davidfcooper

In my examiner article I write:

"Two fiction books published this month explore what home means for two distinct waves of recent immigrants. Boris Fishman continues to relate the experiences of Russian speaking Jews who immigrated to America in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s in his second novel Don't Let My Baby Do Rodeo, and Canadian-Israeli writer Ayelet Tsabari explores the lives of young Israelis at home and abroad in her debut book of short stories The Best Place on Earth: Stories, which won the Jewish Book Council’s $100, 000 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature in 2015 for the 2013 Canadian edition."

Also see my New York Journal of Books reviews of the two books:
http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/dont-let-my-baby
http://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/bo…/b...

What happens when a down on his luck luddite novelist is hired to ghostwrite a memoir by a math whiz tech mogul who shares his (and the author of this novel’s) name? ...At close to 600 pages of dense prose Book of Numbers is not light reading. I close my NYJB review by recommending it to “readers as ambitious as it is.” -- from Jewish books: Joshua Cohen's Book of Numbers is a high tech epic Also see my New York Journal of Books review. A challenging but fun and rewarding read!

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Slava Gelman, the protagonist of Boris Fishman's debut novel A Replacement Life, fabricates Holocaust narratives for elderly Russian immigrants' reparations claims applications. In my NYJB review I write, "Slava knows that to make his stories convincing he has to get the details right, and despite the leaps of faith Fishman demands he provides more than enough correct details and well crafted figurative turns of phrase to convince most readers to go along with him—and those who do will be amply rewarded by this multidimensional and handsomely written debut novel." For additional remarks about A Replacement Life see my examiner article.

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"David Grand’s third novel, Mount Terminus, is written in luscious, erudite prose so dense his readers have no choice but to read it slowly."

-- from my review of Mount Terminus by David Grand on New York Journal of Books. Also see my examiner article.

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"...I walk through the tall grass of Russian syllables, where colons and commas are abundant in June, and syntax is vague on ladybugs' wings..."

Poems by Russian-American poet Irina Mashinski on stosvet.net

President Abraham Lincoln and Leadership

Nov 18, 2002

Lincoln Forum

Mr. Perret talked about President Lincoln as a leader, and compared Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur, and John F. Kennedy. Following prepared remarks, he responded to questions from the audience. This portion of the Lincoln Forum also featured a reading of the Gettysburg Address by .. Read More

Mr. Perret talked about President Lincoln as a leader, and compared Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur, and John F. Kennedy. Following prepared remarks, he responded to questions from the audience. This portion of the Lincoln Forum also featured a reading of the Gettysburg Address by Lincoln impersonator James Getty.

59 minutes | 111 Views

View Event Timeline (3 Programs)

via c-spanvideo.org

Fascinating talk: Geoffrey Perret compared Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant, Douglas MacArthur, and John F. Kennedy. All four were writers who loved poetry (MacArthur as commandant of West Point made cadets read and write poetry). Just under an hour.

Posted via email from davidfcooper's posterous

06 Lee Lozano - Untitled Untitled (1962) by Lee Lozano (American, 1930-1999) The Jewish Museum

This Sunday September 12, 2010 Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism, an exhibit that explores the impact of feminism on contemporary North American painting for past half century, will open at TheJewish Museum located at 92nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The exhibit will continue through January 30, 2011. Tuesday morning September 7th your New York Jewish Culture examiner previewed the exhibit, which traverses Abstract Impressionism, Pop, and Minimalism through to the present.

The first image in the exhibit is a representational 1930 self-portrait by a very young Lee Krasner (1908-1984). She portrays herself painting outdoors (there are trees in the background), standing in front of a canvas wearing a blue short sleeve shirt and white overalls, holding paintbrushes and a paint smeared rag or towel. This is followed by Miriam Schapiro‘s 1958 Fanfare, a stunningly strong Abstract Expressionist celebration of color that by itself is worth the price of admission (see the slideshow below even though the photographs do not do the originals justice). In the same room there are other abstract works by Eva Hesse, Joan Snyder, Lousie Nevelson, and Judy Chicago.

