Jonah and the Whale

Posted on September 18, 2010 at 8:00 am

On the holiest day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews study the story of Jonah and the Whale. The Jewish educational and outreach group AISH says

In a certain sense it is very much the story of Yom Kippur’s essence — return to God. It teaches us about our voyage and ourselves.

Literary critic Judith Shulevitz has a nice essay about the importance of this story for adults during the Days of Awe.

You can almost see God’s thought-process here: If Jonah can bring such will and determination and even a certain nobility of spirit to ignoring me, how much more valuable will he be once I turn him to my ways? The further Jonah runs, the more he convinces God that he’s worth chasing after. And that’s what I think the satire is meant to get across in the Book of Jonah: We can go to any lengths, make ourselves ridiculous as possible, in your efforts to escape God, but the very intensity and absurdity and even the painfulness of our flight shows God how much potential passion we have lacked inside us, to say nothing of how much we must actually want and need him. And seeing that, God may laugh at us a little, but he will not abandon us.

Certainly one element in telling this story each year is that it puts some of the day’s meaning in terms children can understand.

The beautiful Rabbit Ears version of the story, narrated by Jason Robards, is only available on VHS, but I hope someday the entire series will be released on DVD. The Veggie Tales version has the company’s trademark silly charm.

Related Tags:

Based on a book Shorts Spiritual films

What I Read

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 8:29 am

The Atlantic Monthly’s website has a daily feature called “What I Read.” They invite people to tell them about their sources of information and news. If you’d like to read about my “media diet” take a look. And yes, the part about my parents is, if anything, understatement.
Also: I’m a finalist for a journalism award for my commentary on outrageous pay for corporate executives.

Related Tags:

Media Appearances

Guess that Voiceover!

Posted on February 27, 2010 at 8:00 am

TV.com has a quiz to see if you can identify celebrity voices in commercials. And if you have not taken the one I posted earlier from Slate, give that a try, too.

Whose voice is that? Â» Quiz Question Maker

Related Tags:

Advertising Quiz Television

‘Nerd’ Barbie?

Posted on February 18, 2010 at 8:00 am

While Ken is walking his little dog in Palm Beach, Barbie is crunching code as a computer engineer. Wired reports that the latest Barbie has a laptop and a bluetooth earpiece. Created in cooperation with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering, Barbie is now the essence of “geek chic.” She wears classes and has a t-shirt featuring binary code. And of course her laptop is pink!

Vanity Fair’s Whites Only Hollywood Cover

Posted on February 17, 2010 at 9:33 am

I look forward to Vanity Fair’s annual Hollywood issue every year. It always has fabulous photos of today’s top talent, often in salutes to some of the classic movie stars of the past. And it always has a selection of articles that are surprising and inventive, going way past the usual profiles of the usual subjects.
This year’s issue has some great material, including the article on the women behind the early Disney animation classics, as I have already reported. But I was terribly disappointed with its selection of the most promising newcomers to feature on the cover. It isn’t that any one of them is not impressive. Each of the young women has shown extraordinary talent and star quality. But how, in 2010, is it possible to have a collection of today’s top young female stars and have every one of them be white? How is it possible to overlook some of the most stunning, accomplished, and mesmerizingly watchable actresses on screen?
A young woman no one had ever heard of a year ago has been nominated for an Oscar for best actress for her very first film. We do see Gabourey Sidibe inside the magazine, with her co-star and director. But why isn’t she on the cover? In my opinion, the most dazzling breakthrough performance of last year was Nicole Beharie in “American Violet.” Why isn’t she on the cover? Where is Kerry Washington? Taraji P. Henson? Paula Patton? Meagan Goode? Sanaa Lathan? Keke Palmer? Gabrielle Union? Nia Long? Sophie Okonedo? Anika Noni Rose, star of “The Princess and the Frog” and “Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency?”
What 2009 movie became the biggest box office movie of all time? “Avatar.” And who was the female lead? Zoe Saldana. She was in another enormous box office and critical hit in 2009: “Star Trek.” Why isn’t she on the cover?
And why aren’t they starring in more studio films?