A French damsel and I decided to take a train To New York to see the Gates and be at play. You were late to the Dinky and had to book It to meet me by the stop to pause, … Read More
by Max Kenneth on
If anyone can pull off the role of satirical, socio-political prophet and shnooky belletrist, it’s Gary Shteyngart. The author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, Shteyngart is one of the punchiest and funniest young novelists out there. His writing, colored and coarsened by the blunt cynicism of his 1970s upbringing in the Soviet Union, draws on intricate tessellations of classic Russian literature, self-deprecating Semitic humor, and current global politics. Being a Jew born in 1972 in the anti-Semitic Soviet Union and having immigrated to Queens in 1979, he has achieved status as a perpetual outsider, who can observe from remove and criticize with greater perspicacity.
by Max Kenneth on
Tickling the teeth, the tongue, the lips, Dr. Rabinowitz-Drillstein would jab various metal objects into my mouth during my visits to his dentist office. Though the majority of dentists will have at their most depressed of times the faint scent of Scotch or some strong digestif, my humble tooth doctor lacked this characteristic, and quite mysteriously so.
by Max Kenneth on
Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something. -Pancho Villa, last words Let my last words be “good night” Even if I don’t have time to utter them As a Mercedes truck smushes me Under the moon … Read More
by Max Kenneth on
“TRUST but verify,” goes the Old Russian proverb, and such a maxim can apply to the Guggenheim’s current “RUSSIA!” exhibit, which seems to require further probing – further verification – to find the reason for the obvious compensation attempted by using all capital letters and an exclamation point in its title.
by Max Kenneth on
Though it might otherwise be dismissed as a horribly-written play, Me, Myself & I inspires additional disappointment, flowing as it does from the pen of three-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee. A moving and clever piece, it is not. Perhaps the only element that could have saved and justified its stodgy formal progression—an insistent meta-theatricality—comes off as forced, hackneyed, dismissible. Yes, Albee reveals, these are actually actors onstage. We get it. Got it. Good.
by Max Kenneth on
What a supremely difficult task it would be to make Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot a theatrical catastrophe given the rich nature of the existentialism, the slap-stick comedy, the downright absurdism. That said, what a trying undertaking it is to … Read More
by Max Kenneth on
Cocksure I stand that this lesbian play has become the first theatrical hit to reach Princeton this school year.
How fine it is to go to the theater and find yourself in a proper Boston living room, replete with pomp and circumstance. But take this turn of the 20th century propriety and subvert it with the sexual lewdness of nowadays; mix in marital deceit and seduction of a young lass by a voluptuous lesbian, and you’ll get the formula for David Mamet’s Boston Marriage, the first play of the Theatre Intime season.
by Max Kenneth on
Rabbi Eitan Webb, when I come to interview him early last Wednesday in his Nassau Street apartment, is juggling with ease five things at once. The sun rages to highlight red flourishes in his beard and the car beeps become louder as the Princeton Borough awakens, but he is preparing to have some thirty students over for Passover seder, arranging to have a Matzah Ball party with a middle weight boxing champion, balancing his son on his lap, updating the Chabad website, and fingering an official letter from President Shirley Tilghman.
by Max Kenneth on
As a self-proclaimed solipsist, I have always attached much importance to my name and seen it manifest itself in the least expected of places. But in my pampered youth of Plaza teas surrounded by the redolence of a fine Cavendish … Read More
by Max Kenneth on
When I meet Howard Nuer ’07, a Hassidic Jewish student, three Sundays ago in his room, I am struck most by his bookshelf—filled to the gills with advanced math books and Hebrew scripture. The math major sits relaxed at his … Read More
by Max Kenneth on
Given the impenetrable penumbra of mystery surrounding the secret letter from the Center for Jewish Life (CJL) to President Shirley Tilghman about the Chabad Affair, one may question the current adequacy of the support for Jewish life at Princeton. Though … Read More
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