Jewish Comedy: A Serious History

In this 2017 text, Jeremy Dauber, a professor of Yiddish literature, investigates the history of Jewish comedy, the contexts that created it, its most influential figures, and the changes it has undergone.

Conventional comedy wisdom counsels us to never explain the joke. Not only does this book’s premise fly in the face of that, but Dauber often cranks that defiance up to eleven, granting several jokes enough in-depth analysis to suck any pretense of humor from them. As a result, this is likely the least funny book about comedy you will ever read. It is also not a “history” in the conventionally understood sense. It does not follow a chronology and jumps frequently in time (from contemporary Jewish American comedy to subtle biblical humor to Borscht Belt icons) as Dauber moves from topic to topic. Instead, it is best understood as a sociology of Jewish comedy: a look at the relationship between jokes/jokers and the societies they often lampooned.

Read through that lens, Dauber’s account is learned and frequently insightful. He shows how Jewish comedy has changed from a quasi-defense mechanism (Jews making fun of the gentiles who ostracized them) to a reaction to assimilation (Jews making fun of other Jews who seem to have shed their Jewishness) to a force that helped define American comedy for years to come (think the success and influence of Mort Sahl, Woody Allen, and the creators of Seinfeld). He also unearths often-overlooked humor in biblical narratives, such as the irony-laden comedy of errors that befalls Haman, the jealous, scheming antagonist of the Purim story.

Though at times a dense and ponderous read, Jewish Comedy does a respectable job of unpacking the genre’s tropes, trends, and tendencies.

Rockaway Eatery

Located at 4835 West Wendover Avenue in Jamestown, Rockaway Eatery serves globally influenced cuisine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as coffee drinks. It is open seven days per week, and specials change regularly. Catering is also available.

It is a common practice for pizza places and delis in this area to advertise their Big Apple bonafides (or delusions thereof). Restaurants with Manhattan, Brooklyn, or even just New York in their name are hard to miss. Rockaway Eatery, on the other hand, takes its moniker from a peninsula in Queens. This appeal to (relative, and by the standards of the area, at least) obscurity is just one of many ways the eclectic eatery bucks the norm.

Walk inside, and you may immediately find yourself wondering if you made the right decision. The interior features bright orange paint and an almost comically large wrap-around front counter. Said counter’s dimensions are necessary to provide enough room to display the full extent of the menu. For the fickle and indecisive, this place is a nightmare.

Everyone else, however, will likely see uncertainty fade into joy upon perusing the menu. Want bagels or a breakfast sandwich? Rockaway has them. Want a burger, salad, or wrap? Rockaway has those too. How about a vegetable and rice bowl featuring jerk chicken, tikka masala, or Salisbury steak? Check, check, and check. What about those same toppings….over fries with cheese curds? Yes, Rockaway Eatery offers several kinds of poutine as well. Add to that coffees, smoothies, and desserts, and one would be very hard pressed to run out of interesting things to try here.

Fortunately, there is more to Rockaway then just a fun and funky menu. During our visit, staff were patient and accommodating while my wife and I figured out what we wanted, and our food came out relatively quickly. She opted for a southwest burger while I went for the Salisbury steak poutine and a lean green smoothie (because balance). The flavors all around left no room for complaint. The poutine’s gravy was rich and savory while the burger came with a delicious chipotle ranch sauce. Both dishes used Rockaway’s tri-blend meat, which was quality. The fries, in either their regular or gravy-slathered incarnations, were salty and crisp while the smoothie (mango, pineapple, banana, spinach, kale, and apple juice) was suitably refreshing. The only demerit goes to the burger being served somewhere between medium well and well done instead of the requested medium.

Much like the similarly eclectic Toshi’s Café, Rockaway Eatery isn’t a cheap breakfast or lunch option. Smoothies come in a 24-ounce size only and run $5.50, poutine goes for $7.50 to $9, and burgers are $8.50 to $11.50, fries included. Also much like Toshi’s, the quality relative to nearby fast food/fast casual makes the prices paid worthwhile.

