Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 3.248 February 25, 1994 1) Klezmer group (Melinda Saveleva) 2) Small correction to my transliteration scheme (Marnen Laibow-Koser) 3) Feygele (Jascha Kessler) 4) Flishlang (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Feb 24 14:57:18 1994 From: msavelev@mentor.cc.purdue.edu Subject: Klezmer group I live in Indiana and am looking to form a klezmer group, at this point just to get together and play for fun. I play keyboard and piano, and am currently learning mandolin. Anyone in Indiana (preferably close to W. Lafayette) can reply to me personally at msavelev@mentor.cc.purdue.edu. Thanks a lot! Melinda Saveleva 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Feb 24 19:08:13 1994 From: laibow@brick.purchase.edu Subject: Small correction to my transliteration scheme In the transliteration scheme I recently posted, pasakh-tsvey_yudn should map to ii__ , to distinguish it from plain tsvey_yudn, which maps to ii . Shalom un zayt mir ale gezunt, Marnen Laibow-Kose 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Feb 24 14:59:00 1994 From: Kessler Subject: re Feygele The penis is a bird in German slang/vernacular, going far back. To go birding is to go out cruising (for girls, it used to be). The penis as winged is a Roma n motif. I bought one in bronze in Venezia once, and wrote a poem about it whi ch can be found in my 3rd volume of poems, IN MEMORY OF THE FUTURE (kayak Press ,1976), and it was published originally in THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, as "ON A WINGE D PHALLUS, ROMAN, BRONZE WITH BRONZE BALLS, THAT I GAVE TO MY FRIEND, A TOKEN T O BE HUNG ON HIS KEY CHAIN." As the book is probably only to be found in (good ) libraries nowadays, I can scan it it and upload it for the list, but this is a Yiddish list, and it is a pagan poem, quite wonderfully ironic and glorious, a celebration of heterosexual passion, and thus not germane to a query [sic] ab out homosexuality. I see nothing "distancing" about the word homosexual or hom o for that matter, as distinct from hetero. To call it medicalizing is to be t old what to say and how to think. Medically, by the bye, medically speaking, I believe most of the world will have noticed that in our time Gays of most kind s are ar more often depressed and unhappy and angry, and not Gay at all, at lea st in public. It is hard not to find Gays even when represented in theater by an expert like Terence McNally who are not deeply unhappy persons, more unhappy , perhaps than the rest of the human "race," if that is what we are. "Feygele" is rather a term of diminutive usage and compassionate and ironic and friendly rather. The little bird that flies away, the penis, is nicely done in some of Boccaccio as I recollect. It flies away and returns to nest, too. Etc. If Forw aaerts uses the old "puritanical" term of Homosexual then indeed the language i s somewhat helped to have other versions like "feygele," although the language in its richness of nuance and perjoration, too, is being assaulted by those who will have all use the terms they prefer, and those terms keep changing, as we h ave seen since 1950 with the old word Negro, which has been buried under a few strata of vogueish terms chosen and enforced by American blacks, if not African s...Etc. Old stuff. I would prefer not to have a word concocted for Yiddish b ecause it is desired as part of the rectification of process of PCers. Sue me. Jascha Kessler 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu Feb 24 1994 From: millern@ccit.arizona.edu Subject: Der/di/dos flishlang Vayhi bimay Herbert Hoover, nisht do gedakht, nisht itster gedakht, hob Ikh, vi k'mat alle yinglekh, gehot a flishlang. Dos heyst, al pi Uriel hob ikh gehot a flishlang; ober bay uns oremelayt hot men nor gevust fun kites, vayl nor in Amerike hobn oreme Idishe kinder gekent shpilen mit zey. Eyn kite, meynt ir? Efsher tsvantik. Mit a nickel hot men gekoyft tsvey shtiklekh holts, a bisl papir, un a shtrik. M'iz a sakh gelofn un di kite is nebekh nokhgelofn. Afile mit a shmate veydl iz es nisht geven a glatte zakh. M'hot zikh gut farshvartst loyfendik eyder m'iz matzliakh geveyn un di kite hot zikh oyfgeheben a por fis in der luftn. Geveyntlikh tsum sof iz geblibn a tserisene kite. Mer nisht. Oys papir, oys bilik. Haynt-tsu-togs makht men zey fun aza shtarke shtof as afile sharfe derner kenen zey nisht shatn. Un flien! Me heybt zey kom oyf in der luftn, gibt zey der vint a nem un .. an odler! Un loyfn loyft men shoyn mer nisht vi mit yorn tsurik. Yetst loyft der flishlang.. un der mentsh nebekh loyft _im_ nokh. Vi mit hayntike kinder. Ober nisht dos bin ikh oysn. Kol zman mir hobn derlebt az Yidishe kinder heben nokhamol on tso redn Yidish fun di ershte yorn, vayst zikh mir oys az mir muzn hobn --vi mit kompyuters--a terminologie far shpilekhlekh. Der hayntiger flishlang hot zer venig in eynem mit a shlang. Volt geven efsher sheyn ven eyner fun unzer khevre volt oysgetrakht an ander nomen. S'volt geven nutzlikh nisht nor far di kinderlakh, a lebn af zey, nor far di vos shpiln zokh shoyn dos tsveyte mol in kindershen pardas. Noyekh ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 3.248 To subscribe, send SUB MENDELE FIRSTNAME LASTNAME to: LISTSERV@YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Mendele has 2 rules: 1. Provide a Subject: line. 2. Sign your article. Send submissions/responses to: mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu Other business: nmiller@starbase.trincoll.edu Anonymous ftp archives available on: ftp.mendele.trincoll.edu in the directory pub/mendele/files