Pop Culture

During the last two years writing my first book, Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America, I’ve found that, over the past three decades, white people have used hip-hop as a safe, virtual space to tackle or elude the complicated legacy (and present) of race in our country. Every time we buy a Ying-Yang Twins CD or bust a backspin or attempt to use Ebonics, we are telling ourselves a story—about America, about race, and about ourselves. So what story are Jews, specifically, telling ourselves? What draws so many of us to keep it (Is)real? (Full disclosure: that joke was stolen from respected Jewish hip-hop blogger Dan Charnas. See? We're everywhere!) My fascination with hip-hop has always intrigued and amused my third-generation Italian wife, Denise, who grew up in the more ethnically explicit suburbs of Long Island and always wondered ...

"My mudda didn't love me enough": The cracked masculinity of Tony SopranoIn the pilot episode of The Sopranos, mob captain Tony Soprano and his teenage daughter Meadow sit in an old, empty church. Tony marvels at the place—its grandeur, its history—and tries to get his daughter to do the same. “Your great-grandfather and his brother Frank—they built this place. Stone and marble workers,” he says with pride. Meadow is skeptical—just the two of them? “No,” Tony explains. “They were two guys on a crew of, you know, ...

Now that The New Republic’s Britt Peterson has come out as a highbrow porn star (well, extra), we thought we’d get in on the cerebral smut racket by offering the following compendium of recycled Jewcy articles all about the oldest profession in San Fernando Valley. We took some heat back in the day for doing what all Jewish magazines must do when they come alive and try to titillate the reader with uncensored displays of chosen carnality. A few dames in cyberville even claimed that the Jewcy was going to be just another playground for the undersexed nebbish pumping up web traffic with his one free hand. We’d like to think we’ve matured and evolved since then —or, at any rate, cured our acne. And as you’ll find, plowing past our famed Joanna Angel-plus-mom interview, our respect for the skin trade has taken on ...

The recent screen-to-stage Broadway debut of Legally Blonde: The Musical might pass, to the untrained eye, for just another piece of Times Square popcorn poop. Count a New York Times critic among the naifs; according to Ben Brantley, the musical “approximates the experience of eating a jumbo box of Gummy Bears in one sitting.” And that’s a bad thing? Its lack of intellectual cachet is just one of several factors at work against my campaign to garner Legally Blonde’s fair heroine, Elle Woods, a footnote in the pantheon of great American Jewish thought. Among the more obvious: Elle Woods isn’t Jewish. Less importantly, the film producer’s daughter was in my bunk for one hellish summer at Camp Ramah, which brings back more crappy memories than ...

Despite a long history of persecution, modern Jews have it pretty cushy today. We own the banks, obviously. We also control the media (as recently confirmed by Judith Regan), which supports our long-term goal of world domination, as does our ruthless manipulation of the cabal that secures us parking spaces close to good brunch spots. And, thanks to a holiday schedule rooted in Old Testament harvesting celebrations, we enjoy a suspicious number of days off from work every autumn. The Jewish Cowboy: ...

The Paint in Spain: Scenes from Dave's trip to Barcelona with graffiti writer Saber (click to pop out) A Korean bad-ass with a can of spray paint, maybe one of the more brilliant young American artists working today, David Choe will introduce himself this Saturday to the New York art world with his first gallery showing in Manhattan.