Beyonce Lied; Funny Hurts More

Robin Williams' death has deeply affected anyone who has been touched by his limitless performances. Reactions range from anger at his loss, tasteful commemoration of his acting triumphs, to open discussion about mental health issues. The last of which, is my personal favorite.

Our actors by definition have an obligation to distract us from reality. Though they often hit us with more real (It's not your fault,) within that distraction, it's calculated. It's on a screen, not in our lives.. for now. As we saw from Heath Ledger's loss, our actors are not immune from the feelings they fight to instill in us via their talents and efforts. While I'm not saying actors are all at risk or deserving of more attention, it's their entire profession to mirror human nature, so their work and their reactions say a lot more about all of us than we may care to acknowledge.    

Funny characters in a  work, the one's whose technical one dimensional purpose would be to make us laugh, have a tendency to also be the most honest and clear thinking. I believe the Fool in Shakespeare's King Lear helped begin this tradition of "you're laughing at me because it's too difficult for you to acknowledge realities of these awful situations." The Fool has an unparalleled level of clarity, in contrast to his counterparts, and yet he will always be the Fool. Sometimes I'm interested in how Louis CK is even considered a comedian. His brand of humor specifically isn't even funny to me, it's a clear vision of the world. It's people watching on crack. He's just reiterating the world he sees with decent timing. But that is in so many ways the role of the comic. Show us the world in an idea or an observation, and we'll laugh at you because it's too fearful and hard hitting to our core to get near for ourselves.

 One of my favorite Kurt Vonnegut quotes explains, "Humor is an almost physiological response to fear." As someone who has been considered "funny" by some.. I would say that this is the best summary of my inclinations. When I make a sarcastic side comment, it's a subconscious ploy to be loved that has worked time and time again. Which comes from an inherent fear of not being loved. Robin Williams in an '09 interview told us that his second descent into alcoholism was fear induced. "It's just literally being afraid. And you think, oh, this will ease the fear. And it doesn't." No matter how funny, talented, brilliant a man is, he never will be impervious to every day fears.

Everyone has fear, and everyone copes and reacts differently. I hope with William's death, we can continue to learn that no one is immune to fear, depression, or grief; not even the ones who can temporarily relieve us of those exact same plights with their humor and performance as a hilarious cross-dressing nanny. In sum, we've all got to look out for each other, even the ones we least suspect need our help.       

An UnKosher Perspective

I am jealous of my Christian friends.

For one thing, they get Christmas. Which I think we can all agree is a little unfair. Judaism has given me so much, even a free trip to Israel. But I'll never wake up to the smell of pine and the promise of bangin' neatly wrapped gifts as seen on Nickelodeon commercials.. and a part of me mourns that loss..

I could live with the Christmas envy though. Love Actually and its relevance to my life is not even a minor source of the raging green monster inside. It's the ease with which one gets to associate themselves in relation to their beliefs.

Christian people get to be just Christian in America. There are shades of extremeism as with any religion, and fights over interpretations of texts and their political connotations, as with any religion. But my dear Christian friends have no notion of the pressures behind being a Jewish American, or the fact that, to one another, we Jews are viewed to only be as "Jewish" as our stance on a highly controversial country's politics. For us, the choice not to stand with Israel, and firmly, gets perceived as a choice to stand against Israel... And to thus declare oneself to their beloved community, as a "self-hating Jew."

Put aside the fact that many of us grew up in Hebrew school, singing songs about and learning about every Israeli crevice. Or the fact that Birthright showed us the most beautiful landscape, the richest historical background, and some truly incredible people to tie us to this land. Or even the idea that our parents and peers constantly post pro-Israel statement articles and videos, almost aimed at one another in a "who loves Israel more" like contest. Even without all of that, we Jews have an obligation to the country as a source of historical safety and pride. And we love the damn place and all the falafel, hookah, and soldiers who hooked up with us on our Birthright trip, that Israel contains.

But then you see videos of children on all sides of the Israeli issue, dead. And you want to mourn for loss of life, because each of those lives is precious. And you wish it was so simple as to stand behind your country and believe that all of their actions are in line with your values, or even their purported values, but it isn't. You hear fireworks overhead, and thank your lucky stars that you never have to wonder if it's a rocket, and you worry for Israeli friends, but you worry for civilian strangers on the other side too. And you wish you 100% believed every word of every impassioned article, but you don't.

