Spoiler Alerts

Three big things which I should tell you about:

First, my new book My First Kafka was officially sent to the printers! That's still a long and complicated process which will take several months. But what it means is, I'm officially off the hook. I'll put up the cover next week (although if you're really curious, you can probably find it posted somewhere). You can also officially preorder it on IndieBound, B&N, and Amazon. If you do, let me know -- I'll sign it when I get a chance. And thank you.



Second: The top-secret project I've been working on has been announced. On the front page of the New York Times, no less. That's about all I can say about that, but go here to read everything you could possibly want (and then Google around for even more).

And third, my colleague, good friend, and occasional couchsurfing host Rob Auten's own game, Gears of War Judgment, is coming out next week! He's been doing a ton of press, but I think this is probably the best interview I've seen. It's also really illuminating in regard to all the stuff I'm still not allowed to say.

Isaac Bashevis Singer Bashes Barbra Streisand

I don't know why I thought that I.B. Singer died before the 20th century. Maybe I was mixing up the exotic, Eastern European ghetto, pre-indoor-bathroom locales of his stories with the land he actually lived in, the America to which he immigrated in the year (uh, quick...consult our I.B. Singer biography to pretend I know what I'm talking about...) 1935 -- smack in the middle of the New Deal and well after cars and indoor plumbing were invented.

One other major happening of the 20th century that Singer lived at the same time as: Barbra.

Yentl was originally a 1962 short story entitled "Yentl the Yeshiva Boy," written by Mr. Singer. Upon publication, it was immediately snatched up in a bidding war -- as this timeline depicts -- with the winner being one Ms. Barbra Streisand, who by then was already a recording star. In the intervening time between the purchase of the script and the film's release, Singer was commissioned to write a screenplay. He ended up with a 120-page, 2-hour work that he called "a very long short story"...which was deemed unusable by Hollywood. (Incidentally, one other thing that happened between Ms. Streisand's purchase of the rights and the film's debut: the release of her record "A Christmas Album," on which Barbra sings "Silent Night," the Lord's Prayer, and "O Little Town of Bethlehem.")

It wasn't until years later, in 1984, that Singer interviewed himself in the pages of the New York Times.

While still attempting to maintain a noble bearing ("I did not think that Miss Streisand was at her best in the part of Yentl....She got much, perhaps too much advice and information from various rabbis, but rabbis cannot replace a director"), Singer systematically takes down the Queen of Pop, aspect by aspect, until the film version of his book is a smoking pile of charred ash on a soundstage whose only resemblance to the shtetls of old is that they were both completely eviscerated.

My favorite part comes when Singer asks himself if Barbra's Broadway sensibility at all resembled the character of Yentl's musical tastes:

Q: Did you enjoy the singing?
A: Music and singing are not my fields. I did not find anything in her singing which reminded me of the songs in the studyhouses and Hasidic shtibls, which were a part of my youth and environment. As a matter of fact, I never imagined Yentl singing songs. The passion for learning and the passion for singing are not much related in my mind. There is almost no singing in my works. One thing is sure: there was too much singing in this movie, much too much. It came from all sides. As far as I can see the singing did nothing to bring out Yentl's individuality and to enlighten her conduct. The very opposite, I had a feeling that her songs drowned the action. My story, ''Yentl the Yeshiva Boy,'' was in no way material for a musical, certainly not the kind Miss Streisand has given us. Let me say: one cannot cover up with songs the shortcomings of the direction and acting.

here's the rest

Who loves Chasidim?

Once upon a time, Hasidim were known as a closeted, tight-lipped sect of Jews who practiced mysticism, dressed in an extreme and foreign manner, and offered up little contact with the outside world.

Today, every second household in Hasidic Brooklyn has a webcam, a Twitter feed, and a New York Times story about them.

Continuing the Times' fetishization of Orthodox Judaism, this week's e-paper includes a photo gallery of 47-year-old Colombian hatmaker Bruno Lacorazza, who is not Jewish himself, but whose trade involves selling hats almost exclusively to Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in New York.

The photos, by Times photographer Ozier Muhammad, are actually beautiful. Between the haphazardness of traveling haphazardly with luxury hats and the Old Worldliness of crumbling shops like Feltly Hats in Williamsburg and the more modern Primo Hatters in Crown Heights.

Of course, the only interior photographs seem to be from the Crown Heights store, where Lubavitchers were probably more than amiable than Satmars to being photographed (here's one of one of our favorite family friends) and possibly even saw it as an opportunity for kiruv. You can imagine the conversation: "Can we take pictures of people trying on hats?" "Uh, I don't know..." "But secular Jewish readers of the New York Times will read it and instantly be persuaded to become religious and don big black hats of their own!"

If you've never seen a foot-long beard light up in a smile, it did just now.

Duck.

A ridiculous amount of music stuff.

First of all, new music column up on Nextbook: Israeli hip-hop and Bible Belt punk-rock.

Hadara Levin-Areddy is a one-woman cultural steamroller. She’s a secular Jew living in Jerusalem, a pianist who plays rock music, a determined iconoclast who’s at once playful and dark-humored—think early Bruce Springsteen meets early Alanis Morrisette. She's carved out a niche for her own art-pop music in Israeli radio that’s not exactly Top 40, but still holds down a demographic of her own, roughly equivalent to that of NPR listeners. Hadara's seventh album, K’ilu Ain Machar ("Like There’s No Tomorrow"), finds her branching out both musically and lyrically, abandoning pop songs for hip hop. more...

And then I talk about it on MJL:

The launch of Jewish Music Report probably has nothing to do with the upcoming Event, starring Lipa Schmeltzer — but I’m sure the timing couldn’t hurt either. Since last year’s sudden cancellation of the Big Event due to rabbinical warnings, Lipa has blown up from a wacky-but-talented opening act into a full-fledged major with wacky Youtube rap videos into a major Hasidic media star. The coverage provoked a profile in the New York Times, and, in many ways, backfired on its organizers — some rabbis who authorized the ban later admitted to having been coerced into signing, or signing without really knowing what was going on. It also propelled Lipa’s fame into uncharted waters. Whereas before, everyone in the Hasidic world kind of knew about the singer who did holy parodies of secular songs in Yiddish, now everyone — even non-music listeners — knew that he was a good Jew who just happened to ire the wrong rabbi.

And I am so, so lucky -- I can't believe that I am related to these people (courtesy of JMR):

Sand is grand and money is dummy

From the NYTimes blog: Olaf Breuning creates sand sculptures in Switzerland, and is being exported to Miami Beach. Reports the Times: "A fleeting masterpiece, it will vanish within days, eroded by wind and sea, but Breuning is not worried. 'I’m very proud to be making an art piece you cannot buy. In our time, it’s actually really perfect.'"

I love miss the idea of art for art's sake. Like writing a book, not because you want other people to read it, but just to throw it up on a little website that only a few people will ever see and be satisfied with the idea that they will see it...actually, I just think money is stupid. But you've already heard that rant, right? Actually, I think I'm just being tempted by the idea of temporariness these days. Itta and Yalta are about to leave for Australia for 3 weeks, and I'm just going to curl up with my computer and write until I can't think of anything else to write. Which might be forever.

Noah, Meet Youtube

First of all: come to my reading at the New York Public Library tomorrow! New book! Free zine! What else do you need?

G-dcast has been going off the hook lately. First there was the wave of Jewish blogs raving, then the New York Times. Now it seems to have led to erudite observations about why Jewish education turned out the way it is, and what the potential for Torah education could be.

Not to ego-ize too much, but I'm excited.