March 07, 2010

My Personal Oscars, and a Razzie or Two

The Oscars are kicking off at this very moment, so this the right moment to share some thoughts on films, new and old. I don't have anything original to say about movies competing tonight. I liked "The Blind Side" for its depiction of Southern culture -- guns, God and gridiron -- and "District Nine" wowed me with its concept and execution, and I'm waiting for a sequel to that. I wanted to see Avatar 3-D but the projector broke down and I never tried again. I saw "The Last Station" last night and liked it -- Christopher Plummer deserves his best supporting actor nominee.

But other movies keep spinning in my mind, and I'll give them some awards as they tumble out of my head. Let's call them the "Vanwallies."

Best movie with unexpected casting: "Unleashed." I have great respect for martial arts star Jet Li and old pros Morgan Freeman and Bob Hoskins, but I never imagined a movie that would bring all of them together. Unleashed does that, in a great mash-up of butt-kicking action, sentiment and a harrowing plot concept. I've never seen a Bob Hoskins movie I didn't thoroughly enjoy, and this is no exception. Runnerup in the Hoskins film favorites: "Ruby Blue," in the blossoming genre of movies involving pidgeon breeding, mob violence and transgender issues.

Continue reading " My Personal Oscars, and a Razzie or Two"

Van | 08:31 PM | 03/07/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

February 03, 2010

An Entry in the Museum of Bad Art's Iterpretator Challenge

The Museum of Bad Art in Massachusetts is a little-known treasure of American culture. It challenges notions of good and bad in art, and makes the viewer stop and think, seriously, about what makes a work of art interesting, challenging, or plain ridiculous.

It recently closed the submission period for its seventh "Guest Interpretator Challenge." In this, members of the art-astute public were invited to submit a title and an intepretation for a new acquisition of MOBA. Always being up for a challenge, I looked at this vibrant canvas from every possible angle. After consulting many serious tomes on philosophy, artistic technique and cross-cultural ramifications, I created this submission, of which I am justifiably proud:

Worlds in Collision: When Karl Met Carrot Top

Pointless psychosexual and meteorological tensions permeate this tour de force, depicting an imagined meeting of European fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld and American comedian Carrot Top as a youth. The negative space between the two captures the historic conflict between Europe and America. Sartorially sinister Lagerfeld, embodying the Old World’s dark perspective and penchant for donning sunglasses at night, leers at virginal Carrot Top, the naïve but spunkily practical symbol of America. By placing Lagerfeld on an inexplicable red platform, the confused artist adds either an ominous neo-fascist tonality or suggests that Lagerfeld is a space alien standing on the transporter that beamed him down from the mothership. Behind Lagerfeld, the calm sea, sunset and twinkling stars connote either a peaceful summer evening or a stormy, tragic meditation on the fin de siècle hopelessness of Lagerfeld’s fashion and art weltanschauung. In either case, the painting’s je ne sais quoi remains elusive.

Van | 06:29 AM | 02/03/10 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

January 24, 2010

Obama and the Press: Get Ready for the Comeback Kid

With all the frothing over the problems of the Democrats and the sudden reversal of fortune for the GOP after last week's election of Republican Scott Brown to the Senate from Massachusetts, let's step back and take the long view.

As a former member of the press, I've been around journalism enough to know that many mainstream reporters are rejoicing over the victory of Scott Brown -- NOT because they like conservatives or oppose President Obama, but because journalists love drama. A Brown victory is catnip for journalists. On TV and in print, they get to think deep thoughts about the end of hope and change, the fears of the health-care reformers, the civil rights of terrorists, and whether the Obama presidency is doomed. Should he just resign now and let Joe Biden assume the chore of cleaning up the messes left by the previous President?

And what about Sarah Palin? Will Brown outflank her as the new golden boy of the misunderstood guns-and-hymnals demographic?

Continue reading " Obama and the Press: Get Ready for the Comeback Kid"

Van | 02:01 PM | 01/24/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Domestic Politics

January 18, 2010

Unsettling Reading: Ethnic Cosmetic Surgery

From the endless surprises of free publications of New York street distribution, I plucked the December-January issue of New York City Image: The Magazine for Enhanced Beauty & Wellness. The cover photo of Brooke Shield (Princeton '89) got my attention and I took a look.

