Kosher Zombies & Vampires

Are zombies kosher? Or, more specifically, can zombies keep kosher? Asks a friend, the amazing comic writer Ashley-Jane Nicolaus:

Long story short, a friend of mine moved to a new place next to a really really old Jewish cemetery - so that got us thinking, if the zombie apocalypse were to happen, are brains kosher? Inquiring minds need to know...

I'm no kosher expert, but a few decades of eschewing the swine have prepped me with a little background knowledge. Not to mention thoroughly geeking out with random books of Jewish law.

So here's the deal.

You can actually eat the brains of a kosher animal. Well, some kosher animals. My mother-in-law (who, I should note, is a native Australian) LOVES cracking open fish skulls & sucking the brains out. (I'm a vegetarian & i think she does it to psyche me out. It doesn't work.)

But that's not what you want to know. If you want to know about zombies, you want to know about REAL HUMAN BRAINS. Well, humans -- or any part thereof -- is not permissible to eat, regardless of whether you're talking about kosher-keeping humans or non. (You really wish that whoever started the blood libel rumors had Google access to give them a clue.) In order for any animal to be kosher, it has to have cloven hooves and chew its cud. So basically, if you're a kosher zombie, you are screwed.

One additional consideration: Kosher vampires are screwed as well. In the process of making meat kosher, the animal's body has to be completely drained of blood. So you know how, on Buffy, when Angel and Spike became good guys (or impotent), they had to drink the blood of animals? (Just kidding. You don't actually need to know that.)* Animal blood is out, too. I suppose there's a case to be made that, when a life is at stake,** Jewish laws such as kashrut don't apply. Then again, zombies and vampires aren't technically alive, are they?

If you're curious for more, you should probably check out Are Dragons Kosher?
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* -- I believe a similar thing happened in Twilight, but I've mostly blacked it out.
** -- Notice how I avoided a pun about stakes? Joss Whedon is rolling over in his grave.***
***-- Apologies. I know Joss Whedon is not dead.

Kosher Cooking in Melbourne

Just in case you weren't ready to have your mind blown, turn back now. You might think Darth Vader is narrating, but it's my uncle. (I mean that as a compliment, I promise.) And you can spot glimpses of my brother-in-law as well as my soul brother, local (Melbourne) Jewish celebrity Bram Presser, ex-lead singer of YIDCore.



OK -- I laugh, and you kind of need to laugh, but this video is awesome. Partly that kosher cooking has gotten sophisticated enough so that a competition like this (a) exists, (b) is taken seriously, and (c) people are paying money to go to a swanky theater (that isn't even a Jewish theater) to watch the competition. I mean, sure, they do this kind of kosher cooking contest in New York (and my wife reports on it)...but in Melbourne? Go you people.

I really should be rooting for my bro, but DL, the wife of my chevrusa, is also involved. It's hard.

G-dcast's Rosh Hashanah Music Video!

Prodezra, the hip-hop sensation out of Savannah, GA and Mayanot Yeshiva and into our ears, stars in G-dcast's new Rosh Hashanah video -- dropping rhymes, mixing beats, and playing his own shofar backup. Prodezra and I wrote the song. And then we made it into a music video.



And don't forget to come back the second Rosh Hashanah goes out -- we've got Yom Kippur on deck, with the cowriter of the new Sleepless in Seattle musical, Josh Nelson.

Running Away to the Western Wall (and knocking over movie stars)

Leaving Jerusalem, we passed the corner of Raz's house. I wanted to jump out and run there, to pop in for a second and stay there forever. Sometimes Israel makes you so sure of things. It's crazy to say this about Rabbi Raz, who's about the least straight-Haredi person ever, but it makes you think how good an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle must be.

So. I'm in Israel.

