibly say enough about that last verse, which connects the song to imagery – biblical prophets and the welcome table – that was a staple of spirituals, and eventually spread into c&w by way of groups like the Carter Family. It's a ringing reminder that social justice as a concept and a practice has been a regular part of American culture for decades.

Old Crow Medicine Show: I Hear Them All



Enjoy your summer, people. You guys are the best... all both of you. And remember: the KassaNostra loves you, even when you are singing It's My Party.

Peace & Vinyl,
The KassaNostra


CODA: Kinderland opens on July 4th this summer, which I always remember as having been a little awkward when I was a camper. Not a lot of overly-patriotic music in the canon, at least not the way the rest of America might cotton. I do remember a lot of Wasn't That a Time being sung, but on a couple of occasions, Maddy threw us a curveball and hit us with Riflemen of Bennington, a Revolutionary War era number about killin' redcoats. I'm guessing she picked it up from Pete Seeger, but I prefer this 1975 version by a trio calling themselves The Committee of Correspondence, who specialized in period songs (this appeared on a Folkways LP, The American Revolution in Song and Ballad). Never mind for a second that it's a great tune. At a time when the Tea Party movement acts like it has a monopoly on patriotism, this serves as a gut-check to the contrary. The three members of the Committee grace the album's back cover in revolutionary-era costume, and go on to thank Irwin Silber in the liner notes. Glen Beck would have an aneurysm!

The Committee of Correspondence:

Riflemen of Bennington

Mash Notes

Two more posts – this one, and a very special fan appreciation post wrapping up the new slice voting later this month – and then the KassaNostra goes on his now-traditional summer hiatus. What's that, I hear you ask? Do I dare call it a hiatus after taking off the entire month of May? And February? And all of last autumn? To which I say... suck it, haters! The obscenely cushy life of an obscure music blogger (as of this writing, up to 6,323 on the IceRocket BlogTracker charts... with a bullet!) is why I got into this gig in the first place. For those of you well-versed in the Tolland vernacular, this blog is my solid gold rock-block, for which my leisurely ways are more than well-suited. Besides which, it would hardly be fair for me to continue posting through the summer, unavailable to the thousands of Kinderland campers and staff who rely on me as their primary guru of Tolland-centric pop-culture stylings.

You kids are still hip to that swingin' Ronnie Gilbert chick, right? Molly Picon, maybe?

Anyway, here's a non-musical fact to get us started: the KassaNostra digs nothing more than a good you-got-your-chocolate-in-my-peanut-butter moment. I respect any creative genius with the imagination, resolve, and sheer intestinal fortitude to challenge the status quo by making greatness out of unlikely couplings. People with this inherent talent should all be marriage counselors. Or Middle East peace negotiators. But I'm glad they're not, because then we wouldn't have mashups.

Mashed culture of one kind or another has been around at least eighty years, but only in the last ten has technology aided the proletarian masses by deigning them the means and access necessary to create new pop tapestries from existing material. In retrospect, it's hardly surprising that the first generation raised on sampling grew up to realize that the Beatles could be exquisitely remixed with Jay-Z. It also comes as no great shock that a medium grounded in reshaping other people's creations was birthed by the same culture that idolizes pop icons well into their 60s and 70s. (For context, imagine if, at the original Woodstock festival in 1969, that Rudy Vallée and Maurice Chevalier were held up as iconoclastic godfathers of all modern pop.)

Now, as with all transformative culture, there are those naysayers who deride mashups as a novelty – as something substandard in artistic relevance to the original works being bastardized. Two things to say to that. One, fine. It's all just baubles and gimcracks. It bears no greater relevance to the overall cultural matrix than does American Idol. Or Glee. Or comic book superheroes. Or all of Hollywood that relies on pre-existing source material, which is all of Hollywood. Cultural inspiration is diverse – sometimes it scavenges recyclables for shantytown metropolises, sometimes it builds cities on rock 'n' roll. Either way, it's the same basic concept of four-walls-and-a-roof to go home to at night.

