That little jingle from the Patty Duke show dates me, but I found it irresistible after reading how researchers determined that Jews around the world are virtually cousins and genetically more like each other than they are like their non-Jewish neighbors. Jews thousands of miles apart share genetic markers commonly seen among distant relatives, such [...]
continue reading >>After I read Chabon’s chosen people article I was still hungry
The major real estate devoted to Michael Chabon’s “chosen people” piece in the New York Times reminded me that, like myself, many Jews stumble into Jews. As historian Michael Meyer said, for today’s Jews being Jewish is only a part of their total identity. But Jews are often more aware of this aspect of themselves than any [...]
continue reading >>Yes, the blacks and the Jews, but cool this time
Head Butler is a great source for learning about great stuff and when I checked it today these lines about blues musician Junior Wells and his record, Hoodoo Man Blues, jumped off the screen and into my brain’s Seymour Krim arena,
If they sound as if they’re in a club, that’s deliberate; this is pure Chicago [...]
Review of American Radical, documentary about Norman Finkelstein
I reviewed American Radical for the Forward here .
He’s a figure that gets people heated, and for good reason.
Great high school newspapers
Big web guy and mensch Dave Winer wins my heart by being a Queens kid who never let his love for New York die, despite decades in the Bay Area (the un-New York).
A few days ago he posted about his high school newspaper, Bronx Science’s Daily Planet, and the photo (left) on the cover set [...]
Late thoughts on Greenberg and Jews (plus Bellow, Krim)
Maybe I wasn’t being fair to the movie when I finally saw it yesterday. I didn’t want to see it, was almost afraid of seeing it. And I hated it.
I’ve put in a lot of time thinking about Greenberg-type characters — from Bellow’s Tommy Wilhelm in Seize the Day to self-declared failure Nicolas Slonimsky to [...]
David Brooks adds a page to Jewish literature of patriotism
David Brooks yesterday found a way to proclaim his love for America that in its heartbreak and longing adds a page to an American Jewish literature of patriotism.
The news hook for his New York Times op-ed column was the healthcare reform bill and the Democrats. But he soon got emotional, and it wasn’t the bill’s [...]
Cars and Hamlet’s Ghost in Polanski’s “Ghost Writer”
I’ve never seen cars depicted so malevolently and anthropomorphically as they are in Polanski’s new film, The Ghost Writer.
Polanski bet that we are so identified with our cars that they could be used as stand-ins for people and still deliver the emotional weight the story needs; that the audience would view the car as a [...]
Ben Stiller’s “Greenberg” works in Seymour Krim’s “Failure Business”
A line from David Denby’s New Yorker review of “Greenberg” touches on a theme that shows up often in Jewish American literature. Denby says that Greenberg, played by Ben Stiller, “can’t accept mediocrity, but, an aesthete without an art, he doesn’t know how to get himself anywhere.”
I’ve got Seymour Krim on the brain, so naturally [...]
continue reading >>The best article on new Jewish Review of Books
If the new Jewish Review of Books publishes articles as good as this one about the Review, it will be set.
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