Scooped!

Um, Elana Sztokman over the Forward's The Sisterhood Blog, I think you might've been scooped on this one.

In a post entitled, Why Orthodox Girls Don't Figure Skate, Ms. Sztokman speaks about the difficulties that Orthodox Jewish women face when they want to pursue "non-traditional" careers- i.e. anything outside of teaching, nursing and the "therapies." Specifically, she is referring to her childhood desire to figure skate and sing. Of those types of aspirations, she writes:

Some professions demand working on Friday night, some demand “indecent” clothing, some are too “physical”, and some are just, well , pas nisht, or not done.

Hmm, I wonder where we've heard that story before.

Oh yes, right here.

Queen Smashti

Inspired by the ladies of Whip It, which was snubbed by the Oscar nominating committee this year, this was me last night (and through most of today). My bad ass roller derby name was "Queen Smashti," since "Smashlee Simpson" was already taken by one of the skaters in the film. The shirt was painted by b-boy extraordinaire, Break Easy, and the old school skates were on loan from my hair stylist. Also, thanks to Dan Sieradski for the excellent photo.

Happy Purim!

In honor of Jewlloween, I'm going to repost the "story" of Purim as I wrote it for the Shushan Channel's program.

The Purim Story (more or less)

In the 5th century BC (Before Conan), in the land now called Iran where rulers to this very day have long, difficult-to-pronounce names (Ahmadinejad anyone?), King Achashveirosh reigned over 127 provinces, and was frequently decried in the Persian press by opponents of “big government.”

The King decided to throw a lavish party for his subjects. He posted the details to Twitter: “Days of party will far exceed the # of characters allowed in this post.”

During one of those drunken nights, the King summoned his wife, Queen Vashti to appear before him naked. The Queen refused, stating that she would only do nudity if it was essential to the role or the development of the character. The King banished her, to punish her disobedience and pretension.

When the King awoke from his drunken stupor, he realized he decided to remarry. After all, it is written somewhere in Genesis, “It is not good for man to be alone with only a brothel of concubines.”

A beauty pageant was organized and Mordechai the Jew decided to enter his niece, Hadassah since she was already in her late teens and still unmarried. However, he cautioned her against revealing her Jewishness in order to the “keep the mystery alive.” Mordechai even changed her name to Esther and disguising her appearance. He applied a liberal dose of self-tanner to his niece’s skin. “No one will recognize you if you are orange."

Esther was selected as the new queen and took up residence in the royal apartments. Mordechai visited the palace nearly every day— mostly to snap candids of the royal family to sell to the tabloids. This was which is how he overheard a plot to assassinate the King with poison (the substance, not the late-80s hair band).

Meanwhile, Mordechai bumped into Haman, the King’s new prime minister. Haman had enacted a decree that all citizens to bow to him on the street but Mordechai refused because he was afraid of how it would play in the Jewish 24 hour news cycle— Did he bow too deeply? Should he have knelt? Should he have remained more erect? Haman, filled with rage at having to address someone at eye level, went to the King and persuaded him to issue an edict killing all the Jews on the 13th of Adar. Evil, yes, but also good at planning ahead.

Meanwhile the King, unable to sleep one night, tuned into Persian Cops, and saw a cheap reenactment of the plot to assassinate him, and realized he had not rewarded the informant who saved his life. He summoned Haman and asked him, “What shall I do to honor the man I favor the most?” Haman, believing it was he, suggested a royal procession with fancy clothes for the honoree. The King, being a progressive on gay rights, decided that a pride parade was the perfect way to reward the “bachelor” Mordechai.

Mordechai implored Esther to use her position as Queen to help her people. Esther asked all of the Jews fast and pray with her before she went before the king. For three days, the Jews of Shushan donned Snuggies (instead of the more traditional sackcloth) and cried out to G-dash-d. On the third day, Esther appeared before the King, who reiterated the offer he had made in an interview with Harem magazine. “The Queen is like sexual napalm. I’d give her half my kingdom to keep shtupping her.”

The Queen invited the King and Haman for a banquet where she revealed that she was a Jewess and that Haman was trying to kill her. In other words: Most awkward threesome ever.

King Achashveirosh decreed that the Jews could save themselves, which doesn’t actually seem like a big win for the Jews. (But as the saying goes, teach a man to fish…) The King also instituted a “death panel” for Haman and his ten sons. Because a family that hangs together…

Every year since that happy day, the Jews read the story of Purim from the Megillah (soon to be replaced by the iPad), dress up in costume, give food baskets and drink until they can’t tell the difference between the blessed Mordechai and hated Haman. Well, at least until they put their glasses back on.

