#tog un nakht

[syrupwit]

SOURCE | How it came to my attention

[chicago-geniza]

if you interpret this in a lot's wife direction--which i do--what i love is the idea that 1) the compulsion to bear witness to suffering does not weigh a soul or a city in judgement re: whether or not its suffering is deserved, or divine/symbolic retribution for "sin"; suffering demands witness as a thing unto itself, outside categories of "guilt" & "innocence"; 2) the act of bearing witness / encounter with the ghost has the power to transform you into something no longer human, something that can no longer coexist with other humans under present-day social conditions. & i think that's what a LOT of an-sky's later work grapples with, symbolically: if bearing witness to monumental, "supernatural" suffering transforms you into a being who can no longer function within the mores of your society, *what does that say about your society*? it's not an indictment of the sufferer, nor an indictment of the witness, it's an interrogation of the community that averts its eyes, that can't abide suffering in its midst. (i really need to write that "tog un nakht" essay.)

Jon Ware, I Am In Eskew

[chicago-geniza]

Bought this volume of Boy's theater critique in hard copy because it had both Andrzej Marek's Polish Dybbuk & Tog un nakht. Then saw the first review, remembered "M. Jewreinow" is Nikolai Evreinov, the Russian Symbolist, who--iirc this year while he was in Poland to mount THIS play--gave an interview where he discussed his fascination with the exotic, primitive allure of Judaism on the Yiddish stage as represented by The Dybbuk. Anyway he emigrated to France & became a hardcore freemason lol

[jouissanceangel]

the spring is on your lips

with bright red strawberries

and a new breeze, the kind that

makes hearts breathe deep and sing

the song of a day with not much to do but

laugh, drink, and give people your word,

promises of a night, a kiss, fireworks!

der friling iz af dayne lipn

mit likhtike royte truskafkes

un a nay vintl, dos min vos makht

hertser aynotomen tif un zingen

dos lid fun a tog mit nisht keyn sakh tsu ton

ober lakhn, trinken, un gebn mentshn dayn vort,

haftokhes fun a nakht, a kush, fayerverk!

[liebgoth]

Old Yiddish sayings Lieb has definitely said Pt. 2

“Megulgl zol er vern in a henglaykhter: bay tog zol er hengen un bay nakht zol er brenen.”

He should turn into a chandelier so he can hang by day and burn by night!

“A shlekhter sholem iz beser vi a guter krig.”

A bad peace is better than a good war.

“Ich bin akht un tsvantsik protsent pakhed, tsvey protsent tsuker, un zibetsik protsent khutspe.”

I’m twenty-eight percent fear, two percent sugar, and seventy percent chutzpah.

“Ven er iz tsvey mol azoy klug, volt er geven a goylem!”

If he were twice as smart he’d be an idiot.

“Ale tseyn zoln dir aroysfaln, nor eyner zol dir blaybn af tsonveytik.”

I hope all your teeth fall out except one so you can still have a toothache!

And lastly,

[comepraisetheinfanta]

Tog un nakht. (Dia y Noche - Day and Night)

~1937 Yiddish Theater placard from Buenos Aires, Argentina~

[jewishsideblog]

Vu ahin zol ikh geyn (?װוּ אַהין זאָל איך גײן)

Vu ahin zol ikh geyn (in English: where shall I go?) is a poem written in Yiddsh by lyricist and poet Igor S. Korntayer during his time in the Warsaw Ghetto and set to music by Oskar Strock, a Latvian Jewish composer. Korntayer was later murdered in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Lyrics:

Der yid vert geyogt un geplogt Nisht zikher iz far im yeder tog Zayn lebn iz a fintstere nakht Zayn shtrebn, alts far im iz farmakht. Farlozn, bloyz mit sonim, keyn fraynd, Keyn hofenung, on a zikhern haynt

Vu ahin zol ikh geyn, Ver kon entfern mir? Vu ahin zol ikh geyn, Az farshlosn z'yede tir?

S'iz di velt groys genug Nor far mir iz eng un kleyn Vu a blik, Kh'muz tsurik, S'iz tseshtert yede brik: Vu ahin zol ikh geyn?

The Jew is chased and tormented It is unsafe is for him each day His life is a dark night His aspiration — all is closed for him. Forsaken, with only enemies, no friend, No hope, no day is safe.

Where shall I go, Who can answer me? Where shall I go, Since all the doors are closed?

The world is big enough, But for me it’s narrow and small Wherever I look, I must turn around, Every bridge is destroyed: Where shall I go?

[fairytrashmother]

Tooling about and looking at Yiddish curses and I saw this one

Vifil yor er iz gegangn oyf di fis zol er geyn af di hent un di iberike zol er zikh sharn oyf di hintn. As many years as he’s walked on his feet, let him walk on his hands, and for the rest of the time he should crawl along on his ass. 

and yeah, that’s. very him. also, a few more of my favorties

Migulgl zol er vern in a henglayhter, by tog zol er hengen, un bay nakht zol er brenen. He should be transformed into a chandelier, to hang by day and to burn by night.

