Late Night Letter - Re: Mandy Patinkin
Dear X,
It's about midnight and I just got home from he Mandy Patinkin benefit concert. I want to write about it, more precisely about him, but am tired (and know that I have to be up in about 6 hours and the thought alone just makes me more tired.) Perhaps your 3 word email (how was mandy?) will serve to motivate me to write.
After I told a few people that I found him to be inspiring, and they didn't seem to get it, I tried to stop saying it to people - but it wasn't easy. Inspired, touched, impressed, awed, are the things I felt. My friend that joined me said that Mandy Patinkin's singing is like praying and that his voice is an incredible instrument. It's more than that. There's something about him that touched me deeply, unexpectedly.
I can be very opinionated about what I like. I've seen many performances that haven't touched me, and few that have. This was one of the few. Mandy Patinkin represented something to me, as I watched and listened to him, and it's not something I conjured out of the ether. He is clearly filled with not only talent, but conviction, and strength. I'll share excerpts from his selections, and then get back to him.
Everybody says don't
Everybody says can't
Everybody says wait around for miracles
That's the way the world is made
I insist on miracles
If you do them, miracles, nothing to them
I say don't...Don't be afraid!
- Stephen Sondheim
I can slay a dragon
Any old week-
Easy.
What's hard is simple.
What's natural comes hard.
Maybe you could show me
How to let go,
Lower my guard,
Learn to be free.
Maybe if you whistle,
Whistle for me.
-Stephen Sondheim
And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then
-Harry Chapin
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone.
Bring him peace
Bring him joy
He is young
He is only a boy
You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die
Let me die
Let him live
Bring him home
Bring him home
Bring him home.
- Claude-Michel Schonber
"The suit of clothes
is all-together,
but all-together
it's all-together
the most remarkable
suit of clothes
that I have ever seen!
- Frank Loesser (The King's New Clothes)
He spoke about his disengagement from school both Hebrew and regular. He channeled the woman who tried to coax him into theater, and recreated his adolescent self telling her that she didn't/couldn't know or get him at all. Then he channeled the macho guy who told him there was a play being rehearsed and recreated him immediate affirmative response. He recalled his father's 2 favorite album's Mame and Mame, and the bar mitzvah gift from his father of a trip to NYC to see Angela Landsbury in Mame. Many years later he had a warm chat with Ms. Landsbury at a party and told her how he wished it was his father having that conversation because he loved her so.
And he spoke of the guy named Sondheim who met at the same party and who was happy to sing the song Mandy requested, because he preferred to sing than do party talk. He spoke about his sons and how they decided to switch to briefs - and stole all of his. He asked a man why he was standing off on the side and if he could please sit, and when the man said he would in a bit, Patinkin said, "Now." He ended with "a little story" about being asked to do this benefit for one organization and finding out that it was really for another.
I saw a man filled with talent and strength and something else: compassion . I saw a person using his compassion, talent, and strength. He was around to shmooze with at the dessert reception. I missed that chance. It's for the best. I'm not sure I could have resisted going up to him and saying, "My name is Inigo Montoya...Prepare to die." It would have just been a cover. What I would have wanted to say would be more like, "My name is Neil Fleischmann. ... You made me cry." Some things are better written, not said.
G-d Bless,
Neil
posted by rabbi neil fleischmann @ 11:59 PM
15 Comments:
Lovely. I liked him in "Chicago Hope" on TV.
Coincidentally, last night "Princess Bride" was on the AMC channel, and hubby and I watched it (for the __th? time) with glee. Mandy owned that role.
MP's cousin Mark is a local celebrity via his newspaper column in the major daily here in RI; he also was my daughter's Little League coach. :-)
Mandy Patinkin always gives me chills. He has such a passionate voice and he was made to sing Stephen Sondheims's lyrics. Sunday in the Park with George - with him and Bernadette Peters, which talks of eterntal love and art and the balance of living in the world is still one of my favorites. (and incidentally available on videotape)
Rachel
Abby - Part of what astounds me is the strength of the singing and the acting. If you search on amazon you'll see he has a bunch of albums. It's the same guy.
Anned - This site tells you when any film of his is on :http://www.mandypatinkin.net/mpnowshow.html
He says that it's the favorite part he's ever had. He usually ends shows with thrashing an imaginary sword and as he lunges forward saying that famous line.
