the scent of desire

im reading this really great book by rachel herz called the scent of desire . being an individual who is quite sensitive to smell this is right up my alley. ive aways noticed that sometimes when i find someone irritating i realize that it is their scent that irritates me, not their lack of sense of personal space. one of the concepts of this book is that sense of smell is very close to memory. also, if one has no sense of smell one can't enjoy food . it can cause depression and in extreme cases suicide. case in point: diet cookies arent as tasty as real cookies. diet cookies lack sugar. sugar makes cookies smell divine. women in particular are more sensitive to smell and unknowingly use their sense of smell to find a mate much more so than men who are more visual. unwittingly women find men whose genetic makeup to be different than theirs to actually smell best. interestingly , this is a problem because women on the pill are more attracted to men whose scents have a more similar genetic makeup to their own and when they go off of the pill are no longer attracted to their husbands' scent!!! i cant say for sure that any of this is true for a fact, however i am very drawn to men who have a scent that i really dig, and the scent is their personal scent , not cologne. if a guy doesnt smell good to me its definitely a deal breaker.

mirror, mirror on the wall....

how far would you go for the sake of vanity?? a nose job?? lids??? hair dye??? face lift?? how artificial are you willing to go? if i had grey hair i would definitly want to cover it. i still look pretty young, and if i had grey hair it would really age me, especially as a single woman. hair dye is as far as i would go. i have a small nose, but i could understand why someone might want to get a nose job if they had a really bad one. injecting botulism into my face hardly sounds enticing (via botox). some people who have their lids done can barley close them afterward . plastic surgery isnt able to replicate the natural elasticity of a persons facial skin which is essential in recreating a youthful appearance. i think that i have a unique appearance that i acutally like. it must be scary to have elective surgery . to go under the knife when its not medically necessary.to be that vain. ive seen before and after pictures from some of these plastic surgery shows and many of the "before"pictures are just as presentable as the "after" photos. its equally sad that people cant just age in peace. one should try to look the best that they can without surgical enhancements. so many people who've tried age - defying plastic surgery dont really look that much younger. furthermore, if they hadnt done any plastic surgery, at least one would get to see the true expressions on their faces.

full house murder mystery!!

heath ledger was found in his manhattan apt. a few days ago. at first i thought it was suicide or a drug overdose. after all why else would such a handsome actor wind up dead? but now im thinking that this is getting very interesting. it seems he had been mixing in in with the simian anorexic mary kate olsen. me thinks there might be a full house murder mystery on our hands!!its the snl version of full house!! or maybe mad magazine's version!! poor heath, murdered by a blond monkey. the monkey had anorexia anyway , which could have killed her, but she decided to kill him instead. she should have left heath alone and killed herself .oh well now she's in a league with courtney love who people blame for killing curt cobain!!

film fanatic

today is the last day i will be attending the ny jewish film festival which ends tomorrow. one of the films i viewed today was "film fanatic" about a haredi guy in israel who put together a bunch of dvd movies on very frum themes and sold them to his haredi target market. these films were so 'low budget' that they were almost like home movies . dvds went where videos could not have because the haredi do not have tv sets, but apparently they do own computers! eventually , when this filmmaker realized he needed better monetary backing he actually made a film that others beside the yeshiva community might watch. still pretty kosher, but he employed chilonim to help out. film fanatic is two and a half stars out of a possible five. its entertaining, but not great. i wasnt totally convinced that the yeshivish community would welcome any type of films in to their homes like the movie made it seem.

