Circumcise Your Nose

By Dan Friedman February 15, 2012

The trouble with living in a logorrheoic country at a time when speech is free, public and almost unashamedly unfiltered is that the careful observations of the geniuses who made it possible seem asinine.

Case in point: Sigmund Freud. Sifting through the occasional secretions of the tightly sealed and private lips of the Viennese bourgeoisie he made an art of joining up the dots into a science of the psyche. One of the more suggestive of his theories was that of upward displacement where genital discomfort or excitation could be manifest as catarrh or nasal itching. Sander Gilman, Melvin Konner, Jay Geller and others discuss whole series of neuroses that surround the Jewish body and psyche.

And now, here come The Groggers with a lovesong to the blond girl with a thing for upturned noses and football players, “Jewcan Sam (A Nose Job Love Song).” Here’s the chorus — “And we would live like we were famous/ With the stars all in our eyes. / And I would love you till forever. / If you got your nose circumcised…” Forgive us Sigmund, wherever you are.

Hat tip to Hillel Broder.

Dan Friedman is the former executive editor and whisky correspondent of the Forward, and is the author of a book about Tears for Fears, the ’80s emo rock band.

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