Janet Malcolm
Ladies Lead in PEN's Literary Awards
Expect more gowns than tuxedos at the PEN awards ceremony on May 19 at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. The PEN American Center has concluded and it's clear the sisters are doin' it for themselves. Biographer Janet Malcolm, novelist Cynthia Ozick, playwright Sarah Ruhl, translator Margaret Jull Costa, children's literature author Theresa Nelson and poets Rosmarie Waldrop and Kimiko Hahn are among those to receive awards. Playwright Richard Nelson, whose Roman-era work Conversations in Tusculum was recently staged on Broadway, is the only guy among the honorees. He received the PEN/Laura Pels Foundation Award for Drama along with Ms. Ruhl, who wrote Dead Man's Cellphone, which starred Mary-Louise Parker.
The New Yorker Uses the G-Word
That said, I question the casual use, twice, of the word "goyim," without ital, without quotation marks, to refer to non-Jews. In a piece that shows some sensitivity on the issue of Christians' misunderstanding of Jews (they say we're not forgiving, and that's antisemitic), the use of "goyim" evinces a lack of understanding by Jews of their own situation. The word means "the nation," the gentile world, and has a dash of Boratish wariness and hostility. It is Yiddish, and is not like shlep or chutzpah, that is, an assimilated neutral word. It's a signal to other Jews, Let's talk as landsmen. I think it's arrogant and exclusionary. Jews have large cultural power in America; acting as if we're still some persecuted subgroup is way way beneath us. I gather from one gentile friend that he has friends who feel themselves to be outside the cultural establishment and have appropriated the word "goyim" to refer to themselves, in something of the proud/resentful way that blacks took on the n-word. I know, the cultural valences aren't the same. But it's loaded—why make half your audience feel excluded?
[I note that Wikipedia agrees with me here...]
In Today's Paper: A Meeting In The Ladies Room
Of course, last night the Observer broke the news about Rupert Murdoch installing himself as publisher of the NY Post.
And, in The Transom itself, the story of two dogs, one rich, one poor, and the assault that brought them together. Plus, the second item, on Citizens Band, explicates the new sincere downton cabaret.
The summer reading round-up is rather fantastic: Janet Malcolm is reading Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Daniel Harris' Diary of a Drag Queen. When asked what she liked about the books, she replied, "What's not to like?" Ah, Ms. Malcolm, always the marvel of economy. And Nicholas Kristoff is reading... Harry Potter. And from Frank Gehry: "What makes you think I read?" Indeed. read more »
Also: Thomas Krens takes his apartment off the market. What means this for the museum director's Guggenheimlich future?