One article especially unsettled me, and I'm trying to fathom why: "Ethnic Cosmetic Surgery: From Cultural Anonymity to Cultural Beauty." An excerpt from an upcoming book by Dr. Frederick Lukash, it outlined the kinds of plastic surgery most common by ethnic group. Lukash writes,

Individuals seeking surgery are not denying a heritage but responding to the shift standards of beauty. Beauty has become a hybrid mix -- people want the best of everything!

The article breaks down the cosmetic surgery most common among different ethnic groups. Among Middle Eastern/Mediterrranean types, rhinoplasty is most common since, as those raised in Jewish angst and comic stereotypes, "peoples from this background can have very defining noses." Asians, African-Americans and Hispanics also get the run-down as body parts get sliced, diced, reduced and enlarged.

In fairness, the article leavens its cheerleading tone with some words on the physical and psychological risks of cosmetic surgery. Still, the article left me shaking my head at the quest for some evanescent standard of beauty. It's not just women (and men, to judge from the horror stories on Awful Plastic Surgery) who want tightening after childbirth or massive weight loss, or relief from aching backs. It's the force that crosses cultures to drive people to go under the knife.

People make their own decisions, and if plastic surgery makes them happy, I can't condemn their actions. I prefer to hit the gym, but that's my take on my reality. Still, the idea of people around the world turning to plastic surgery as a path to happiness makes me wonder -- what happens 10 years after the surgery? More surgery? Where does it stop?

Van | 08:36 PM | 01/18/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories:

January 14, 2010

Plucky Marketers Sneak the Voice of the Proletariat into the Streets of NYC

One of my more illuminating experiences at Princeton came during my sophomore year, when I moved into a six-man suite in 1938 Hall. The previous occupants had a subscription to a newspaper called the Workers Vanguard. It always amused me with its rants and raves, always ending with strident appeals for workers revolution! Down with the capitalists! Long live the teachings of Trotsky! (Or was it Marx-Engels? I can't remember the exact political line. The WV definitely wasn't Maoist).

I developed a sneaking affection for left-wing publications, a real-world supplement to the Marx I read in history classes at Princeton. I don't see them any more on New York newsstands; either they're not being published or they've been pushed out of circulation.

Lately, however, I've been picking up copies of one of the gritty survivors, Workers World, the paper of the Workers World Party, which proudly proclaims on its front page, "Workers and oppressed people of the world unite!" Well, that's the real deal for fans of left-wing cant, sterner stuff than "We are the change we believe in." Some clever soul is slipping copies of the paper into news boxes in midtown Manhattan, in the slots for free distribution papers. Whenever I see one, I immediately grab it to check out the latest perspective of the extreme left (slightly to the left of NPR and the New York Times).

The stories are quite readable and give, if nothing else, a focused perspective on the news, be it climate change, the economy, the need to revive the class struggle, military issues, labor and that old, old favorite, "Justice for Mumia." Articles on Latin America also catch my attention. My politics differ from Workers World, but I have to give the paper's supporters credit for their plucky and successful guerrilla marketing campaign to get a very serious paper in front of New Yorkers. It adds some fiber to my reading diet.

Van | 08:56 PM | 01/14/10 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Domestic Politics

December 31, 2009

New Year's Resolutions: The More Things Change . . .

In August 1986 I received a hand-bound blank book from my dear friend Rena Frank. I knew her through Dorot, a program for the Jewish elderly in New York. Rena and I were friends from 1980 until she died in 1994. Born in Berlin, she escaped Germany in 1938 for London and in 1952 she arrived in New York. She wrote on the first page:

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and endure much. May you have only happy thoughts and memories when opening this album.

I use the album as a special diary in which I write on only two days each year: My birthday and New Year's Day, two and and a half months apart. The book gives a snapshot of how I view my life, the year past and the year ahead. I dubbed it "The Book of LIfe" with the first entry on October 16, 1986, at a time when I was a freelance writer living in New York's neighborhood of Astoria, Queens. I have not missed an entry since then.

My entry for January 1, 1987 was this:

I'm well into carrying out my exciting program for 1987, called REVELATION-REVOLUTION '87. This consists of DAILY:

1. Flossing
2. Excercising (including occasional jogging)
3. Disciplined writing
4. Apt. upgrading
5. Surfin' safaris to exotic climes, preferably with an assignment.
6. A romantic involvement that feels right, where I go for her as much as she goes for me. Those who don't learn from the past are condemned to repeat it! I want to love.
7. At .least $25,000 in billings, with more efficient output.
8. Cut back on sugar -- it works for Melissa [a friend in Brooklyn].