The title of the exhibit, Shifting the Gaze, is most apropos in the next room whose theme isPainting the Body. The first painting here is Joan Semmel‘s 1978 Sunlight, which is a riveting nude self-portrait painted from her own point of view looking down at her breasts, belly, pubic hair, and limbs. On the opposite wall is Lee Lozano‘s 1962 Untitled, in which a headless woman’s torso is wearing a breast pendant on a neckless and has two Stars of David in place of her breasts. Hanna Wilke has two works in this section, from 1982-84Venus Pareve, a set of identical nude figurines each painted a different color (this and the Nevelson work are the only three dimensional works in the exhibit), and 1990 BC Series, a minimalist watercolor self portrait.

There is next a section on Pattern and Decoration to which some women artists were drawn in an effort to reinvigorate previously denigrated women’s work. These works feature embroidery, collage and fan painting. There is a 1979 acrylic and collage fan by the sameMiriam Schapiro whose work we saw in the first room (she abandoned Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s). Joyce Kozloff‘s 1996 Naming II (or Who’s Jewish) is a street grid of New York City with the names of Jewish women artists on each street.

The paintings in the fourth room depict the victimization of women (and men, as in Leon Golub‘s 1972Napalm Man). Two works by Nancy Spero are about the Holocaust. The fifth room features paintings that employ writing or other fugitive symbols including Dana Fankfort‘s 2007 Star of David (Orange), Joan Snyder‘s 1987-88 Study for Morning Requiem with Kaddish, as well as more abstract work such as Louise Fishman’s 1984Tashlich, and Melissa Meyer‘s 1992 Lillith.

The exhibit’s sixth and final room Painting Satire includes Deborah Kass‘ 1993 Andy Warhol inspiredDouble Red Yentl, Split from My Elvis, Audrey Flack‘s 1962 Matzo Meal in which she gives Manishevitz boxes the Warhol soup can treatment, Rosalyn Drexler‘s 1966 portrait of Birmingham sherif Bull Connor and his staff Is It True What they Say About Dixie. Cary Leibowitz‘s 1995 I’m A Jew how ’bout u?!! (which would fit in in the previous room), Dana Schutz‘s 2004 depiction of an eating disorder Devourer, Nicole Eisenman‘s 2010 sardonicSeder, and Amy Sillman‘s 2010Untitled, a painting that combines abstract and figurative elements.

In conjunction with the exhibit there will be gallery talks by artists featured in Shifting the Gaze on October 4, 11, and 18. On the same floor as Shifting the Gaze is Fish Forms an exhibit of Frank Gehry‘s fish shaped lamps which will be on view through October 31, 2011.

ADMISSION
Adults $12
Seniors (65 and over with ID) $10
Students (full-time with valid ID) $7.50
Children (under 12) Free

Free Saturdays* 11:00 am – 5:45 pm

For more info: David Cooper

This Sunday September 12, 2010 Shifting the Gaze: Painting and Feminism, an exhibit that explores the impact of feminism on contemporary North American painting for past half century, will open at The Jewish Museum located at 92nd Street and Fifth Avenue. The exhibit will continue through January 30, 2011. Tuesday morning your New York Jewish Culture examiner previewed the exhibit, which traverses Abstract Impressionism, Pop, and Minimalism through to the present.

Read the complete article and view the slideshow on examiner.com

JTA reports that after losing 90% of its $24 million endowment in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme the American Jewish Congress suspended its operations last month. AJ Congress was one of the three largest (and New York headquartered) American-Jewish organizations devoted to fighting anti-semitism; the remaining two are the American Jewish Committeeand the Anti-Defamation League. AJ Congress was founded 91 years ago as a more outspoken and inclusive alternative to the patrician AJ Committee whose leaders were German-Jewish-American millionaires who made their fortunes in the middle of the 19th Century and preferred to exert influence quietly behind the scenes; in recent years AJ Committee has functioned as a neo-conservative think tank. Ironically the insolvent AJ Congress is now rumored to be in talks to merge with AJ Committee. For its part the ADLhas recently appeared to violate it very mission to fight bigotry by joining the opposition to a Muslim community center in lower Manhattan.
In contrast to the politically conservative AJ Committee and the reactive ADL, AJ Congress was less ideological, worked to strengthen the role of women in Jewish-American and American life in general, had more women in leadership positions than most other Jewish-American organizations, and was a strong advocate for church-state separation, which American Jewry's liberal majority supports. Based on its positions on these and other issuesHadassah (which I mentioned in my December 2009 Tsedakah article, which now accepts men as "associates," and which has also been financially weakened by the Madoff Ponzi scheme) might be a better fit for AJ Congress supporters than AJ Committee.
This article first appeared in the late examiner.com