Seymour Krim – Stumbling Into Jews

A Princess Project for Intellectuals: Who Will Take Our Surplus Education?

Saul Bellow, Seymour Krim, What's Jewish About That?
February 19th, 2010 / Comments (0)

I was listening to NPR just now, and before David Edelstein delivered his review of two new movies by Scorcese and Polanski there was a public service message about the Princess Project, which donates surplus prom dresses to high school girls who cannot afford to buy their own.
Then Edelstein’s voice arrived, transfixing NPR audiences the [...]

Seymour Krim drafted by Cosmic Baseball Assn’s Dharma Beats

Seymour Krim
February 11th, 2010 / Comments (0)

You gotta love a website that calls itself the Cosmic Baseball Association and dispenses with an About link.
The CBA views baseball as a manifestation of those unseen universal constants that — like the Lemon Ice King of Corona — govern all known and unknown phenomena. Who could argue with that?
And so it makes me very [...]

Seymour Krim, Saul Bellow characters fit failure pattern set early on

Saul Bellow, Seymour Krim
February 9th, 2010 / Comments (1)

Certain Jewish type has a tough time

Seymour Krim could have told Rabbi Joseph he didn’t stand a chance.
This article by scholar of American Jewish history Jenna Weissman Joselit shows why the rabbi was a goner. Brought from Europe to America in 1888 by New York Jews who wanted the rabbi to set things right, he [...]

The Internet, Village Voice, and the new Seymour Krims

Seymour Krim
February 2nd, 2010 / Comments (0)

There’s a scene in Calvin Trillin’s Third Helpings where he’s at New York’s Joe’s Dairy and the guy in front of him is “looking around the shelves as if he were a Russian defector getting his first look at Bloomingdale’s. He asked for Parmesan cheese. He asked for Romano. He bought some mozzarella. ‘Jesus Christ! [...]

Late thoughts on “Pants on the Ground”

Seymour Krim
January 31st, 2010 / Comments (0)

The Daily Beast features a 1996 video called Pockets on the Floor that is a less catchy version of the viral hit, Pants on the Ground.

Which made me think of Seymour Krim’s 1969 “Black English” essay. Krim wrote about the excessive use of the motherfucker obscenity and asked white readers, “If you feel brutalized by [...]

Salinger the Recluse cool in Real World world

Seymour Krim, What's Jewish About That?
January 28th, 2010 / Comments (0)

The PBS Newshour had some professors on to talk about J.D. Salinger, and Salinger the Recluse emerged as something just as interesting — maybe more — than Salinger the writer. Robert Thompson of Syracuse nailed it (6:18 to 6:52):
“He didn’t like the idea of notoriety and fame and this makes him an unbelievably interesting character, [...]

Jewish Studies held in Seymour Krim disappearance

Seymour Krim, What's Jewish About That?
January 27th, 2010 / Comments (0)

It seems that when Jewish Studies pulled up its truck at the American culture counter and started packing everything for a Jewish audit Seymour Krim got left on the sidewalk. And he was yelling.