Happy birthday, Itzik!

I had fun at Itzik Gottesman's 50th birthday party last night, held at the Yiddish Artists and Friends club on East 7th Street. (He's the assistant editor at the Yiddish Forward, also an ethnologist and many other things besides.) The music was great, the dancing -- well, I tried to, a little bit, and then realized it was way too complicated for me. Let me say something else about the klezmorim: you should go buy The Broken Tongue, Daniel Kahn's CD of Yiddish-klezmer-funk (or, as his band's site puts it: "Alienation Klezmer Bund = Radical Yiddish Song + American Gothic Folk + Punk Cabaret + Klezmer Danse Macabre = Verfremdungsklezmer Bund."). Also, Adrienne Cooper's daughter can wail the guts out of a song. (I know she has her own name; someone told me but I forgot.)

While I'm mentioning Itzik, you should read his article in the Forward from a couple of weeks ago about how the Forverts is adapting to the changed (i.e. mostly Chasidic) Yiddish landscape.