American Jewish Culture Recommendations (May)
Carole King and Gerry Goffin; Mark Rothko; and Neil Simon
Here are your three American Jewish culture recommendations for May:
“Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” by Carole King and Gerry Goffin is gorgeous in its simplicity. An article in The New York Times in the wake of Goffin’s death counts the syllables in the 108 words in the song: 81 percent have only one syllable, and another 13 percent have two. I tear up every time I see the 2014 Tony Awards performance from the musical Beautiful showing the pair writing the song the first time. “Will You Still…” (notice the internal rhyme?) is a masterpiece of conveying deep emotion with simple tools. That’s art.
Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Black on Gray). Rothko’s mature work is known for its huge colorful square blotches stacked two or three on top of each other. He was known as an abstract expressionist, which means he painted not to represent specific figures or even memories but rather his internal feelings. It’s said that being in front of a Rothko is a quasi-religious experience that cannot be captured in a reproduction. All that makes this, one of his last works, so unnerving. It’s definitely a Rothko, with a big black blotch over a big gray one. But the colors are gone; its washed-out glumness looks like an expression of deep depression - which it was. Rothko died by suicide soon after finishing it.
Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986 movie version). Everything about this play-turned-film should be depressing, except it’s not. It’s about Eugene Morris Jerome (a Simon doppelgänger) and his family living in a Brooklyn neighborhood in the late 1930s. It’s the Depression, the father has just lost his job and is dealing with serious health problems, one brother may have to quit his job, a widowed aunt’s possible escape with the Irish alcoholic across the street goes awry, and a dozen European relatives are hoping to escape the Nazis by coming to live with the already completely strapped Jeromes. Yet it’s really sweet and funny, given the wry humor surrounding the sexual - and literary - awakening of its 15-year-old protagonist. (A running gag is that Jews whisper when referring to a disease.) The film stars Jonathan Silverman and Blythe Danner, and keep your eyes peeled for a young Jason Alexander in a small role.
Registration for all my May online classes has opened (most classes are free):
Monday, May 4, Noon EDT: “Into the West Side Story Woods”
Monday, May 11, Noon EDT: American Jewish Women Photographers
Monday, May 18, Noon EDT: GI Jews (Philip Roth’s “Defender of the Faith” and Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues)
Monday, May 25 Noon EDT: “If You Could See Cabaret Through My Eyes”
Thursday, May 28 Bonus repeat Shavuot class (special time) 11 am EDT: Debbie Friedman 101
Finally, please consider doing me the kindness of helping spread the word about my classes by posting tinyurl.com/BenkofClasses on your Facebook or other social media. You can just write “My friend David Benkof is offering weekly free online classes on Jewish culture” even if you’re not personally participating.
Stay safe!