Inaugural book club!

I do not mean to scare anyone away from this exciting book club. HOWEVER, I also don't know what anyone could do to top the joy of our inaugural book club, held at Megan's last Sunday. Michael Chabon would have been proud. As would the 7th Avenue Donut Shop, Rokeache Gefilte fish, and Moet Champage. (As that is the only booze we drink at brunch. Moet, if you still wanted to sponsor us, I've thought about it, and I think it's a go. Call me!)

Here are some photos of the insane amounts of literary cred that Megan has racked up for herself. Enjoy!


<==== As befits the theme of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, dessert was a choice of Alaska Disasta' (previously known as Baked Alaska) with a side slice of Naomi's favorite coconut cream pie.






Nat Baddington made a special appearance under his super-secret alias, even though the Potatoes had an early game. Please note the extra-classy design of the name tag. ======>



<==== The scene on Megan's dining room table as book club came to an end. Please note: matzo bread, bagels, donuts, Redi-Whip, cream cheese, canned Gefilte fish. Not pictured: the four bottles of bubbly already consumed.)




Megan, thank you for hosting. And please know that your literary cred levels are now high enough that you can just read Danielle Steele novels and eat bon bons for the rest of the year.

Announcement!

We'll have photos and commentary from last Sunday's book club up here later today, but first: Our November book club announcement.

The book is Spaceman Blues, a book I love so much that I can barely breathe when I talk about it. We'll be meeting at my place in Crown Heights on Sunday, November 11th. Keep checking the blog for more info about Brian Slattery and my favorite book of 2007.

Hope to see you all there!

follow up to my email

I've gotten a few bookclubbers asking who this Elijah person is.

Here's from wikipedia: "in some aspects of Judaism, there is a tradition of leaving an empty chair and a full goblet of wine at the Passover feast table to serve as a reminder of his promised return. At one point during the feast, participants may open a door in hopes that he will appear as a guest."

I am surprised some of you haven't heard of the tradition, since I thought it was pretty famous. I guess this bookclub is very goyish, or something. Anyway, since this was unfamiliar, I'm including a few pictures of the Tefillin and Mezuzah that get mentioned in the book, in case you don't know what these are, either!

Some fun words from the book

Well, while we wait for our resident Yiddish expert to comment, I’ll share a couple definitions I’ve looked up in the meantime. Most of these should be familiar to American English-speakers, anyway.
Dybbuk—A malicious possessing spirit, in Kabbalah and Jewish folklore (from wikipedia)
Emes—Truth, correct
Ganef—Thief
Kibbitzer— The term kibbitzer (and thus the verb to kibbitz) comes from the chess cafes of central Europe at the start of the century. A kibbitzer did not play chess, but watched other people playing, and possibly made comments on their play. (http://www.eisu2.bham.ac.uk/johnstf/kib.htm)
Latke–Potato pancake, traditionally served at Hanukkah, used here as slang for a rookie cop
Patzer—I gather that is actually chess slang! I didn’t know there was such a thing. It’s also Yiddish for “blunderer” and used to mean “poor player.”
Papiros—Cigarette
Pisher—Child, humorous (“little pisser”)
Schlemiel- inept bungler, someone who is easily victimized
Shammes- assistant to a rabbi, used in the book to describe detectives
Sholem—Peace/harmony or “Hello,” used to describe the guns the detectives carry. Clever! I think there’s a famous gun called a Peacemaker. I just looked it up, it’s a Colt .45
Shoyfar – brand name of the cellphones the characters use, from “shofar,” the ram's horn blown on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur
Shtarker—Strong arm
Shtetl—Small town or village
Shul–School
Tohubohu–I don’t think this is Yiddish, but it’s in the book, and here’s the definition: Chaos; confusion (from www.thefreedictionary.com)
Yid- Male Jew

Definitions mainly from http://www.yiddishdictionaryonline.com/ , more to come!

Oh, and i forgot! Zamenhof was the name of the guy who invented Esperanto, if you were a little thrown at the beginning of the book, as i was, by "elevatoro," etc. "For Zamenhof this language wasn't merely a communication tool, but a means of spreading his ideas on the peaceful coexistence of different peoples and cultures. Among the many works he translated into Esperanto is the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament." More on him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof–a very interesting story, and sad, too: all three of his children died in the Holocaust.

Sometimes things that *don't* happen are remarkable, too

From the AP on the recent National Book Awards short list:

Among those not nominated: Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"; Michael Chabon's "The Yiddish Policemen's Union"; and Richard Russo's "Bridge of Sighs." Also bypassed was David Halberstam's Korean War history, "The Coldest Winter."

Interesting that Chabon is mentioned as significant for not being nominated. I'm interested in our book club's opinion--is it an oversight that Chabon was left off the list, or kind of understandable based on the content of the book?

You can discuss in the comments, or prepare to answer on Sunday morning...

Judaism: Hope you don't mind moving every fifty years.

Sitka!

So, this weekend, furthering my attempts to be the best bookclub hostess ever, I visited the Museum of Natural History and took a bunch of pictures of traditional Tlingit clothing and weapons. Weapons perhaps not unlike Berko's hammer. But I can't figure out how to get these pictures off my phone and onto blogger, so you all might just have to pass my phone around at bookclub. So, is anybody out there reading the book? Preliminary thoughts from anyone besides me and Ami?

Publishing houses are not fit to be movie producers. Discuss.

Too good to keep to myself: the two 'book trailers' for The Yiddish Policeman's Union. Obviously, Michael Chabon is a terrifically talented man. And I have no doubt that the good people at Fourth Estate (British publisher) and HarperCollins are also fantastically talented.

So why do these trailer suck so hard? I mean, they're not terrible, as in, unwatchable. But they are terrible as in, why on earth would anyone not affiliated with the book already watch them?

This seems to be the main problem affecting book trailers nowadays. We're trying to be like the movies, when we don't have the money or experience or savvy to reach that level at all. There are a couple I've enjoyed: notably, Miranda July's latest, although she obviously has some expertise in the movie-making department, which may have helped.

Anyway, the two trailers for your "enjoyment":

British:


Canadian:
http://www.harpercollins.ca/trailers/trailer0007149824.html

Baby's first blog post

Hi guys! I'm just going to assume that everyone we invited to the bookclub has been checking in on this blog every day hoping for an update. And now your patience and perserverance has been rewarded. With an update, and my very first attempt to blog. Or whatever.
This is going to be a month of firsts for me, because not only will this be the first book club meeting I ever host, it will also be the first book club meeting i ever attend. I guess I'm not much of a joiner. Although I love to read, I've come to the (slightly panicky) realization in the past few weeks that since college I don't really discuss a book in very much depth once i've read it. I am unlike many of my friends that way. I'm more of a "this was my favorite part" or "wasn't it funny when..." kind of person. Which may not lend itself to book club moderation. I am worried. Ami, you're going to have to pick up a lot of slack, I think. Should we be discussing themes and literary precedents? Should I have read all of Chabon's output before voluteering?

To make up at least in part for my shortcomings, I plan to whip up a (pretty much guaranteed to be disastrous) Baked Alaska! That should make it worth your time to come on down to Park Slope, for sure!

Also, anyone know where I can find a Yiddish-English dictionary? It's proving more difficult than i expected. I wanted to make a nice little cheat-sheet for y'all.