Er zol kakn mit blit un mit ayter. He should crap blood and pus.

Heng dikh oyf a tsikershtrikl vestu hobn a zisn toyt. Hang yourself with a sugar rope and you’ll have a sweet death.

Zol er krenken un gedenken. Let him suffer and remember.

Anyway yeah, this is his exact style, and when the other Witchers see him really winding up they’ll stand by in horror because whatever comes out of him is going to be horrible and impressive

It is an absolute fact that Lambert’s Yiddish cursing is off the charts impressive

[chicago-geniza]

once i read "an unchosen people" & write to the author & pull the tribute to a. vayter/account of the vilna pogrom from the NLI archives & reconcile these two contradictory russian archival citations by either bothering st petersburg archivists or bothering misha krutikov, find that anna shternshis paper from ASEEES 2018 or 2019 plus elissa bemporad's book, i will finally have most of the pieces i need to start my big ol' project on an-sky's ambivalent zionist poetics. what i think is that he's talking about generational trauma from pogrom violence & how that trauma metastasizes outward into the community if it's kept silent & secret & made shameful, that violence begets violence--literally--& destroys communities from within. & that's what terrified him about jewish cultural survival in diaspora, imo. he didn't foresee anti-jewish violence as, like, a physical extinction event, he saw it as tool of psychological destruction that would decimate jewish life in diaspora, in part because jewish communities did not have the language or the structures or the rituals to both acknowledge the scale of *sexual* violence, specifically, & absorb those women back into the community as full members, without ostracization, without penance or pariah status, or even just...making it Weird. like in so much pogrom literature you just have the metonym of the sliced-off breast to gesture at a *specific type* of violence the author won't describe, even as they turn an unflinching eye toward an elderly hasid being disemboweled, or a soldier beheading a child. an-sky's galician diaries are very preoccupied with rape victims & their fate; his fiction, in general, is unusually (for his generation & genre) concerned with women, working-class jewish women, & their "material conditions." in "tog un nakht," he has an old woman tell the story of her own rape in the first person, to her son, who was born as a result. the child conceived of pogrom rape--his mother too ashamed to speak of it--becomes a vessel for the evil one, setting off the events of the play. the question that preoccupies an-sky is not "will jewry survive this violence?", but "what will the 'surviving remnant' look like, having endured & borne witness to all this violence, all this suffering? how will they treat their raped women, their children of rape, when resources are so scarce, & there's no aid & no end in sight, & the community must prioritize the survival of the few--the lots who don't look back--if it's to survive at all? we need to FIGHT BACK, LIKE JABOTINSKY'S LEGIONS--"

[chicago-geniza]

to put it in the absolute simplest, most reductive terms: if the dybbuk was an-sky's ethnographic expedition play, tog un nakht was his galician war experience play. he wrote the fourth section of khurbn galicje in february 1920, shortly before he died, the same time he was working on tog un nakht; in it are concentrated all the eschatological language, all the accumulated messianic allusions, the abrupt break & tonal shift that accompany his sudden transition from the julian calendar to the jewish calendar mid-paragraph. pogrom rape & the image of the grain silo recur again & again in both his diary & khurbn galicje. it's a play that takes the folkloric framing of the dybbuk & asks: "what if instead of murdering the couple at the chuppah, khmelnitsky's men slaughtered the groom & raped the bride, & denied her the holiness of martyrdom? & what of her child? & what of their community? something more sinister than a single dybbuk would haunt them"

[angrybell]

Back before Reform Judaism became so PC, in the High Holiday prayer book we used, they included a couple of songs that dealt with the Holocaust and about the partisans. One was called The Partisaner Lid (also known as Shtil, di Nakhon is oysgeshternt or in English: Quiet, the Night is Full of Stars).

In Yiddish, the words are:

Bay nakht iz aroysgegangen

Un ven der frost – hot shtark gebrent,

Tsi gedenkstu vi ikh hob dikh gelernt

Tsu haltn dem shpayer in di hent.

A moyd, a peltsl un a beret,

In hant zi halt fest dem nagan,

A moyd mit a sametenem ponem

Hit op dem soynes karavan.

Far tog fun vald aroysgekrokhn,

Getsilt, geshosn un getrofn

An oyto a fulinkn mit vafn

Farhaltn hot zi mit eyn koyl.

In vald tsurik arayngekrokhn,

Mit shney-girlandn af di hor,

Gemutikt fun kleyninkn nitsokhn

Far undzer sheynem nayer dor.

The English translation is:

Silence, and a starry night

Frost crackling, fine as sand.

Remember how I taught you

To hold a gun in your hand?

In fur jacket and beret,

Clutching a hand grenade.

A girl whose skin is velvet

Ambushes a cavalcade.

Aim, fire, shot - and hit!