We'd just had our two free hours in Jerusalem, virtually the only free time on this whole manic 5-day, 20 hour-a-day conference they call ROI 120. There was a reception with wine and hors d'oeuvres and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who I'd thought was in jail, but, hey, good for him that he's not. (And, yeah, sorry I don't know anything about politics.) Kobi Oz, who's an Israeli rock star, showed up for a surprise performance. But (a) it's the Three Weeks, when we're not supposed to listen to music, and (b) it was, as I said, our only 2 hours to do something, so I left my seat and ran.

I turned inside, to the amazing Israeli animation pavilion that the event was being held outside. Everything about the pavilion's architecture reminded me of the Disney studios in the 1950s, which they always used to show you at the beginning of the Disney Sunday Movie, the Place Where Magic Happened. Hey, that could be all of Israel. Inside the lobby the only other Orthodox person was hiding out, a refugee from the music. He grinned at me, a companion in his zealotry. And I hated to tell him -- but I wasn't a refugee. I was a runaway.

I ran outside. I ran down the hill to Jerusalem, the real Jerusalem where cars drove like they didn't believe in pedestrians and restaurants seduced you with neon lights and pictures of melted cheese over basically everything. I stopped at my sister-in-law's house, who I haven't seen in a year. Who just had a baby, and even though they're total first-time parents and are paranoid about opening the door on a sleeping baby, let me see him. He was breathing so radically. His chest rising and falling, half his body mass growing. I stayed for ten minutes, trying not to let my anxiety kick my ass, just talking to them. And eating pizza.

And then I ran to the Kotel.

I don't know why going to the Western Wall has occupied this spot in my life. The one thing I need to do in Israel, and the one thing I always try to squeeze into 3 minutes of time. Most of the time involves running to and from it -- just going through the Old City is a 20-minute trek each way -- even if, as I did, you cut through the Arab Shuk and coast along the stones and almost break your neck. And then you get there, and you throw yourself against the wall and say Shema, you say Psalms, you grab for any script you can, any arrangement of words that's already been written for you, because there's nothing you can say of your own that packs in quite enough pain and/or power. And you cry, without really knowing 100% why, maybe because you've built the experience up in your head or maybe you realize that all of the problems in your life, and all the incompleteness you feel, is all because you're waiting for the Messiah to come and heal it all and bring back your dead best friend and stop worrying about your kids quite so much.

Or maybe it's the Wall itself. The promise that hasn't been fulfilled yet, so it could be basically promising anything.

I finished praying. Ran back the long way, through the main streets of the Old City, hoping I'd bump into someone. Didn't. Grabbed a cab back, used my last 20 shekels, because I was late, and why would I change money when I could make a crazy zero-time dash to the Kotel instead?

I ended up returning to the party before the buses showed. Figured I had time to run to the makolet (translation: bodega, or, for you real English-speakers, a mini-mart) in the corner and grab some kosher Doritos for the family. Bumped into Matt Bar on the corner, who ran with me. He dashed into the store. While I swiveled on the front step, because this guy had just walked out and was in the process of bumping into me, and he was six and a half feet tall in a white shirt with tzitzis hanging on top of it and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor, because the last time I'd seen him had been on a movie screen, and he looked more like this:

I asked if he was Shuli Rand. He nodded guiltily with a smile. I told him I loved him. I think he understood how I meant it. Matt Bar took the opportunity to shove my book at him (which he'd had in his hand) and told him I wrote it, which I think showed him that I wasn't a crazed fan, or, at least, I wasn't just a crazed fan. He apologized for not being able to read English well. I told him I'd send him a copy if we ever got it translated. And I told him I'd just finished my first movie, and I hoped it was going to make the world a better place like his, and not just screw things up more.

He pulled me out to his car, which was tiny and black and old and totally awesome. It was a total fulfillment of his prophecy in Ushpizin, the movie he wrote & starred in, that even if he did get all that miracle money, he wouldn't spend it on something stupid like a fancy car. And his wife -- His wife! The all-time Adi Ran lip-synching champion of the world!* -- pulled out his new CD. Because he wanted to give me his address, and that was the most convenient way to write to him.

