Presence

My Vote for Best Super Bowl Commercial

Humor + Creativity. And the myriad of Charlie Brown references.

The rest are here.

Right Move, Wrong Reasons

They finally banned Jewish music. It's about time. That stuff has been getting on my nerves for years.

The Imaginary Jew and the Unimagined Jew

Michael Chabon's new novel The Yiddish Policemen's Union, which takes place in a fictionalized present in which the State of Israel never was, the Jews instead living in a giant ghetto in Alaska, has sparked some interesting commentary regarding the contemporary Jewish experience. In an article in The Nation entitled The Imaginary Jew, William Deresiewicz writes:

But over the past three decades, the dense particularity of American Jewish life has, outside the Orthodox community, largely disappeared. No one speaks Yiddish anymore, or even English that sounds like Yiddish. There may be suburbs with a lot of Jews, but there are no Jewish suburbs as there were once Jewish neighborhoods. With Jews as senators and governors and Ivy League presidents, the wounding, binding sense of exclusion has melted away. Communal institutions remain strong, traditions are still cherished, but American Jewish experience is now, by and large, simply American experience. Jewish mothers don't say "Ess, ess" anymore; they say, "Do you want me to call Sophia's mom to make a playdate?"

While there are young Jewish writers aplenty, no important voice has emerged to speak about contemporary Jewish life. Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude, perhaps the finest recent novel by a young Jewish writer, is not about being Jewish at all; it's about the quintessentially American subject of race. But there have always been Jewish writers who have chosen to speak about things other than being Jewish (most notably, in the Bellow-Roth generation, Norman Mailer and J.D. Salinger). What's really telling about the current state of Jewish fiction is that even those prominent young writers who do speak about Jewish experience don't speak about contemporary experience.

It's true; "Jewish" fiction is either about the past (mostly the Holocaust), or the early struggles of Jews in America. There is hardly anything in the contemporary Jewish experience, outside the Orthodox world, that can be called uniquely Jewish.

On the flip side, there remains little to no work within the Jewish community that attempts to understand and reflect on the contemporary Orthodox Jewish experience in America (there likely is some such stuff in Israel, but I'm not familiar with it). There's a lot to be said on this, both on the fact that this kind of literature is not seen as valuable by the community leaders, and the fact that it's not really sought after by the general public.

Clash of the Titans: Dawkins vs. O'Reilly?

Talk about meeting of the minds:

Say it with me know: Yeesh.

It's amazing that in this conversation, two people are talking, but no one is listening. The "debate" that is currently taking place in our popular culture between science and faith is nothing more than a shouting match.

Meanwhile, no one is listening to the head otter.

The Hulk Goes Kosher

Simply hilarious. It reminds me of the age-old quesiton, once posed by the well-known philosopher and professional wrestling commentator Gorilla Monsoon: "What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?" only this time, the Hulk is the immovable object, and the irresistible force is the kosher food. If only Andre were here.

[Hat tip: RDE does it again]

80's Classics

My chavrusah and I got a little side tracked (it began with a discussion of time travel) and were reminiscing some of the cooler movies/tv shows from the 80's, particularly ones we'd like to share with our kids.

The short list:

• Explorers - I can't tell you how many times I watched this on TV. Until they get to the alien spaceship, this movie is perfect; from then on, it's just good.


• The Last Starfighter - seriously, who doesn't, at some point in their childhood, think, "Maybe the video game I'm playing is actually a recruiting tool for an oppressed alien race's fighter pilot squadron?"


• War Games - Shall we play a game?


• Flight of the Navigator - I don't remember much of what happened in this flick, but I remember the ship was very, very cool.


• Land of the Lost - nothing beats a 70's show making a comeback in the 80's. When I was six, I was obsessed with two things: dinosaurs and Star Wars. Land of the Lost had elements of both. Plus killer special effects.


• Voyagers! - Han Solo clone travels through time with overly educated whizkid (who we all wanted to be). I was totally in love with this show, as it was both educational and fun. If I could find a DVD of this series, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

I think I'm going to buy some of these on DVD (thank you, Amazon Credit Card) and watch them with my son. I hope the CGI hasn't made it impossible for him to enjoy the stories that stimulated my imagination as a young lad.

More here

Put On Your Yamuka, It's Time to Celebrate...

This just in from XM Radio:

DC-based XM Satellite Radio, a provider of satellite radio service to more than 7 million subscribers, said on Monday that it will launch a special channel to coincide with the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The company said that its "Radio Hanukkah" channel, to air Dec. 15-23, will feature a broad spectrum of Jewish music and conversation.

With a specific focus on the music and traditions that celebrate the festival of Hanukkah, classic and off-the-wall renditions of traditional Hanukkah songs, such as "I Have a Little Dreidel" and "Maoz Tzur," will be showcased on the channel along with nightly broadcasts of the traditional Hanukkah candlelight blessings which will air at the appropriate times in both the Eastern and Pacific time zones.

