Writing
King of Comedy
There was a stand-up comic in LA who used to say, "Comedy is dead. What you're laughing at is ridicule."Ridicule is a lot easier than comedy - and it takes a lot less talent.
The Line Goes On Forever
I remember a photograph on the cover of a book. A photograph of a road. A very long, very straight road, the kind that you find in the heartland of America.
Groggy!
A grogger isn't the feeling in your head the day after a successful Purim.
A grogger (or gregger, or gragger) is Yiddish for a rattle of the type favored by soccer supporters.
The Last Laugh
When Sir Donald Wolfit, the last of the English actor/managers, was lying on his deathbed, one of his young actors said to him: “Sir Donald, after a life so filled with success and fame, dying must be hard…”
The Month of Adar
Some 2,360 years ago in Persia, when Haman plotted the genocide of the Jewish People, he consulted the stars to see which month would be the most propitious to execute his murderous plan.
The Winter of our Discontent
If we were to compare the seasons of the year to the ages of man, which age would winter represent?"Old age," you would say. Winter connotes the chill of rapidly receding years and ultimate death. Winter's snow covers the world with a white and aging head. In every language, winter symbolizes old age. every language, that is, except one. In hebrew, the word for "winter," choref, can also connote the hidden burgeoning of youth into maturity.
The Tree of Heaven
More than anything, life is about distinguishing the essence from the nonsense.This world is no more than the wrapping that conceals a vast gift. The wrapping is important - you can only get to the gift through the wrapping - but it's all too easy to get sidetracked by the beautiful wrapping and throw away the gift.
Not Written In Stone
Don't you sometimes feel like your life is written in stone - that you can't change? Sometimes, we want to go back to a more innocent time - a time when we were pure and our hearts unsullied. But we feel we can't break the mold we're stuck in. We've created a treadmill from past bad decisions, and now we seem doomed to run like a rat around and around...visiting and revisiting all the mistakes we've ever made.
The Month of Shevat
The sign of the Jewish People is Aquarius the Pitcher. Just as the purpose of a pitcher is to be a vessel to carry water, so the purpose of the Jewish People is to be the "Water Carrier" - the vessel of the living waters of the Torah.
Night Killer
Times Square, new York City. Piccadilly Circus, london. le Champs elys�es, Paris. A million watts of electricity turning night into day. We live in a society that prides itself on being twenty-four-hour, round-the-clock. We never close. Our culture has blurred the distinction between the two halves of the day so that, on a social level, night has become day.
Art for Art’s Sake
Why are artists the most selfish people in the world? The petulant behavior of rock stars is legion. The solitary painter locked in his garret creating his masterpiece with uneaten meals piling up around him is a well-worn clich�. Bad temper and tantrums are not only tolerated, but are often mistaken for a yardstick of talent.
Persistence of Vision
If you take a reel of movie film and unwind it, you'll find that it consists of hundreds and thousands of still pictures. The whole magic of the cinema is based on a peculiarity of the human brain. When presented with separate images in rapid succession, the brain ceases to discern them as separate images, rather it links them all together.
Return of the Sun
Take a look at any horoscope and you'll see that the astrological year always begins with Aries.
Why? logically, shouldn't the astrological year commence at the same time as the solar year? Why isn't G'di, Capricorn - the sign in which the first of January falls - the first sign of the year?
The Month of Tevet
The Philistines are the nation associated with the sign of the goat (g'dee).
Artists of the Soul
All of us experience moments of poetry.
They may come from events in our personal lives - the reuniting of long-lost family, a birth, a death. Or these moments of inspiration may spring from this world of teeming splendor, from our sense of joy and wonder at the creation.
The Helping Hand
Little children find it very difficult to do things by themselves. They need a constant helping hand, constant encouragement. They can be bold, but only when daddy is close by. When he's out of sight, tears quickly replace bravado until once again they feel the hand that comforts.
Skin Deep
Six fifteen a.m. Avenue of the Stars, Hollywood, California. fifteen years since I drove this road. A long fifteen years. In the quiet light, I see two concrete monoliths hidden away from the road, looming above the trees. hours ago these concrete monsters, giant Hollywood sound stages, had already risen from their slumber. In the dawn glow, they seem more formidable than I remember them.
The Secret of the Dreidel
The dreidel.
A children's game, played in the firelight of a cold winter night, the menora silently glowing in the window... The dreidel. four sides spinning around the still point in the turning circle; spinning so fast that its sides blur into nothingness... The dreidel. So seemingly insignificant - and yet this little dreidel contains the story of the Jewish people; the history of the whole world.
The Month of Kislev
Kislev's sign is the Bow (Keshet, in Hebrew).
At the beginning of Kislev the first rainbow was seen after the Flood. The rainbow symbolizes the pact that God made with Noach never again to destroy the world with water.
Hush
If you want someone to be quiet, if you want them to listen, you raise your finger to your lips and say, "Shh!"
