January 2012
5 posts
13 tags
NY Jewish books: The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus
A language epidemic erupts among Jewish families; children’s speech makes their parents deathly ill. Soon it spreads to the rest of the population. This dark fantasy is the premise of Jewish New Yorker Ben Marcus’s new novel, The Flame Alphabet published today by Knopf (read more on examiner.com ; also read my New York Journal of Books review:http://goo.gl/GrQGA ). Posted...
5 tags
Arthur Green on Abraham Joshua Heschel and...
Rabbi Jeff Marker’s synopsis of Arthur Green’s talk on Abraham Joshua Heschel and Hasidism.“For Heschel the most significant mitzvot are Feeding the poor, ending war, marching with MLK. These are spiritual acts, not just political. These are the acts for which we were created. “Heschel’s God was very personal, but we must do the work for God.”Originally posted...
4 tags
The Economist: new research challenges Chomsky's...
The evolution of language Babel or babble? Languages all have their roots in the same part of the world. But they are not as similar to each other as was once thought Apr 14th 2011 | from the print edition via economist.com Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
2011 Jewish fiction and poetry books →
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2011 Jewish fiction and poetry books
2011 Jewish fiction and poetry books (a list of Jewish fiction and poetry books I reviewed in the past year). Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
December 2011
4 posts
Farewell Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) →
7 tags
Farewell Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011)
Video portrait by John Feldman of artist Helen Frankenthaler commissioned by Purchase College School of the Arts for the 2008 Nelson A. Rockerfeller awards. LA Times obit NY Times critic’s notebook: Two Artists Who Embraced Freedom Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
Robert Reich: My Political Prediction for 2012:... →
robertreich:
My political prediction for 2012 (based on absolutely no inside information): Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden swap places. Biden becomes Secretary of State — a position he’s apparently coveted for years. And Hillary Clinton, Vice President.
So the Democratic ticket for 2012 is Obama-Clinton.
Why…
South Carolina man threw a 12-pound bowling ball... →
stfurapeculture:
feistyfeminist:
Rape culture is when men feel so entitled to have access to women that they throw bowling balls at us when they are denied.
November 2011
7 posts
15 tags
2 book reviews: "The Break" and "Underground Time"...
Thanks to a change in the publication date of one of the books I have two reviews published on the same day. Both are novels in translation, one from Italian and the other from French. “The Break is reminiscent of Italian neo-realist cinema of the late 1940s and is enthusiastically recommended to all readers. Kudos to Howard Curtis for a wonderful translation.” This paperback is printed on...
10 tags
A Meaning for Wife | New York Journal of Books
“Your wife is killed by a cashew (anaphylactic shock), but there isn’t time to grieve because your toddler son is always at your heels—wanting to be fed, to be played with, or to sleep next to you all night long. A change of pace seems necessary, so you decide to visit your parents in order to attend your twenty-year high school reunion. What begins as a weekend getaway quickly becomes a...
On otherness, ethnic and racial identity from a... →
4 tags
On otherness, ethnic and racial identity from a...
An interesting and engaging blog post from last March on otherness, ethnic and racial identity: Passing for White: Other-ness and Judaism Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
Prospect Park Foliage
via flickr.com Fall foliage, Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY. Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
New York Journal of Books: "The Hall of the... →
12 tags
New York Journal of Books: "The Hall of the...
“At barely more than 100 small (four and a half by seven inch) pages in Andrew Bromfield’s excellent English translation The Hall of the Singing Caryatidssucceeds both as a novella of ideas and as a science fiction work of fantasy, and is recommended to all readers enamored of thought provoking fiction.” Read the entire review on New Yorik Journal of Books. Posted via email from...
October 2011
4 posts
In "Scenes from Village Life" Amos Oz returns to... →
7 tags
In "Scenes from Village Life" Amos Oz returns to...
In an interview on last night’s Charlie Rose show Israeli writer Amos Oz discussed his latest book, Scenes from Village Life. In my New York Journal of Books review of the book I write…
Inan interview on last night’s Charlie Rose showIsraeli writerAmos Ozdiscussed his latest book,Scenes from Village Life. Inmy New York Journal of Books review of the book I write… ...
Susan Daitch's novel Paper Conspiracies revisits... →
13 tags
Susan Daitch's novel Paper Conspiracies revisits...
New York Jewish fiction writer Susan Daitch’s third novel Paper Conspiracies, which was published last week by City Lights Books, takes an indirect approach to late Nineteenth Century France’s Dreyfus Affair by way of peripheral minor actors in the scandal and via cinema pioneer Georges Mèliés’ contemporaneous dramtized documentary film L’affaire Dreyfus . The...
September 2011
3 posts
Anna Solomon's debut novel "The Little Bride" →
11 tags
Anna Solomon's debut novel "The Little Bride"
In my New York Journal of Books review I describe the book as “… a plot-driven novel conveyed in crisp, descriptive, and thought-provoking prose via an engagingly intelligent third-person narrator… . an auspicious debut” and recommend it to both adult and precocious young adult readers. via examiner.com Posted via email from davidfcooper’s...
