(no subject)
Mar. 24th, 2011 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretAn interesting thought on The Autograph Man that hadn't occurred to me originally. If someone playing the Jewish/Goyish game were to ask me about New York and London, I'd obviously say New York-Jewish and London-Goyish. No question, right? And it's not even London, it's a suburb of London, where the story is set, so you know, kal vachomer...
Yet Smith, who's spent her entire book playing the Jewish/Goyish game and surely can't have missed this, uses Kabbalistic motifs when her characters are in London and Zen motifs for New York. And before Alex heads into deep Brooklyn, the Jewish neighborhood where Kitty lives, they first visit her fanclub president in Chinatown. Smith seems to be going to a certain amount of trouble to make New York goyish and London jewish. And I think that's really worth delving deeper into.
Here's another thing I wrote for Purimgifts and didn't end up using. I'm a little frustrated with that, actually. I wrote a reasonably lengthy poem and then realized it wasn't really how I wanted to end Purimgifts, so I had to reject it. Though it inspired "Jamie and Every Shapiro in Washington Heights", which I think is a dramatically more interesting work.
With sincere apologies to The Nails, here's my song parody... As with the story I did post, its sole inspiration was me hearing "I've had Shabbos dinners on Friday night with every Shapiro in Washington Heights" and thinking "Damn, that's a lot of Shapiros." I know it's reductionist and probably therefore misogynistic- that's a significant part of why I didn't use it. But for what it is, I think it's kind of fun.
88 Lines About Every Shapiro in Washington Heights
Tirzah was the quiet type,
devoted to her kol ishah
Marnie was a modern girl
Who spent her time at the Drisha.
Gita was related to the
Famous deli owning clan
Shaindy was a Chasid,
in her view we just lived His plan.
Sorah Ruchel Chaya Leah
had another seven names
Judith kept me up at night
whispering her secret shames
Elaine was born a Catholic,
Got converted by the Gerer Rav
Hannah might've been Croatian
Or some other kind of Slav.
Lisa confessed to me
That she'd sometimes somnambulate
Yehudit nearly lost all hope,
Felt she'd turned old at twenty eight.
Miriam would only answer
If you called her Sweet Marie
Deborah clipped the coupons
Searching for the cheap and for the free.
Raizel waited for her husband
Finally to sign the get.
Sarah 2 loved Coney Island
But she hated getting wet.
Jody's father was a butcher,
She's a vegetarian.
Amy avoided temple service
Preferred it nonsectarian.
Sarah 3 hated being mistaken
For Sarah number 2
Ruthie's chicken soup was tops
When it came to fighting flu.
Erica had deep opinions
About Eastern philosophy
Shira made my Jewish mother
nudzh us to almost marry
Jessica felt compassion for
The pigeons and the brown squirrels
Janie liked to flirt a little
But she liked it more with girls.
I liked Rivka quite a lot
But she liked my roommate more
Amanda- our highest high
was goodnight kisses at her door.
Batya's greatest feature was
Her nondescript non-Jewish nose.
Sarah 4 made my heart skip
When she put on red pantyhose.
Shprintzl was a Yiddish punk
Steel pierced her lip, prayers pierced her soul.
Olga's still a communist
We met around the old May Pole.
Elana went to Brandeis but
She wished that she had gone to Stern
Joanna liked to light the candles
on Friday night and watch them burn.
Alice is so secular
She feels sometimes like she's a goy
Rina thinks that life is simple
All she does is search for joy.
Andy's from Long Island
But she's not like all those JAPs
Yocheved thinks that streimels are
superior to baseball caps
Rowena's from the Isle of Fiji
I didn't know they had Jews there.
Delilah made me feel like Samson
When she'd sneak in to cut my hair.
Cynthia lied to me when
She said her name was Shapiro
Talia's smile was small at first
I'd tell her jokes and watch it grow.
Michal's an Israeli girl
Our winters saw her sled with glee
Sarah 5 was city born
Thought Central Park the place to be.
Tova was from Jersey City
The bridge and tunnel her lifeline
Chana sought her own salvation
in schnappes and many cups of wine.
Esther had the brightest eyes
of anyone in all the land.
Anne was lovely, but something's missing
That I'll never understand.
Cathy is from Ohio
I can't wait to hold her hand.
Yet Smith, who's spent her entire book playing the Jewish/Goyish game and surely can't have missed this, uses Kabbalistic motifs when her characters are in London and Zen motifs for New York. And before Alex heads into deep Brooklyn, the Jewish neighborhood where Kitty lives, they first visit her fanclub president in Chinatown. Smith seems to be going to a certain amount of trouble to make New York goyish and London jewish. And I think that's really worth delving deeper into.
