"To become memorable or brilliant, language needs to be fertilized by egotism."
Adam Kirsch's long but worth reading collection of meditations/prose epigrams on the position of writers WRT past writers, future readers, and the present tense; on the respective roles of literature and science; and the role of culture in a technologically evolving civilization (among other insights).
Now that another secular calendar year is beginning I would like to share my recommendations of Jewish fiction and poetry books published last year. This is not a "best of" list, merely a list of Jewish themed books published in 2010 that I have actually read and reviewed at my other writing gig as a book reviewer at New York Journal of Books.
As people of the book it is a fortunate coincidence that we Jewish New Yorkers not only constitute the nation's largest Jewish community but also inhabit what remains the country's center of book publishing. So now that another secular calendar year is beginning I would like to share my recommendations of Jewish fiction and poetry books published last year. This is not a "best of" list, merely a list of Jewish themed books published in 2010 that I have actually read and reviewed at my other writing gig as a book reviewer at New York Journal of Books. Here then are my recommended Jewish books of 2010 in reverse chronological order by publication date:
People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy, Edited by Rachel Swirsky and Sean Wallace, was published on December 14, 2010. In my NYJB review I wrote that this anthology "includes stories that will appeal to nearly every taste in short fiction, but the corollary is that not every story will appeal to every reader." The authors of these stories include Peter S. Beagle, Michael Chabon, Neil Gaiman, Lavie Tidhar, Tamar Yellin, and Jane Yolen.
Nadia Kalman's debut novel The Cosmopolitans was published on December 1, 2010. In my NYJB review I described this family drama about a couple of Russian-Jewish immigrant scientists living in Stamford, CT with their three young adult daughters as "smart, funny, wise, and entertaining." Nadia Kalman will read from and sign copies of The Cosmopolitans atCommunity Bookstore in Park Slope, Brooklyn on Thursday January 6, 2011.
I mentioned the recently published English language edition of Eden by Israeli author Yael Hedaya, Translated by Jessica Cohen, in my October 25, 2010 article in this space. "For its strong prose and psychologically complex characters whose lives are interwoven," I recommended the novel in my NYJB review "... to all literary fiction readers, especially those interested in marriage and psychology."
C.K. Williams' most recent book of poems, Wait, was published on April 27, 2010. As I mentioned in my NYJB review, "The book concludes with 'Jew on Bridge,' a long poem comprising thirty tercets on the theme of anti-Semitism and Williams’ own Jewishness." But even in those poems that have no specific Jewish theme Williams demonstrates a strong moral conscience that is quite Jewish.
The English language edition of Homesick by Israeli novelist Eshkol Nevo, Translated bySondra Silverston, was published on April 20, 2010. In my NYJB review I described it as "a warm, embracing novel that captures how, lacking clear boundaries, Israeli neighbors observe one another’s private lives close up" and that it reminded me of the novels of Nevo's "literary fathers, Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua."
Russian born Israeli writer Alex Epstein's book of very short stories or flash fiction Blue Has No South, translated from the Hebrew by Becka Mara McKay, was published on April 1, 2010. In my NYJB review I described these very short texts as "surreal, absurd, and/or paradoxical," and to my eye and ear, prose poems. My review quotes a generous sample of excerpts from the book and recommends it "to cerebral and off-center readers."
Jennifer Gilmore's novel Something Red, published on March 20, 2010, is a family drama set in Washington, DC in 1979-80. It happens to be the only book on this list that also made the New York Times Notable 100 Books of 2010 list. In my NYJB review I wrote that the novel is of particular interest to Red Diaper babies, the children and grandchildren of Americans who from the 1920s through the 1950s were Communists and other left-wing activists, and other readers who are interested in recent history and family dynamics and are willing to overlook the novel's flaws.
Prolific Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld's most recent novel, Blooms of Darkness, was published in Jeffrey Green’s translation from the Hebrew on March 9, 2010. Like most of Appelfeld's fiction his latest novel concerns the Shoah. The protagonist is an eleven year old Jewish boy who hidden by a prostitute in the very brothel where the Nazi soldiers who are arresting and deporting all the Jews of his Eastern European city to death camps go to spend their off-duty hours. In my NYJB review "I enthusiastically recommend Blooms of Darkness to all thoughtful and sensitive readers."