Having sampled only a fraction of what Rockaway Eatery has to offer, it would be difficult to gauge whether the rest of the food is as tasty as the few items we tried. With a menu that large, there are bound to be weak spots. However, the breadth of options available, coupled with friendly service, encourages several return visits. 

The House of Broken Angels

Not long after burying his own mother, Big Angel de La Cruz, the revered, terminally ill patriarch of a large Mexican-American family gathers his kin for one final celebration before he says goodbye. Attending him are his wife, Perla, his daughter Minerva/”La Minnie,” his son Lalo, and his half-American half-brother and namesake Little Angel, among others. Past and present converge as Big Angel’s memories illuminate his final days.

Luis Alberto Urrea’s 2018 novel comes from what is likely a place of pain. Like Little Angel, Urrea has had to juggle Mexican and American identities, and also like Little Angel, the author recently lost an older brother. But despite this inherently sorrowful premise, The House of Broken Angels is far from being simply a sad read. Urrea tempers the novel with vivid writing and equal parts humor and pathos.

Though Big Angel is arguably the focal point, The House of Broken Angels tells a multigenerational story from a variety of perspectives. The sheer number of characters is a chore to keep up with though few, if any, are dull. Perla, outwardly the doting wife, still bitterly recalls being scorned by her in-laws as a dark-skinned peasant. Lalo, a weary military veteran, lives in the shadow of his murdered brother, whom his own son presses him to avenge. The relationship between the two Angels is also fraught with tension as the two live in different worlds despite sharing mutual respect as well as a name. There’s also a benevolent priest, a tyrannical boat captain uncle, and a grand-nephew who plays in a metal band as The Satanic Hispanic.

The novel’s tones are every bit as rich and diverse as its cast. Urrea pokes gentle fun at border Spanglish and the Mexican preoccupation with impractically large American cars. However, he also offers sincere critiques of stereotyping, machismo, and classism.

All of this makes for a rewarding read, but it would have to be given the book’s nearly fatal flaw: an at-times stultifying lack of momentum. The House of Broken Angels dispenses with a conventional plot in favor of a series of character sketches, and not since Mrs Dalloway has a book, in its worst moments, felt so listless and stalled. The saving grace here is that there are enough humorous, humanizing, shocking, or otherwise compelling beats in both the past (a brazen attempt to smuggle a green parrot across the border) and present (Big Angel stubbornly trying to act on his attraction to his wife despite the limits imposed by his failing health) to compensate for its structural incoherence and bouts of tedium.

The House of Broken Angels has as much capacity to alienate as it does to captivate, but for those who are willing to look past its inconsistencies and character bloat, it is meaningful, impassioned, and warm. For a book ostensibly about dying, it is remarkably full of life.

NOTE: Urrea narrates the audiobook version himself and does a fantastic job.

The Death of Stalin

In 1953, after Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) suffers a cerebral hemorrhage, his inner circle vies to replace him. Interior minister Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale), the brutal head of the secret police, vies to consolidate power with deputy premier Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor) as his pliable puppet. They are opposed by ambitious reformer Nikita Krushchev (Steve Buscemi) while foreign minister Vycheslav Molotov (Michael Palin), Stalin’s beloved daughter Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough), drunken buffoon son Vasily (Rupert Friend), and others are caught in the middle.

Written and directed by Armando Iannucci, The Death of Stalin has a divisive premise: Soviet atrocities as black comedy and nary an attempted Russian accent to be found. Some will see this as a tasteless and inaccurate attempt to make light of atrocities. However, a truer-to-history take may very well have been unbearably depressing. For those who can stomach Iannucci’s idiosyncratic approach, The Death of Stalin offers an equal amount of amusement and discomfort delivered by a capable cast.