Here's another thing I wrote for Purimgifts and didn't end up using. I'm a little frustrated with that, actually. I wrote a reasonably lengthy poem and then realized it wasn't really how I wanted to end Purimgifts, so I had to reject it. Though it inspired "Jamie and Every Shapiro in Washington Heights", which I think is a dramatically more interesting work.
With sincere apologies to The Nails, here's my song parody... As with the story I did post, its sole inspiration was me hearing "I've had Shabbos dinners on Friday night with every Shapiro in Washington Heights" and thinking "Damn, that's a lot of Shapiros." I know it's reductionist and probably therefore misogynistic- that's a significant part of why I didn't use it. But for what it is, I think it's kind of fun.
88 Lines About Every Shapiro in Washington Heights
Tirzah was the quiet type,
devoted to her kol ishah
Marnie was a modern girl
Who spent her time at the Drisha.
Gita was related to the
Famous deli owning clan
Shaindy was a Chasid,
in her view we just lived His plan.
Sorah Ruchel Chaya Leah
had another seven names
Judith kept me up at night
whispering her secret shames
Elaine was born a Catholic,
Got converted by the Gerer Rav
Hannah might've been Croatian
Or some other kind of Slav.
Lisa confessed to me
That she'd sometimes somnambulate
Yehudit nearly lost all hope,
Felt she'd turned old at twenty eight.
Miriam would only answer
If you called her Sweet Marie
Deborah clipped the coupons
Searching for the cheap and for the free.
Raizel waited for her husband
Finally to sign the get.
Sarah 2 loved Coney Island
But she hated getting wet.
Jody's father was a butcher,
She's a vegetarian.
Amy avoided temple service
Preferred it nonsectarian.
Sarah 3 hated being mistaken
For Sarah number 2
Ruthie's chicken soup was tops
When it came to fighting flu.
Erica had deep opinions
About Eastern philosophy
Shira made my Jewish mother
nudzh us to almost marry
Jessica felt compassion for
The pigeons and the brown squirrels
Janie liked to flirt a little
But she liked it more with girls.
I liked Rivka quite a lot
But she liked my roommate more
Amanda- our highest high
was goodnight kisses at her door.
Batya's greatest feature was
Her nondescript non-Jewish nose.
Sarah 4 made my heart skip
When she put on red pantyhose.
Shprintzl was a Yiddish punk
Steel pierced her lip, prayers pierced her soul.
Olga's still a communist
We met around the old May Pole.
Elana went to Brandeis but
She wished that she had gone to Stern
Joanna liked to light the candles
on Friday night and watch them burn.
Alice is so secular
She feels sometimes like she's a goy
Rina thinks that life is simple
All she does is search for joy.
Andy's from Long Island
But she's not like all those JAPs
Yocheved thinks that streimels are
superior to baseball caps
Rowena's from the Isle of Fiji
I didn't know they had Jews there.
Delilah made me feel like Samson
When she'd sneak in to cut my hair.
Cynthia lied to me when
She said her name was Shapiro
Talia's smile was small at first
I'd tell her jokes and watch it grow.
Michal's an Israeli girl
Our winters saw her sled with glee
Sarah 5 was city born
Thought Central Park the place to be.
Tova was from Jersey City
The bridge and tunnel her lifeline
Chana sought her own salvation
in schnappes and many cups of wine.
Esther had the brightest eyes
of anyone in all the land.
Anne was lovely, but something's missing
That I'll never understand.
Cathy is from Ohio
I can't wait to hold her hand.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-24 03:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-24 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-24 04:14 pm (UTC)1. I thought I was going to learn some math, and these are all physics equations. Not that I understand physics either, of course...
2. This is crummy history as history. His vision of the intellectual world as a Hegelian battle between religion and science is awfully simplistic. His summaries of major trends in Western intellectual life, like the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation, made me distrust other pieces about which I knew much less.
But I do want to at least try to finish the book, because I need to have a better grasp of all these history of science topics.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-24 04:22 pm (UTC)I liked the way he handled the physics, but then, I don't need to learn the Bernoulli Equation from a popular science book.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-24 04:29 pm (UTC)Though perhaps all that brain lateralization stuff has been debunked. I wouldn't know since I'm not a scientist. Etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-24 04:42 pm (UTC)I know the feeling. My mom said to me in 6th grade "You've officially gone beyond me in mathematics. I will no longer be able to help you with math homework."
I'm not in neuroscience, but my understanding is that it's not so much that it's been debunked as that it's been complicated. There are certain known right brain or left brain functions, but they'll remap in the case of a brain injury, and not everyone's brain works the exact same way to begin with.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-28 01:38 pm (UTC)If you're not like me, this may also cause a problem with reading the book. I was able to overcome my discomfort with the use of the name, because I think Smith uses it very effectively and sensitively, but you might have a different comfort level.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-28 04:39 pm (UTC)