The Unisphere
When I was a kid growing up in Queens, I did not know that the Unisphere is twelve stories high, nor that it weighs 700,000 pounds, nor that it is the largest structure on Earth made of stainless steel. All I knew was that it was huge and it was in the park where my […]
Read MoreThanks
Today is that peculiar holiday on which on which we pretend that acts of colonization and genocide were instead just a dinner party, and that the dysfunction of our families was instead just normal. Did you know that in South America, to kill turkeys, people get the turkey drunk until it dies of alcohol poisoning? […]
Read MoreRed America, I Am Everything You Hate
This post-election red-state/blue-state conventional wisdom is full of perversities. More people get divorced in the red states than the blue states. The amoral gay-marriage condoning pagans in Massachusetts have the lowest divorce rate in the country. The richest states in America–Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland and New York–are all blue. The “moral values” people in […]
Read MoreHow My Very Sensitive Family Asks For and Provides Support to One Another Via Telephone
Me: How are you, Mom? Mom: Oh, Emily. I have so much to do. I don’t think I’m going to make it. Me: Well, actually, Mom, none of us are going to make it. Or rather, all of us are going to make it–to the end. So don’t worry so much about whether you are […]
Read MoreHow to Achieve Immortality
Scientists estimate that 106,456,367,669 people have ever lived on Earth. Assuming (conservative estimate) that 10% of those people are gay and 50% of the remaining 90% are women, that leaves 47,905,365,400 people. Assuming the scenario I’m about to describe has happened to every straight woman at least once, we’ll just call this Example #47,905,365,400, give […]
Read MoreGoodbye, Laura Brannigan and/or Unpacking Flashdance: Narratives of Femininity and Failure
Laura Brannigan died this past August, at the early age of 47, of a brain aneurysm in her bed in Quogue. I was saddened to hear this. Laura Brannigan gave us the song “Gloria.” Not “Gloria” the Van Morrison song, “Gloria” the Laura Brannigan song. It went platinum in 1982 and was notably featured in […]
Read MoreIt’s Wednesday Again in America
Arlen Specter is the new hope for keeping the U.S. out of my ovaries. Why should being under investigation for gerrymandering keep Tom Delay from upholding our moral values as House Majority Leader? Why, indeed. The internet is jumping with frighteningly clever arguments for why the Vietnam-era phrase “we had to destroy the city in […]
Read MoreI Miss Howard Dean
Howard Dean, having joined the ranks of Al Gore and now John Kerry, is doing what all failed presidential candidates do once they are consigned to the dustbin of history. He is saying things that actually make sense. In a recent speech to students at Northwestern Univeristy, Dean said that Bush appealed “to homophobia and […]
Read Morewww.superleftysmommy.com
And now, another word from my mother. There used to be a television program “Queen for the Day” or was it “Queen for a Day.” My recollection is they paraded out an overweight housewive on daytime TV and put a fucking crown on her head, like Miss America, gave her flowers and prizes which consisted of washing […]
Read More180-x=The Talmud
One of the kids I tutor goes to yeshiva. She studies all the regular subjects, plus a full curriculum in Jewish history, law and scripture. Her dad is Israeli and she applies the pleasant iron will I associate with Israelis to her learning of SAT math. When I tell her f(x)=y, she says, “Why? Who […]
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