On being tangentially Jewish.

A truly baffling video advertisement for the 92Y Tribeca, where I host a monthly poetry & music open mic. It was directed by Michael Showalter, stars Paul Rudd, and has a spot from Eugene Mirman, the landlord on “Flight of the Conchords” (and, I’m sure, a bunch of other comedy people I should know but don’t). The ad has nothing to do with Judaism, which makes sense, because the 92Y, in these hard financial times, is appealing to their non-Jewish side of things — I’m sure you’ve seen their Google ads featuring Toni Morrison and Kurt Vonnegut [zt”l].

In any case, it’s very Stella/State humor, which is to say, it’s reeeally subtle — I’m totally down with surrealism and Dada, but this isn’t quite surreal, it just has nothing to do with anything. Sub-surrealism? Semidada?

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