Personally, I am too tied to the whole affair to have any say whatsoever. Whether I talk about these issues with my most staunchly pro-Israel, or anti-Israel friends, my stomach tightens, my face heats up, and I freeze. I've read countless articles and learned so much, and all that learning has led me to one truth; there is no way to learn a full truth. I love Israel with my heart, try to understand it all with my head, and shut up about it to everyone else.

I would never in a million years want to lose the rich cultural life Judasim has introduced me to, or the doors it has opened up, be it friendships, food, or worldly perspectives. But my religion has got some serious baggage. So dearest Christian friends, consider yourselves lucky in a "religious-conflict-ignorance is bliss" sorta way.  And share your nerf guns with me, because my parents never took Hannukah that seriously and I was deprived of these awesome Nickelodeon inspired gifts.

ExSqueeze Me Weirdo

It's incredible how one word can change you. It can create you, destroy you, contort your being in such a manner that you'll never know who you could have been, or should have been, without its existence.

For me, that word is "weird."

As a child, I always wanted to squeeze my friends. I felt so strongly about them, I didn't know how else to show my admiration but to just grab and exert my love such that they could feel it. That squeeze meant I love you to the ends of the earth but I have to hurt you a bit, because it makes me so damn vulnerable. It meant I don't have words for the joy you bring me just by including me and laughing with me, so my body has to speak for me.

Through that hug I hoped to transmit bliss, acceptance, and the thrill I felt from gratitude that they were them and I was me and we connected. It was pure.

I was told early on that this was weird. And it's true, that's totally weird. You can't go around squeezing people all the damn time. There are better ways to express it and people deserve their space. Later on, squeezing turned into biting as my good friends know, and I guess that was even weirder.

But with that word, others unknowingly implied that my impulses were all wrong. I was made to believe that my modes of expression were incorrect, as well as the feelings behind them.  Thus began the coding of exchanges, the creation of an attempted "socially acceptable" self, the watering down of my thick vast mess of a deeply loving heart.

Unfortunately, I think most everyone had that moment. Where change was forced upon them for the sake of "normative" behavior. We dance at parties, text crushes nonchalantly, tell close friends deep secrets only when it's one on one and late at night. Extreme or differing behavior is just plain "weird." But the weird stuff is the fun stuff, the substantive stuff, so often. And to me, the fact that expression is normed makes it even more weird, like we're all in a robot Sim's colony where you can either smile, hug, flirt, or chat about a series of commonalities (wow, I miss the Sims,) and that's it.

You can go your whole life dancing around weird, attempting to avoid the judgmental slap of its use against you, and never succeed. One person's weird book is another's bible. Cool changes constantly, even the word to describe cool changes; groovy, far out, chill... you get the point.

This simple word has quieted me in the past, and inspired me in the present. Basically, all you can do is like what you like, say what you want to say, and squeeze who you want to squeeze as long as no one gets hurt. Surround yourself with the weirdest people you know, they're on to something.

22

MIDNIGHT SHAMBLES

Thank you for the shots

I don't remember them much

Tequila does that
(s/o to Olivia, Itay, Will?)

JIMMY JOHNS

Sandwich to the face

Sorry I called you "shorty"

Strangers make good friends

DENNY'S

Birthday noms fo free

Waiter is just not amused

Old couples high five

THE MALL

Feet dip in fountain

Feeling all of the feelings

Shannon saves the day

DINNER

Earth is our waiter

That was not a metaphor

His real name was Earth

PARTY TIME

Balcony chillen

Until we had Knox trouble

Cake was delicious

END OF BIRTHDAY

Bentley's in shambles

I am now an old woman

Stoop kids are afraid

THANK YOU ALL FOR A GREAT DAY 

Feminism and Fecal Matter

I’ve been looking forward to this post for a long time. As a recent college grad, I’m feeling bold, and ready to take on the topic, no matter how shitty it gets. Hah. Get it? So many more poo puns to come…moving on..

GIRLS POOP. THEY DOODIE. THEY DROP THE KIDS OFF AT THE POOL. ETC.

In case you aren’t clear on what that is, it’s this biological process thing where you excrete waste from your bumhole. All humans do this! Also, most animals. Actually all animals, I looked it up and snakes poo too.. The more you know, right?

Yet there’s this running joke I’ve heard, mostly from men, that girls poop “flowers.” That rainbows and baby unicorns come out of our tushes instead of the nasty brown goo men enjoy bragging about to their friends.

Yes, guys love and thrive in poop culture. They brag about their big ones to their friends, and movies and television portray men on the toilet, pants wrapped around ankles, holding the newspaper all the time. Men are encouraged to enjoy their “wasteful” activity. In Dumb and Dumber, we all gagged along but also laughed when the main character managed to get poop all over the bathroom walls.