Van | 06:27 AM | 12/31/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

December 26, 2009

Getting in Step with Footsteps

Over the fall I became aware of Footsteps, a low-key organization that helps people, mostly young, who leave the Hasidic world and need to develop life skills to help them survive outside the frum environment. Having wrenched myself from one faith tradition to another, I can empathize, indirectly, with the challenge of shifting your world view. www.footstepsorg.org is the website.

I read a book that gives excellent details about the difficulties of individuals who leave the from world: "Unchosen: The Hidden Lives of Hasidic Rebels," by Hella Winston, whose name may sound familiar to readers of New York's Jewish Week from her coverage of sexual abuse in Orthodox communities.

The book provides a lot to think about, in how communities control members, how people accept or bridle at these highly structured societies, and difficulty of getting beneath the surface appearance of Chasidic communities. One passage I found particularly fascinating involves sexual abuse. I've never understood how Jewish communities can deny or hush up such behavior against its most helpless members. I know it happens everywhere but the wall of silence that Winston has written about in her journalism always disturbed me greatly. The book provides an explanation:

Indeed, while it is unclear whether or not such abuse exists to a greater degree than it does in the general population, some have theorized that Jewish communities' historical antipathy toward informers has likely played some role in keeping such abuse quiet, when it occurs. The Yiddish word 'moser' is used to describe those who betray the community to outside authorities (historically, the authorities of tsarist Russia or medieval Europe). 'Messira,' or the act of informing, was once punishable by death, and remains a serious sin to this day.

When I read that passage, I thought not only of the pressures on frum young people to accept abuse (or frum approaches to "dealing" with it, as effective as the Catholic Church's past approaches to dealing with pedophile priests), but also of financial scandals. Were the crimes of Bernard Madoff aided, to any degree, by people who had suspicions but didn't want to be a moser? I don't know, but the idea of community standards backfiring in a horrible way came to mind.

Anyway, if you're looking for a worthy group for an end-of-year donation, consider Footsteps. How's this for an endorsement: I sent the group a check.

Van | 09:06 PM | 12/26/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Doing Jewish

November 28, 2009

How is Chabad Like a Denzel Washington Action Movie?

Last November, after Muslim terrorists killed the directors of the Chabad House in Mumbai, India and other Jews, I attended a memorial service for them at Chabad of Stamford, Connecticut. There, I had a unique spiritual experience – and I mean that in the real sense of “unique,” something completely new in my life.

Continue reading " How is Chabad Like a Denzel Washington Action Movie?"

Van | 10:38 PM | 11/28/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Doing Jewish

November 08, 2009

From the Archives: Restlessness, 1974

Going through some files, I found this piece I wrote on March 21, 1974, when I was 16 years old. It has more than historical interest.

Restlessness

As I write this essay, I can look out the window onto the field between the school building and the street. I've looked out this window a thousand times and I will look through it again 10,000 times. The clouds keep rolling by with the wind, where from or where to or what for I cannot even guess.

Along the street seven cars, one truck camper and a single station wagon are parked. Again. I have no idea to whom they might belong.

So many things I do not know, and so many things that I see only on the surface. I go to school with 1,800 others. How many of them do I not know, or should know? Behind every face is a story, a long, unique story. How many of those stories do I know? How many know my story? I pass by people, like two fish in the ocean. Like the clouds drifting outside the window we neither know where to or where from or what for about each other, or even ourselves.

Van | 07:32 PM | 11/08/09 | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

October 01, 2009

From the Archives: Report on Blackout 2003

[This essay originally appeared in the Stamford Times newspaper in the fall of 2003, about the August blackout. It has never appeared online until now.]

Long Day’s Journey into Another Long Day’s Journey: Blackout 2003
For 24 hours, no hearts were broken in New York City

Thursday, August 14, was progressing nicely. I got an excellent year-end review, raising hopes for continuing employment and (be still my heart) a bonus and a raise. I was looking forward to my vacation the next week.

