Wex

Gimme a pigfoot

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!This is the third of five guest blog posts I wrote for Powell's Books. Minibrix was about as handy as Wex ever got... Anybody who's ever seen me try to hammer a nail into a piece of wood or build a scale model of the Temple of Solomon out of kitchen matches and popsicle sticks will know what I mean when I say that forcing me...

Wex

Wex the luftmentsh

Traveling from town to town on the Jewish Book Fair circuit, I’m beginning to feel like part of the great collective known as orkhe-porkhe--hoboes, vagrants, yidishe bindlestiffs like Stuffy Derma, the tramp on the old Milton the Monster Show. The term comes from the Hebrew oreakh poreakh, "a flying guest,” one who's here today and gone tomorrow. Unlike those of us who collect royalties, real...

Wex

Can’t keep from kvetchin’

This is the second of five guest blog posts I wrote for Powell's Books. I'm working desperately to finish a book manuscript in the next four to six weeks, so accounts of my day-to-day adventures in the world at large, not to mention life in the fast-paced Yiddish lane — where Polident seems to be replacing KY as the gel of choice — don't tend to feature much in the way of incident. Today, for instance,...

Wex

The season of the drunk

Now that Thanksgiving has passed, there’s no doubt that we’re well embarked on what my parents used to call shikker-tsayt, “season of the drunk,” a temporally fluid festive period observed by selected members of the dominant European and North American faith community. According to the Shulkhan Arukh ha-Mom, the strictly oral code of Jewish law composed by my mother and revealed only to members of...

Wex

Matzohs with the Fuehrer

This is the first of five guest blog posts I wrote for Powell's Books. It's been quite a while since I attended shul — synagogue — with any regularity. Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, holidays that feature memorial prayers, and the anniversaries of my parents' deaths are about the only time you'll find me there these days, other than for weddings, bar mitzvahs and similar celebrations. And work — let's...