The reflection on and implementation of comic targeting has a long history which stretches back to the origins of Greek philosophy. The reflection on the target is of utmost importance for thinkers who wish to establish this or that kind of hierarchy or agonistics between appearance and reality, the mind and the body, being and […]
“Eternal nothingness is O.K. if you’re dressed for it.” (Woody Allen) Comedy is inseparable from targeting. Take a look at any joke and you will notice that it most likely has a target. And, sometimes, the comedian or author may make him or herself into a target. Whether one targets oneself or a target other […]
Like many Jews over the centuries, I am fasting to commemorate the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. Now that I’m in middle of the fast, I’m having a hard time distracting myself from my hunger. In the midst of being enthralled with my hunger, an academic memory came to my rescue. […]
Today, I was incredibly delighted to see a post by the Jewish arts and culture website Tablet on my facebook page with the following tagline and question: Art historian Miriam Katz thinks of comedians as spiritual guides, and she wants to bring stand-up into the serious world of galleries and museums: What do you think […]
With the rise of anti-semitism in America – which I have experienced, personally; and see on social media, perpetually – I have been starting to think more about what it is and what we can do to – if possible – counter-act it. One era that I have studied in depth and written on in […]
Shalom Auslander’s short story, “Somebody Up There Likes You” (in his Beware of God short story collection) opens up a comical side to negative theology and literally turns it inside out. This fictional foray into two realities, one of a schlemiel character (Bloom) who thinks he is saved by God, contrasted with the portrayal of […]
Most of Woody Allen’s schlemiels are anxious, intellectual, and highly self conscious. But not all schlemiel’s are intellectual or hyper-self-conscious. Take, for instance, schlemiels in Shalom Aleichem, IB Singer, or Bernard Malamud’s stories and novels, or schlemiels played by Seth Rogen or Adam Sandler. While they may miss a beat or a social cue, their […]
In a vignette dated May 1920, Kafka’s favorite writer, Robert Walser reflects on smallness by way of moods, one in the morning, the other in the evening, that return to smallness. I would like to argue that it can be read as a fascinating reflection on what Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism) calls Tzimtzum. Tzimtzum is a […]
The relationship with things and the loss of those things is something that fascinated great thinkers and writers from Walter Benjamin and Freud to Franz Kafka and Elias Canetti. What is the meaning of loss and how does it relates to the character of the person that constantly loses things as opposed to losing things […]
For a long time, I’ve been thinking about how to read photographs of schlemiels like Woody Allen, Seth Rogen, Charlie Chaplin, etc. What function do they serve? How do we identify with them? How do they relate to the lives of Americans and Jewish Americans? What categories do we use to read them? But when […]
Schlemiel Theory 