(Display Name not set)April 2006 Archives

A Jewish comedian claimed not long ago that he grew up thinking that all the comic-book superheroes were Jewish, because, like, say, Goldman and Federrman, all their names end in “man”: Spiderman, Batman, Superman...

A report on MSNBC this week examined more seriously the topic of religion in comics, which are growing more concerned with faith, according to the story. The American superhero’s origin in Judaism have been explored, both in fact (click here for an essay on Superman and the Golem) and fiction, most famously in Michael Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “The Adventures of Kavalier and Klay.” MSNBC’s reporter interviews several academics who point out the growing interest comic-book writers have taken in religion, to gratify an their audience that is increasingly adult, and, like the country as a whole, increasingly religious.

The theme pops up too on Progressive U., a national student blog, in an interesting essay about the essential religious nature of comics. The author portrays comics as modern pop mythologies—you know, the boogie-man stories equivalent to cave paintings that we flatter ourselves our society doesn’t indulge in anymore. Comic books, the essay claims, allows us to feel awe—mostly concocted but sometimes taking a share of reality, as in the nearly wordless 9/11 installment of “The Amazing Spiderman.”

For the record, with due respect to my Jewish brothers and sisters, Batman was an Episcopalian, and Superman a Methodist, as you can read here.

Tom Cruise fans—those who read the gossip mags these days with paper bags over their heads—must wonder, Why does Tom do it? Why pounce on Oprah’s sofa? Why pooh-pooh post-partum depression? Why placenta? Why does he insist on announcing that the birth of his child was “very spiritual”?

Okay, the last of these is the least of his recent embarassments, but it’s one that rallied me to Cruise’s defense. I had a twinge when the prankster squirted Tom in the face with a water gun shaped like a microphone, but I tilted when Tom’s claim about "spiritual" childbirth popped up in nearly every headline about his post-partum chat with ABC’s “20/20”; the media is either proud of Tom’s perceptive description of watching childbirth or wants his comment entered as another data point that he’s gone off his nut. I suspect the latter.

Since his cringe-inducing performance on "Oprah," we’re all to understand that Tom has taken permanent leave of his senses or is intolerably self-obsessed. “Is there any experience that isn’t totally intense and utterly incredible with this man?” wrote one columnist. Isn’t that, though, just about the best definition available of “spiritual”? The same question, asked about the Dalai Lama, would come off as praise.

Similarly, instead of using Oprah’s sofa as a trampoline, should Tom have mewled that Kat is his best friend? Okay, Tom could tone down the kooky pseudo-psychiatry and lay off the placenta. Or better yet, take some acting roles that measure up to his “private” weirdness. Artists are supposed to revolt us, challenge us, be rash and generally be in the vanguard. So I say, Take pride, Tom fans. You have nothing to lose but your bags.

Paul Sharrat had no luck contacting the late Princess Diana three years ago in a televised séance—well, no luck in the sense that Di refused to speak for the cameras. Sharrat did make some $7 million from viewers willing to pony up a $14.95 pay-per-view fee. That kind of luck encouraged Sharrat to try again. Last night, psychics gathered at John Lennon’s favorite New York restaurant in an attempt to reach out to the former Beatle, as cameras focused on the Strawberry Fields memorial in Manhattan’s Central Park and other Lennon sites.

One participant says he has “no doubt” he heard Lennon break through on one participant’s microphone to call for world peace. Using the phenomenon the psychics call Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP), Lennon said, “Peace. The message is peace,” the psychics claim.

Maybe, as he did in life, Lennon was asking to be left in peace. Lennon himself once told Newsweek magazine that he and wife Yoko Ono had tried to communicate with the dead via séance, but today Yoko’s spokesman called the show “tacky.” Sharrat, who calls himself a “dyed-in-the-wool skeptic by nature” declared himself “amazed”—perhaps that Lennon would show for only 9.95 per viewer when Di demurred at $14.95.

To the Christian music fans in Kansas City, Denver, and Jefferson City, Indiana, who are still waiting to watch the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards show: your wait is not almost over. You have at least two more weeks before the syndicated broadcast of the ceremonies, held two weeks ago in Nashville, makes it onto your local schedule.

Now here’s the good news for the faithful. The reason the Pony Express could get you the Dove Awards faster than modern technology is that the Christian music industry is becoming less relevant every day. That is, when Carrie Underwood is cleaning up mainstream awards for her tearjerking “Jesus, Take the Wheel” and Alan Jackson’s gospel collection, “Precious Memories” climbs to the fourth spot on the all-genres Billboard 200 chart (today it's down to #10), it’s a sign of the end of Christian music and the beginning of music that happens to be written and played by Christians. Isn’t that what Christian musicians and their fans have wanted all along?

Two key players at J-Dub Records, the label that was summarily dissed and dismissed by the Hasidic hipster Matisyahu last month, appeared on “Soundcheck,” on New York City’s public radio station, yesterday to discuss the label’s future. Aaron Bisman and Jacob Harris (left) sounded more world-weary than bitter about the split with Matisyahu (though they were sure to point out which of the reggae-reb’s hits from his gold album, “Live at Stubbs,” were written by Ben Hesse, Bisman’s co-founder). While they were proud to be giving young Jews a modern, modish way to build community, the pair made clear that they didn’t see the Jewish market as even the primary audience for their artists.

Noted, but it’s hard to imagine lightning like Matisyahu striking twice. The label’s latest signings--including SoCalled, a “dorky white Jewish kid” from Montreal who taught himself Yiddish to make klezmer hip-hop; Golem, who count among their influences The Pogues, They Might Be Giants, and gypsies from the Ukraine; and the multinational collective Balkan Beatbox--all lack the rush of weird wailings of the bearded, black-clad Matisyahu.

Richard Herskowitz is a brave man. The director of the Virginia Film Festival has chosen a theme for this year’s 70-film hoedown: “Revelations: Finding God at the Movies.” In a news brief released by the University of Virginia, which runs...

The Beatles are all now either dead, knighted or Ringo, but the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the group’s onetime spiritual guru and the inventor of Transcendental Meditation, is still making news. The Maharishi’s followers recently broke ground on a $14 million...