On Monday Desert Island comic book store, Drawn & Quarterly art and literary comics publisher, and Housing Works advocacy group co-presented a Q&A with Guy Delisle, a French Canadian travelogue comic book artist, at Housing Works’ NoLita Bookstore Cafe. Sales of the book as well as from Housing Works’ large used book collection benefited Housing Works’ cause of AIDS and homelessness advocacy. (Advocacy against them.)

Mr. Delisle’s newest work–this was his first publicity event for its English language release–is entitled Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City. It revolves around the year he spent living in Jerusalem while his wife, an administrator with Médecins Sans Frontières, helped save the Palestinians…

Now if all this sounds a little like left-wing philoPalestinian tripe, really it’s not. Mr. Delisle is refreshingly upfront about his politics, which is to say that he admits that from his vantage point as the plus one of a Médecins Sans Frontières administrator, of course he saw and chronicled the hardships of Palestinians more than those of Israelis. But he claims to have made the effort to go into the situation with what he called a “formatted hardrive.” For example, he gladly took Hebron settlers up on their offer of a tour of their settlement, though he admits it came off as fairly propagandizing.

Yes, it could be called immensely naïve to view the Israeli-Palestian conflict as one between refugees and settlers–considering that there are millions of Israelis who view the settlers as, well, total nutballs. However, Delisle seems to embrace his naiveté to an extent, focusing his stories less directly on the conflict and more on time spent on personal experiences, like teaching comic book courses to ultra-religious Palestinian Muslim teenagers, where his drawings of France’s topless beaches caused a walkout. And mercifully he never mentioned a solution to the conflict or brought up even one political figure.

Delisle’s previous works have taken him all over the world, to no less divisive, but far less covered locales. And he comes to them with a similar clean slate background. He’s a comic book memoirist, not a historian or reporter. His books have covered Burma, Pyong Yang and Shenzen. He writes himself into the works and is adamant that he does not fictionalize any part of his accounts. He explained during the event that after spending 2-months in Vietnam, thinking it would turn into a book, he decided that it had just been a fun vacation, and who would want to read about that?

Autobiographical comics fans will also not want to miss Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland: A Tribute moderated by Heeb comics editor Jeff Newelt and featuring Joseph Remnant, Joyce Brabner and Dean Haspiel tonight at the Strand from 7-8pm. The event will be a celebration of Harvey Pekar–a pioneer in the field who passed away in 2010–and of the publication of Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland which Jeff Newelt edited.

Then again, Housing Works is holding a reading and discussion on sex writing, if that’s more your “thing.”

“What happens to the song no one hears? Can it come back again in a few hundred years?”

Nehedar tries to be philosophical, but fails miserably. Her song is uninteresting but just for the hell of it, I’ll take the bait and answer her rhetorical question with a question of my own: What happened to 90s sensation Blackstreet and their famed song “No Diggity”? Already nobody gives a shit about that song and it was performed just 20 years ago. So to answer your question Nehedar, no, songs don’t come back and neither will yours.

The video itself is equally confusing (you’ll find that out if you actually watch it.) For some reason random people (friends/family members?) stand in the background for way too long holding up cardboard signs of popular albums and songs titles. Is this supposed to be funny? Ironic? Or are you trying to say that in 300 years your song will be as irrelevant as Abbey Road’s “B-sides”?

And why are you on a beach with what appears to be some dude who was rejected from the cast of Jersey Shore? Considering you are a Jewish hippie chick, is this one of your terrible acid flashbacks from the Negev?

Please explain what is going on in this video and why we should remember it in 100 years.

When I think of Israel and hip hop, the first thing that comes to mind is some random Israeli dude with a shaved head, rapping entirely in an Israeli accent with some distinctively Middle Eastern beats in the background.

And yet, what we are given is a song you’d expect to find in an American dance club.

Some random thoughts as my addled brain tried to process this song:

• If Moby and Akon had a child, and then that child had sex with one of the shaved-head members of Israeli group Hadag Nahash, it would be SHI 360.
• Speaking of shaved heads, do Israeli men shave their heads for a good reason? Too much sun? Are they embarrassed about their Jew fros?
• The only Hebrew words I understood in that song was something about Skype and America.
• Gotta give respect for the hilarious/classic Jewish self-deprecation line about being a hairy immigrant. #Jewishproblems
• I’m a bit confused about the title. Are they haters hating on peace? Is their rapping crew called ‘Shalom haters’? Or is SHI merely saying “yo” in Hebrew to all the haters out there?
• Israel is really catching up to America. Now all white rappers in Israel are required to have at least one black man in their crew. #Diversity
• If this a sign of things to come, Israel should know one thing: American musical influences are here to stay.

Single and album available here.

