Every once in a while I locate an element of balance.

Sunday I attended a performance of Klezmerkaba, Tucson’s premiere Klezmer band. I think it’s probably Tucson’s only Klezmer band, but I am not the band’s publicist. The Man, however, is the band’s tuba player, meaning I have heard their set list maybe once or twice or ten times before. There was also a food festival and a fundraiser and some other stuff going on around the concert, but I was reading this Roger Zelazny novel that I’ve been trying to finish all month. Strangers kept asking me how I could read with so much noise. Well, much more easily than I can with all these questions, that’s for sure.

So this guy sits down next to me and says, “It must be a very good book.”

Turns out he’s the rabbi of the shul where the band is performing. We talked about science fiction and he pulled out his phone and copied down the name of the book. He told me about going to Phoenix Comicon. He said he got his picture taken with Gene Simmons. Cool rabbi, I guess.

Then I finished the book, so I took out my computer to do some work, and an older lady asked me if I was a writer. Yes, I tell her. So then she asks me if I know this much more successful Tucson author who is also Jewish, and actually, yes, I do. She’s one of the SFWA writers in my little writing group. The older lady knows her from a refugee aid organization where they both volunteered. Cool older lady, I guess. Cool in a different way from the KISS-loving rabbi. But cool.

I totally forgot that Gene Simmons is Jewish.

Eventually, I got some work done. I have deadlines, which helps.