So now I've got an assignment. Remind me, please, if you get a chance. And, yes, by the time Matt and I got back, the buses still hadn't left. So we were safe.

_____
* -- you'll know what I'm talking about if you see the movie. So see it. Really.

Sports Kippah

Like we told you before, real Jews wear hats. Don't wear a hat? Then you're not a real Jew. Unless, of course, you wear a doily, in which case you're the Jewiest Jew of all.

But, you might ask, what if I don't like wearing a kippah? What if I think they're too showy? Or too holier-than-though? Or all of mine are in the wash? What if -- you may thunder, evoking a wrath like the first time G-d saw the Golden Calf -- I care about global warming and the ozone layer and cancer and all that stuff, and I want to keep the sun out of my eyes? What if I play sports? What if I'm an outfielder in baseball and I need to block the sun out of my eyes to call out someone? What are you trying to say, Roth -- that real Jews don't play sports?

Whoa, there, imaginary person -- calm down. People like you are the reason that the YamuKap was invented.

Now, one of my friends called it "the most hideous article of Jewish clothing ever invented." And that person does have a point -- it's not like a yarmulke has a special power that an average everyday hat, doily, or towel thrown over one's head can't replace. But I do have to admit, there's something beautiful if inelegant about wearing a Yamukap -- a yarmulke is supposed to keep you mindful of God, and I don't think I could forget for a second that I was wearing this thing, if I was wearing it.

Which I'm not. Because I'm a geek and a tech and a writer. I use the internet, learn Talmud with Rashi, and I never go outside. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't. And for that, you'll always have the Yamukap.



Thanks to Aaron Roller of Mimaamakim for this one. You're a prince.

The Jewish Authors' Oscars

Last night the Jewish Book Council hosted their annual National Jewish Book Awards, and they were kind enough to invite me. I wasn't a famous author or a famous book-buyer, but they let me in anyway.

At first my (a) shyness and (b) authory anti-social tendencies and (c) not knowing anybody-ness got the best of me. There was a (parenthetically: really fascinating) exhibit about Thomas Mann and German publishing, and the reception was mostly being held in one room ("mostly" meaning that the drinks table was in there, and therefore, so were all the guests) but spilled over into a second room that was ideal retreating space. I gave it an honorable go, checking out people's name tags to see if I recognized anyone. The first I spied was the illustrator of a book that I kind of slammed last year. Then I saw Alicia Susskin Ostriker, whose book of poetry >The Book of Seventy I'd read last week, but what would I say? I always appreciate when people tell me that, but then there's the deadening lack of conversation that's like, where do we go from here?

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin whizzed by. I worked with him last year on a G-dcast episode, but he was moving too fast to interrupt, although I made a mad dash of it. So I retreated to the exhibit, where I made small talk with two gentlemen who spoke about Thomas Mann like they went to grade school with him, that familiar. After spending about five minutes (that's long, in the context of a conversation, anyway) trying to explain what my book was about, and failing, I threw the question back at him: "So what do you do?" "Oh," he replied offhandedly, "I'm an acquisitions editor." He smirked. And my stomach hit the ground.

I'd kind of composed myself by the time dinner began. I saw Rabbi Telushkin again, and actually spoke to him. Randomly, he asked me where I lived. "Crown Heights," I told him, to which he raised an eyebrow -- he's working on a book about Lubavitch. He started to grill me about my Chabad connections (I'm not, my wife is, her family is about as Lubavitch as the town of Lubavitch), and, the way that these things go, he used to live with my grandparents-in-law and wrote a book in their house.

The M.C. for the evening came on mic and called for everyone to take their seats. Rabbi Telushkin, who was in the middle of a sentence -- he speaks in these long, fluid paragraphs, each like a train with a hundred cars -- ignored him. Then the M.C. said something about a "welcoming word from Rabbi Joseph Telushkin" and I broke him off, don't you have to go? He shrugged and did something with his hands. Carolyn Hessel, who's the director of the Jewish Book Council and maybe the most important person ever to hold a book in her hands, gave a much-too-polite word. The rabbi grinned at me. I scattered.

