A Very Punk Rock Chanukah 2022 Mixtape
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Chanukah, Rebel Chanukah!
Celebrate in Dark with Light
Miraculous Renewable Phenomena
Rededicated Every Night
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Chanukah, Ohhh Chanukah
How Old Songs and Stories Go
Like Overcoming Odds Together
Like Menorahs in Windows Glow
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“What a time to be a light,” says each next one. Having Hanukkah amid ever escalating antisemitism has me rededicating this year’s holiday to the spirit of solidarity, community reparation, & the fight back. So I figured I would invoke some genre that expresses the emotional scream-in-the-face of The Machine we need, Punk Rock. So this years’ writings weave-in the DIY aesthetic of fabric patches mending denim, the rage against caste capital’s forced-homogeneity, and the grief of sharing songs for a better world between fracturing zines & zooms. Ya’ll already know, what’s old is new again, friends.
"What is owned on a rock that survives all? What is owed to a rock that thrives by all? Rocking not this oppressive violence, but punks rock the ages like this song rejecting Status Quo power instead redistributing our foes' wealth rehousing sheltering towers. Furiously they'll complain tho but we'll do our own availing, THANK YOU. as our hands become our swords one another’s strength never failing us as our hands become our swords one another’s strength never fails us"
"prayers for more meaning streaming like oceans for kindness to shine from our tabletop pantheons from our every tree, everyday, every motion makes a glimmer a part of this phenomenon "
"define your own ritual of care for you / world to define the smiles in the shadows, the branches in eyes, the darkness. Horizon melts skylit sums of blue darkness."
Finally, join the circle at the front
Then grip your hand into a fist tight
Like a flashing spark of blown candlelight
Jump UP, DOWN, AROUND!
Like Maccabees rage into the fight
Doing the Menorah Mosh
Quiet, bright soul. A quaint battle then quest story, which mom quickly quips together a quirky quartet, no, quilt Rededicating the holiday, mom teaches the yearly repeated sing, rock, and rollick as a riveting resplendence Sundown shamash lights for us, mom shows with a shake, shimmy, and spin, doing the Menorah Hora. Social Tradition. Talmud tale celebration to light. Teaching the little ones and trusting us to retell the takes, the Torah Underdogs up against the ultra-fascist autocrat and the king's underlings. Urging the utmost unity universally
Antisemitic neighborhood high school
graffiti brings community out to rally
to clarify— Everyone Is Welcome Here,
but no one's going to protect us but us
kids waking and raging to the toxic world
blinking like our bright star smiling, dying
O flaming DIY denim-patch-sewn hearts, O holiday studded with eight candlelit nights, O gelted Tradition of Tradition, O cultural Tradition of questioning, O— is Tradition where I got my Punk from? Punk is Hand-Me-Down, after all.