The Schmooze lies at the intersection of high and low culture. Here, the latest developments and trends in Jewish art, books, dance, film, music, media, television and theater are all assimilated into one handy pop culture blog.
The Schmooze
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Koch vs. Cohen
Septuagenarian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen recently wrapped up a triumphant world tour (though he’ll be back on the road in March,) including a much-praised show in Tel Aviv in September. But apparently not everyone is a fan. In a recent review of “Leonard Cohen: Live at the Isle of Wight” for The Atlantic, former New York…
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Books Forward Favorites for the National Book Critics Awards
The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its annual book awards on Saturday, which include Benjamin Moser’s “Why This World,” a biography of the Brazilian Jewish novelist Clarice Lispector. Born Chaya Lispector in Chechelnik, Ukraine in 1920, Lispector was brought to Brazil as an infant. There she went on to write books such…
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Books Too Gross for the 21st Century? Jewish American Cartoonist Milt Gross
On February 7, at New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage, a new publication from New York University Press, “Is Diss A System? A Milt Gross Comic Reader” edited by Ari Y. Kelman, will be presented. Gross (born in 1895) of Russian Jewish ancestry, drew comic strips of wild slapstick energy, following in the violence-for-laughs tradition…
The Latest
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Fred Melamed, The Most Serious Man of All
Larry Gopnik, the main character in the Coen brothers most recent and most Jewish film, “A Serious Man,” has been widely understood as Job-like figure. But what would Job be without Satan to test him? (Besides having more children and fewer boils, that is.) Enter Sy Ableman, Larry’s beardy nemesis, whose role as self-righteous cuckolder…
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Writing a New Jewish Paradise
The fellows at the National Laboratory for New Jewish Culture, or LABA, at the 14th Street Y have recently published the January edition of LABAlights — a space for writing, art, and commentary on Jewish ideas. May we recommend this month’s installment, edited by Sisterhood contributor Elissa Strauss and themed “New Edens.” The volume includes…
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Books Taking a Cold Shower in Philip Roth’s Room
Someone on the grounds crew at the Corporation of Yaddo, the artists colony in Saratoga Springs N.Y., has a sense of humor. In the “Breast Room” (so-called because Philip Roth wrote “The Breast” while residing in it) of the West House building, the shower is mislabeled. When one turns the dial from off at the…
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George London, a Singer of Russian-Jewish Majesty
On February 7, the George London Foundation will present a special recital at the Morgan Library in New York, with pianist Jeffrey Cohen accompanying singers June Anderson and Sean Panikkar, as prelude to this year’s George London Competition Finals on March 19 also at the Morgan Library. The family of Canadian-Jewish baritone George London (born…
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Books Bubby Blurbs
First there were book trailers, then there were Old Jews Telling Jokes, and now, for his forthcoming book “Jew and Improved,” Canadian author and National Post editor Benjamin Errett has combined the two online video genres. To promote Errett’s book, which documents his conversion to Judaism, Errett’s wife (and the book’s illustrator) Sarah Lazarovic created…
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Funny Nazis? The Return (In Bulk) of Hogan’s Heroes
The CBS Home Entertainment/Paramount Release of a 28 DVD-set, “Hogan’s Heroes: The Komplete Series, Kommandant’s Kollection” reminds us of this early effort to find belated humor in Hitler’s war machine. Writer/director Billy Wilder’s much-admired 1953 film “Stalag 17,” was adapted from a play of the same name by two former POWs, and subtitled: “a comedy…
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I’m Sorry, Is That Mp3 Kosher?
You might check a bag of Skittles to see if it’s kosher, but did you check your latest Bruce Springsteen album? A committee in Israel would like you to. The Jewish news website Matzav reported this week that the Organization of Rabbis for the Purity of Jews released a list of offenses that would deem…
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Elliott Erwitt: An American Jewish Photographer’s Fierce Wit
Photography lovers who will be in Italy should try to see “Elliott Erwitt’s Rome,” an exhibit which opened in November 13, 2009 and remains on view until January 31. An accompanying volume published by teNeues sheds light on Erwitt. Born in Paris in 1928 to a Russian-Jewish family which moved to Milan but fled Mussolini…
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