In retrospect, signs abounded that Something Was About To Happen. Just before 3 pm, I pondered my American Express bill. Should I pay it online Thursday, or Friday, when I got my direct deposit? Did it matter? Which would hit my checking account first (given the perilous state of my finances, such timing is a major concern). I could wait, I could act, I could wait until later in the day. Finally, with the madcap abandon that so often marks my actions, I decided to pay on Thursday and at 3:01 pm I pushed the button to send American Express its latest cup of blood. Done.

Mrs. Ex-Wallach called me around 4:10 pm. She had driven our son and a friend to the Science Museum in Queens, a good summer vacation activity. We were chatting when the lights in my office suddenly died. My computer stayed on via battery power but everything else just stopped. The room stayed light because of sunlight from nearby windows. “Gee,” I said, “The power just went out.” In a matter of seconds I realized Mrs. Ex-Wallach had vanished, remaining only as a cellphone number frozen on the display of my office phone.

Continue reading " From the Archives: Report on Blackout 2003"

Van | 10:31 PM | 10/01/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

September 22, 2009

Revenge: Jewish Fantasies, Russian Realities

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, following on Defiance, voices the Jewish musing on revenge against Nazis during and after World War II. Defiance was based on reality; Basterds was a fantasy (which I may see on video, but not at a theater).

I've wondered what would have happened had the atomic bomb been available a year earlier; would Roosevelt have dropped it on Berlin, or Dresden, or Hamburg and brought the war to an earlier end? What would Germany have done? Japan?

After the war, Jews sought justice in various ways, and bagged the biggest fish with the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.

But the problem with revenge is it cannot be a controlled exercise. Once the bloodshed begins against enemies, the slaughter picks up a momentum of its own and can consume the executioners who started the process.

Consider this: Are some forms of revenge acceptable, and others not? We don't need the fantasies of Tarantino to show the relevance of that question. The Red Army in World War II provides the starkest example of revenge impulses gone berserk.

Continue reading " Revenge: Jewish Fantasies, Russian Realities"

Van | 09:10 PM | 09/22/09 | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0) | Categories:

September 13, 2009

Pick to Click: "The Secret Speech" by Tom Rob Smith

On Friday I finished reading "The Secret Speech" by Tom Rob Smith, his smashing sequel to the justly praised "Child 44," about a serial killer in the closing months of Stalinist Russia. Both books captivated me. While the sequel got more mixed reviews on Amazon, I liked it a lot. The plot spins and twists through the territory of loyalty, betrayal, guilt and savagery of Soviet Russia in the 1950s. The prose is what I aspire to as a writer. I could cite many passages; here's one sample set in Budapest's secret police headquarters during the abortive Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Leo is the main character:

The offices were filled with citizens searching through files. Reading by candlelight, men and women thumbed through the information stored about them. Watching many of them cry, Leo didn't need the documents translated. The files contained the names of family and friends who'd denounced them, the words spoken against them. Like a hundred mirrors dropped on the floor, all around he saw faith in mankind shattering.

Wow.

Continue reading " Pick to Click: "The Secret Speech" by Tom Rob Smith"

Van | 11:03 AM | 09/13/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

August 19, 2009

Song List for an Imaginary iPod

I recently got a request on Facebook to list 25 random songs on my iPod. Alas, I don't have an iPod, so I've pulled together this imaginary list. It mixes Latin, hearbroken cowboy tunes, some show music, and classic jazz. I could do a separate list for each genre, but this gives a sense of what I like. I've even included some new stuff -- I've heard "Panic Switch" on WXRP in New York and like it, something I have said about maybe five pop songs in the last 25 years.

Without further ado, with lyric selections:

1. Carnivália, Tribalistas
2. Já Sei Namorar, Tribalistas
3. Amor Pra Recomeçar, Roberto Frejat
4. Dois Pra Lá, Dois Pra Cá, Elis Regina
5. Encontros e Despedidas, Maria Rita
6. Nena, Malo
7. Viva Tirado, El Chicano
8. Mr. Brightside, the Killers ("It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?")
9. Panic Switch, Silversun Pickups
10. New World Man, Rush ("He's old enough to know what's right and young enough not to do it")
11. Time Changes Everything, Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys ("You've gone your way and I'll go mine, 'cause time changes everything")
12. Willin’, Little Feat ("I stayed on the back roads so I wouldn't get weighed")
13. Glamorous Life, Sheila E.
14. Closing Time, Semisonic ("Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end")
15. Long Distance Call, Muddy Waters ("There's another mule kickin' in your stall")
16. One of These Nights, the Eagles
17. The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys, Traffic ("Take me for a ride, strip me of everything including my pride")
18. Gringo Honeymoon, Robert Earl Keen
19. Possession Obsession, Hall and Oates
20. Not a Day Goes By, Bernadette Peters
21. Blue Train, John Coltrane
22. Lush Life, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman
23. Stranded in Your Love, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (with the great line, “Is it romance or circumstance?”)
24. New World Symphony, Antonín Dvořák
25. Remember, Micky and the Motorcars

