Esther Kustanowitz: February 2009 Archives

Admit it: after you saw "Star Wars," you tried to use the Force. I'm happy to admit it--I tried to move things across my room, using only my mind. "Heroes" makes me feel special abilities are more possible, but "Star Wars" initially put the idea in my head.  Oh, those Jedi mind tricks.

If moving objects with your mind didn't work as a health strategy for you, and if you view the local gym as a "wretched hive of scum and villainy," there is now a workout that even a scruffy-looking nerfherder will enjoy in a galaxy far, far away....

Meet "Master Flynn," 38, who started teaching a lightsaber battling class in New York in early 2006.  "I had the idea to do a fight scene [with lightsabers] with my friends on the [New York's Greenwich Village] parade route. People were so impressed when they saw what we were doing, and they wanted to know where they could learn to move the way we did," said New York's resident Yoda.

Hard times have come upon many companies, websites and publications. Some of them are asking their readers to become supporters, but this requires a major shift: people who were once being provided a service are now being asked to donate in order to fund that service. How can one pitch letter distinguish itself from the others which flood our inboxes daily?

Perhaps by providing a little entertainment, or a dash of the creative or unexpected, people might appreciate the entertainment value and support the organization's innovative approach. Jbooks.com, a site which "seeks to connect Jewish books with their wide, diverse, and dedicated readership," is taking this kind of "let us entertain you" approach with their new fundraising campaign.

In "The Spiel," an adman pitches his new fundraising plan-- getting poet laureate Robert Pinsky to play piano and "literally sing the praises of JBooks.com."

As a child, I was pretty obsessed with all things "Little House on the Prairie"-- all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and of course the TV show, which explored the life of a Christian family living in Minnesota and starred a spunky young brunette actress named Melissa Gilbert in the role of frontier tomboy Laura Ingalls.

Musically, the show did have a very memorable opening theme, featuring the young Laura and her sisters running in a field (see below) and pretending to fly (the end credits, see this clip). But most of the other songs in the TV show were church-centered, which caused some confusion as I hummed along, trying to figure out what "Bringing in the Sheaves" meant.

But now frontiering and pioneering will get a new beat, as the musical version of "Little House on the Prairie" launches its national tour in St. Paul, Minnesota, this fall. The Ordway Center for the Performing Arts announced Monday that "Little House" will kick off its 2009-2010 theater season.

The show premiered in Minneapolis last summer, and starred all-grown-up "Little House" star Melissa Gilbert playing the role of Ma Ingalls. Performances of the show were sold-out. In the national tour, Gilbert will again play Ma Ingalls. But what will the music be like?
Will the old theme song-- instrumental for the 1970s series-- get new lyrics? What should they be?

What would you do if a celebrity tried to convert you? Well, I suppose with all the pop culture/spirituality overlap in my life and work, it was bound to happen: Stephen Baldwin tried to convert my friend over the weekend.

Benyamin Cohen, author of My Jesus Year: A Rabbi's Son Wanders the Bible Belt in Search of His Own Faith, was in the green room at FOX preparing for a segment, and began schmoozing with famously outspoken evangelical Christian actor Stephen Baldwin, the "self-proclaimed Jesus Freak of Hollywood."

As we were chatting about faith, the fact came up that I had visited 52 different Bible Belt churches and not once had someone tried to convert me. Stephen's pupils went from their default half-mast glazed-over look to the wide-eyed look of a Baldwin on the prowl. Apparently, I had woken the beast.

"How much time do I have before my segment?" he asked his publicist.

"About an hour," she called back from across the room.

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Nobody does bloody like Quentin Tarantino, with his chatty rat-a-tat dialogue that matches a machine gun that makes the same noises. All you have to do is look at the scene in "Pulp Fiction" where Marvin buys the farm in an old-style sedan (violent clip), and you'll remember what I mean.

Now QT's applying his evisceratingly violent lens to the new film (which is correctly spelled, even though it seems like it isn't) "Inglourious Basterds," as he kills Nazis like no filmmaker has before. In fact, in PageSix, they describe the film as "a slaughterfest in which hundreds of Nazis are gleefully executed in the most gruesome ways possible"-- including machine gunning and scalping.

Today is Election Day in Israel. Most Israelis view it as a day of choice with no real choice at all-- Tzipi Livni, who's considered honest, but is unseasoned; or Benyamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, who is viewed as a "failed" former...