Wex

Wex is no Beau Brummell

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Anyone who knows me can tell you, “That Wex is a nice guy, but he’s certainly no Beau Brummell.” Having grown up in the 60’s, when middle-class Jewish boys were dying to look like sharecroppers, I’ve remained opgerisn un opgeshlisn, “ragged and tattered,” ever since, much to the chagrin of my daughter and wife....

Marilla

Michael Wex’s attack on Wagner

The following is an article Wex published in the Canadian Theatre Review, no. 103, Summer 2000 as an introduction to his play I Just Wanna Jewify: The Yiddish Revenge on Wagner, which premiered at Harbourfront Theatre, Toronto, in 1999. It´s hard to Be a Jew: Culture Clash I In the winter of 1998, I received an e-mail from Heiko Lehmann, the Berlin half of Golus Storytheatre Toronto-Berlin, in which he...

Wex

You could live if they’d let you…

I wish that I could say that I’m kvetching in the country, but no––that would be too much of a luxury, that might come too close to entertainment. And God forbid I should have any of that. No, it isn’t I who’s kvetching out here: I’m the victim, I’m the one who’s being kvetched about. Here’s what happened. I was invited to speak at a rustic kosher retreat as part of a larger program of...

Wex

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is Jewish

Just the other day, I heard my daughter say “Napoleon Solo.” If these words mean nothing to you, hurry to your local video store and demand copies of all 105 episodes of the ‘sixties television classic, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Napoleon Solo, played by Robert Vaughn, was its major character, though my daughter, a true child of a child of the ‘sixties, insists that David McCallum’s character, Ilya...

Wex

Yiddish insults

Oys businessman! I’m sick of the business world, much of which now seems to be run by people who behave like adolescents— or even fully-grown children––who are busy doing any one of a number of nothings: ER TSELEYGT ZIKH VI BAYM TATN IN VAYNGORTN He’s lying around like he’s in his father’s vineyard when his cell phone begins to ring. Typically for someone VOOS TIT NISHT KA’ HANT IN KALT...