Happy Purim!

Figure Skating and Gymnastics in Bed

Now that the Olympic figure skating competition is over, many of us are nursing spandex and sequin hangovers. Think of this, the final figure skating blog post of the Games, as your hangover salve.

As I wrote a few days ago, 2008 Olympic champ in gymnastics, Nastia Liukin is dating men's figure skating gold medalist, Evan Lysacek are dating. They claim to spend a lot of time indoors, just hanging out and watching movies when they get the chance of it. Sure. Even if that was true, Nastia turned 20 in October so it is no longer (too) icky to imagine hers and Evan's Olympic style pillow talk.

Let's start with pillows:

Nastia: You got glitter on the pillows.

Evan: No, that's your eye glitter.

Nastia: No, that's the glitter from your costume, you know, the one with the sparkly snakes...

Evan: At least I didn't win my Olympic title in an outfit the color of Pepto Bismol.



On scoring:

Evan, breathing heavily, lays his head on Nastia's chest and looks expectantly into her eyes.

Evan: Well...

Nastia: 9.0

Evan: Wait, don't you guys have a new scoring system?

Nastia: That's only your execution mark, which then gets added to the degree of difficulty.

Evan: Where did I lose a point?

Nastia: Your rotation wasn't complete. And you didn't point your toes.

And finally, the future:

Nastia: What sport do you think our child should do?

Evan: Naturally, figure skating.

Nastia: I asked which "sport," but of course, we'll also enroll our daughter in dance class.

Evan: Well, what "sport" should she switch to once she hits puberty or grows taller than the height of the balance beam, whichever comes first? What then?

Purim @ 92nd Street Y Tribeca

Ever wonder why the 92nd Street Y Tribeca never bothered to drop the whole "92nd" part of its name and just call itself the "Tribeca Y"? It would be a hell of a lot less confusing.

Well, don't hold that against Rob Kutner and Co. On Saturday night at the Tribeca branch of the 92nd Y, they will be producing their annual Purim comedy show, The Shushan Channel, which is unfortunately not part of Time Warner's basic cable package. You can purchase tickets here



I wrote the "Purim Story" for the show's program. Here's a little excerpt from the alternative tale:

King Achashveirosh decreed that the Jews could save themselves, which doesn’t actually seem like a big win for the Jews. (But as the saying goes, teach a man to fish…) The King also instituted a death panel. Haman and his ten sons were hung but first received comprehensive physicals without co-pays.

If the flyer doesn't prove Kutner's comedic genius, check out some of his work on the (way too short lived) Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. Here is the Mormon Song:

International Agunah Day

The Jews sure know how to suck the fun out of the Olympics by declaring today International Agunah Day. An agunah is a woman who is "locked"- stuck in a marriage because her husband refuses to grant her a divorce. Of course she can't just get one herself cause that would mean that she is NOT a piece of property.

There are many women like this, languishing for years as they eagerly await their husbands' deaths or for liberal thinking to prevail in the Orthodox rabbinical establishment. I think it's more prudent to pray for the man's death. We're more likely to see a solution to global warming before the rabbinic mainstream warms up to the idea that the problem isn't recalcitrant husbands but the inequity at the root of the law. Men and women should be able to get divorces without permission from the other. It shouldn't come as a result of the will/generosity of one to the other.

Probably unwittingly in honor of International Agunah Day, Slate ran this article about a Muslim woman's failure to properly read her marriage contract before her wedding day. It's quite a lovely piece of writing and shows the way another community sometimes doesn't fully respect the rights of one half of its population.

The Olympics, Purim and Tonya Harding

Here is an essay that I wrote that was just published in Tablet about my shameful Harding fandom, Sabbath transgression and Purim.

A little excerpt. This incident has got to be one of my mother's favorite athletic memories, right after the Brooklyn Dodger's World Series win and the "Miracle on Ice" in 1980.

That night, my sister, mother, and I watched the short program huddled together on my mother’s bed. In our jingoistic fervor, we chanted “fall, fall, fall” as the Japanese Midori Ito attempted a jump, hoping to clear the path for the Americans: Kristi Yamaguchi, Nancy Kerrigan, and my beloved Harding. We burst into wild applause when Ito seemingly complied, not realizing we were watching a taped broadcast.