Elyssa Goodman
By Elyssa Goodman
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Culture Why Josh Gondelman Is a Rising Star in Stand-Up Comedy
‘We’ll get your name right this time,” says the emcee at The Comic Strip in Manhattan. Josh Gondelman laughs. “Dude, zero problem at all.” He pulls the sleeves of his blue sweater further over his wrists, a smile slowly spreading across his face. “I’m the least uptight about that stuff.” “I know you are, I…
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Film & TV How ‘The Birdcage’ Married Jewish and Gay Civil Rights
‘I see my tiger robe on television,” my mother says to me on the phone. “What am I watching?” I pause for a split second to think. I’m about 1,300 miles away from her. But I know: “The Birdcage.” My mother chuckles. She’s talking about the scene in the now iconic 1996 comedy where Robin…
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Culture The Art of Laurie Simmons Directly Challenges the Viewer
First I notice each model’s eyebrows. They are fluffy and coiffed into perfect, thick, modern arches as if ripped from this month’s glossy fashion magazines. And then below, eyes with wide-open pupils stare intensely at nothing, as if I don’t exist. I feel my reality challenged. And even more so since the eyes themselves are…
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The Schmooze Behind Scenes at Fashion Week With Yigal Azrouël
Fashion Week is a hurricane that sweeps through the industry. The biggest shows happen twice annually, during the Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter collections. Designers spend months creating their visions for the upcoming seasons, and in a single day, in mere hours, it’s all over: the beautifying, the catwalking, the flash of cameras and the crowds. Until…
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The Schmooze PHOTOS: Capturing a 1970s Borscht Belt Singles’ Weekend
Born and raised in New York, my mother, Rani Stevens Goodman, grew up going to the Catskill Mountains every weekend from the time she was still in the womb until her mid-twenties. For the uninitiated, The Catskills, which include Sullivan, Orange, and Ulster Counties in upstate New York, was once known as The Borscht Belt,…
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Life 7 Things To Know About Helena Rubinstein
Helena Rubinstein reads in her bed in the late 1930s. Copyright Getty Images My first introduction to Helena Rubinstein came in the form of a small, white tube with a red and fuchsia logo that was no bigger than my thumb. It was waterproof mascara, hidden away in my mother’s bathroom drawer. She never actually…
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The Schmooze Looking for Kabbalah at a Rangers Game
“I was going through a quote-unquote midlife crisis to some extent,” says documentary filmmaker Steven Bram, whose spiritual journey is the focus of new documentary “Kabbalah Me,” which he co-directed. A series of traumatic events, among them losing his brother-in-law on 9/11 and the financial crisis of 2008-2009, caused Bram, a born-and-bred New Yorker who…
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The Schmooze Barbra Streisand, ‘Funny Girl’ and Me
“I watch this movie maybe once every two weeks,” my friend Jamie said to me, giggling, as we found our seats for a screening of “Funny Girl.” The Museum of Jewish Heritage was screening the film as a part of their ongoing “Hello, Gorgeous!” Film Festival, in which they’re showing a different Barbra Streisand movie…
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