Pintele Update 6
This weekend I passed an important milestone (and don’t think that’s easy, passing a milestone): I now have reasonably complete, edited recordings of all seven chapters of Pintele. (I think it’s more accurate to call these chapters or parts, as opposed to episodes, though that word pops up too.)
I still think roughly 50% of the narration will have to be rerecorded, either to accommodate rewrites or to improve the performance.
This update will be seven mini-updates.
Part One: Straight Outta Anatevka: Not surprisingly, this is the most “finished” of the episodes, having received the doting attention lavished on all first chapters and opening numbers. In some ways this is the most important chapter, because your opinion of it will probably have a lot to do with whether you listen to the second chapter. Part One is pretty close to its final form, with all the music, sound effects, and comedy bits in place.
Part Two: God and Other Gods: Not far behind Part One in terms of polish, this chapter also needs minimal rerecording — just a few jokes that could land better, and a handful of reworked sentences. I’m not sure Part Two is the crowd-pleaser that Part One is — this one is more challenging in numerous ways, but I really like it. I should say right now, to avoid any disappointment, that god will not be making an appearance.
Part Three: A Very Brody Passover: This one has a complete edit, with most of the music and effects in place, but it needs more rerecording than the first two. This one has considerably more character voices, comedy bits, and singing; and in the present mix a lot of the performance track is placeholder. I love listening to this one, though, and I think you will too.
Part Four: Pintele Yid: This is where I put on my showbiz historian / cultural critic hat (i.e. the hat I wear when I pretend to be those things). Part Four continues the analysis of Fiddler on the Roof started in Part One, and then brings the conversation around to The Jazz Singer, Abie’s Irish Rose, the 1909 Yiddish musical Das Pintele Yid, and Yankev Glatshteyn’s 1938 poem “Good Night, World.” This is also one of two places in Pintele where I spend some time talking about the Marx Brothers. Part Four is in reasonably good shape, with most of the music in place, and several sections to rerecord. It’s a little longer than the previous episodes (about an hour and twenty) but maybe that’s just the way it is.
Part Five: The Old Jewish Man of Unity: Part Five picks up the personal history started in Part One (and nudged forward in Parts Two and Three). This part of the story takes me to the end of childhood, with details about the culture shock of moving to South Florida and the contrasting response to Jewishness in various institutions. There’s also a lot here about Jewish comedians and comedy, especially Mel Brooks, Jackie Mason, and Woody Allen. It’s in roughly the same shape as Part Four: solid, with much musical work already completed, and some pieces to rerecord. There’s a two-page section of Part Five I’m planning to rewrite dramatically, but I know what I want to do; I just have to do it.
Part Six: Tyrants Disappearing: Perhaps the most challenging chapter, this is where we deal with Israel and Palestine, as well as current American politics and the rise of fascism here and now. As you can imagine, this part keeps getting rewritten with the headlines, and I probably won’t “freeze” it until it’s released. Besides the ever-changing story, this part is fraught with complicated issues. It’s also, of course, terrifying. Presently, this chapter is just a rough assembly of the narration; I haven’t added music yet. I’m already planning to substantially rewrite the first section, and I’m sure I’m going to rerecord a lot of this, too. It closes with a musical number, which is possibly my favorite thing in the whole series.
Part Seven: Next Year in Manhattan: Bringing Pintele in for a landing has not been an easy job, but I think I’ve got it now. This chapter is in about the same shape as Part Six (i.e., a rough assembly without much music or production), but it doesn’t present the same challenges as Part Six. I think I’m going to deliberately save the polish on this until the other six parts are locked and ready to release, just to make sure the ending really works with all that leads up to it. Also, when I recorded the very end of the narration, I began audibly and unexpectedly crying, and I’m not sure whether to leave that in because it’s authentic or redo it because it runs the risk of appearing otherwise. It is authentic, but I could still come off like William Hurt’s character in Broadcast News, forcing tears for effect. So we’ll see.
Anyway, there you have it, a more complete update than you ever wanted, about all seven chapters of the upcoming audio experience called Pintele. When is it upcoming? Well, technically I think I can still meet my original plan, which was to release the first episode by the end of April, and the remaining six episodes weekly after that. But once they start coming out, I don’t want more than a week to pass between releases, so if the later episodes still need a lot of work at the end of April, I may delay the first one a little.
Okay, that’s enough outta me for now. Thanks for reading this if you read it, and thanks for being interested in this if you’re interested in it! More soon.
Oh, the photo! The above Polaroid shows me (age 12) with Grandma Red (Estelle Ross née Lerner née Ragovin), my mother’s mother. It was taken in 1989 at the train station in New Haven, as Grandma and my cousin Josh and I embarked on a trip to New York which is a big part of the first chapter of Pintele. You’ll hear all about it, soon...