Remember how I thought I wouldn't know what to say to someone whose book I read? I slid into an empty seat at the table. There was one person I knew, a sometimes-editor of mine, and one person I knew but didn't realise I knew, since we had one of those email-only correspondences (a writing/editing one, not a sketchy Internet one) -- and then there was the person whose seat I slid next to, who was Dalia Sofer. Who might have written one of the best books I've ever read. Who is probably as close to a rock star as the literary world can offer. Who was introduced to me, and whom, upon meeting, I shrunk about 25 or 30 percent and told, in as natural and un-awkward a voice as I could muster (it was still incredibly awkward and incredibly unnatural) that, geez, The Septembers of Shiraz was pretty technically proficient. Or something. Graciously, she talked to me until I'd un-awkward-ized. And it was simply really cool, in the middle of a room where I was surrounded by people with amazing ideas, to have a straight-up conversation about writing that was pretense-free and unencumbered by all our fancy clothes (my invitation said "casual," I dressed casual-but-formalish, and I was still underdressed) and the weight of all the potential in the room.

I could tell you more about the food, or the people, or the books. I wish I could tell you more about the awards ceremony -- the speeches people made, and how incredible it was to take an arbitrary topic, like landlords in mid-20th century Chicago, and listen as an author gripped the microphone and talked about how it was her father's passion and she never understood what it was all about until she researched this 400-page book about it. For someone like me, to whom reading anything but novels (stories, action, making up stuff) is hard, if not impossible, the night was nearly revolutionary.

Free Matzah. Act Now.

So part of my day job at MyJewishLearning is to come up with new and zany schemes to...well, basically, to keep the site from seeming old and un-zany. This Passover season, I've decided that we should buy someone more matzah than they'll ever need. Even if they have a whole lot of friends coming over and a studio apartment that needs re-insulation.

Here's what I wrote:

What's your best Passover story? It can be a horror story about Passover cleaning, or the story of how your parents met and fell in love at a Passover concert at college...or about the time your grandfather came to the seder dressed as a giant frog.

My Jewish Learning wants to hear your Passover memory.

It can be silly. It can be serious, or sad, or romantic. It shouldn't be long--tell us in a few sentences (200 words or fewer) the best, worst, or most interesting thing that's ever happened to you during Passover. Or film it, make it 2 minutes or less, and send us the YouTube or Vimeo link.

Send it to matthue@myjewishlearning.com by Monday, March 22, at 5 p.m. EST. Make sure to include your address and phone number. The winning entry will be announced on Wednesday, March 24, and published on MyJewishLearning.com. And we'll send you the biggest box of matzah you've ever seen, just in time for Passover.

(Sorry, but we're only able to send matzah to addresses in the United States and Canada.)

Why I Don't Eat Animals

I was just interviewed on the blog Heeb 'n Vegan. Michael Croland, who runs the site, managed to get a lot out of me in very little space -- we talk about Muslim punk music, my novel Never Mind the Goldbergs, my vegetarianism -- and, randomly, the last book I read, which is Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals:

It's hard not to talk about the stories in the book. I've stopped multiple dinner conversations because something popped into my head, and I'm really bad about not saying something. Usually in a charming and offbeat and punky way. But, uh, you can't really say this stuff charmingly.

Judaism isn't really a religion of choices. In general, in Jewish law, there are no circumstances that get either/or verdicts. You're either commanded to do something, or you're commanded not to do it. Being a vegetarian falls into a kind of shady ground. Some people will tell you that Jews are required to eat meat on Shabbos or holidays. Others will say that eating meat is a condescension that God made to people after that whole Noah thing didn't work out, and the world was full of people with unrealized hostility. (At least that's sort of the way it's portrayed in the Torah.) In essence, you can kind of say that Judaism supports either position -- that we either have to eat meat, or that eating meat is one of the most base and degrading parts of being human that there is.



