Новости за 07.01.2016

These days, here’s what’s American: Come home from work, take off your shoes, unbuckle that too-tight belt, check the pantry to see if there are any Sausalito cookies left, and plop on the couch. Ain’t nothing wrong with that. And what makes this experience better is the ability laugh after a long day to the comedic stylings of Ilana Glazer, Abbi Jacobson, and Amy Schumer. That’s pure American freedom, brought to you by Comedy Central.

Happy [Not Our] New Year, everybody. It’s 2016, and I’m revved up and ready to go: a new year means a fresh start to 12 more months of bigotry in my inbox! To wit, here’s the first one of this new year:

I’ve not watched ‘Girls’ in forever—I think I was aged out somewhere during Season 3—but I did enjoy it for quite some time. It served as a accompaniment to what I would see and hear of and sometimes feel in actual life as I edged through Brooklyn in the summer on my bike, riding up and down Franklin and Bedford Avenues, from Crown Heights to Greenpoint and back again. And maybe that was the show’s ultimate draw: viewers who felt an affection to the main characters weren’t quite sure if what they... Читать дальше...

Looking back on it, the triumph of American Jewish literature in the 20th century seems like something foreordained. Take a people, Eastern European Jewry, that had always cherished literacy and give them a freedom they had never been granted before, and the result is a creative explosion—Death of a Salesman, The Adventures of Augie March, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Catcher in the Rye (not to mention the Broadway musical, Tin Pan Alley, and Hollywood). Why is it, then, that the American Jewish writers who were most successful... Читать дальше...

This week on Unorthodox: kosher marijuana, the great bagel-scooping debate, and one very WASPy cardigan.

Like so many things about the state of Israel, the summer I spent working on a kibbutz in 1961 was the result of a compromise. My parents had rejected my plans to travel across Europe with two friends during the time between high school and college. Forced to find an alternative, they proposed an Israel trip sponsored by the United Jewish Appeal Federation, part of the organization’s effort to strengthen young people’s Jewish identities. Motivated by a desire for adventure and independence—Zionism the furthest thing from my mind—I agreed. Читать дальше...

There’s a sort of louche, menacing quality about Jerry Lewis—I’ve always thought so, anyway. Maybe it’s the tan or the bada-bing pinkie ring, or the warmth he seemed unwilling to summon even while hosting a telethon for muscular dystrophy. I found Lewis’ nasal parodic voice irksome and repellent. And his appeal—here in the U.S., or in France—has always perplexed me. I could never stand The Nutty Professor; the only film of his I’ve ever enjoyed is The King of Comedy and that’s partly because he plays a balls-out asshole... Читать дальше...