She, with her pistol small,

Halts an autoful,

Arms and all!

Morning, emerging from the wood,

In her hair a snow carnation.

Proud of her small victory

For the new, free generation!

The girl in the song is apparently Vitka Kempner. I never knew that.

Vitka Kempner (1920-2012): Avenger of the Holocaust

Sorry, I know that was insanely long. At least I only post these like once a month. It was also very difficult to write. As you can imagine, there’s a ton I had to leave out, even long as this is. Full entry here.

Art notes and whatnot behind the cut. As an FYI: I will be traveling for about a month and a half, so I won’t be updating very frequently. But for people in Portland: I will be at Rose City Comic Con - and to people in the UK, I will be at Thought Bubble UK.

Keep reading

[chicago-geniza]

obviously "the dybbuk" is--well, "the dybbuk," but "tog un nakht" is vicious & tragic & resigned, & the language is so spare, so simple, almost naked the way a bare tree is naked, stark. i wonder how it would be remembered if he'd finished it, if alter kaczyne hadn’t written the final act, if it had been staged by a theater company like the vilner troupe instead of a couple companies in the US where it was critically panned & closed without much fanfare. idk, there is something arresting & magical about “the dybbuk” as a theater production af yidish, i don’t know how to describe it, & i don’t think that strange sense of almost...hypnosis would “translate,” so to speak, but still. as a text qua text...!

[chicago-geniza]

this presentation about “the language itself normalized it over time”--methodology re: structures of power and coercion, how they became embedded in women’s bodies, & it’s about the india-pakistan partition, but it’s extremely useful for, um, 1905-1922 galicia & an-sky’s “tog un nakht” where the force of evil takes on flesh as the amnesiac child of pogrom rape--who enters a fugue-possession state & commits atrocities echoing his biological father’s violence against his community--& whose mother never discloses his paternity or her trauma until the moment of her death, & it’s about her body & about the reenactment of trauma against women’s bodies (the child of rape then rapes his niece, possessed by the ‘evil one’), “violence & community constitute one another, that should be the subject of history”

[chicago-geniza]

OK just kidding. Congrats, you did Emails & refilled all your pill cases, now - Order of operations: 1) dissertation proposal summary in a few "appropriate register, readable" sentences; send to K. take supplements while doing this. 2) scan Pan Tadeusz (bilingual edition); condense into one PDF file; send to K. 3) DPW readings; an-sky, в кабаке; write DPW. 4) start packing books. 5) outline abstract for the EE horror book CfP (tog un nakht).

[chicago-geniza]

so a friend invited me to participate in this jewish studies workshop where we present & critique each other's work & i'm gonna do the tog un nakht chapter of my An-sky Book, which is not my thesis (lol), probably for the winter or spring session, but just sent this to the director: "I'll prepare an abstract in the next few weeks, when it's a bit more directed than me gesticulating wildly at an unfinished Yiddish manuscript and yelling about S. An-sky's under-recognized genius. :) Thank you again!"

[chicago-geniza]

Ok! To do

Meds, inhalers, T ✅

Take out kitchen trash ✅

Wash face ✅

Read on the balcony for a bit - GO OUTSIDE

Draft email to V

Send email

Invoice 1

Invoice 2

Text S

Reply to Signal messages

Draft email to [redacted]

Send email

Draft email to roundtable group if someone hasn't already started thread

Send email

Outline shorter version of conference paper

Watch film Institute lecture on Dybbuk and Pan Tadeusz again, pull quotes, take notes

Make folder for PowerPoint images (screencaps)

Unpack antiquarian books, in part because you need the following:

Boy's quote on Tog un nakht; quote from book on silence & sound in film till '39 re: Dybbuk & Pan Twardowski; quote on what Ordyński allegedly said to Wyspiański about his work; Stef's rebuttal on Threepenny Opera re: the inappropriateness of placing Schiller & Ordyńdski in the same category; Wiadomości London survey where Stef says Wyspiański's Dziady is her earliest memory of the theater, a formative experience; Wallis on Grottger's second Warsaw cycle; catalogs from Grottger and Matejko exhibitions in the late 30s; Anna Pilch on Stef's uniqueness as a film critic - the question of form; Debora Vogel & Stef on Jewish art, Chagall, P&A; HURAGAN.

Conclusion can add new material: Dybbuk centennial, Wajda's Wyzwolenie-Dziady as "national martyrology" film that collapses the Powstanie into Auschwitz into Katyń, Zubrzycki's Resurrecting the Jew, AG's corresponding work on Ukr poets re: Babyn Yar and Holodomor, the work of nationalism, the absent figural Jew restored to "rightful place" in history / "the collective story we tell" about the past but safely in Israel in the present as a cornerstone of "progressive" European national narratives that position themselves over-against far-right ethnonationalism, how this is deceptively conservative, not...unlike certain expressions of Piłsudski-ite ideology positioned vis-a-vis Endecja