 When’s the last time you saw a girl, pants around her ankles, humming whilst reading the paper in a movie or television show?  Sure, in Bridesmaids it’s referred to, but we still see Maya Rudolph quaintly falling in the street in a huge gown, ashamedly covering up the mess. Certainly, no enjoyment there. Recently, a commercial targeted towards women attempted to sell “poopourri,” an odor masking product. A gorgeous British woman in a fancy dress asks, “How can we make the world believe your poo doesn’t stink? Or that you don’t poop at all?”

As a staunch feminist, I find this to be problematic, horseshit, a piece of crap.

Girls are entitled to the same waste, and enjoyment of the deed as men are. In pretending that women don’t have normal body processes, we are forced to instead appear as dainty creatures whose sole purpose is to provide beauty and entertainment in an effort to appear “lady-like.” Any way you look at it, it’s dehumanizing. Another manner in which women are asked to conform to a physically impossible level of desirability. We are not art or any kind of passive beings created for you to gawk at, and therefore we do not poop flora. We are equally human, and we deserve to enjoy this biological process that will certainly remain a part of our EVERY DAY lives FOREVER. Maybe even twice or three times a day if your metabolism is kickin.

Between the smells and the mess, it’s not the most pleasant process, I know. But when you add the level of shame women have to feel about their bodies, the amount of constipated friends I have because they’re too afraid to poop at their boyfriends apartments, we have a problem.  

In essence, women; I challenge you to embrace your poo in all of its glory, and men; I challenge you to quit being such turds about it.

From One Privileged Jew from New Rochelle to Another

(Here's a link to his article in case you haven't read it: http://theprincetontory.com/main/checking-my-privilege-character-as-the-basis-of-privilege/ )

By now the young Tal Fortgang's fifteen minutes are almost up. His article detailing why he should never be asked to "check his privilege" has gone viral, enthused some, and pissed off most.

It's no question to me that the kid is blatantly wrong. His understanding of white privilege came from an extremely privileged, ignorant perspective of the term. I was offended as a person with basic awareness of the structural issues at play that keep those of different races disadvantaged.. and I personally as a Jew was offended that he felt his Holocaust survivor grandparent's struggles excused him from awareness and compassion. The kid's article, for all intents and purposes, sucks. HARD.

And so, forty year old men in suits condemn him on CBS, and make a joke of his ignorance. The good people at FOX praise him, because what else are they good for but pissing people off?  And this kid gets a media whirlwind of praise and condemnation... and then it settles and he's forgotten.

But the thing is, there's a way larger lesson here that should be a take away.

We're offended because he's wrong, but he did it with some pretty decent vocabulary. We're offended because he goes to Princeton, so he should absolutely know better. If an Ivy League would accept him, surely he should be the highest caliber of student, right? (see George W. Bush for reference.)

The major issue is not his opinion though, it's the educational structures that allowed for it.
This kid is just a kid.
I bet if you met him, you'd think he's a nice Jewish boy.
You'd probably like him as the sleepaway camp counselor of your kids or something..

His opinion may be wrong, but so is writing him off. He came from a very similar background to you, he just got higher SAT's and learned how to use that vocab to dazzle his teachers over time. I know, because I did similar things (though not similar enough, because I go to UMD.) Coming to college, I didn't know a damn thing about privilege or how it worked or what it meant. From the perspective of the privileged, things look pretty good around here. Sure we see the homeless on the street, we hear about gang violence in the news, but there's the separation of a television screen or our different clothing, or even skin color. Moms and schools avert our eyes from unpleasantness, and we let them.

On Tuesday I was assistant teaching a class with 13 year olds and I asked if they had ever heard of the term "white privilege." None had. Just now, I discussed this very article with my roommates, and one asked, "what does it mean to check your privilege."

I didn't learn this stuff until I pursued sociology and service learning in college, which I only took because I chose to. My dear roommate is a dietetics major, and hasn't been exposed to any kind of awareness of her privilege. She too could have easily written the article, and it wouldn't be her fault, not really. Until given good reason to look around, people don't. Privileged people unfortunately don't know the questions to ask, because like I said, stuff looks pretty good around here. We should, we must, but we don't. It shouldn't be a choice to learn of the ills of society, and instead, it should become a requirement.

The problem in my opinion is that our education, system never challenged us to look around elsewhere. It asked us to memorize equations, to write a five paragraph essay that never stray from the rubric, or to guzzle information on topics we care little about and regurgitate them for tests. It challenged us to read about historical issues with the distance of a textbook. As far as plenty of students know, MLK already settled all that racial inequality business..THANKS MLK. Never once in my High School, which was actually racially diverse, was I asked to "check my privilege." Though I really wish I had been.