Dutch Jewish novelist Marcel Moring's ambitious but uneven novel In a Dark Wood is the most literary novel I read in the past year and the one that most rewards rereading. The book was published in an English translation by Shaun Whiteside on February 16, 2010. Inmy NYJB review I described it as "a highly literary, imaginative, and experimental novel that explores large themes—including Jewish identity after the Holocaust and the search for meaning amid the emptiness and rewards of middle-class existence—in inventive ways." I recommend it guardedly only to the most sophisticated readers who have "a solid command of the western literary canon."
Most of the friends and relatives to whom I enthusiastically recommended Kenneth Wishnia's historical detective novel The Fifth Servant disliked it. I, however, enjoyed this tale of a blood libel case in Sixteenth Century Prague immensely. The book was published on January 26, 2010, and in my NYJB review I wrote, "Wishnia deftly deploys his vast research to transport us to a very different time and place," and I described The Fifth Servant as a "richly textured and immensely entertaining book."
In 2011 I plan to devote more time to reading and reviewing books and less to my examiner column. I don't plan to abandon this column entirely, but a health issue is taking up more of my time and attention, and with less free time I have to prioritize.
For more info: David Cooper
This article first appeared on the late examiner.com
Art works in Tabla Rasa's ongoing exhibits in the front of the gallery are more expensive, but after viewing those exhibits continue to the backroom (where art works are stored and packed for shipping and the gallery owners have their office) for an art sale in which all art works have prices no greater than $400.
View the slideshow and read the entire article on examiner.com
Jewish Museum menorah pics from A Hanukkah Project: Daniel Libeskind s Line of Fire exhibit.
Hanukkah Lamp, Palestine (Israel) c. 1880-1930. Chiseled and painted limestone.
In "A Hanukkah Project: Daniel Libeskind's Line of Fire" 40 hanukkiot (Hanukkah menorahs) selected by curator Susan Braunstein from The Jewish Museum's permanent collection of over 500 hanukkiot are displayed on a stand designed by architect Daniel Libeskind.
Read the entire article and view a slideshow of the exhibited hanukkiot.
New works by two young Jewish women dramatists will be performed at separate and unrelated Manhattan venues Thursday night November 11, 2010. Read more on examiner.com
My previous article provides an overview of Harry Houdini‘s life and career and its depiction in TheJewish Museum exhibit that opens Friday, October 29, 2010. After pushing his body to its limits in feats of strength and courage Houdini found in early aviation’s combination of coordination, skill, daring and danger an avocation (see the video in the left column). And both his existing celebrity and a willingness to do his own stunts made a film career in the silent era a natural extension of his live performances.
Despite his success Houdini was aware that he would never be as well educated as his father; there was a side of him that envied the life of a scholar, which led him to write about his craft. But in debunking fraudulent mediums who took advantage of the bereaved in phony seances Houdini not only found his topic but also a cause.
Spiritualism was a quasi-religion in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which offered survivors the hope of communicating with dead loved ones. Houdini initially approached Spiritualism with an open mind. After his mother died he attended a seance where the medium claimed that his mother was speaking through her.
“In what language is she speaking?” Houdini asked. The medium continued speaking in English, and when Houdini pointed out that his mother always spoke to him in Yiddish, the medium replied that everyone speaks English on “the other side.” When the medium, supposedly embodying his mother, started making the sign of the cross, something his Jewish mother would never do, Houdini was certain the seance was a scam.
Houdini channeled his outrage into a campaign to expose and debunk Spiritualism and the scammers who took advantage of and offered false hope to mourners. He wrote books on the subject and undertook lecture tours where he demonstrated the methods by which the mediums performed their fraudulent rituals (see posters and photographs in the slideshow).
Celebrities as subjects for artists is not new, as we see in Andy Warhol’s silk screens, and in parodies of them such as Deborah Kass’ Double Red Yentl, Split from My Elvis which I described in my September 12, 2010 article on Shifting The Gaze: Painting and Feminism,another Jewish Museum exhibit.