Van | 07:08 PM | 08/19/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

August 17, 2009

From 1982: My First Time – To Visit Israel

[This essay appeared in the English-language weekly section of The Forward newspaper, then a Yiddish daily, on November 14, 1982. I have edited it slightly for clarity.]

“Why are you going?” the security guard at JFK International Airport asked me in a flat voice before I checked my luggage for a summer flight to Israel.

“Me?” I pointed at myself, surprised by this after the expected questions about packing and destinations. “You mean, why am I going to Israel for my vacation?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, because I’m a Jew. I want to see what it’s like.”

“But aren’t you afraid?”

“No. I’ll probably feel safer there than in New York.”

For the first time she smiled and wished me a good trip.

Continue reading " From 1982: My First Time – To Visit Israel"

Van | 03:15 PM | 08/17/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Eretz Yisrael

August 09, 2009

A Baptist Chick in a Halter Top

I confess: my favorite erotic aroma is chlorine. I can’t resist its siren song of smell. Chlorine imprinted itself on me as a pre-teen and I never escaped.

I thank Mrs. Walsh for this. Mrs. Walsh held swimming classes every summer at the pool of the Fontana Motor Hotel in Mission, my home town in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The pool reeked of chlorine, which clung to me and wafted around the whole complex. I could even smell it in the Fontana’s lobby, where I wandered after class.

Ever the curious reader, I checked out the magazines in the lobby’s gift shop. There I found Playboy. Golly, I thought, this is a change from Hot Rod and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football. Even then, I knew an 11-year-old shouldn’t really scan Playboy, so I slipped the magazine into another one – male readers know this drill. I flipped through the issue, trying to look nonchalant. But Misses June and July dazzled me with their undraped allure and bubbly smiles.

Case in point: I still swoon for July 1969 cover girl Barbie Benton, a/k/a Barbara Klein. In the unpainted passageways of my brain, the Fontana’s chlorinic aroma mixed with this vision of Barbie on the beach. A whiff of chlorine returns me to July 1969 – those eyes, those shoulders, Barbie’s brown hair tumbling down her curving waterslide of a back. In a flash I’m back in the Fontana’s lobby, where Mrs. Walsh’s class ended and my introduction to another wet side of life began.

Continue reading " A Baptist Chick in a Halter Top"

Van | 05:21 PM | 08/09/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

July 24, 2009

Jihad in Jersey City?

The shooting of five police officers in Jersey City, leading to the death of one, appeared in a new light to me after I read a gently worded NY Times article yesterday that, typical of the Times, buried the lead. The article focused on Amanda Anderson, the 21 year killed along with gunman Hassian Hosendove, a/k/a Hassan Shakur.

The article had a gloppy-romantic lead:

Like the female counterpart in Bonnie and Clyde, Amanda G. Anderson was a faithful accomplice in crime, who ran from the law with her man and remained at this side in shootouts until the very end.

The article yammered on about how "sweet and quiet" Anderson was, how much fun she had with ex-con Shakur and how he wanted her to convert to Islam.

Other news reports gave more details on Skakur's record and the role of religion in his life. Consider this story, which says,

Jersey City Police Director Sam Jefferson said the pair might have been expecting a confrontation.

“If he got caught by police,” Hosendove said, “he was not going to surrender.”

Hosendove said despite the drugs and guns, her brother, whose given name was Hassan Hosendove, was a devout Muslim and loving father to two children in South Carolina from a previous relationship. As part of his religion, he legally changed his name to Shakur.

Now the story gets interesting. the article says,

Ms. Anderson wore a Muslim headscarf, and kept a low profile. Recordings of what neighbors believed was Koran recitation came from the apartment.

