Rick Moranis Is Ready to Return to the World

By Zach Dionne for Vulture.com

Rick Moranis. Rick ... Moranis. He starred in your childhood, then disappeared from your life. You looked him up a few years ago to verify that the absence you felt was real; Google suggested results for "Rick Moranis dead," "Rick Moranis death," and "Rick Moranis retired." Only the latter was true, as you discovered in posts like "Where'd Rick Moranis Go?" and "What the Hell Happened to Rick Moranis?" You learned that Moranis's wife died of liver cancer in 1991 and he retired from the screen in 1997. Sometime later, he said, "I’m a single parent and I just found that it was too difficult to manage raising my kids and doing the traveling involved in making movies. So I took a little bit of a break. And the little bit of a break turned into a longer break, and then I found that I really didn’t miss it." You mourned, as if Google's rumormongering had been right all along.

Now you can put all that in the past, because Rick Moranis has an album coming out. It's called My Mother's Brisket & Other Love Songs. This is the cover art. This is the beginning of Rick Moranis's reentry into the culture, the birth of a one-day sentiment that goes something like, "My Mother's Brisket was to Moranis what Hatfields & McCoys was to Costner." You hope.

Moranis also released a record eight years ago, The Agoraphobic Cowboy (here's a Spotify link). It fell closer to Jeff Bridges's country album than a Weird Al LP, but the silliness was there. It was nominated for a Best Comedy Album Grammy, but it was also something you could just put on for twangy background tunes. (There was a lot of banjo.) Moranis did an interview with CMT about the album and said, "Up until this, I've always sung in character. This is the first time I'm sort of singing as myself, oddly." The project was a one-off; it did not signal a comeback. Honey, I Shrunk Your Hopes.

And yet: My Mother's Brisket will arrive in 2013, a time when roughly 19 million media outlets both niche and huge will request an interview with any former Ghostbuster without missing a tweet. They'll all ask if Moranis plans to ever act again. He'll get to thinking about it, thinking about how his kids are older now and how he really did have some good times with Harold Ramis and Mel Brooks and even doing that Flintstones movie. Judd Apatow will write a part for him, or your favorite indie auteur will. Wayne Szalinski shall return.

 

Gatsby’s Jewish Gangster

By Leah Falk

Who ran New York’s underbelly in the 1920s? Nope, not Michael Corleone, but a Jewish gangster and racketeer named Arnold Rothstein. Rothstein, who inspired The Great Gatsby‘s uncomfortably stereotypical Jewish bootlegger, Meyer Wolfsheim, was renowned for some unseemly feats: rigging the results of the 1919 World Series and orchestrating a network of fraud that contributed to the crash of ’29.

Nicknamed “the Brain,” and known as “the J.P. Morgan of the underworld,” Rothstein also fixed horse races, organized the infamous “Black Sox Scandal,” capitalized on Prohibition, and became a millionaire—all by the age of 30.

But like Gatsby, Rothstein’s lush life didn’t last long: in 1928, he was murdered for refusing to pay a $320,000 poker loss.  The exact circumstances of his death remain something of a mystery, though Rothstein must have known more than he led on.  When, on his deathbed, a detective questioned him about his assailant, Rothstein allegedly replied: “You stick to your trade, I’ll stick to mine.”

The Boy in the Orthodox Bubble

Growing up religious, I missed out on a lot that other kids enjoyed. But looking back, I wouldn’t change it.

By Ari Margolies for Tablet Magazine

My bar mitzvah sucked. I’m 19, and I still haven’t quite gotten over it.

A standard Orthodox affair, it ran about three hours and was attended by a multitude of suited adults whom I had never really met. I got up on a pew in front of a few hundred people and drably finished a mesechta of Gemara, which was followed by a few speeches by rabbis talking about what a tzadik I was. I refused to don a black hat, unlike many of my friends, and abstained from participating in the dancing until I was overpowered and dragged into the hora by a several overeager rabbis. No girls, no games, no fun.

So, when I was recently invited to my friend’s brother’s Conservative bar mitzvah, I eagerly accepted. I had never been to one, and I wanted to see how the other side celebrated.

It was the epitome of joy and accomplishment. The bar mitzvah boy was the center of attention, multicolored lights shining all around, pubescent boys and girls flirting and dancing, party favors being handed out, and the latest pop music shaking everyone’s eardrums. I was leaning tentatively against a wall in the back, shaking my head in disbelief, jealousy, and sorrow, watching the kids raucously dancing and participating a variety of games. Seeing what I missed out on because of my rigid childhood depressed me immensely. Since I began to distance myself from the Orthodox world in the past couple of years, I have spent much time bitterly believing that I was robbed of a childhood, that I would rather have grown up like everyone else instead. This Conservative bar mitzvah was only confirming what I’d been feeling.

But then the party ended. And upon careful reflection, I realized that I was not cheated out of anything. Yes, the Orthodox aspect of my upbringing was unconventional, suffocating, and sometimes rather awful, but the things that seemed paramount to me at the time were, in the end, of no real importance. There is no denying that I missed out on much, but there was no void; normal childhood experiences were simply replaced with alternative ones. And looking back now at the ripe old age of 19, I can honestly say that I would not have wanted a “typical” childhood.

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Renee Zellweger's Favorite Laundry Lady

Not everyone has Zack Galifianakis renting an apartment for them, or Renee Zellweger paying to furnish it. But then again, not everyone is Mimi.

Mimi is an 88-year-old woman who, until very recently, lived in a laundromat on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica, Calif. She is the subject of a film being made by Israeli actor and director Yaniv Rokah. Now entering post-production thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, “Queen Mimi” tells the story of how this feisty octogenarian, who was once a San Fernando Valley housewife, ended up living on the streets of Los Angeles for almost a decade before taking up permanent residence at Fox Laundry 18 years ago.

“When I first came to L.A. seven years ago, I would be heading every morning to work at Caffe Luxxe on Santa Monica Avenue. It was 5 a.m. and the street would be dark and empty, but I would always notice Mimi waking up in the laundromat,” Rokah recalled in a phone conversation with The Arty Semite.

“I started talking to her, and we became friends. She is such an interesting person, and I decided I’d better capture this before she’s no longer with us.”
Preferring that audiences wait to learn about Mimi’s life story from his film once it begins screening, Rokah was reluctant to share many details about how exactly an elderly woman became homeless and managed to survive — and seemingly thrive — for so many years. He did share that she chose to roam West L.A. because she figured it was a relatively safe area, and how one night, the Jewish owner of Fox Laundry, not wanting her to be out in a heavy rainstorm, allowed her to stay.

One night turned into 18 years, with Mimi not only living at the laundromat, but also working there seven days a week. Her main responsibilities are cleaning the machines, fluffing laundry, and shmoozing with customers. “She’s become the mascot of Fox Laundry,” Rokah said.

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