The Null Device

Apparently the next Coen Brothers film is going to be an adaptation of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union, an intriguing-sounding book which recasts Alaska as a latter-day Birobidzhan:

The movie is set to be a noir thriller in the vein of Miller's Crossing. However, this is also an Alaska with a twist, as in the original book the state has been turned into a homeland for Jewish refugees displaced after the second world war, following the collapse of Israel. Decades later, the US government is considering displacing the Jewish settlers to return the land to Alaskan natives.

¶ birobidzhan coen brothers film jewish michael chabon yiddish [no comments]

In Poland, where the mainstream culture is dominated by a conservative, nationalistic monoculture, more often than not with an anti-Semitic streak, rebels, refuseniks and rootless cosmopolitanists are embracing all things Jewish. Klezmer bands (comprised mostly of non-Jewish musicians) are forming everywhere, people are taking classes in everything from Hasidic dancing to Hebrew calligraphy, and replicas of 1930s-vintage Jewish merchants' signs are cropping up all over Krakow streets like some kind of theme park:

Interest in Jewish culture became an identifying factor for people unhappy with the status quo and looking for ways to rebel, whether against the government or their parents.

"The word 'Jew' still cuts conversation at the dinner table," Gebert said. "People freeze."

The revival of Jewish culture is, in its way, a progressive counterpoint to a conservative nationalist strain in Polish politics that still espouses anti-Semitic views. Some people see it as a generation's effort to rise above the country's dark past in order to convincingly condemn it.

Many Jews are offended by the commercialization of their culture in a country almost universally associated with its near annihilation.

Others argue that there is something deeper taking place in Poland as the country heals from the double wounds of Nazi and communist domination. "There is commercialism, but that is foam on the surface," Gebert said. "This is one of the deepest ethical transformations that our country is undergoing.

¶ authoritarianism culture history jewish judaism poland rebellion [1 comment]

Could this be the greatest piece of religious tat ever?

Sadly, it is also a fire hazard and has been withdrawn. Expect to find the few remaining ones on eBay and/or in the religious-kitsch collections of lucky hipsters.

(via reddragdiva) ¶ jewish kitsch m&ms [no comments]

Santiago Sierra, the Mexican conceptual artist who, in the past, hired labourers to masturbate, created casts of prostitutes' genitals and invited patrons to an art opening which was blocked off (thus demonstrating that they were more concerned with free champagne than aesthetic experiences), is back. His latest project involved turning a former synagogue in Germany into a gas chamber:

The Mexico-based artist has parked six cars outside the synagogue and attached their exhaust pipes to the building using plastic tubes. It is then filled with deadly gas. Visitors are invited to go inside one by one wearing a gas mask, escorted by a firefighter. Before being allowed in, they have to sign a disclaimer stating they realise the room is full of carbon monoxide.

The comments in the Guardian's blog raise some interesting points, with some claiming a second subtext, equating personal automobiles with genocide, and others comparing it to a notional installation spraying the inside of a mosque with pigs' blood.

¶ art conceptual art holocaust jewish judaism performance art [no comments]

A request for help from one "Adoh Fadduq" of the United Arab Emirates, found in gnu.emacs.help:

Insha Allah, I am now trying to choose an editor for my software development and typesetting work. I have closely considered Emacs, which fits my needs in some respects. I do, however, feel that there is a big security issue with it for me and my brethren: Emacs was largely developed by Jews and for Jews. Considering how cunning the Jews are, I would not be surprised to find that they have hidden special bugs and booby traps inside emacs, in order to spy on and disrupt work of my Allah believing brethren. Are my concerns justified?

(via dreamstooloud) ¶ anti-semitism emacs islam jewish paranoia programming united arab emirates wtf [no comments]

In the latest round of H.P. Lovecraft adaptation: A Shoggoth On The Roof: the Musical, featuring songs like Byakhee Byakhee and If I Was A Deep One, and a gay-themed horror film titled Cthulhu.

(via bOING bOING, substitute) ¶ camp cthulhu fiddler on the roof gay jewish kitsch lovecraft satire [no comments]

A paper recently published by the University of Utah makes several controversial statements: that Ashkenazi Jews have genetic mutations which enhance their cognitive abilities, making them more intelligent than average, that this originated from selection pressures in mediæval Europe (where Jews could only make a living in various cognitively-demanding niches, many of which Christians were barred from), and that the same mutations cause many of the degenerative diseases common among the Ashkenazi population, as well as high incidences of depression (could it be no coincidence that cities with high Jewish populations (such as New York and Buenos Aires) have the most psychiatrists?):

Greg has referred to this hypothesis as "overclocking". The analogy is to overclocking computer processors (computer processing units or CPUs). Some hobbyists turn up the clocks on their desktop PCs to them run faster than they were designed to run. This can cause system instability and other problems. In the case of the Ashkenazis in Europe the hypothesis proposes that selective pressures for higher Ashkenazi intelligence were so high that it caused the propagation of mutations that pushed their intelligence up so quickly (evolutonarily speaking) that the selective pressure overrode the reduction in reproductive fitness caused by the deleterious side effects on some of those who received those mutations. The problem with overclocking is that "Sometimes you get away with it, sometimes you don't."