Performances here are deceptive: many characters initially come across as exaggerated caricatures only to later reveal a more genuine (for better or worse) core. Buscemi plays Krushchev as mercurial and power-hungry yet also human enough to be disgusted by his more barbarous foes: essentially, this is his Boardwalk Empire character born again in Moscow. Tambor is hilariously ineffectual as the pliable, indecisive Malenkov, who nevertheless recognizes the impossibility of his position. Beale’s Beria makes for an inviting target for the enmity of political opponents and the audience alike: a scheming sadist and rapist who was somehow even worse in real life. Among the supporting roles, Jason Isaacs stands out as the medal-chested Marshal Zhukov, whose defeat of the Nazis emboldens him to troll everyone with aplomb while Olga Kurylenko lends steely defiance to Maria Yudina, a dissident musician.

This cast is given no shortage of quality material to work with, some invented and some only seeming as if it was. There’s Stalin commanding his cronies to join him in watching a Western, a room full of the political elite bumbling to decipher his dying gesture of pointing to a painting, Zhukov punching a drunk and ranting Vasily, and rival factions trying to literally outrun each other to appear at Svetlana’s side. The comedy is tempered by the realization that people were killed for the “crimes” of being in the general vicinity when Stalin expired, something the film acknowledges but relegates to a background event.

In keeping with history, the end of the movie finds Krushchev triumphant and his opponents vanquished albeit with an up-and-coming Leonid Brezhnev looking over his shoulder, ready to start the cycle of scheming and betrayal anew. This futility helps imbue the The Death of Stalin with a biting, fatalistic edge. Ultimately, it makes for questionable history but a darkly amusing look at ruthless politicians trying to out-bastard one another to victory.

Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup

In the early 2000s, charismatic Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes starts the medical technology company Theranos. She raises millions of dollars on a promise to be able to conduct numerous medical tests from a single drop of blood. Theranos’s reputation grows as Holmes attracts more investors, befriends the political elite, and forges a partnership with Walgreens. Amid all the hype, however, the company’s proprietary technology proves unreliable, a fact that Holmes and her COO (and secret boyfriend) Ramesh “Sunni” Balwani conceal by maintaining a cloud of secrecy and either firing employees who raise ethical concerns or intimidating them to remain silent. As Theranos ramps up its promises, veteran lab director Alan Beam and junior employees Tyler Schultz and Erika Chueng can’t abide by the idea of gambling with patients’ health and decide to blow the whistle, only to find themselves under surveillance and facing litigation.

Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou’s book-length examination of Theranos’s rise and fall is an engrossing look at the extent to which smart people will delude themselves rather than admit that they were wrong. This is true not only of Holmes, a black turtleneck-clad figure with an artificially deep voice who models herself after Steve Jobs, but also of those who believed in her and took up Theranos’s cause despite the seemingly obvious need for skepticism. Said dupes include the esteemed likes of former secretary of state George Schultz (Tyler’s grandfather, awkwardly) and future secretary of defense James Mattis.

Bad Blood reveals not only truths that its principal actors were loath to confront but also those that a segment of its audience may shy away from as well. Those expecting to encounter older white conservative men behind acts of corporate malfeasance will have to reckon with a cast of villains that includes a manipulative young woman (Holmes), a Pakistani bully (Balwani), and an aggressive Democratic lawyer (David Boies), all of whom were complicit in years of fraud, deceit, and intimidation. Meanwhile, the heroes include a young white man from a privileged family (Tyler Schultz, who risked both litigation and estrangement from his powerful grandfather), a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper that refused to back down, and even Murdoch himself in a way (for refusing to kill the Journal’s story despite his own investment in Theranos and a personal appeal by Holmes). Yes, Carreyrou comes across as annoyingly self-congratulatory at times, and his summation of Holmes’s character is nothing if not vindictive, but then again, maintaining objectivity would prove a chore after being denounced, surveilled, and threatened with frivolous lawsuits.