Two, music used to be an activity before Thomas Edison conspired to make it a spectator sport. A song was a basic template: sheet music and lyrics, that individuals were entrusted to perform on their own. It was inevitable that music would eventually become a commodity, but there's an irony to how far we've strayed from the oral tradition that once was (we like to think of rock 'n' roll as revolutionary, but whereas most of rock's antecedents – R&B, C&W, gospel – are grassroots in origin, rock music itself has never not been commodified). I won't pretend that mashup culture is heralding some kind of peasant insurgency, but walls are definitely being broken down. In the last decade, music has gone from something performed by a rarefied few to a medium thrown open to amateur creativity and participation. And if you can't get behind that, then maybe you're going to the wrong summer camp.

Besides which, mashups sound totally awesome. But are they compatible with the Tolland canon, you ask? Think about that for a second. Are they appropriate for a place that effortlessly grafts cultural significance onto routine experiences? Oh baby, hide yer bulbes, 'cause K-Land is down with the mash.

We get this party started with DJ Copycat's 2007 creation, The Tide Is Pata Pata High. Alas, in selecting an appropriate match for Blondie's reggae-cum-pop-via-punk ode to romantic tenacity, the 'cat opted to use Osibisa's cover of Pata Pata over the Miriam Makiba original (although he swears that Makiba's voice is mixed into the background). This tune is a perfect example of two songs blending seamlessly. Note how effortlessly the four-bar intro to Pata Pata flows into Tide's opening horn sequence. That's partly the commonalities in the source material – Osibisa is a British Afro-pop band with strong Caribbean roots, which pairs up nicely with Tide's reggae beat (the original version was a 1967 release by the Paragons, staples of the Kingston rocksteady scene). It's also partly the result of digital manipulation. To get two different songs to synch up usually requires some playing with the tempo. The Tide Is Pata Pata High clocks in at 116 beats per minute (BPM), the mean average between Blondie's Tide (97 BPM) and Osibisa's Pata Pata (133 BPM). The result: literally the cat's pajamas. Check out more of DJ Copycat's work here.

DJ Copycat: The Tide Is Pata Pata High
(Blondie vs. Osibisa)



Next up is ToToM's Blowin' in My Mind, which mashes Bob Dylan's poetry with the sonic surrealism of the Pixies. It's an inspired marriage, even for two artists who both cited Woody Guthrie as an influence. I really love how Dylan's chorus is bracketed here by two distinct Pixies moments: the drop-off in Joey Santiago's lead guitar at the beginning of the chorus, and the fade-in of Black Francis' vocals at the end. Obviously, you don't need me to tell you how poignant Dylan's writing is. But his older folk output is generally lacking in theatricality (intentionally so, I'd imagine); the way ToToM reframes the original words here really underscores the power of an already unforgettable line. Those of you who already associate Where Is My Mind? with the final scene in Fight Club can groove on the parallel responses to a desensitized society. From ToToM's 2009 Dylan Mashed compilation, which can be found here, along with the rest of his excellent body of work.

ToToM: Blowin' in My Mind [2009 version]
(Bob Dylan vs. the Pixies)



Now, I realize that mashups are a very subjective thing, and the KassaNostra is nothing if not accommodating, so here are two separate tunes built around Fever. (Albeit not Little Willie John's version – anybody out there want to set up a lobby to push the Tolland canon on the internet?) For the staunch traditionalists among you, we have Revelation Fever, a mashup by RIAA that sticks a Son House vocal onto a Fever rhythm section. This is from a 2007 compilation album, Foolklegs: Folkloric MashUps, and the liner notes attribute the Fever half of this to Peggy Lee. That's possible, but it's definitely not taken from her 1958 single. Could be a live release maybe? Good thing folk music and apocryphal background info are no strangers to each other. But for our more bohemian faithful, that's definitely Lee's voice, capably anchored by Iggy Pop's brooding solfeggio on Go Home Productions' Passenger Fever, also from 2007. Not much to say about either of these, except that you could probably run anything under either a Peggy Lee or Son House vocal and it would still bust up mountains. RIAA's stuff here, Go Home Productions' here.