That Houdini, who was active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries continues to inspire twenty-first century visual artists such as Matthew Barney, Petah Coyne, Jane Hammond, Vik Muniz, Deborah Oropallo, and Raymond Pettibon (see the slideshow in the left column) speaks to his enduring power of his multi-dimensional prowess and personality.
Houdini: Art and Magic is also the title of the exhibit’s picture book written by guest curator Brooke Kamin Rapaport with contributions by Alan Brinkley, Hasia R Diner, Gabriel de Guzman, and Kenneth Silverman. I examined a copy in the museum’s gift shop, and it is indeed a handsome volume.
On Friday October 29, 2010 The Jewish Museum will present Houdini: Art and Magic, the first major art museum exhibition to examine the life, legend and enduring cultural influence of Harry Houdini. The exhibit will explore the career and lasting impact of the magician, escape artist, vaudeville entertainer, silent movie actor, author and lecturer through 163 objects including 26 recent works of art inspired by Houdini. The exhibit, which will appeal to both children and adults, will remain at The Jewish Museum through March 27, 2011, after which it will travel to Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Madison, Wisconsin.
Houdini was born Ehrich Weiss in cosmopolitan Budapest, Hungary, in 1874, and emigrated with his parents in 1878 to rural Appleton, WI where his father, a rabbi, was hired by the local Reform synagogue. After several years the congregation decided they wanted a native born rabbi whose English was more fluent, and the family moved to New York where as an avid runner, swimmer and boxer Weiss developed the training regimen that would prepare him for the rigorous physical feats he would later perform as an escape artist.
Weiss began his career as a magician after his father's death in 1892, initially performing card tricks. He chose the name Harry Houdini in honor of the French magician Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin; his family affectionately nicknamed him "Ehree" which became Harry. Houdini married Bess Rahner, a Coney Island song and dance performer who became his stage partner. One of their first acts was the "Metamorphosis" where Bess was locked in a trunk and in a matter of three seconds she and Houdini would trade places. In another trick he would apparently swallow several needles and a yard of thread and then pull the tread from his mouth with the needles threaded on it.
But his greatest fame came from his ability to free himself from handcuffs, ropes, or straightjackets sometimes dangling from a suspended rope or immersed in a tank of water. In a press conference during a press preview of the exhibit on Monday guest curatorBrooke Kamin Rapaport pointed out that Houdini was one of fourteen million Europeans who immigrated to the United States in the final four decades of the nineteenth century in search of personal, religious, political and economic freedom and who responded viscerally to his courageous acts of self-liberation. At the same press conference magician David Blaine said that he feels most alive, that his senses are most acute and colors are more vivid, when he places himself in danger as did Houdini before him. To be continued...
The Jewish Museum's Shifting The Gaze: Painting and Feminism exhibit that I discussed in my September 12, 2010 article continues until January 30, 2011. If you haven't seen it take time to do so when you come for the Houdini show.
Museum hours are Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays 11:00 AM to 5:45 PM; Thursdays 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM; and Fridays 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, and free for children under 12 and for Jewish Museum members. Admission is free on Saturdays. The Jewish Museum is located on the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and 92nd Street in Manhattan.
"Brooklyn 2010" by Joan Snyder
The works of two abstract painters who are also Jewish New Yorkers are the subjects of solo shows at two Manhattan galleries. The Betty Cunningham Gallery is displaying fifteen paintings by Joan Snyder through October 30, 2010 in an exhibit entitled "A Year in the Painting Life." The gallery is located at 541 W 25th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues in Chelsea and is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Readers of this column may recall that Joan Snyder is one of the artists whose work is included in the Jewish Museum's "Shifting The Gaze" exhibit which I described in my September 12, 2010 article.
