Reading a book currently. A few actually.

The one making most impact is Michael Wex’s Born to Kvetch. It is the story - religious, cultural and etymological history of Yiddish.  As my father’s first language, I wish I knew more about this disappearing (diasporatic - a word I just invented) sub culture.

Wex justifies his deep look into the Talmudic history of Judaism by likening it to the impact of plantations on the blues.  As the Talmud layes the groundwork for daily ritual within the context of a given environment, Yiddish allowed for Talmudic expression to take place even in places that forbid such acts.  Almost like forgetting to read the fine print, Yiddish walked around rules by setting their own rules that technically did not compete directly with prohibition. 

The structure of Yiddish can be thought of in terms of cultural deconstructionism. Like Roman Beardan’s Jazz of the 40’s and later artworks of the 50’s intervening with the the way his community was being defined.  Deconstructionsim is the act of a subculture dismantling a dominating culture’s view. The art of deconstructionism is translating the root of these perceptions into symbols, words and thoughts and then reconstructing these signs into a language they claimed.  The wittiest form of revenge when you think of it - using the masters tools against him.  By taking the symbols that had defined them and redefining them on there terms: spinning a word invented by others into empowering possessives. 

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Yiddish is a play on language.  And I use the word “play” intentionally. Borrowing from the Slavs and Germans, we had a language that sounded like it could be either, but actually sounded a bit of both and yet was neither, at the same time.  And on top of it all, an entire language based on kvetching (non complaining complaints).

A man is on a train.  He’s thirsty.  He starts up, “Oy, god! I’m so thirsty. Oy!”  for a few minutes until the man next to him can no longer take it.  He gets up, walks down the corridor to the end of a hall, fills a cup with water and returns to the man.  The man takes the cup. Swigs. Breaths for a moment. Then starts up “Boy vas I thirsty! Oy! I vas so thirsty”