More generally, if this is what I think it is, all these Ashkenazi neurological diseases are hints of ways in which one could supercharge intelligence. One, by increasing dendrite growth: two, by fooling with myelin: three, something else, whatever is happening in torsion dystonia. In some cases the difference is probably an aspect of development, not something you can turn on and off. In other cases, the effect might exist when the chemical influence is acting and disappear when the influence does. In either case, it seems likely that we could - if we wanted to - developed pharmaceutical agents that had similar effects. The first kind, those affecting development, would be something that might have to be administered early in life, maybe before birth. while the second kind would be 'smart pills' that one could pop as desired or as needed. Of course, we have to hope that we can find ways of improving safety. Would you take a pill that increased your IQ by 10 or 15 points that also had a 10% chance of putting you in a wheel chair?

"It would be hard to overstate how politically incorrect this paper is," said Steven Pinker, a cognitive scientist at Harvard, noting that it argues for an inherited difference in intelligence between groups. Still, he said, "it's certainly a thorough and well-argued paper, not one that can easily be dismissed outright."

(via /.) ¶ ashkenazi evolutionary psychology genetics jewish steven pinker [no comments]

Kinky Friedman, arguably the world's most famous Jewish cowboy detective novelist and author of songs like Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns Into Bed and They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus No More, has announced that he will follow in the footsteps of Jesse Ventura and run for Governor of Texas.

Friedman is the latest representative of an American trend known to detractors as anti-politics and to the more charitable (including me) as narrative politics. The former argue that voters are demonstrating their contempt for democracy by choosing jokes; the latter that, for an electorate increasingly shaped by the grammar of movies and television, the most attractive candidate will be the one whose bid most closely resembles a Hollywood pitch. This makes non-politicians attractive because their very improbability becomes their compelling storyline.

Of course, the powers that be are cluing into this trend and running politically naïve but photogenic celebrity candidates whose platforms consist of vague motherhood statements about being against bad things and for good things, knowing that the real decisions the voters don't want to worry their pretty heads over will be delegated to faceless administrators and, some would say, unelected representatives of vested interests who will benefit from them; thus the causal chain between the popular election of politicians and the appointment of decision-makers is broken. (According to investigative journalist Greg Palast, one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's first actions as Governor of California was to basically let the managers of Enron off the hook for screwing Californians with rigged electricity prices.) Americans, however, seem to be eating it up; enough so that now there's a campaign to amend the Constitution to allow foreign-born Schwarzenegger to run for President in 2008.

Of course, which is not to say that the Kinkster is necessarily the pawn of powerful interests. Given his lack of a serious platform (or, for that matter, of his spouting of comfortingly "sincere" homilies), he's probably more like the American Screaming Lord Sutch than anything else.

¶ arnold schwarzenegger celebrity cowboy enron jewish kinky friedman politics screaming lord sutch texas usa [no comments]

A cross-dressing Hasidic man was charged with murder after the death of a rabbi, with whom he was sharing a flat, in New York.

Goldstein was dressed in a gray blouse with a plunging neckline, dark slacks and pink high-heeled shoes, a police source said. His face was made up with bright red lipstick and blue eye shadow that clashed with his long beard, the source said.

(via tyrsalvia)

¶ bizarre crime death hasidic jewish murder religion transvestites wtf [no comments]

This evening, I watched a DVD of The Believer, a US independent film from a few years ago about a young Jewish man from New York who became a neo-Nazi skinhead. It was very interesting, and explored the main character and his motivations and contradictions in good detail, without copping out and relying on clichés. (For example, it appeared that to him, anti-Semitism was a sort of negative Judaism, much as Satanism is a negative Christianity; despite (or perhaps because of) his hatred for his rejected Jewish culture, he cannot let go of it entirely; meanwhile, in an ironic touch, his girlfriend, the fucked-up and masochistically submissive daughter of neo-Nazis, ended up getting deeply into Jewish religious rituals after learning them from him, ostensibly in a "know your enemy" context.) I found it intelligent and thought-provoking. (I picked up the DVD for $7.95 from my local Video Ezy; you may be able to find it at a similar price.)

¶ film jewish neo-nazis [no comments]

Bizarre musical juxtapositions of today: Li'l Gn'R, the "first ever Guns n' Roses kids tribute band", and Jewdriver, an all-Jewish band playing tribute to neo-Nazi "white power" band Skrewdriver (and apparently fronted by one "Aryan Sharon"). (Unfortunately, though, the Jewdriver site isn't Mozilla-friendly, and all the links are covered up by a gig flyer in an IFRAME.) (via Rocknerd and cnwb, respectively)

¶ children guns'n'roses irony jewish juxtaposition neo-nazis white power [4 comments]

Who says different people can't live in harmony? In a heartwarming display of what is possible, Neo-Nazis and Jewish extremists have put their differences aside, teaming up to produce anti-Arab hate sites. Perhaps that's the secret to reconciliation and peaceful coexistence: finding someone both parties despise even more. (via The Fix)

¶ bigotry extremists hate jewish neo-nazis [2 comments]

An interesting article by an American Jew in Germany, about cultural identity, history, bootywhang and wacky Germans in films (including The Big Lebowski, Graham). (via Reenhead)

¶ culture germany history jewish [no comments]

Proof that terrorist whackos come from all stripes: The FBI has arrested the chairman of the Jewish Defence League, the militant Jewish nationalist group founded by the late Meir Kahane, over plans to blow up a mosque in Los Angeles and the office of a congressman of Arab descent. According to an informant, the attacks were planned as a "wake-up call" for Arabs. (Presumably Arabs being kicked off flights for their suspicious names and skin colour and randomly assaulted by all-American rednecks (along with turban-wearing Sikhs) wasn't enough of a wake-up call.)

¶ 9/11 extremists jewish terrorism [no comments]