Right to Left: Adam Hoffman, Scott Schwartz and Matt Lipkins

Photo courtesy of Jared T. Miller
Contributing Editor Ben Fink

When Scott Schwartz, guitarist and vocalist of The Shadowboxers, describes his band’s reaction to Martin Scorcese’s Shine A Light, the Rolling Stones rock doc filmed at the New York’s Beacon Theater, it’s one of disbelief.

“We were like, ‘Man, that is…” Schwartz pauses, searching for the words. “Crazy. What a venue that is.”

The laughter indicates that the rest of the band agree with his appraisal–but the anecdote is more than a fond memory. Schwartz gets a round of applause when he finishes recounting the awe he felt as he is standing on stage at the Beacon Theater, clutching a microphone as the opening act for the Indigo Girls’ fall tour.

The journey to that point started over a year ago, in Atlanta, in the least likely of places: A Passover seder. Since the college student was the youngest in attendance, he sang the four questions. Sitting at the same table was Emily Saliers, one half of the Atlanta-based Indigo Girls.

“Wow, what a voice,” Saliers recalls saying when she heard Schwartz sing. “I just remember being stunned by it.”

Afterward, the two began talking about music and when Schwartz picked up a guitar, it came to light that he was in a band. Schwartz, by that time, had been jamming with friends Matt Lipkins (on vocals and piano) and Adam Hoffman (on vocals and lead guitar), whom he met while attending Emory University. Saliers decided to head to Schwartz’s upcoming gig with the Shadowboxers at Emory, also her alma mater. She found that the quality of Schwartz’ voice isn’t an exception; rich vocals are practically a rule for the band.

“I was just blown away,” Saliers said of her experience at the campus concert. “So I called my manager that day, and told him ‘You need to sign these guys.’”

Her manager listened, and agreed. They both heard a mix of influences. The band admits to borrowing from folk and funk, and copping a stadium-rock, Coldplay kind of sound while focusing heavily on rhythms that groove. Schwartz and Lipkins list John Mayer (who got his start in Atlanta) and Stevie Wonder among their musical inspirations, and the influence isn’t hard to hear.

New listeners are quick to mention Maroon 5, but that comparison downplays the complexity of the music. Most songs feature The Shadowboxers’ signature three-part vocal harmonies from Schwartz, Lipkins and Hoffman. They rise above the mix in the band’s recordings, and the three voices are consistently pitch-perfect in a live setting—a difficult feat in itself. Bassist Ben Williams and drummer Jaron Pearlman round out the group by giving the music a deep pocket that makes syncopation and rhythmic stops a head-bobbing, musical experience.

“We just like coming up with different ways to keep everybody on their toes,” says Schwartz of the band’s sound. But the band makes a definite distinction between complexity and accessibility.

“We’re trying to write songs that musically, are somewhat advanced, but to listeners sound just like a pop song,” Hoffman says, after describing “Vienna,” a song they co-wrote with Saliers whose main sections are in odd meter. They also wrote “She Forgives” together, on which Saliers helped to hammer out the emotional direction of the lyrics with the chord progression that Hoffman composed.

The benefits of touring and writing with the Indigo Girls—who Pearlman says “are like really cool aunts”—are obvious for a band that released their first EP only months ago, as they graduated from Emory. But the relationship between the two bands is surprisingly symbiotic. As The Shadowboxers watch in awe as their headliners bring a fresh take to songs they wrote decades ago, Saliers admits that sustaining a career of that length is not a solitary pursuit.

“You come across people like The Shadowboxers who inject this new energy into the whole way you approach music,” Saliers says, addressing the difficulty of maintaining inspiration as a band. “It’s just like a hand in the glove for me; they inspire me.”

Saliers has invited the band to record with the Indigo Girls, and they lend their three-part harmonies to the title track from 2011’s Beauty Queen Sister. But the justification for her approval lies in The Shadowboxers music, which achieves the difficult goal of sounding fully original in an industry saturated with mash-ups and programmable beats. Though mixing styles and challenging audiences are conscious goals, the band’s bassist describes a more organic process that accounts for their captivating sound.

“I think all we’re trying to do is take the music that we hear inside of our heads that hasn’t been written yet and just write it and perform it,” Williams says. “However that works is how we do it—pop, folk, I don’t care. They’re all the same. It’s all music.”

The Shadowboxers perform “Fixer” at the Variety Playhouse in Atlanta, GA on March 10, 2012.

This New Year’s Eve, there’s a new cool way to get drunk off your ass (or vagina). Just soak your tampons in vodka! It’s extreme, dangerous, and absolutely disgusting. So, there’s just one question… Why didn’t my generation think of it first?! Obviously, today’s teens are far craftier than we were ten years ago. A novel way to get wasted without making your breath smell? You can get drunk and do your homework at the same time! Multitasking at its very best, and all it will cost you is a raging yeast infection.