This exhibition focuses on paintings reminiscent of Snyder’s early stroke paintings of the 1970’s and field paintings of the 1980’s. In her newest paintings Snyder continues to use a variety of media. In "Oh April," a triptych and the largest painting in the show, Snyder uses (in addition to oil and acrylic on linen) burlap, fabric, pastel, dirt, herbs and seeds. In "Ode to B," a memorial to a close friend, red strokes, some appearing to be hearts, drip to the base of the painting, and small ghost-like sail boats traverse the impastoed white surface. Joan Snyder was born in Highland Park, NJ in 1940. She received an AB from Douglass College in 1962 and a MFA from Rutgers University in 1966. She lives and works in Brooklyn and Woodstock, NY. Throughout her career, Snyder has received a host of prestigious awards and honors. Most recently, in 2007, as mentioned above, she was honored as a recipient of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.
Heskin Contemporary is featuring the work of Russell Roberts through December 4, 2010 in an exhibit entitled RUSSELL ROBERTS: POCKETS OF ACCUMULATION includes a new series of oil paintings and a selection of works on paper. The gallery is located at 443 West 37th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues and is open Wednesdays through Saturdays from noon to 6:00 PM. The following is an excerpt from the catalogue adjoining the exhibition written by the artist and writer Jennifer Riley:
Russell Roberts is an accomplished mature abstract artist working in the medium of paint for some time. In his new abstract paintings multiple gestalts and provocative explorations of painting history combine into images that resist easy categorization. Roberts embraces the flexibility and fluidity of the medium of painting for both its literal and metaphorical possibilities.
In a time of widening spectacle, gloss and speed, Roberts exploits the slowness of the mediums liquidity and transparency, its opacity and density. Some works feature line others celebrate form, many juggle or balance both. Using fragments, layers, lines, drips, washes and erasures these works depict a stratified and changing world in which multiple formal differences and often opposing elements conjoin to form new and integrated identities. In his complex structures, he collides organic irregularity with geometric and biomorphic shapes, and articulates stretches of canvas with an expansive range of unpredictable and constantly surprising color.
Mr. Roberts grew up in New York city, graduated from Vassar College, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and received an MFA from Boston University in 1995. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Painting in 1997, a grant from the Mass Arts Council in 2002 and an Albee Foundation Fellowship in 2006 and 2008, among others. He was the Artist-in-Residence at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2003. He has had one- person exhibitions at Binghamton University, UNC Chapel Hill, Farrell- Pollock Gallery, Boston University and a two- person show at the Painting Center, NY. This is Roberts’ first exhibition at Heskin Contemporary.
For more info: David Cooper
Poet, novelist, essayist, translator, and scholar of Hebrew and Jewish literature of the Middle East Ammiel Alcalay will give a reading this Saturday afternoon October 16, 2010 from 1:00 to 3:00 PM at the Bowery Poetry Club located at 308 Bowery between Bleeker and Houston across the street from CBGBs.
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
Every year Poets House holds an exhibit of all the poetry books published in the previous year which visitors can browse and examine. This year the annual Poetry Showcase continues all this month, and a series of readings will be held in which all the poets reading have had books published in the past year. Some of these poets are Jewish, and some of their poems reflect a Jewish sensibility. Estha Weiner, who will read her work Thursday evening July 15, was a classmate of your NY Jewish Culture examiner when he was a creative writing graduate student and is the author of The Mistress Manuscript (Book Works, 2009) and Transfiguration Begins At Home (Tiger Bark Press, 2009). I first brought Rachel Levitsky to my readers attention in a long April events list article. She is the author of Neighbor (Ugly Duckling Press, 2009) and will read at Poets House a week from Thursday, July 22. Admission to the exhibit and the readings is free.
Every year Poets House holds an exhibit of all the poetry books published in the previous year which visitors can browse and examine. This year the annual Poetry Showcase continues all this month, and a series of readings will be held in which all the poets reading have had books published in the past year. Some of these poets are Jewish, and some of their poems reflect a Jewish sensibility. Estha Weiner, who will read her work Thursday evening July 15, was a classmate of your NY Jewish Culture examiner when he was a creative writing graduate student and is the author of The Mistress Manuscript (Book Works, 2009) and Transfiguration Begins At Home (Tiger Bark Press, 2009). I first brought Rachel Levitsky to my readers attention in a long April events list article. She is the author of Neighbor (Ugly Duckling Press, 2009) and will read at Poets House a week from Thursday, July 22. Admission to the exhibit and the readings is free.
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