All the articles I've read treat this as a shoot-out with a murderous thug, but I wonder if something else was at play. Did this "devout Muslim and loving father" have visions of 72 virgins in his head when he started gunning down Jersey City cops? What's the real story here?

Van | 03:16 PM | 07/24/09 | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) | Categories:

July 17, 2009

FrostedFlake150YRS: A JDate Profile for Ruth Madoff

New York magazine recently ran an article about the golden past and grey future of Ruth Madoff, wife of 50 years of Bernie Madoff. She’s the talk of the town; I was recently in a store on the Upper East Side and heard three matrons talking. One asked, “Where do you think Ruth Madoff is going to live?”

With Bernie in jail until 2139, the Feds seizing her palatial homes and her sons refusing to speak with her, Ruth has had to adjust her lifestyle. She’s still got assets, with $2.5 million left to her by the government enough to throw off enough cash annually to pay for a decent, if not opulent, lifestyle.

With Bernie safely out of the way, Ruth can turn to what she really needs in her post-Mistress of the Universe life: a man. After a half-century of bliss with Bernie, Ruth should take a methodical approach to the search for love, combining her considerable charms with just the right spin on her unique circumstances. So, to get Ruth’s quest for romance off to a flying start, here’s my suggestion for a Jdate profile for . . . FrostedFlake150YRS.

Continue reading " FrostedFlake150YRS: A JDate Profile for Ruth Madoff"

Van | 09:22 AM | 07/17/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: NYC

July 10, 2009

Sloshed in the Suburbs: A Report From Westport Vice

Crime round-ups in newpapers are usually dreary, paragraphs on urban mayhem that lack the Dickensian details that make for compelling reading. So imagine my twisted pleasure today when I picked up a copy of the Westport Minuteman, a weekly covering the not-very-crime-riddled streets of Westport, Connecticut, where I once lived.

The "police reports" page provided loving details on the kinds of mayhem the WPD faces daily. I know all the locations discussed in the paper and can picture in my mind the WPD in action involving surly drunks, sodden underage drinkers, and alcohol-fueled confrontations in the parking lot at Trader Joe's on Post Road East (see a theme in these items?).

A number of them dealt with the aftermath of Westport's venerable Fourth of July fireworks event. Having attended this event in the past, I know the fireworks are great and the post-event traffic jams horrendous. Getting stuck in traffic is aggravating, but getting stuck in a traffic jam while inebriated AND holding a law degree sounds like a very bad situation indeed -- one that led one man to babble that his rights were being violated by jack-booted thugs of Westport traffic enforcement. Here is my favorite item in its entirety. The Volvo is an oh-so-Westport detail that's too delicious to omit:

Continue reading " Sloshed in the Suburbs: A Report From Westport Vice"

Van | 05:55 PM | 07/10/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Linkfest

July 05, 2009

Behind the Bedroom Door: Women Write About Sex

The personal essay collection "Behind the Bedroom Door: Essays About Sex by Today's Most Gifted Women Writers," had some striking pieces. The themes varied, from warm and amusing to deeply serious: illness, betrayal, the appeal of greasy leather-clad bad boys, infertility, craziness (in many senses of the word), children's impact on love lives, and lots of sexuality intertwined with drug and alcohol use. Editor Paula Derrow selected essays that are not particularly explicit -- what you would find in Cosmopolitan. Short bios of authors suggest follow-up reading and the website is exceptionally valuable.

If I had to pick a favorite, I'd go with "Turn Me On, Turn Me Off," by Bella Pollen. Its male character made me cringe with a sense of self-recognition, and Pollen has a prose style I like:

A woman's desire is a fragile thing, blown this way and that by the winds of change. Our likes and dislikes flip-flop depending on where, exactly, we are on our personal evolutionary curve, what phase of life we are in. Women have far more roles to play than men, and each comes with its own emotional and physical wish list. We want to be held! We want to be screwed! We want security! Danger! Comfort! Passion! I don't know a woman who isn't constantly torn between the mutually exclusive needs for the intimacy of a long-term relationship and the thrill of a one-night stand. Frankly, we should consider ourselves lucky if we get enough of both. . . . Personally, I find it humbling that men are prepared to ride the roller coaster of women's ever-changing emotional needs.

If you're looking for a summer book that'll make you smile, sigh and maybe even squirm deliciously on your towel at the pool, this is the collection to grab. Share it with someone you love and/or lust after.