making trouble

today i saw the best movie at the jewish film festival so far. i viewed the film "making trouble" directed by rachel talbot , presented by the jewish women's archive. the movie is about funny jewish women , featuring molly picon, fanny bryce, sophie tucker, joan rivers, gilda radnor , and wendy wasserstein. joan rivers, though not the youngest of the lot, is the only one still alive. the movie began with four younger comediennes -judy gold, jackie hoffman, and two others whose names escape me- sitting at katz's deli talking about being a jewish woman in comedy as well as introducing the legendary ladies of comedy. the first great lady of jewish comedy featured was molly picon. she grew up in philadelphia and started up in vaudeville and subsequently starred in many yiddish films and plays. to me she is legendary even though id never heard of her until i happened upon her 1980's autobiography at the library. after reading about her life i took out many of her films from the library and became a huge fan. the woman did somersaults eighty!! one of the most touching scenes presented was how molly went to the d.p. camps after the holocaust and performed for the survivors. in an interview she spoke of a mother who held out her small child and begged molly to perform saying "my child has never heard laughter, perform for her!" and she spoke of child survivors who she had performed for outside who insisted she perform even in the rain. and she did! it was also amazing to see film clips of and exuberant molly playing a teenager in yiddle mitn fiddle at 36 yrs old.
next up was fanny bryce who was quite a star in her time as well . my parents have always remembered her playing baby snooks. fanny bryce was so popular that a betty boop cartoon even features her in cartoon. fanny bryce was a beautiful woman , but since she didnt possess the blonde haired , blue-eyed look of the time , she became a comedic actress instead of the romantic lead. she even eventually got a nose job to look less jewish. to me , from the footage , she looked very jewish, but was not ugly. apparently she did not have a yiddish accent , but affected one when she performed.
sophie tucker , who id heard of, but knew the least about was also featured. she grew up in connecticut to a frum family and after a brief failed marriage and the birth of a son , she went off to become a performer at the tender age of 17. to me, she seemed the least jewish out of all of the comediennes featured, although her life was very much entwined in the jewish community. her father was a doctor and when he treated prostitutes they would say that they were actresses by trade. so when sophie embarked on a career in show biz you can imagine what her family thought! sophie's grand - niece was featured giving insight about her aunt. eerily this niece very much resembles her great aunt.
joan rivers was featured and when they showed a recent act of hers it was heartbreaking. she's done so much plastic surgery she looks more like jocelyn wildenstein than jocelyn wildenstein herself. ive seen old footage of joan rivers before, but this was the first time id seen old footage of her as an adult. she truly was funny from the start. the thing ive always liked about joan rivers is that she never denies her jewishness, in fact she owns it. upon viewing her pre-plastic surgery self, i realize she never needed any to begin with.
gilda radnor was always my favorite on saturday night live. i read a lovely book about her by alan zwiebel called 'bunny, bunny' years ago . alan zwiebel was featured in her retrospective in the film . they featured my personal favorite snl faux commercial for jewess jeans. i hadnt seen it in years , and it was just as funny now as it hadbeen then. they also featured a snl channukah skit with bill murray and john belushi where gilda lights the menorah and says one of the brachas over the candles. and of course they featured lisa lupner and roseanne rosannadan.
last but not least was wendy wasserstein. i admit that ive only read a few of her works , but she was truly amazing. it is so unfortunate that she died so young. i met her in person when she did a book reading at barnes and noble when shiksa goddess was published. wendy was such a regular person. she appeared to be the type of person you 'd want to be friends with. she was so real. her interviews for this film were taped right before her passing. in fact she passed away before the film was made. it was hard to watch those recent clips of her because she looked like she was in so much pain. thankfully there were other clips of her where she was more vibrant. its so sad that her life was cut so short. when the sisters rosensweig came out they wanted her to change the name because it sounded too jewish. they said that people in the boondocks couldnt relate to it. to which she replied "people in the boondocks dont have sisters?"
i wished the film would never end, but alas it did. it was perfection . i highly recommend it. it was a fabulous retrospective with an equal mix of facts i had already known and facts i was honored to learn.

murder of a hatmaker

i saw another film at the jewish film festival today. it was called "murder of a hatmaker" . it is the story of a french jewish high fashion hatmaker who ultimately met her death in auchwitz. it was a beautiful film . it showed life in france for jewish people before the war. what was wonderful about the film is that one got to really see what kind of life this woman led and get a sense of her beautiful creations before finding out her ultimate fate. i think that its important to celebrate the lives of those who unfortunately lost their lives during the holocaust besides just recounting how they perished. both aspects are equally important to be remembered.
after the film the filmmaker who is the niece of the hatmaker spoke. she resembles her deceased aunt very much. my most favorite , yet chilling response the filmmaker gave was that she did not feel that there is much anti-semitism in france nowadays, when asked about the current state of anti-semitsm in france. i hope her opinion is correct, but im not quite sure where the truth lies.

avi and david

there's a new kosher cafe on the scene called avi and david's on third avenue between 61st and 62nd . it kind of reminds me of how mom's bagel's was , but smaller. they are under the ok supervision and are milchig. they claim to be open 24 hrs except for 3 hrs before sundown on fridays until one hour after shabbos on saturday night. they have been open for the past 6 months unbeknownst to me. the bagels are really yummy. its also a nice alternative to mendy's which is in the galleria bldg (on 57th st.)