RIAA: Revelation Fever
(Son House vs. fake Peggy Lee)


Go Home Productions: Passenger Fever
(real Peggy Lee vs. Iggy Pop)



Lastly, there's this. It's by a dude named FAROFF. He's from Brazil. It's not camp-specific, other than the tangential Klezmer connection. It does more to bridge Jewish-Irish relations than anyone since Denis Leary. It's the mashup I was waiting for my entire life, but didn't know until I heard it.

FAROFF: House of Klezmer

(House of Pain vs. Amsterdam Klezmer Band)



Peace & Vinyl,
The KassaNostra

Musical Interlude

Gonna go all WFMU on the blog this week and hit you with some tunes that can only be termed: instrumental exotica.

But first, some of you want to know what's going on with the Ira/new slice contest. The man himself assures me that there's still time to get yer choices in – just click on ol' Feter Shmuel on the right, there, and then scroll down to leave your musical selection in the comments. No idea what he thinks about your groovy selections, but the KassaNostra is very pleased with the options. Regardless of how the slice turns out, I think a fan appreciation post is in order. Maybe before we take our annual summer hiatus.

On to the music! First up, we got us Elmer Snowden's banjo-licious take on the Twelfth Street Rag. Even you anti-folk dance heathens out there dig this tune. When Kinderland gets down with the rag, it gets down with Pee Wee Hunt's 1948 version on Capitol Records – that disc was Billboard's number-one single for that year, selling over three million copies. (Oddly enough, from a sheer numbers perspective, that may make it the single most popular song in the Tolland canon. Crazy, man.) Someday I'll post the Hunt version, along with a few others since there's thousands of covers out there. But for today, I'm sticking with Snowden, a jazz-era banjoist and bandleader. Don't know why this particular version tickles the KassaNostra's fancy so, but it does. One caveat: Snowden leaves out the throw-your-hands-in-the-air bridge, so if you're gonna try dancing to this, be careful not to get tripped up.

Elmer Snowden: Twelfth Street Rag



Never underestimate the power of a good instrumental. In 1962, the Ventures – surf-rockers of Run Don't Walk fame – brought rock 'n' roll to Japan. Seriously! With no language barrier to overcome, their tour of the Far East touched off the eleki buumu – the "electric boom" that had local manufacturers scrambling to meet the needs of guitar-hungry youth. When the Ventures returned in 1965 (unaware of the mayhem they had wrought), they were greeted with Beatlemania-level pandemonium. One of the first local guitar heroes to emerge in their shadow was Takeshi Terauchi, a fuzztone master on par with Dick Dale or Link Wray.

Now, surf-rock is one of those genres wherein literally any song can be covered in the vernacular of frenetic guitar chords, and Terauchi's impressive oeuvre does not disappoint in this regard. And yet, I was shocked – nay, gobsmacked – to find a copy of Dona Dona on one of his albums from 1966. I mean, I've seen Dona Dona covers before, but always on albums like this. Or this. How the hell did a Yiddishkeit folksong find its way to Japan? (As with most things, I find it easy to blame the hippies.)

I have to admit, before I heard Terauchi's take, I got inappropriately excited that he was gonna positively shred this sucker. Sad to say, it's pretty much a straight cover, as respectfully mournful as a surf-guitar cover of anything can be. I get the feeling, though, that Terauchi wasn't entirely sure how to tackle this, because he throws the kitchen sink at it: flamenco guitar riffs, circus organ, every bell and (literally) whistle imaginable. It's no masterpiece, but a fine cut nonetheless.