14 tags
"What They Saved: Pieces of a Jewish Past"...
In my New York Journal of Books review I quote Ms. Miller, “Every new piece of information keeps me on the road to the ever-expanding possibility of the quest, a quest that in the end will still yield only partial knowledge—and will never give me, return to me, those past lives.” Ms. Miller, a retired CUNY Graduate Center English and Comparative Literature professor, is an...
August 2011
10 posts
Steve Jobs quote: →
6 tags
“It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. It’s technology married...”
– This quote from Steve Jobs as he introduced the iPad 2 in March captures the essence of Apple’s cross-disciplinary approach to innovation, the same sentiment that made Jobs’s 2005 Stanford graduation address a tour de force of inspiration for the cross-pollination of art and technology (via...
Windsor Terrace and Kensington, Brooklyn,... →
7 tags
Windsor Terrace and Kensington, Brooklyn,...
Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
6 tags
Davar Torah Shabbat Ra'eh
This morning I delivered a Davar Torah on Parashat Ra’eh, the weekly Torah portion, at Park Slope Jewish Center in Brooklyn. My talk’s sources include Deuteronomy 11:26 -12:28, Max Vogelstein’s book “Fertile Soil: A Political History of Israel Under the Divided Kingdom,” and “A Homily on Political Messianism,” a blog post by my American-Israeli...
Our Aug 2011 Vermont vacation →
Our Aug 2011 Vermont vacation
via flickr.com Highlights from our VT vacation: Sat 8/6 we drove up to Shoshana’s parents and celebrated her mom’s birthday that evening (going by the Jewish custom that days begin at sunset). Sun 8/7 we drove up to Vermont. We stopped in Brattleboro for lunch at the food co-op (where two days later a disgruntled co-op member murdered a manager) and then continued to...
"You're Not Alone," a moving "It Gets Better"... →
4 tags
"You're Not Alone," a moving "It Gets Better"...
Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
5 tags
Sex in the park is allowed. But show some...
Full text of the sign in a Copenhagen, Denmark park: “Sex in the park is allowed. But show some consideration. Many children institutions use the park. Therefore please avoid: sex in the playground and visible places between 9 am and 4 pm. Loud sex in hiding between 9 am and 4 pm. Remember to: remove semen from the benches after the act. Leave condoms and used napkins in the...
July 2011
10 posts
4 tags
Two videos on the Jewish origins of Palestinian...
Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
Meanwhile, The San Francisco Public Library →
3 tags
Meanwhile, The San Francisco Public Library
This series of illustrations via Rumpus comics is cool and adorable and fascinating. If you’re not a librarian and have never used a library nor loved an illustration you can skip this. If you are, or have, or do, go ahead and click: therumpus.net Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
7 tags
social media humor
Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
Windsor Terrace dawn →
Windsor Terrace dawn
via flickr.com Dawn in Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, NY Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
Chinua Achebe's poem "Vultures" →
Chinua Achebe's poem "Vultures"
via facebook.com “Vultures” by Chinua Achebe In the greyness and drizzle of one despondent dawn unstirred by harbingers of sunbreak a vulture perching high on broken bones of a dead tree nestled close to his mate his smooth bashed-in head, a pebble on a stem rooted in a dump of gross feathers, inclined affectionately to hers. Yesterday they picked the eyes of a swollen corpse in a...
Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch's complete poetry... →
Israeli poet Dahlia Ravikovitch's complete poetry...
At the time of her death in 2005, Dahlia Ravikovitch was Israel’s second best loved poet after Yehuda Amichai. She was also a commited peace activist, yet her readers included Israelis from all points on the political spectrum. Two years ago a new translation of her complete poetry was published by New York publisher W.W. Norton, and last week a paperback edition ofHovering at a...
June 2011
15 posts
The Dirty Talk Of The Town: Profanity At "The New... →
7 tags
The Dirty Talk Of The Town: Profanity At "The New...
via theawl.com an impressive list of the first occurrences of classic profanities in the magazine’s pages. Also see: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/backissues/2011/06/bonfire-of-the-profa… Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
6 tags
kaffe in katmandu: Fraction Factions →
kaffeinkatmandu:
Sex researchers reveal two out of five men can remain aroused and erect for several minutes after ejaculating. Italian sonograms show only two in five women have sufficient G-spot tissue density to climax during intercourse. Now no sex act should be more privileged or …
5 tags
Seven Days in Rio | New York Journal of Books
“This ironic and absurdist highbrow little sex novel is a hoot… . Mr. Levy’s humor is dryer than Monty Python’s but no less funny, and he combines high and low culture in a particularly appealing way.” via nyjournalofbooks.com Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »
Self-Confidence, Empathy May Make for Better Sex →
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Self-Confidence, Empathy May Make for Better Sex
Study of young American adults suggests a healthy psychological outlook boosts sexual satisfaction. Empathic people of both genders reach orgasm more frequently, and people with high self-esteem are more likely to enjoy performing oral sex. See also: http://goo.gl/6493V via consumer.healthday.com Posted via email from davidfcooper’s posterous | Comment »