JEWISH SMALL WORLD

I remembered Prof. Cohen was talking about Jdub Records and thought "Where did I just read about that?"

It was on a CD in my bag.

At the HT, my job is asst. to the editor, so I deal with editing letters, guest columns, syndicated columns, I do the editorial page. Since I started back working full-time a couple of years ago, I haven't really written. (In past years, when I was part-time, I did some articles on Jewish holidays, on Miriam's Cup at Passover, etc.)

But at the HT, as Lotus Festival approaches, it's "all hands on deck."

(If you haven't been to Lotus Fest, I highly recommend it. A wristband for $30-something gets you in and out of an incredible variety of music all evening long...walking downtown among the crowd, watching a street parade, eating, drinking, dancing, drumming -- it's magical, and the bands from all over the world are fascinating. It's Oct. 5-8 this year, which doesn't conflict with High Holy Days, as it has sometimes in the past.)

Anyway, at the last staff meeting, they said "If you want to write a Lotus story, grab a CD from Andy's desk." So I grabbed a klezmer CD named GOLEM.

Anyway, turns out that GOLEM is also a Jdub Records CD. And, Lenny Kaye, who is a guest on the CD, is a guitarist in the Patti Smith Band.

We sold Jordie's dad's house (may his memory be for a blessing) in Highland Park, NJ (a very cute little Jewish town between Edison and New Brunswick) to Tony Shanahan and Gabrielle Wilders. Tony is also a guitarist in the Patti Smith Band. And after I emailed Gabrielle to tell her of this funny coincidence, she told me that Emory Dobbyns, who produced the GOLEM CD, is partners with Tony in a production studio they just opened in Hoboken.

So that really is a small world. I'm really looking forward to writing about this band now.