Van | 10:57 PM | 07/05/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Sensual pleasures

June 30, 2009

Sharon Lissauer, Madoff Victim of Mystery

A picture in today's New York Times showed Bernard Madoff victim Sharon Lissauer speaking to the press outside the courthouse after Madoff got his 150-year stretch in the Big House. Lissauer's been quoted and photographed before. But today's image struck me. Take a look -- she was dressed to kill, and I don't mean in the sense of wanting to wring Bernie's neck:

Identified in stories as a "former model," Lissauer evidently made the most of the moment, with her mop of blonde curls, form-fitting sleeveless dress and level of comfort in front of the cameras. Is this woman on JDate? She looks like she'd be a hit.

All the articles reveal very little about her. The New York Post quoted her court appearance from Monday:

"I keep on thinking I'm going to wake up from it but it keeps on getting worse," said Sharon Lissauer. "My life and my future have been ruined. I was always so careful with my money."

"I'm begging him if he has any money from offshore accounts from his family if has any hidden money that he disclose it and give it to victims to they can have a little of their lives back," she added.

"Upon reflection, I think he should spend his whole life in jail because what he's done is just despicable. ... He destroyed my spirit and shattered my dreams."

Lissauer broke down crying as she finished her statement.

Photos show her in her apartment. But otherwise, nothing else about Lissauer shows up on the Internet, a curious absence of details for a model who is much in the public eye.

Who is she?

Van | 09:50 PM | 06/30/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: - Pintele Yid

June 12, 2009

Now That's Entertainment: Air Sex World Championship Competition Hits NY Tonight

Why did this have to be a kid weekend? Otherwise, I'd hightail down to the Highline Ballroom for the New York City Air Sex Finals. Based on the concept of air guitar, "air sex" is, well, use your imagination.

Part mime, part burlesque and all embarrassing fun, the Air Sex World Championships is holding competitions nationwide. New York is the fourth event of 16, ending in Tucson later this month.

The website uses plenty of photos and videos to carefully explain this difficult and demanding new sport. The rules show the seriousness of this exciting new form of entertainment:

Time: Contestants have a maximum of 2 minutes to perform an air sex routine. This can include all phases of an air sex encounter: meeting, seduction, foreplay and intercourse, or you can simply cut to the chase.

Music: Competitors must perform to music, you can either bring a CD of your performance track with you, or you can choose from our selection of air sex music. You may also include an audio prelude to your performance, maximum of 30 seconds.

Other Rules: Unlike air guitar, there are not many other rules. Props are allowed, teams are allowed, talking is allowed. The only important rule is that all sexual climaxes must be simulated, not real.

From looking at the website, some "brand names" are already emerging. Check out the videos of Slut Truffle in the Austin competition, where her tender, emotionally nuanced performances remind one of nothing so much as an air sex interpretation of "Swan Lake."

Down the road, I can see this becoming a hugely successful TV series, "So You Think You Can Do Air Sex?" with celebrity contestants and judges. I suggest starting with the cast of "One Day at a Time" and then move on to "Lost in Space" so we baby boomers can have performers we identify with. After that, celebrity face-offs, starting with Al Roker vs. Bill O'Reilly.

Van | 08:48 AM | 06/12/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

June 03, 2009

Uncle Obama Wants YOU to Have a Happy Marriage

The oddest commuter-train poster I've seen lately shows a man and woman in bed. The man is asleep, mouth wide open, presumably in mid-snort. His arms are around a woman who looks back at him with that sitcom-familiar look of exasperation and affection. Oh, those men! The ad text refers to "engagement ring, wedding ring, snoring?" which was pretty clever.

The ad could have been for a TV show, but in fact it came from a program supported by the federal government. It directed readers to the website www.twoofus.org. Who exactly runs the site is a little vague:

The National Healthy Marriage Resource Center (NHMRC) is a national resource and clearinghouse for information and research relating to healthy marriages. We strive to be a "first stop shop" for marriage and family trends and statistics, marriage education and programming, scholarly research, and the latest news and events. In particular, the NHMRC also provides training and technical assistance presentations and documents for federally funded Healthy Marriage Initiative grantees.

The NHMRC supports the Administration for Children and Families, furthering its commitment to promote and support healthy marriages and child well-being by providing research and program information and generating new knowledge about promising and effective strategies.