Takeshi Terauchi & His Blue Jeans: Dona Dona



Irving Fields was a nice Jewish boy. Then he fell in love with Latin Music. Then he started combining Latin rhythms with Jewish music, starting in 1946, when his Miami Beach Rhumba was recorded by Xavier Cugat. Fields helped drive an all-things-Latin craze among post-war middle class Jews, as unlikely as that sounds (Cugat was shocked to learn he couldn't speak Spanish). The success of 1959's Bagels and Bongos spawned first a sequel, then a string of ________ and Bongos albums, milking the Latin sound waaaay past any reasonable sense of tolerability. Or maybe not, since he's been rediscovered by the Esquivel-worshiping hipster set. Anyway, two things: one, anybody who names a song Havannah Negila is okay in my book. And two, his take on Die Grine Kuzine – recast as The Green Cousin-Merengue on Fields' 1960 LP More Bagels and Bongos – transitions so smoothly, it makes you wonder if some shyster didn't rip off a nice Cuban boychik back in the day.

Irving Fields Trio: The Green Cousin-Merengue



Finally, here's Moses Dillard & The Tex-Town Display, with their rendition of Matchmaker. Dillard was a session guitarist, working at various points with Otis Redding, James & Bobby Purify, and Mighty Sam McClain. None of the projects he led ever really took off, including the Tex-Town Display, which only lasted three or four years. It's most notable accomplishment was to feature a young Peabo Bryson on backing vocals (which, since this is an instrumental number, means I'm gonna hear from the legions of ex-Kinderland Bryson fans). It's a not a bad tune at all – starts off with some Coletrane-esque noodling, and shifts into a guitar that veers dangerously close to elevator music, before righting itself about halfway through. Jerry Bock would no doubt be pleased.

Moses Dillard & The Tex-Town Displays: Matchmaker



Next time: lyrics! (Maybe.) Meanwhile, keep those slice suggestions coming.

Peace & Vinyl,
The KassaNostra

The 10 Days of Pesach: Day 10

EXODUS 12:1 And the LORD spoke unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying: 2 'This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you. 3 Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying: In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to their fathers' houses, a lamb for a household; 4 and if the household be too little for a lamb, then shall he and his neighbour next unto his house take one according to the number of the souls; according to every man's eating ye shall make your count for the lamb. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year; ye shall take it from the sheep, or from the goats; 6 and ye shall keep it unto the fourteenth day of the same month; and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at dusk. 7 And they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it. 8 And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 9 Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; its head with its legs and with the inwards thereof. 10 And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; but that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. 11 And thus shall ye eat it: with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste--it is the LORD'S passover. 12 For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. 13 And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. 14 And this day shall be unto you for a memorial, and ye shall keep it a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever.

The Pharcyde: Passing Me By

Happy Passover '10 everyone... now go enjoy your freedom from oppression, and also leavened stuff.

The 10 Days of Pesach: Day 9

EXODUS 10:21 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Stretch out thy hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.' 22 And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days; 23 they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days; but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. 24 And Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said: 'Go ye, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed; let your little ones also go with you.' 25 And Moses said: 'Thou must also give into our hand sacrifices and burnt-offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the LORD our God. 26 Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not a hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.' 27 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let them go. 28 And Pharaoh said unto him: 'Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more; for in the day thou seest my face thou shalt die.' 29 And Moses said: 'Thou hast spoken well; I will see thy face again no more.'

The Darkness: I Believe in a Thing Called Love

The 10 Days of Pesach: Day 8

EXODUS 10:12 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Stretch out thy hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left.' 13 And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the LORD brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all the night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. 14 And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the borders of Egypt; very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. 15 For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left; and there remained not any green thing, either tree or herb of the field, through all the land of Egypt.

The Bugs: Slide

The 10 Days of Pesach: Day 7

EXODUS 9:22 And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Stretch forth thy hand toward heaven, that there may be hail in all the land of Egypt, upon man, and upon beast, and upon every herb of the field, throughout the land of Egypt.' 23 And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven; and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down unto the earth; and the LORD caused to hail upon the land of Egypt. 24 So there was hail, and fire flashing up amidst the hail, very grievous, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation. 25 And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field, and broke every tree of the field. 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the children of Israel were, was there no hail.

Etta James: Stormy Weather