The Mystery Box

Just watched (via Zach Posner's blog) a 2007 presentation with J.J. Abrams talking about misdirection and the sources of creativity. It ties in magic boxes, do-it-yourself special effects, and how he loves a blank page more than anything. I just want to keep coming back to this and watching it whenever I need a kick of "Oh yeah -- this is what writers should be doing."

Father's Day: Win a Load of Stuff

With Father's Day practically sinking in on us -- and an awesome new MJL article from Neal Pollack just a few days away from being launched -- there's a huge new giveaway from me, ModernTribe.com, the Cool Jew book, and a whole bunch of other people.

In order to enter, all you have to do is answer this question: What makes your dad, brother, cousin, friend or husband a cool Jew? (Not that it's a BEST DAD competition or anything, but I can think of at least 2 people who could theoretically nominate me, and one of them even knows how to write.) A winner will be chosen from the answers and announced on Father’s Day, Sunday, June 21.

Here's the full list of stuff you can win. But, really, what do you need to know beyond the fact that you'll own copies of both my Scholastic books -- Never Mind the Goldbergs and Losers -- along with $240 worth of other merchandise? And the fact that it includes CDs and concert shirts from Can Can and Rav Shmuel, and Sam Apple's new book, is all just bonus material. Just fill out the official form here.

Sherman Alexie on Kindle: "I want to hit her."

Sherman Alexie, one of my favorite writers, refuses to let his books be released in digital form because the e-book devices are so expensive. I don't agree with him about refusing to publish -- dammit, if someone wants to read my book, I'm gonna let them -- but I totally feel him:

Inevitably there was a backlash. At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices “elitist” and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, “I wanted to hit her.”

(it's in the New York Times, via Eliyahu Enriquez

How Jews Pray

How Jews Pray, the third in our "How Jews..." series, checks out what Jews are talking about -- from an Australian Jew in New York to an Argentinian Jew in Los Angeles, and other folks in the woods, the cities, and some places in between. What do people who don't believe in God think about praying?

When I was young, a secular Jewish kid living down the street from Hasidim -- a weird remix of The Chosen -- I thought it was mysterious how all the long-black-coated, hair-covered Jews was that they seemed to have their own way of talking to God. They didn't just go to synagogue and pray like normal people -- they would pray in living rooms, or in backyards, and they muttered to themselves walking down the street. Plus, they wore those funny clothes. Was God telling them something that God wasn't telling the rest of us?

I guess I just felt disenfranchised.

This was before I met Jewish Renewalists who meditate and pray. And musicians like Chana Rothman and Jeremiah Lockwood, who pray by singing their hearts out. And before I learned how to pray myself, wherever I was and whatever was on my mind, sometimes in a "thank you" way, and sometimes in an "I need to save myself" way.

A few weeks ago, in introducing his new prayerbook, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, "We have a problem with prayer" -- and proceeded to detail how, in this world where we're obsessed with talking about ourselves and eavesdropping on other people, we've forgotten what it's like to speak to God. Whatever each of us think of God, and even, in one person's case, whether or not we believe in God.

I think that's my favorite thing about this video, above all the others we've done so far. It helps us remember.

What Makes a Kosher Pickle Kosher?

When we hear the word pickle, most of us think of cucumbers -- brined, shriveled, sour, cut into chips and floating alongside red onion half-moons and tomato slices atop a deli sandwich. When my class visited New York in fifth grade, I remember that, over the course of the day, we were given three different food items to sample -- apples (for the Big Apple), Chinese food, and a plump kosher dill.

We may be forgiven, then, for not knowing about the rest of the spectrum of pickled foods.

That's why The Joy of Pickling was created. Its chapters touch every arena of cuisine, from desserty pickles (apples, watermelon) to antipasto (asparagus and mushrooms) to main courses -- Korean kimchi and pickled meats, for instance. (The original edition, shockingly to us, left out kosher dill pickles, but this edition corrects that oversight. First published ten years ago, a new, expanded and enhanced edition was released this month.

keep reading >

Barbra Streisand Watches G-dcast

In my advanced Torah research for an upcoming MyJewishLearning article, I found this particular image -- which totally relates to Inbal's G-dcast for Naso this week:

That's right -- it's Barbra Streisand's personal notebook. With the "ish"/"isha" diagram, showing God's presence in the names for "man" and "woman." Go Barbra! Go Inbal!