And here’s a fun New Years tip: Double your drunk IQ by tampon-ing while you drink! You’ll get drunker, twice as fast, and because the vodka will make you sterile, you won’t need to worry about the morning after pill! Yes indeed, 2012 is gonna be a great year!

 Just add noisemaker for epic New Year’s fun!

DO: Bright Fitted Pants

Zara Skinny Trousers $59.90 (zara.com)

DON’T: Neon Leggings

These kids take Lisa Frank to a whole other level.

DO: Granny Plaids

Wrangler Women's Pink Plaid Shirt $16.99 (sheplers.com)

 DO: “Birth Control Glasses”

Warby Parker $95 (warbyparker.com)

DO: Turtlenecks

American Apparel Cotton Spandex Jersey Long Sleeve Turtleneck $30 (americanapparel.net)

DON’T: Bright Colored Tights

DO: Textured or Lace Tights

photo via La Douleur Exquise

DO: The Working Girl Dress

Banana Republic Gemma Wrap Dress $88 (bananarepublic.com)

DON’T: The Super-Mini

You don't want to give the impression you're that kind of working girl.

DO: Patterned Cardigans

Heritage 1981 Long Line Cardigan $44.90 (forever21.com)

DON’T: Tuxedo Jackets

DO: Clog Boots

DON’T: Over-the-Knee Boots

Besides for Julia Roberts circa "Pretty Woman," really, who else can pull these off? Though they did provide function for her. (photo via collegefashion.net)

DO: Penny Loafers

Bass Women's Waylon Penny Loafer $70.99 (endless.com)

DON’T: Stiletto Platform Pumps

Who still shops at Bebe? (bebe.com)

]]> http://heebmagazine.com/heeb-fashion-fallwinter-dos-and-donts-for-women/30930/feed 3 http://heebmagazine.com/the-sick-comedy-of-steve-almond/29949 http://heebmagazine.com/the-sick-comedy-of-steve-almond/29949#comments Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:15:44 +0000 Heeb http://heebmagazine.com/?p=29949 God Bless America, the comic writer tries to get well.]]>  

By Steven Beeber

Steve Almond’s latest collection of short stories takes the comic writer into new terrain—the darkness. Not that Almond was exactly light before. His memoir Candyfreak—in which he exposed himself as obsessively self-medicating with sweets—is never going to be optioned by Disney. Still over the course of these new stories, the darkness gradually deepens. Like many comics before him, Almond’s got a tragic side, and it’s gaining on him fast.

Well, good thing. Because as hard as I’ve laughed at Almond’s earlier work, I’m now aching for more of his latest. Is it because I’m a sucker for stories where lobotomies or blood-splattered breach births are the subject? A little. But even more it’s because I see Almond tapping into a new vein here. And as the blood runs, I’m hooked.

Call me a rubbernecker if you like, but in military-occupying, Snooki-celebrating, porn-toy—excuse me, internet—obsessing America, you have to be willfully blind not to see something’s facacht.  Almond’s clearly clued into this mess. And having looked at it with eyes wide, he’s sharing with us what he’s seen, alternately joking to lighten the mood and breaking down at the sheer waste of it.

Of course, to say that this tragic vein is completely new for Almond is perhaps a bit misleading. If previously he’s made us laugh until we cry, he’s also always seemed ready to make us cry until we laugh. He’s a visceral sort, inclined to deep feelings, whether he’s sneering at then groveling before Oprah as he did hilariously in Not That You Asked or skewering the pretensions of drooling music fanatics (like himself), as in his second memoir, Rock And Roll Will Save Your Life. Like the best comics, he’s always gone for both the jugular and the guts. He kills, as they say. And to kill you gotta care. Or at least be pretty intimate with the angsty, night terror aspects of life.

Just ask Soon-Yi’s husband if you don’t agree. Or Philip Roth, Gary Shteyngart, S.J. Perelman or Kafka. Or better yet, ask those vaudevillians Abraham and Isaac (“Take my son, please!”) That comedy thing runs deep, so perhaps it goes without saying that Almond’s one of us. Yet let me out him here and propose that his J-ness has something to do with his talents. From nebbishy Dr. Oss, the poker addicted shrink treating a card shark, to caretaker Wolf Pinkas, the Holocaust survivor building his home in a cemetery, Almond’s characters know what it feels like to get no respect, just as they figuratively know what it feels like to whistle past Uncle Adolf’s Haus. Or to put it otherwise, you don’t have to eat Arnold’s rye, much less take the Holocaust personally, to write a story about a guy attempting to make his schlong a Yule gift, but if you want to do it well—and give it a killer title like “A Jew Berserk On Christmas Eve”—it helps.

