Na Nach Nachman of Uman in the Landscape

posted by Pearl Abraham

In Israel, in the streets of Jerusalem, on bus stops and buildings in Tel Aviv, at checkpoints in Jenin, the stuttering mantra, “Na Nach Nachman of Uman,” appears as colorful grafitti. The legend surrounding this mantra is intriguingly absurd in the way Hasidic writings often are:

Some eighty years ago, at the age of 17, a teenager named Yisroel Ber Odessa became enamored of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, an early 19th century Hasidic master, writer, and charismatic whose interrupted tale inspires The Seventh Beggar. Disturbed by their son’s strange obsession, Ber Odessa’s parents banished him from their home, which depressed the young man. In an effort to cheer him up, several of his friends penned a letter and signed it “Na Nach Nachman of Uman,” a kind of stutter of Nachman’s name. Ber Odessa considered the letter a genuine missive from Nachman, accepted the stuttering signature as a mantra, and persisted in his belief even after his friends confessed that they had authored the letter as a prank. When Ber Odessa became a spiritual teacher in Tiberius, his young students adopted their teacher’s mantra as their own and started broadcasting it in graffiti format. The uplifting spirituality taught by Ber Odessa came to be associated with Nachman, and the ubiquitous mantra continues to proliferate in the form of this graphic populist art.

I will be reading from The Seventh Beggar tonight at 7:30 at B&N at 8th Street and 6th Avenue.

21 September 2005 | uncategorized |

Festival!

posted by Emily Gordon

Emdashes reporting for duty. Tomorrow I’ll begin what I hope will be fanatically detailed coverage of the New Yorker Festival, because that’s when I’ll know which events I’m definitely going to. Sadly, I must miss Calvin Trillin’s tour of Chinatown, but since I’ll be heading straight to the powerfully talented Jennifer L. Knox‘s book party after the late-Saturday-night stuff, I have a feeling that come Sunday morning I’d be seeing dim sum only in my dreams either way.

This is a really exciting weekend for me, not just because I’ll be doing some seriously hard-hitting, front-lines reporting—and only half of this sentence is mildly ironic so far—but because this is my first New Yorker Festival. Just seeing Steve Martin and Earl Scruggs on the same stage, talkin’ and pickin’, will be overwhelmingly delightful, but there’s more. A lot more. So that’s what I’ll be bringing you, around the clock, and if someone wants to lend me a digital camera, I’ll post pictures, too.

I’m hoping to chat with Bob Mankoff after the many-headed cartoonapalooza on Saturday night; before that, I’ll breathe some of Lorrie Moore’s air and hold it, light-headed, in my lungs until I pass out and must be revived by reading Birds of America again; later, I’ll attempt to gather enough material for a credible John Updike impersonation. Think of me as Wolf Blitzer hiding under the desk in the dark whispering about strange and dangerous sounds, except safely in the Ailey Studios with cartoonists. Some of my best friends are real reporters, I swear!

Back tomorrow, and till then, I’m taking requests for questions to ask during Q&As; email me some fun ones, and although my behavior in the presence of famous people is notoriously goofy, for you, I’ll risk it.

Note: Most if not all of the festival events are sold out, but you know what isn’t? The Town Hall event on Saturday night, a gigantic fundraiser for Katrina relief. Get this lineup—Buckwheat Zydeco, Patricia Clarkson, Elvis Costello, Willem Dafoe, David Byrne and the Les Misérables Brass Band, Eddy Davis and His New Orleans Jazz Band featuring Woody Allen, Richard Ford, Gary Louris and Mark Olson from the Jayhawks, Leigh (Little Queenie) Harris, Terrence Howard, Kevin Kline, Audra McDonald, Toni Morrison, Mary-Louise Parker, Queen Ida and Her Zydeco Band, the ReBirth Brass Band, Lou Reed, Savion Glover, Allen Toussaint, Calvin Trillin, and Walter Wolfman Washington and the Roadmasters. And ol’ Condé Nast is matching the magazine’s 100% ticket-sale donation. I’d go if I were you. Here’s the Ticketmaster page.

21 September 2005 | uncategorized |