The Administration for Children and Families is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Is this a good use of "stimulus" money?

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Van | 06:21 AM | 06/03/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Linkfest

May 31, 2009

The Accountant and the Jews

I did a quick read of The Accountant's Story: Inside the Violent World of the Medellin Cartel. The author is Roberto Escobar, elder brother of Colombian drug boss Pablo Escobar. The book is easy to flip through and full of details about the Escobars and their world. For veracity, I put it on the level of The Goebbels Diaries -- intriguing, but keep in mind the author and the context. For style, the book reads like Soviet realism. Instead of boy meets tractor, it's boy meets coke.

Some other brave author could shake the story and find a completely different view: The Escobars and the Jews. As the accountant for the cartel, Roberto had to figure out what to do with the billions in cash pouring in. One passage was so striking that I marked the page. Tossed off in the book's uninflected style, it reads:

Laundering money could be very expensive, costing as much as 50 percent of 60 percent of the total value. So there were always people willing to do deals. it wasn't just Pablo who had to launder money; it was everybody working in this business. We all knew the people who would make deals. Among the groups well known for cleaning money were the Jewish people with the black hats, long curled sideburns, and black coats. One of our pilots used their services regularly -- because they only charged 6 percent. They wouldn't get involved with drugs, so to work with them you had to have a convincing story of where the money came from . . . . At that point the money in the suitcase belonged to him. I had two huge guys there with handguns and this little guy would take that suitcase with millions of dollars in cash by himself and wheel it through the streets of New York.

As they say, mazel v'bracha!

In other places, Roberto discusses his brother's security arrangements. As with money laundering, he knew who could provide quality service:

Pablo began his war to defend himself from our enemies by transforming his sicarios [assassins] plus dozens of other men into a trained force. The pilot Jimmy Ellard testified in court that he told Pablo that the security was not good: "And the best thing you can do is employ American Green Berets." he said he had contacts in America to accomplish that, he said. Pablo said thank you very much, but informed him that he had hired his own military people to do the training,. Later it was learned that these were Israeli and British mercenary soldiers hired to train people in the methods of warfare that would be necessary.

Somebody with a keen investigative bent could look at these tossed-off lines and come up with an unnerving book. Maybe it's already out there, for sale in fine synagogue gift shops everywhere.

I'll look next at Killing Pablo by Mark Bowden, book that is supposed to be a movie for release one of these days.

Van | 12:50 PM | 05/31/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Natural disasters

May 25, 2009

Shoe Porn, Male Division

Women and shoes, shoes and women -- that's what makes the world go around, to paraphrase Lenny Bruce. He actually said something spicier, but you get the point.

I've always told friends that women have most of the fun in life in the fashion arena. Shopping involves such drama, such choice, such consultations, so different from the find it-size it-buy it approach men take. The looks has to be right for the occasion, the style has to say something, the heel has to be just the right height.

I decided I wanted to get in on the action, and recently I find the male shoe porn guide at, of all places, the Sears store in Danbury, Connecticut. There, I found the spring 2009 workboot catalog. While this footwear won't get applause during Fashion Week in New York, the collection had me eagerly thumbing through pages thinking, "I want this and this and, yes, those." What did I see?

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Van | 10:19 PM | 05/25/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it

May 21, 2009

Aunt Charlotte Chronicles: "Vaa-yun, Where's My Letter?"

My brother Cooper and I were young and puzzled. Our mother Shirley and her older sister Charlotte sometimes talked about “Dear Momma” and “Dear Poppa.” Who were they?

Mom explained, “When we were little girls, we saw our mother writing letters. Charlotte and I asked her, ‘Who are you writing to?’ And our mother told us, ‘To Dear Momma and Dear Poppa.’” That is, my grandmother Eva Lissner wrote to her parents, Esther and Lehman Michelson of Gonzales, Texas. So granddaughters Shirley and Charlotte forever referred to their grandparents as Dear Momma and Dear Poppa.

I always associate this story with the fast-vanishing grace of letter writing. Esther and Lehman, my great-grandparents, were born in the 1860s, so the family chain of devoted correspondents goes way back. In my mind's eye, my grandmother Eva saw her mother Esther writing to her mother Charlotte (my aunt's namesake) and back into time’s embracing mist.

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Van | 08:24 PM | 05/21/09 | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) | Categories: Life and how to live it