He also quoted a line from Goldbergs at me -- which, I think, is the highest compliment you can get. It means that you've said something that's affected someone else enough for them to remember it and process it into their brains, and possibly make it part of their thinking. And then he asked me if it was a blueprint for Jewish punk. (The line he quoted was:"I still believed in G-d. I just didn't believe in other people. I mean, some days, I felt like G-d was the only one who believed back at me.")

I don't think anything can be a blueprint for Jewish punk, although it's awesome that you asked. I think that punk is the idea of taking something in a wild new direction, innovating or mutating it, and I think that the essence of any new development/mutation/pwning in Jewish thought involves going back to the source -- to G-d, to the Torah, to the original things that Moses said -- and asking ourselves, what's my relationship to it? And then looking at the relationship that other people and the Greater Jewish World have to those same ideas, and saying that maybe we've got to get back to the source.

DIY Judaism is the way that Judaism's supposed to be. But I think it also means you have to look at the sources and really get to know them, much like food radicals need to read Diet for a New America or political radicals should learn Howard Zinn.

I definitely don't think I'm at the point of Jonathan Safran Foer, where I can lay out a calm and rational blueprint of each of my beliefs in a wowing and awe-inspiring (although possibly hazardous to your dinner-party conversation) book-length tome -- but I guess that's all part of the discovery process. Whether it's the food I eat or the God I pray to. Either way, as soon as I've got it lined up for sure, I'll let you know.

Want to Join My Cult?

How geeky and sixth-grade USY nightmare does that sound?

Okay, so Facebook is collecting your private data. And it's going to use it to sell your contact information to marketers. Who didn't know that already, or at least suspect it? When any automated website asks you for your five favorite bands, it doesn't want to know in order to agonize about how cool Regina Spektor is with you. It wants to sell you other music that sounds like Regina Spektor.

I was just convinced by my friend, music recommender, and sometime Internet guru Joshua Gee to join VampireFreaks.com. It's a social networking site for goths -- yes, I fly that way sometimes, and I've got my own set of fangs to prove it -- and, over the past two years, it's been proven to be wildly popular. The advantage that Facebook has (that is, it includes everyone in the universe is also a disadvantage, and we can already see the results of it: Every time someone from one of my former lives has friended me -- or, worse, sent me a long and detailed personal message -- and it's been a person that, if it's all the same, I'd rather keep in my former life, I stay away from Facebook for a few days.

If, on the other hand, I join a website that fits with my individual identity or my musical tastes or my personal convictions (vegetarian networks, for instance), I can limit myself to associating only with people who I'm actually interested in and care what they have to say...and I'll feel like my ad money is going to people I support (in this case, goth geeks) instead of Mark Zuckerberg, who I just feel kind of gross about at this point.

In addition to VampireFreaks, there are social networks for Christians, vegetarians, and even pets. So why haven't Jewish social networks ever taken off?

A rudimentary Googling shows there's no shortage of Jewish social networks. So why isn't anyone signed up on any of them? Instead of those (shiver) USY reunions being held on Shmooze.com or JewCrew.org, there are Facebook groups for the upcoming tenth reunion of National Convention '02 with literally hundreds of members -- and you know that all those ex-teens getting together is just going to inspire another round of old photo albums, bomber shots, and messy hook-up sessions, followed by another ten years of practiced Facebook avoidance.

Is that the real reason that Jews don't join Jewish social networks -- because they're so small, you might actually have to run into someone?

For my own part, I'll save my Jewish networking for the same user-platform my parents are on -- the local synagogue -- and use social networking for the things that I really need computers for, like writing protest letters to congressmen and finding new music. In the meantime, if anyone comes looking, I'll be on Vampire Freaks. Want to join my cult?