In addition, Radio Hanukkah will feature specials focused on contemporary and traditional Jewish music, comedy, children's programming and more. Barenaked Ladies, Matisyahu, Al Franken, Kinky Friedman, Neil Sedaka, Dr. Ruth and Larry Miller are among the Jewish celebrities who will be participating in XM's Radio Hanukkah programming.

Oy Gevalt! What's more Jewish than Al Franken (besides Al Sharpton)? I think we should start a pool, here's how it will work: everyone who enters picks a number, and, at the end of the week, whoever's number is closest to the number of times they played Adam Sandler's Channukah Song wins.

Tags: radio, xm radio, judaism, jewish, music, hannukah

The Old Gray Mare She Ain't What She Used To Be

This year's Simpsons Halloween episode took on The Golem:

As Jewish humor goes, this is a pretty pathetic offering. The Simpsons did better Jewish humor back in the old days (ya' know, when Conan was in charge).

[Via The Shtus Blog]

Attack The Jew!

A deleted scene from the Borat movie:

Someone should write an article or post detailing how Baron Cohen/Borat effectively uses faux-bigotry to disarm and expose the latent antisemitism that still thrives in the hearts and minds of much of the enlightened world.

A Day in the City (with Pictures and Video)

Penny and I are in New York on vacation for her birthday; A quick recap of some of the highlights from our day:

We saw Al Pachino outside the News Corporation building. I managed to snap a photo with my camera phone:

Here's how it went down. While we are waiting in the reception area to go up to TV Guide (see below), we heard the guy in front of us say he was someone's personal assistant (we didn't hear who); he had a list of people he would be signing in for a screening of some sort. Penny managed to catch a glimpse of the list, and saw Al Pachino's name at the top. We then heard him tell the receptionist that they would be arriving around 1:45. We went up to visit TV Guide, and as we got outside, looked at our watches: 1:30. So we hung out for about 15 minutes, and sure enough, here comes Scarface. I managed to position myself between the street and the entrance to the building so that Al would have to pass within about five feet of me and I could get a good shot with my camera phone. Al looked really old and his hair was dyed a yellowish-blond. We sent the sighting in to Gawker Stalker, but so far it hasn't made the site.

Back to TV Guide: Our good friend Sara works for TV Guide in the News Corporation building (same building as FOX News; she shares a gym with Geraldo), so we went to see her office. This is an office of people who get paid to watch TV and write about it; in other words, pretty much a dream job. Sarah introduced me to Michael Ausiello, a TV Guide writer who is a big Lost fan (he's done some interviews with the creators of the show). We talked a little Lost (we both think the third season is awesome; I'll post more about Lost later, cause last night's episode was good), and he was really nice (especially as we were invading his office). The office is otherwise pretty non-glamorous, but it was cool to see; and we got some complimentary TV Guides to take home.

We whiled the afternoon away, visited the Apple store on 5th Avenue (quite a unique structure), did a little shopping, and then headed uptown to The Colbert Report. We got there around 4:45, waited till about 6 to get in the building. Once inside, we waited another hour till about 7, when they brought us into the studio. We were seated in the back row, not bad because we could see everything fairly well, but at one some points a cameraman was directly between us and Colbert. Stephen came out and, before doing the show, took questions from the audience. One woman thanked him for challenging some senator about veteran health benefits, as her husband had been disabled while fighting in Iraq. I'm sure she meant well, and I'm sure there is a problem for vets, but it really killed the comedy mood, and Stephen took no further questions (I was considering asking him for mechillah). The show began, and went very smoothly, the did the whole thing in a single take.

The guest was neither Richard Dawkins (he was on last night) nor Deepak Chopra (phew). Instead, David Kuo, a former top-guy in the Department of Faith-Based Inititives, was there to plug his new book, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. The basic thesis of the book appears to be that the Republican party knowingly co-oped Jesus/Christianity in order to win elections.

Here's a clip of the interview:

The interview went on a bit long, and at the end Mr. Kuo gave something to Stephen, I think it was his cuff links. Stephen looked a bit disturbed by the gesture, and went backstage for a moment. And then he did a really funny bit involving Senator Rick Santorum and a complete set of The Lord of the Rings action figures:

And then it was over. Here's a post from another person who was at the show. Here's one last clip from the show, this is The Word (one of their daily segments):

Our final brush with celebrity of the evening came later at Abigael's when Daniel Brody of Apprentice fame came in with his wife. Penny knows Mrs. Brody, so we chatted for a minute (I don't think Dan remembered my posts on The Apprentice). Despite being fired early on, Dan is doing fine.

Then it was back to our pad, watch a TiVO'ed episode of Lost (which was AWESOME, more on that later), and then...a little blogging and trying to fall asleep. Tomorrow: Jake or Bust!