And yet, while a number of the stories in God Bless America have Jewish characters and some Jewish themes, this is not necessarily a Jewish book. If anything it’s an American one, informed by a familiar sensibility, a look at the Republic in crisis via the personal stories of Americans, like us. Along with the previously mentioned shrinks, caretakers and possessors of Yule logs, these include folks like: Billy Clamm, a wannabe actor hamming it up as a historical tour guide; Sophie, a bitter airport security worker taking her anger out on the world; Jim Cutler, a tree surgeon arguing with his dying father; and Tedesco, a returning veteran launching into a really bad date. There are laughs for sure, with clueless Billy in particular, and there are scenes of rueful amusement, as when Sophie meets a nine-year-old kid even more cynical than herself, but there are also moments of pure tragedy such as the zombified fate awaiting another veteran, and others that border on the surreal, such as when an unassuming accountant is offered a preview of 9/11 terrors to come.

Yet ultimately, there is hope, even in the midst of the direst darkness, as is evident in the moving final story “A Dream of Sleep”. In some sense, all of God Bless America seems to be heading to this, a genuine new direction for Almond and one that should earn him a new audience. If Almond here seems poised to push his punchlines to the edge of the abyss, don’t let yourself be scared by that. He’s doing so for a higher cause, nothing less than to heal our wounds. There’s tikkun olam at work here. In his latest collection, Almond is doing God’s work.

Steven Lee Beeber is the author of The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s: A Secret History of Jewish Punk (Chicago Review Press, 2007), editor of the insomnia anthology AWAKE! A Reader for the Sleepless (Soft Skull Press, 2008) and associate editor of Conduit, “the only magazine that risks annihilation”. His work has appeared in The Paris Review, Fiction, The New York Times, Spin, Mojo, Memorious and elsewhere. His website is www.jewpunk.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @jewpunk. Or on Facebook.

10. Do not covet your neighbor’s Asian wife.

9. Do not bear false witness against your neighbor, unless your attorney instructs you to do so.

8. Do not steal from investors.

7. Do not commit adultery until you’ve attained high political office.

6. Do not murder anyone, except for Palestinians.

5. Honor your father and mother by not changing your last name.

4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy–go to brunch, then yoga, then brunch again.

3. Do not swear falsely by the name of the Lord, because we just say “fuck” now.

2. Do not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above, unless you can sell it for a profit.

1. I am the Lord your God, I being your Xanax.

Aaron Glaser lives in New York City. He has been writing and performing comedy at The Uprights Citizens Brigade Theatre since he was 19. His work has been featured on The Huffington Post, FunnyOrDie, CollegeHumor, The Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy, and Comedy Central’s atom.com. As a stand-up he has performed all over New York and Los Angeles, and currently hosts “Get Loose” at The Gutter in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on the first Wednesday of the month. Follow him on Twitter @aaron_glaser

By Moshe Kasher
 

By Heshy Fried

One of the biggest problems with Jewish music is, well, it’s too Jewish. I don’t understand why Jews can’t write music about Jewish issues without bringing up the Torah. I recently drove a U-haul from Texas to the Bay Area and it only had a radio, no CD player or auxiliary audio jack for mp3s. If you’ve driven through the middle of nowhere before, you already know there’s usually a surplus of Christian radio on the dial. On my trip I listened to a lot of surprisingly good Jesus music, but I couldn’t tell it was Jesus music until the commercials about supporting families and protesting gay marriage came on. I began to wonder, “Why can’t Jews make music that doesn’t sound or deal with inherently religious topics?”

Meet The Groggers, possibly the first Orthodox Jewish band that doesn’t sound Jewish. Fuck, even Matisyahu can’t go a few lines without throwing in some biblical verse. And don’t even get me started on the so-called Chabad hip hop movement. I was listening to the new album from The Groggers the other day and for the first time in my life I forgot I was listening to Jewish music. I thought for a second that I was listening to MXPX or New Found Glory. The Groggers are a Modern Orthodox Jewish punk rock band from Queens that sings about young Jewish angst.

I first heard about The Groggers last year when they put out a music video about giving a girl a get. A get is a religious divorce document required by Jewish law so that a woman may remarry. In some instances a man may withhold the get, to keep a woman in order to extort money or retain power over her. It was a pleasure to see a song about such a serious issue from an Orthodox band.

The new album There’s No I in Cherem is filled with songs about dating, the Upper West Side, Israeli politics and playing ball on Shabbos. It’s pop-punk, feel-good music that makes you bob your head in the car and forget about the stop and go traffic on your morning commute. Malka Jihad is their take on Israeli politics. The song is about a boy who falls in love with a liberal Jewish girl who supports the creation of a Palestinian state. It’s funny and although obviously right-wing, I respect that they weren’t cliché in their unwavering anti-Palestinian stance.

Heshy Fried notes and rants about humorous situations and idiosyncrasies inherent with living an observant lifestyle.