Joseph Zitt's [as if in dreams] 2024-12-30
Hi. I'm Joseph Zitt. I moved from the US to Israel in 2017. This is my newsletter about more-or-less daily life in my city in the shadow of war. You can select these links to subscribe or unsubscribe. There are more links at the bottom. You can also read this email online here. Here we go...
Hi, all. Sorry to have slacked on the newsletter, but I’ve been working on another project that’s been eating up my time and brainspace.
I just posted this to Facebook, so I figure it would go here, too:
A missile alarm during a thunderstorm. I have to develop an aural taxonomy of booms.
The guy at the front desk left the mic on after announcing the alarm. We heard everything that was going on down there until someone called him to tell him.
At least the power outage is over. We've had a few during this storm.. There's been so much rain in the past couple of days that this month's precipitation, which had been near a record low, is now at or above the highest ever.
One frustration: I was working in my studio when the power went out. I fell asleep and dreamed that I was still working on the song. I awaken to discover that the work in the dream hadn't been saved.
When I wake up, my feet are in a puddle. One of my windows leaks in heavy rain. I have a heavy bookcase in front of it, so I don't know if the House staff could get at it to fix it. I also have a shower curtain in front of it, to cut down the glare at my desk. The rain that leaks in goes straight to the floor. I don't have anything that it could jeopardize down there.
I grab a squeegee and rag to mop it up. (We call the combination "spondja.") Then I change my soggy socks and get back to work.
ADDENDUM: The big project: A few months ago, just for fun, I wrote a song in Hebrew. When I showed it to my tutor, she asked if she should expect new songs each week. I took it as a challenge.
About ten weeks in, I started recording the songs and later start posting them (as “unlisted” videos) to YouTube. You can play them from this playlist: bit.ly/zittdemos
The recordings aren’t great. I’m learning the software (Apple’s Logic Pro 11) as I go along. And there are errors in the Hebrew, for those who’ll notice, since I record them before showing them to my teacher. Some have lyrics posted, along with English translations. I hope to add them to the others.
Enjoy! And Happy New Year!
Feel free to forward the newsletter to other people who might be interested.
Here’s an archive of past newsletters.
You can find me via email, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, and, just out of inertia, X/Twitter. There's more about me and my books, music, and films at josephzitt.com.
The newsletter’s official mailing address is 304 S. Jones Blvd #3567, Las Vegas NV 89107. (I’m in Israel, but if physical mail comes to me at that Las Vegas address, it’ll get scanned and emailed. I don’t expect that to happen much. If you want to send me physical mail, ask me for a real address.)
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L'hitraot.