The special duty of a Jewish Christmas baby by
Sheila Heti Most of the people one deals with say, “Oh! You're a Christmas baby! You must get ripped off when it comes to presents, right?” Their eyes light up.
It's a hard question to answer. The honest answer is, “I'm a Jew, I don't celebrate Christmas,” but saying this always seems chastising, and the person who asked then feels embarrassed (as they should) and I feel embarrassed that this is my accidental role in the world: reminding everyone that Jews exist. The times I say, gruffly, “I don't know. I'm Jewish,” they usually say, “Oh, I'm sorry!” But this always sounds to me not like, “I'm sorry I assumed you were Christian,” but rather, “I'm sorry that you're Jewish.” Given all this, I usually reply simply, “Yeah, it's awful. I get ripped off every year.” [previously from Sheila Heti]
posted by KokuRyu
on Dec 25, 2011 -
119 comments
"
Regardless of political stance, no one can deny the joy felt upon seeing your loved ones return home safely --
WelcomeHomeBlog.com is a site celebrating that amazing feeling. Visit daily for heartwarming stories, videos and pictures of members of our courageous armed forces returning home to their families and friends..."
posted by zizzle
on Dec 1, 2010 -
5 comments
NetClassixFilter: The next time you're standing clueless in the greeting cards section of your local drugstore franchise, you'll be wishing you'd visited the
Gallery of Unfortunate Greeting Cards instead. For all your holiday needs:
Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Weddings, 4th of July, Hallowe'
en, Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and of course,
Washington's Birthday. [via Cap'n Wacky] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display
on Jun 9, 2008 -
18 comments
Happy Birthday John Fogerty! Swamp rock progenitor, Vietnam and Iraq War opposer,
40th greatest guitarist of all time, and performer at
Woodstock, John Fogerty turns 62 tomorrow. Prolific singer, guitarist and composer extraordinaire with Creedence Clearwater Revival on such hits as
Have you Ever Seen the Rain?,
Who’ll Stop the Rain?,
Bad Moon Rising/Proud Mary,
Born on the Bayou,
Green River,
Travellin’ Band, Whitfield and Strong's Motown classic
I Heard it Through the Grapevine,
Susie Q, and last but not least,
Fortunate Son, a song whose message has again become so timely, more than a handful of prominent musicians have covered it over the few years, including
Pearl Jam, Sleater-Kinney,
the Circle Jerks, Bob Seger, Sublime,
Ivan Neville,
Brandi Carlile and
.38 Special. As a solo artist, Fogerty also penned such hits as
Centerfield, a song purported to be one of George W. Bush's favorites (to Fogerty's apparent amusement), and
The Old Man Down the Road.
posted by psmealey
on May 27, 2007 -
75 comments
Harold Pinter at 75. In
One for the Road, the protagonist is Nicolas,
a whisky-sodden interrogator who has brought in a family for questioning (and, it is implied, raping and torturing). In the short, sharp shock of
The New World Order, we eavesdrop on a conversation between two torturers, held over the top of their mute, blindfolded victim's head ("We haven't even finished with him. We haven't begun."). In
Ashes to Ashes, the interrogation of Rebecca by Devlin takes a sinister turn as we learn that her ex-lover participated in state-sponsored violence. In
Mountain Language, a sadistic guard plays power games with a group of mountain dwellers, who are forbidden from speaking in anything but the language of the state. In
Party Time, Pinter lampoons the smug security of the middle classes, portraying an insufferably élite party which carries on regardless of the violence and terror on the streets outside.
Now, for Pinter's 75th birthday,
some of the tormentors and the tormented so potently etched in his later plays are assembled together in a new dramatic work with a musical setting by the composer James Clarke.
posted by matteo
on Oct 7, 2005 -
12 comments
My Contemporaries Are Cooler Than Yours: Actually, it can become quite depressing to find out exactly who belongs to your generation. I mean, Howie Mandell, Bill Gates, Sandra Bernhard, Margot Hemingway, Kevin Costner and Joe Jackson? Give me a break. Which, thankfully,
WhoWhatWhen, an interactive timeline generator, does quite nicely. Perfect for paranoids who like beginning sentences with "Surely it's no coincidence that in that very same year..." [
Via LinkFilter.]
posted by MiguelCardoso
on Jun 15, 2003 -
46 comments
