Urban Kvetch: Gardens in Brooklyn
Gardens in Brooklyn
People from Brooklyn always want to show you their gardens. "I could never afford this garden in Manhattan," they tell me. Come on. Your garden is three square feet. You can't fit four toma...
Urban Kvetch: “Un-PC”
"Un-PC"
Invoking this phrase somehow lends a veneer of heroism to even the most un-heroic of expressions. Say, "Maybe this is un-PC, but the problem with this country is too many immigrants," and your listener...
Urban Kvetch: Madeleine
Madeleine
Would everybody please shut up about Marcel Proust's madeleine? Honestly, you'd think his entire kaleidoscopic epic was about baked goods. The cookie passage takes up less than one page of the seven-...
Urban Kvetch: Shelley Goldberg
Shelley Goldberg
Cable station NY1's "parenting consultant" begins each of her insufferable segments by condescending to her audience. "I'm sort of like a helper for mom and dad," she says in a tone that would...
Urban Kvetch: “The Rebbe’s Court”
The Rebbe's Court
The world's first ultra-orthodox soap opera, The Rebbe's Court, which premiered on Jerusalem TV this past fall, offers a new twist on the traditional daytime drama. According to cast member O...
Urban Kvetch: Aleph-Bet Yoga
Aleph-Bet Yoga
The latest mishigas from New Age Jews prescribes embodying individual Hebrew letters in order to achieve spiritual enlightenment. According to its creators, bending over backwards into a "mem" (...
Urban Kvetch: Fur Coats
Fur Coats
Fur coats are really sexy to furry animals like bears, Sasquatch, and middle-aged Israeli men. Lady, if you're trying to be attractive in that thing, you're only attracting foxes, rodents and seals w...
Urban Kvetch
Public Nail Clipping
There can't be anything more emblematic of the erosion of civic virtue in this nation than the disturbing development of public nail clipping. It's so acceptable to do your nails in public...
Urban Kvetch: Amanda Hesser
Amanda Hesser
This prissy little New York Times food writer has somehow become my mother's fantasy of the perfect Jewish daughter, and for this, she must be eliminated. In her columns about souffles and salads...
Urban Kvetc: Sanitized Toilet Rings
Sanitized Toilet Rings
I don't feel safe anymore! I feel vulnerable to attack! I yearn for a simpler time, a time when public toilet seats were sanitized for my protection. Growing up, my world was wrapped in ...
Urban Kvetch: Lifegem
Lifegem
From the creepily named "living memorial" industry, a Lifegem is a diamond created from the carbon ashes of your cremated loved one, available in assorted colors. I can hear it already—women crowing fr...
Urban Kvetch: “Ready-Made”
Ready-Made
Here's a fun remodeling project: 1. Take Ready-Made magazine, the young nesters' guide to alterna-crafts. 2. Now retool the name for a rag that's entirely about creating things that aren't already m...