To his credit, Carreyrou balances intrigue – Balwani’s outbursts, cloak-and-dagger secrecy, legal chicanery, and his own quest to get ahold of a regulatory report that Theranos tried to bury – with workmanlike explanations of blood draws and testing procedures. Bad Blood is quite accessible to readers who lack a background or even an interest in medicine or biotechnology though some of the examples given (surprise, the Edison machine failed again!) may come across as repetitive.

A fascinating read that fits the “truth is stranger than fiction” maxim, Bad Blood is a sobering exposé that reminds us that the appropriate response to “We can do it” should not be a pat on the back but a “Can you really?”

Little Ari's Japanese Kitchen

Located at 4129 Spring Garden St. in Greensboro, Little Ari’s Japanese Kitchen serves Japanese cuisine for lunch and dinner. The establishment is open from 11-9 Monday-Saturday and 11:30-9 on Sunday.

Greensboro is home to several hibachi restaurants that serve largely interchangeable meat/veggie/rice plates for under $10. Little Ari’s has them too, but this casual offshoot of the more upscale Arigato’s Japanese Steak and Seafood House offers more than a few novel touches as well. It’s an ambitious attempt to bridge the gap between hole-in-the-wall hibachi joints and full-on Japanese restaurants albeit not an entirely successful one.

Outside and in, Little Ari’s is deceptively spacious. The large lot offers plenty of parking, and the clean, modern interior plenty of seating. Little Ari’s operates on counter service: place your order at the register, receive a pager, and pick up when it buzzes. There were plenty of orange-shirted staff on hand at the time of our visit, and they seemed accommodating and concerned with diner satisfaction, a definite plus.

Little Ari’s menu both encompasses and transcends hibachi norms. The requisite hibachi bowls are accounted for, featuring your choice of chicken, shrimp, salmon, steak, tofu, or different combinations thereof as well as a few katsu (breaded) options. You can then choose between steamed or fried rice and pick from among four different sauces. While edamame and gyoza are expected finds, Little Ari also boasts ramen (chicken, soy, or tonkotsu/pork), onigiri (rice balls), and beef curry, options that help distinguish it from other establishments of this type.

For our first visit, my wife and I opted for a chicken katsu hibachi, a pork tonkatsu ramen, and an onigiri (tuna mayo and shrimp katsu) apiece. We didn’t have too long to wait before our pager started buzzing though not everything was ready all at once. The food had both hits and misses. On the plus side, the katsu chicken was cooked well - it held its breading without being dried out – and there was plenty of it. The ramen was a generous portion as well, and the broth, though understated (next time, I’ll opt for spicy), had the right flavor profile. Both onigiri were satisfying too. Though billed as rice balls, they are more akin to hot sushi pockets, seaweed-wrapped envelopes of tastiness that proved the highlights of the meal. On the other hand, the hibachi vegetables, listed as zucchini and onions, contained far more of the latter than the former, the ramen was a bit light on meat, and the katsu’s tonkatsu sauce lacked the expected hints of sweetness.

Little Ari’s pricing is similarly a mixed bag. $10 for a heaping bowl of ramen is a good deal even if it isn’t up to Tampopo’s standards. Hibachi entrees range from $8.50 to the teens for a regular/full portion depending on the proteins, and while it isn’t a meager portion, it is also priced slightly higher than what hibachi places usually charge. Two sauces are free with a hibachi purchase while any additional are $1.25 each for a small cup thereof. I understand the need to cut down on wastefulness, but this comes across as unduly stingy.

Ultimately, Little Ari represents both the best and the worst of the two worlds it inhabits. It offers more customization and more options than the typical hibachi joint and lets patrons get their ramen fix in a convenient fast casual environment, but it is also a bit pricier than said hibachi joints without matching the quality of a Tampopo or a Don. Friendly service and the presence of onigiri, however, make it worth at least a try.