Gourmet Jews, Kosher Wine & Cheese Tastings, and Hasidic Beer Parties

On the way out of his goodbye party last night, my doppelganger-in-name Shimon Roth grabbed me and said, "Are you gonna write about this on your website?" Usually, I hate those questions, but between Shimon's good-natured drunkenness on one of his last nights in Crown Heights and the sheer Hasidic wackiness of our day, there was no way I couldn't say yes.

It started at about four P.M., when we went to a kosher wine and cheese tasting at BenZ's Gourmet. If you don't know, wine and cheese are two of the hardest items to find kosher, and until recently, most Orthodox Jews -- especially outside of New York -- had to put up with a very small selection of both. (To this day, when we visit Melbourne, my in-laws order us to bring back as much cheese as our suitcases can fit: "Anything but the processed crap!")

In the past few years, however, due to the combined force of Internet ease-of-purchasing and the greater availability of disposable income in certain demographics of the religious Jewish community, and a small but noticeable closet industry has sprung up: a Hasidic fine food industry.

Because my wife is a personal chef, I've got a bird's-eye view of the situation: In this section of the community, people are struggling to learn as much about fine food as they can, and the easiest way of investigating is with their wallets.

Thus, we rolled up to BenZ's thinking we wouldn't be the only guests with a kid in tow (we were). Instead, we found a crowd that was part gourmands (actual and aspiring), part food-industry people, and part businessmen. That last group were the easiest to spot -- they were the ones at the pouring station who were complaining that the pours were "too stingy." (Author's note: I still have to figure out the correct way to ask for more, since apparently you aren't really supposed to drink the same wine twice at a wine tasting.)

To make matters even more unspeakably complicated, the night before had been Crown Heights's first poetry slam ever (oh, geez, that's another blog entry -- remind me) and, randomly, I kept catching snatches of conversation about "the slam recital" and "hippies yelling hip-hop rhymes." I felt instantly both scandalized and famous. Add that to the fact that some middle-aged dude kept coming up to me and asking if I was Matisyahu (in Crown Heights, mind you) and it was as trippy an experience as Sunday afternoons get.

From there, it was on to Shimon's party. Straight through the door, I began getting major flashes from college: beer in a Tupperware trunk, Rock Band on the Xbox (currently playing: semi-recent Metallica) and, most telling of all, a kitchen crammed to the seams with people. Just like college, there were the token sketchily-dressed girls in a corner with know-it-all boys. Except that these girls were sketchily-dressed because they were wearing pants, and the boys were those guys in the back of the class, the ones who never paid attention but always answered the questions right.

There were the slackers -- a long-haired kid with no yarmulke who asked after my brother-in-law (he's currently locked away in a yeshiva, off becoming a rabbi in a land with no TV, internet, or women). There were the married-and-reproduced people who were trying desperately to pretend that they still had a life after dark (uh, us). There were the Upper West Side kids with one foot in the Modern Orthodox world, one foot in the secular world, who still came back to the shtetl to check in (briefly, second-guessingly) and see whether there was anyone promising to date in the Old Country. And there was one girl in a tweedy plaid shirt and skirt who I honestly couldn't tell whether she was a Williamsburg cool kid or an old-school Hasid.

And then, Shimon, on the way out, asking me if I was going to record this. I didn't answer him -- just reached into my wife's handbag and took out the gift we'd gotten him, a copy of Benyamin Cohen's My Jesus Year, a book about getting back in touch with Judaism while checking out everything but Judaism. He's moving to LA. I figured it might remind him just a little bit of the old Jewish neighborhood. You know, a place not very different from the environment that Jesus probably grew up in.

I don't know if there's a moral to this story, except to say that Hasidim live much the same lives, at least on a quotidian Sunday afternoon level, as their non-Hasidic brethren. The same things just manifest a little differently.

How Jews Eat

Here's the new MyJewishLearning movie I produced. It's just in time for a return to the b-word -- you know, the one that some people won’t even say during Passover. We're proud to present an introspective, intergenerational, intercultural look at the most Jewish of all Jewish holiday activities: eating.



