Last night was the big party for yom hastudentim (Student’s Day), which I guess is kind of like Spring Weekend in the States–a day to play and goof off and blow off some steam before buckling down for finals. (The semester goes ’till the end of June here; I have to leave a couple of weeks early and thus am extra crunched.)

Anyway, last night they took Gan Haatzmaut (Independence Park, one of the biggest parks in J’lem) and turned it into festival-land. There were the usual things: food stands, drink stands, vendors with hippie clothing or handmade bags or whatever (and, of course, a booth with the Kabbalah center) gimmicks by companies (the ice cream company had a video game boxing thing set up, the beer company was giving away frisbees, that sort of thing). I was not happy to see that a lot of the sponsorship came from a certain American pizza company known for funding the Religious Right and anti-abortion legislation, and that their sales seemed to be doing pretty well on-site. Hrrmph.

They had a ginormous crane rigged with an elevator-like contraption that was taking people bungee jumping! Like 70 meters (230 feet!) I’ve never seen it live. it was fascinating to watch people flailing in the sky like that. It was even better not to have to be one of them.

And they had a gigantic stage set up. It was one of those perfect summer nights, warm like you didn’t need sleeves but not awful sticky. The park was the perfect size–the wide-open space of, say, lawn seating at some big concert stadium in the States, but not as impossibly gigantic–definitely more intimate.

Moshe Ben-Ari played first (or at least first after when I arrived–I think there was an act or two before). I’d never heard him that I knew of, but I recognized a bunch of the songs, so I guess I had. I dug ‘em, may try to check out an album. (Anybody have a reccomendation? Is Sheva or the solo stuff better? Which is less crunchy?)

Then Coolooloosh* came on. They do that funk/hip-hop combination thing, they were OK. One of their main rappers/singers is a cat named Rebel Sun, and I have this to say to him: Dude! Learn Hebrew already!! You want to be an Israeli rapper living in Jerusalem? Then enough with the English! I know he’s having some problems with the government re: visas, being permitted to stay in the country, etc. If the campaign to Keep Rebel Sun in Israel succeeds, I may have to start my own campaign to send him to Ulpan. He did get three words in Hebrew, though. One song went, “It’s a beautiful day/Eze yom yafay” (what a beautiful (yafeh) day, with an East Coast urban accent.) Then he made the Israelis handle the rest of the Hebrew. Didn’t bother even trying to say “ma nishmah?” between songs or anything.

Then came Dag Nachash, who were great. It also looks like I’m gonna have to get their new album–hadn’t cared for the single on the radio, but the other stuff that I heard last night was grand. They have a Dickie Dale-style surf rock ode to California whose chorus goes something like (this is from what I remember)
קליפורניה, את כל כך יפה, אני היתי עושה לך טובה
ie, “California, you’re so beautiful, I’d do you a favor.” (The second bit being an old expression for… well, I bet you can figure it out.) Anyway, any album with odes both to CA and Jerusalem seems like one I should own. For the one or maybe two people out there who can appreciate this, they put the melody for “U’va Leilot” by Ariel Zilber as a hook underneath “Ma Naaseh?” It was really pretty.

Anyway. It was one of those just sweet, lovely evenings. Nice crowd, nice music, nice yay. I danced my boogie hard–have all sorts of random muscles that are sore today, it’s a good feeling.

Yay fun! OK, now it’s time to write another paper. Wish me luck.

*The name is, I think, the best part of the band. It’s a Jerusalem-local word for a very specific part of a game that’s a little bit like marbles (kind of a cross between marbles and jacks.) The apricot pits with which one plays the game have very local names (in Jerusalem they’re called ajuim, and in Haifa they’re gogoim) and when you’re the cool kid who has managed to collect the most possible and sort of throws them in the air as a free-for-all for other kids to collect–only in Jerusalem is that act called coolooloosh. Great name for a band.