Category
November 30, 2006
Cute, menschy boy bands make traditional tunes cool
n June 2005, the Backstreet Boys released \”Never Gone,\” an album filled not with the teeth-rotting pop confections of the group\’s youth, but with songs of a more adult contemporary style.The album\’s relative failure marked a turning point in mainstream music — Backstreet wasn\’t selling, *NSYNC had disbanded and nobody ever really cared what happened to 98 Degrees. The era of the boy band was officially over. In the pop world, that is. In the Orthodox world, it had only just begun.
Books: Farce, fascism and dash of Proust create a ‘Wonder’
\”I don\’t think it\’s possible to write a really interesting or good book without the Holocaust being in it. Even if you\’re not Jewish, you\’re a Jewish writer. If it doesn\’t enter your consciousness, you\’re not a serious artist.\” So said novelist Leslie Epstein, author most recently of \”The Eighth Wonder of the World\” in a phone interview from his office at Boston University, where he chairs the creative writing department.
Books: American Dream, Jewish identity settle in Great Neck, Long Island
Before a \”Mac mansion\” in Beverly Hills was ever marked by a mezuzah, or a store in Encino stormed by a balabustah – coloring these singular suburban communities with the conspicuous consumption and cultural aspirations of a striving Jewish bourgeois — there was Great Neck, Long Island.
Films: Thwarted suicide bombers get ‘hell,’ not glory
Sixteen-year-old Hassan is deeply frustrated because he was caught by Israeli police before he could blow himself up, together with the targeted Israeli civilians. \”If I had been killed, my mother would call it a blessing,\” he says. \”My family and 70 relatives would have gone to paradise, and that would be a great honor for me.\”
Mamma Mia! That’s a Chanukah
The Skirball Cultural Center has chosen to focus on Italian Jewry as the theme for its upcoming \”Hanukkah Family Festival,\” a series of performances, workshops, exhibits and other activities on Sunday, Dec. 10.
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Brave-ish wins Literary Titan Gold Book Award
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