Anonymous Rachel - I've heard good things about that play. I never realized till last night how profound Sondheims' lyrics are.
Mirty - I know he does benefits!
Neil, I saw Mendel "Mandy" Patinkin a few years ago in Toronto in his one-man musical MAMALOSHEN.
The vibrato in his voice is something rare, and something rich.
I'm so glad you got to see him perform...and I wish he'd get to read this lovely post.
Thanks Pearl. I'm sometimes torn about this point. What would be if he read this? Would he be surprised by anything in? Learn anything he doesn't know? Appreciate it?
A bit more about the performance: He spoke about preparing for Carousel and how the director asked all the adolescents that'd be in it what they each thought it was about. After thaey each said their answer, the director said that it was all true. But he thought it was about something else: he sia I think it's about - if you love someone tell them. Mandy said he had and still has a good family ("some are here, some there") and that he'd probably heard that snetiment many times. But that was the moment that it went in, maybe the only moment he could have heard it.
Love that! It's so well put: "that was the moment it went in, maybe the only moment he could have heard it."
Aren't those great moments?
Maayan, the Kotzker Rebbe says that we speak in Shma of putting G-d's words on our heart (rather than in our heart) because hearts are often closed so we put the words on top so that one day when the heart opens the words will be there to go in.
That's great! Similarly, I've heard it said in the name of the Kotzker Rebbe that we err if we think Elijah comes through the door. Rather, he comes through the heart and soul.
On a related note - the Kotzker Rebbe asked a student "Wher is
G-d?" and the student said that the answer was everywhere. The Kotzker Rabbe said the answer was -wherever you let him in.
Neil, I loved your last citation so much ("G-d is wherever you let him in") that I quoted you on my blog and included a link to your blog. I hope that is OK. - Anne
Anne, while I do have a push and pull relationship with attention, when it comes to the blog it's a little more pull than push. So, of course, thank you for appreciating and passing on...
Talking about letting G-d in . .. I read that the Kotzker Rebbe said the pasuk: 'Circumcise the foreskin of your heart' (Devarim 10:16), means people themselves must remove the covering of their hearts (the foreskin), making it a vessel ready to receive Holiness.
I hope you have a beautiful Shabbat.
The Ramban explains the conventional approach - that these words apply to G-d doing this circumcision. The idea is that there's a cloudiness that we suffer from and it's not that we won't have free will when Mashiach comes, but that we'll see things more clearly.
Your approach fits with the idea of BeIto/Akchishenah. In one place we're told redemption will come in due time, in another that it'll be brought speedily. The answer is that there's a deadline, but if we do the right thing that deadline can be bumped up.
So the Kotzker Rebbe quote fits here too, that this idea of seeing with greater clarity will eventually happen or we can work on the process of clear seeing on our own and hasten the redemption.
Thank you for elucidating, once again!
"We can work on the process of clear seeing and hasten the redemption."
Seeing clearly and something another commentator (Anonymous) said in your parsha piece, (I'm sorry, I can't think of the title and if I go back to look I'll lose all this writing-which might be a good thing!), "love" feels like the heart of it all for me. Why I'm here, what to strive for, why I'm observant, and hopefully 'religious'.
What does it mean to hasten the redemption?
I wonder if it's when we are seeing 'more' clearly that we are in 'greater', (but greater doesn't really work-neither does more-because I don't think it's quantitative- rather qualitative), consonance/alignment with a 'more' real, 'more' true Truth/reality/dimension; and it's possible to act from that vantage point. Hitting that axis of alignment- which I think feels like love- can bring us to act with deeper sensitivity, deeper caring, and deeper love. I think when we have those blessed moments we can help shift things, move them along-closer to what is real/true/good/boundless/eternal, for ourselves, for whomever we are interacting with, and for the world. Maybe, maybe that is part of our contributing to our hastening the geulah.
All that said, my glasses need cleaning . ..
This whole seeing discussion as it relates to our uncircumcised hearts relates back to the first/foundation story of the Torah. There was a clarity of truth that was lost when Adam And Chava disobeyed against their better judgement (it wasn't the power of the fruit but the power of choice).
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