Social Media Ideas for Leonard Michaels

From the Archive: “The Mayakovsky of MacDougal Street”

Episode 20 of Private Life

No One

A genius encumbered by loss: A haunted Jewish poet is brought back to life

What I learned from 180 pounds of Yiddish books, one ‘interesting and complicated’ Jewish man, and Jorge Luis Borges

I’ve never met Harris Saltzberg, but one day last summer, I went to his house to abduct 180 pounds of his Yiddish books. He lived in a sturdy brown-brick co-op in Chelsea. In the l...

Moses Found Brevity to be the Soul of Levity and Wit

[…] The post Moses Found Brevity to be the Soul of Levity and Wit appeared first on Jewish Journal.

Realistic High-School-Yearbook Inscriptions

“You will read this once this afternoon and not again until you’re in your fifties, but, by that time, I will have already died, alone in my apartment, totally nude, except for my...

Before Grindr, Michael Alago Captured Queer Lust One Polaroid at a Time (Exclusive)

In Polaroid Encounters, Michael Alago revisits queer intimacy, masculinity, and a vanished New York.

Ben Lerner on the Writer in Therapy

The author discusses his story “The Readers.”

Barthelme, the Houstonian

“Barthelme died in 1989, at the age of fifty-eight. I was at college and heard the news from a friend who worked at a Kinko’s to which one of the Barthelme brothers had brought Don...

The Vanishing Library: Timothy Ely’s Odd Little Book from Outer Space

“The few words it contains are indecipherable, of no language. (The letters look Hebrew—if you don’t know Hebrew and have never seen Hebrew letters before.)”

For Mel Brooks and generations of his admirers, 100 years is not enough

Of how many Jewish comedians can it be sincerely said that 100 years of life is not enough? Mel Brooks (born Kaminsky) who celebrates his centenary on June 28, has long been inspir...

My Manic Pixie Dream Femme Fatale

Her legs went all the way up to the fringe of her babydoll dress. Presumably further than that, but that’s where the bright polka dots distracted me from theorizing. They clashed w...

Michael Mordecai: The Man Who Keeps Austin Jazz Moving

Michael Mordecai has spent decades inside the machinery of Austin jazz: on the bandstand, behind the phone, at the booking desk, in the contractor's chair and in the community room...

A Yiddish lecture in Munich by literature scholar Nathan Cohen

דעם 17טן יוני וועט נתן כּהן, אַן אָנגעזעענער פֿאָרשער פֿון דער ייִדישער ליטעראַטור בײַם בר־אילן אוניווערסיטעט, האַלטן אַ רעפֿעראַט אויף ייִדיש בײַם אוניווערסיטעט אויפֿן נאָמען פֿון...

Lenny Kaye to Sit for A New York Evening with Michael Imperioli

Longtime Patti Smith Group guitarist, and newly minted solo artist, Lenny Kaye will take part in the Grammy Museum’s A New York Evening with… discussion series later this month. Mo...

A Life in Fragments

Memory is essential for our sense of self. We rekindle our experiences through our memories. Without memory, who are we, and how can we make sense of the world? The post A Life in...