Drunken Pharoah

If you read Unkosher Cooking at Tablet, you should know the NYTimes has the recipe for the Drunken Pharoah:

1 1/2ounce bourbon
2 ounces Manischewitz wine
1/2 ounce lemon juice
Club soda, to top
Sugared matzo, for rimming glass.

Coat rim of a glass with simple syrup, then dip it into the matzo mix so that the matzo adheres to the edge. In a cocktail shaker, combine the bourbon, Manischewitz and lemon juice, with ice, and shake. Strain into the glass, over ice, and top with the club soda.

Yield: 1 serving

Note: For the matzo rim, crush a piece of matzo with the back of a spoon until coarse. Add about 1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar to the matzo, and mix.

I think I'll like the name better than the drink, but I'm gonna head down to give it a try soon.

The shpilkes of punk

“The shpilkes, the nervous energy of punk, is Jewish,” Mr. Steven Lee Beeber argued in his 2006 book “Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s,” subtitled “A Secret History of Jewish Punk.” “Punk reflects the whole Jewish history of oppression and uncertainty, flight and wandering, belonging and not belonging, always being divided, being in and out, good and bad, part and apart.”

I love that quote, here lifted from here. Especially that sense of "belonging an not belonging.. part and apart." I've never come across that so well put.

Funny People

The film, coming out in July, looks good. Watching the trailer, I caught something. Eric Bana plays hyper-masculine jerk, Clark.

Remember, from Knocked Up, "If any of us get laid tonight, it's because of Eric Bana in 'Munich.' " Put that in your Film Art and smoke it.

A neat little casting trick from Apatow, who continues to impress as someone far more serious about film than most imagine him to be.

The Beat Guide to Yiddish

If you haven't heard Diwon's The Beat Guide to Yiddish mixtape, download it for free! It's as disjointed as any Jewish identity -pomo collage the way it's supposed to be- perfect for a Yiddish EP by a guy who markets himself as "That Yemenite kid."

Two links

Jeet Heer complains about an SNL skit, "In sum, every stereotype of the evil Jewish banker is used in this skit."

Engage links to the Sounds Jewish podcast. Starting right after 22 minutes, there's a great segment on Art Garfunkel that says a lot about the ways we understand Jewishness. Interesting point on how easily British Jews seem to relate to the American immigrant experience.

The End of the Jews

Leonard Lopate had a great interview with author Adam Mansbach on Mansbach's latest, The End of the Jews, which touches on themes of assimilation which have been central to my thinking lately. In particular, it's interesting how Mansbach notes that some (most? important? who knows?) art comes from fringes, from people who don't quite fit in, with Jewishness providing a plethora of ways -ethnic, religious, national- of not fitting in.



(Steve G, however, is correct that there is a damaging myth of Jewish domination in the slave trade made reference to in the interview and book.)

Links for the day

Worth reading: Two articles, 1 and 2, by The Girl Detective at Feministe. And one by David Schraub:

Anti-semitism doesn't occur (merely) as sporadic incidents of hate or extreme rhetoric. It is embedded in all of our perspectives of what Jews deserve, what their role is in the global community, and fundamentally who we are. A progressive praxis that is truly committed to liberation of all peoples has to be willing to listen to Jewish voices and Jewish stories about our own experience and history. When we tell you that we perceive something as anti-semitic, listen -- don't chide us about our paranoia in the wake of millions of dead Jewish bodies.

Jewish Camp

No, not youth camps. This kind of camp:





There's a similarity between Jewishness/antisemitism and Queerness/homophobia. The average Jew and the average gay person are both able to pass. So we have gaydar and Jewdar. And those who hate us become obsessed with being able to tell who is gay/Jewish. And an attraction to theater. And, as a friend just reminded me, camp.

This is my Private Life on the Outside

I've spent a good bit of the day in the time honored tradition, popular among both Jews and antisemites, of looking for hints of Jewishness in a particular Jew's artwork. When the artist is highly assimilated, though, this can be maddening. Perhaps what seems to be Jewish really comes from some other influence. In fact, many of the more common themes, like the performance of normality, are also common in the works of gays and almost inherent in any artistic sensibilities.

Christian nation, make us alright
Put us through the filter and make us pure and white
My mind has wandered from the flock you see
And the flock has wandered away from me
Let's talk of family values while we sit and watch the slaughter
Hypothetical abortions on imaginary daughters
The white folks think they're on the top ask any proud white male
A million years of evolution, we get Danny Quayle

Even when there are more or less explicit references (often to not being Christian rather than to being Jewish), we can't even be sure that it isn't Jewishness serving as a metaphor for alienation. All we can be certain of is that the themes could stem from a Jewish identity. That uncertainty, tentativeness, like my 'whiteness,' almost becomes the very mark of Jewishness. Sometimes there's an attempt to transcend assimilation by reaching back for the ghosts of a Jewish heritage, but what to make of such a reconstructed Jewish identity?

"My strongest link to my Jewish background is musical," he said. "I found myself drawn to Russian and Eastern European musical roots. I got into Gypsy music, and I discovered that the difference between that and klezmer was very narrow. It's very much a part of my consciousness. I feel a kinship with Russia, even though I've never been there."

And if we find that missing piece, how will we feel if it reappears?

Oh..
You can tell a dirty story
In the old conservatory...

But don't go in the basement!

You can make a scene
On the mezanene

But don't go in the basement!

And where does it get you to mimic those others? To risk overdoing it? Could we be the schlemiel whose every attempt at self-improvement (assimilation) is pathetic? Or worse?

Rockin' Black Shabbos

Among the privileges of hegemony is the privilege of taking for granted everything that entails. From The World on PRI, this brief segment explores Israeli heavy metal, which has a more Old Testament feel.

The music is inspired by Motorhead, Ozzie Osbourne, Iron Maiden - the classics. But, there is a difference in the lyrics. Christian imagery, especially the crown of thorns kind of stuff, has long been present in metal. There are even Christian metal bands. But not here. One ban playing tonight, Acropolis, calls itself Hebrew Metal.