So, until we find a way to change the dialogue in classrooms, maybe to change just one semester of gym class to one that centers around social understanding, or creative thought, or dialogue about important issues, we're going to find countless Tal Fortgang's. In an ideal world, we privileged would all read into this stuff ourselves, and think before we speak, but we have never had to before, and that's not the world we live in. His article sucks, but it sucks for a reason. When we vilify him, we ignore our daily participation in sheltering ourselves and our loved ones from "checking their privilege."

Graduation.. A Thing That is Definitely Happening

So I received a call back to be commencement speaker for the English major graduation ceremony. This means I wrote a speech, which was kind of really fun. While I didn't get chosen to deliver it, I figure I'll share my efforts with you fine people.

I'd like to extend a hearty welcome to these esteemed graduates of the Robert H Smith school of business.. Oh wait, it's just the English majors. Hey guys! Sup

Ok, so we're no business school. Few of us have worn suits to class, and fewer of us are fighting to work for Fortune 500 companies next year. Instead, most of us can be found either cuddling up to a book somewhere in Tawes, or staring off into space contemplating that very book, also somewhere in Tawes, as we overhear a debate about the new Star Wars cast.

Frankly, we're a little different. But in my opinion, in continuously trying to justify why the English major rocks, we forget that we don't have to explain this to anybody. We chose this major because of a love of literature, an incredible faculty, and a need we all had to analyze the world around us in a formal setting. It may seem like it's about books, but through these characters and settings we learn history, science, sociology, psychology, religion.

 The other day I called my mother to talk about the film version of the Great Gatsby with Leo Dicaprio. She was deeply impressed by my level of analysis and told me so. I said, mom, if there's one thing I can walk away from college doing, it's analyzing the crap out of the Great Gatsby. So hello fellow professional Gatsby analysts.

One thing that has created a dichotomy in my life especially has been our time in the classroom and our time outside. The longer I stayed in this major, and the more I learned from my fiercely intelligent professors, the harder it was to reconcile my lessons and put them away in practical application.

For example, Professor Auchard has an obsession with the American use of the word fun. He spent many class periods explaining his fascination, pointing to both cultural usages such as the "fun sized" candy bars that aren't fun at all.. because really, what's fun about getting less chocolate.. and literature's portrayal of fun.

Once this lesson, this awareness was  implanted in my poor sophomore mind, it stuck. How was I to enter some frat party and not laugh when the young "bouncer" told me to have fun. Fun is entirely all encompassing of a very subjective emotion! I want to yell. But it's not the time, nerd. It's rarely ever the time outside of the beautiful walls of Tawes.

Professor Olmert aptly told us the other day that learning changes you. The more you know, the more you want to talk books and movies, thoughts and ideas, he explained, as your other friends want to binge on bottomless mimosas at brunch and ask what you thought of The Real Housewives last week. And That's ok too.. Kind of.. But the point is, whether you sat in the back of the class hoping to coast or sat front and center for all of these discussions, in this major, you walked away with at least one lesson per class that has changed you and maybe even what you want to talk about forever. And bottomless mimosas, as delicious and plentiful as they are, just won't cut it anymore.

What I'm saying, fellow English majors and analysts of the world, is that our dear Professors have ruined one party, and started a new one. A one in which we enter the "real world" as we so fearfully call it, with a heightened awareness, a keen eye for detail and a sharpened ability to critique and create.

And now we are ready to use these skills we hardly noticed we gained. We may not be headed to the Fortune 500's of the world, but we have instead attained a treasure more fortunate than any; and that is a lifelong pursuit of independent thought.

 Most of us will go in different directions from this moment in time. Some will pursue a degree in law or education, others will seek to be journalists, writers, actors, humanitarians, politicians, plumbers, professional bassoonists for all I know. This major's job was not to filter you in to a company and get you paid for your services in exchange, it was to teach you exactly how to filter yourself and your strengths into the world.

I personally am as unemployed as can be for next year (hold your applause.) My path to self discovery could have me teaching English abroad or simply working on my personal blog until I get discovered.. which will so happen right? Yes, I'm unsure of my direction as so many are, but I can tell you one thing, I'm not scared, and that's because at the very least I can analyze the crap out of the Great Gatsby.

Congratulations to all of us, and may we continue in our paths with pride in what makes us different and a deep appreciation for those mind molders we have called our teachers. Thank you.