Last month, director Judy Prays took a decidedly non-how-to-like approach to examining How Jews Look. Which is to say, instead of looking at how Judaism tells people to dress or look like, she looked at what Jews actually do look like. This time around, Ms. Prays (yes, that's her real name) takes a look at How Jews Eat.

In the film, we hear from four radically different people about everyone's favorite Jewish social activity. Henry returns to show us around a Manhattan Jewish deli, a scene he knows well--he's been in the deli business for over 60 years. Arielle gives us survival tips for hunting down vegetarian food in South America. We also return to visit Miriam, a Hasidic Jew whose family Shabbat custom is not at all what you'd expect it to be. And Yoni invites us over for dinner, and for what we promise will be the coolest song you'll ever hear in your life about sushi (yes, sushi).

So check it out. Let us know what you think. And share your own stories in the comments section about how you eat, or what you think.

Punk Rock Parsha

While Googling for Torah texts, the last thing you expect to pop up is the kinetic face of your new favorite band. But Patrick A., the lead singer of Atlanta-based Can Can, just started posting his thoughts on the weekly Torah portion on YouTube -- starting last week with Tetzaveh, and onto this week's confrontation of the Golden Calf.

In Patrick's reading, the Children of Israel emerge from the sin of the Calf with a valuable lesson learned -- a lesson in the importance of avoiding groupthink and learning to think independently. In short, he says, the Torah teaches that individuality and nonconformity is the only way to go, and especially the only way to form a meaningful relationship with God -- which, to me at least, seems like the most punk-rock thing of all.

Shalach Mones Madness

Someone driving through our part of Brooklyn honked at Itta and I, waving us over from the sidewalk. "What's going on?" she said. "Is this a bank robbery, or is it some kind of Jewish holiday?"

It was a fair question, considering we were standing next to a seven-foot-tall in all black clothes and a Mexican wrestler mask. This was my first Purim in a Hasidic neighborhood, and it was literally swarming with people: pre-tween geishas hammered on our neighbor's door. A woman in full turquoise burqa walked down the street next to a man in a streimel and those tight white stockings. People ran everywhere, literally throwing candy at each other at times, and squeezing chocolate bars into people's mail slots at others. "This is like Halloween, but the way Jews celebrate it," Itta pointed out. "By giving people candy instead of demanding it."

I've always been a Halloween-positive boy myself, but yesterday, I had to agree: it was pretty much a madhouse of goodwill and thanksgiving. We made thirty-two of our shalach mones packages, and by the day's end we were down to three. (Frum Satire and his friend, paying us a surprise visit, knocked it down to one.) All told, 'twas better to give than to receive, and it was a mad amount of fun as well.

But, because it's not bad to receive as well, here are my shalach manot highlights of the year:

• A family friend's house had do-it-yourself shalach manot -- there were a row of boxes, both new things and (packaged) food traded in from other shalach moneses earlier that day. "So you guys would like, what, nice chocolate?" she asked, ready to drop in a big old bar that was fancy and Swiss. "No way," I said. It's true -- we're not chocolate people. "Your wife wouldn't like that?" she said. "What should I give her..." she rumbled through the box, pulling out a tin and making a face -- "sardines?" "Actually," I said, "she loves sardines." (Don't worry -- they also gave us two pineapples.)
  
  
• Somewhere along the line (post-Shushan, pre-me becoming observant) a custom started that, ideally, you should give two different kinds of food -- that is, for which you should say two different kinds of blessings -- for Purim. We couldn't find the source for this anywhere, and this year, my in-laws gave wurst and vodka. 40% alcohol, 110% Russian.
  
  
• Berwin, the aforementioned Mexican wrestler, handed us a bodega-bag with a really nice bottle of wine and a three-pound box of granola. I don't understand it, either.
  
  
• Matisyahu and his family gave out falafel, hummus, and vegetables in reusable enviro-plastic containers, along with a plea to keep the Purim-related waste to a minimum -- which was both good advice, and necessary.