Ken Gordon


News

Forward Forum

Arts & Culture

Fast Forward

Podcasts

Videos

Breaking News

Moody Thoughts About Bob Dylan and Cher

By Ken Gordon

Moody Thoughts About Bob Dylan and Cher
What do Bob Dylan, Cher, and Rick Moody have in common? Stop thinking, “Well, Dylan and Cher both did projects with the word “burlesque” in them…” Here’s the answer:Read More


Mr. Cahan’s Neighborhood

By Ken Gordon

 Mr. Cahan’s Neighborhood
Republished together by Dover in 1970, Cahan’s 1896 novella “Yekl: A Tale of the New York Ghetto” and his 1898 collection, “The Imported Bridegroom and Other Stories of the New York Ghetto,” are not “Dubliners.”Read More


The Prophetic Delmore Schwartz

By Ken Gordon

The Prophetic Delmore Schwartz
This isn’t just the opening paragraph of a classic American short story — the lead-off piece in the collection titled “In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” — it’s an astounding instance of cultural prophecy. Poet Delmore Schwartz intuited our need for home movies to become public. If you’ve ever posted or commented on a home video on Facebook or YouTube, you know how that desire has been realized. Schwartz also shows how viewer response and the main attraction simultaneously vie for attention. From “Mystery Science Theater 3000” to “Beavis and Butt-head” and DVDs with directors’ commentaries, the legacy of “In Dreams” continues.Read More


Conflict and Compromise: Day School Parents Weigh In

By Ken Gordon

Last year, I published an essay on MyJewishLearning.com called “Seize the Day School.” I worried about this essay. “Seize” spelled out, in great detail, my own ambivalences — note the plural — about sending my daughter to Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston. I feared that once the piece was published, her teachers might treat my little girl…differently; that the school moms would stop smiling at me and my wife; that our tuition bill would start growing exponentially.Read More


The Marginally Jewish Reader: Nathanael West

By Ken Gordon

Once upon a time, David Mamet picked up Abraham Cahan’s “The Imported Bridegroom,” and in the course of perusing the book, he later wrote, “I discovered in myself the racial type of the lapsed Talmudist.” The first time I read of Mamet’s discovery, in the preface to the playwright’s “Writing in Restaurants,” I cheered. I wanted to be a lapsed Talmudist, too. Not that I really knew from Talmudists (I know Talmud the way Bart Simpson knows of long division), and I was uncomfortable with Mamet’s “racial” talk, but his “lapsed Talmudist” sounded considerably better than “ignorant secular Jew” or amorets, as they say in the mameloshn.Read More







    Would you like to receive updates about new stories?














    We will not share your e-mail address or other personal information.

    Already subscribed? Manage your subscription.