Writes David Remnick, in "No Kaddish for 'Curb'/Larry David bows out" (The New Yorker).
And yet, as I was watching, something felt out of kilter. It wasn’t the occasional comic misfire that was bothering me. Nor was it the sense that the end of “Curb” signalled the end of something more than the show itself; the immigrant and children-of-immigrant Yiddishkeit version of Jewish humor has been on the wane for a long time.... No, what was off was the timing, the misery of the moment. It was hard to think about the finale of “Curb”... amid the cruelty and carnage of the past six months. The comedy of manners plays with the mores of civilization; it can lose its charm when civilization succumbs to barbarity. In life, as in comedy, timing is essential.
Did Larry David ever intend charm? Did Larry David ever purport to fit with the times? He went looking for where he did not fit and leaned into his own repugnance. But it is always possible to demand an end to comedy because it is unseemly in a world where people are suffering and dying. Here, Remnick is making a special complaint, based on Jewishness ("Yiddishkeit"): A Jew should not do Jewish humor at a time when Jews are conspicuously killing people. (Remnick himself is Jewish.)
I don't remember ever seeing the word "Yiddishkeit" before, but this isn't the first time it's appeared in The New Yorker. I searched the archive. Remnick himself has used it before.
In 2021, he used it in "A Springsteen Mystery Solved/Jon Landau, the Boss’s longtime close collaborator in matters musical and financial, offers a definitive answer about what Mary’s dress is doing in 'Thunder Road.'"
That's about the lyrics. The line is "Mary's dress sways" (not "waves"):
Stevie Van Zandt, [Springsteen's] longtime guitar player and Sancho Panza in the E Street Band, is constantly on Twitter, promoting his latest music obsession, whacking Donald Trump, boosting voting rights, and retweeting an occasional pet video. But his engagement with the “waves”/“sways” situation was impatient, a grunt of Yiddishkeit and Jersey exasperation: “Oy vey. Get this Bruce lyric shit outta my feed!”
By the way, Bruce Springsteen is in the finale episode of "Curb Your Enthusiasm." He did a decent job of acting too, playing himself as a character, and accusing Larry of giving him Covid. I generally don't like Bruce — I don't like his attitude, and I don't like that straining style of singing, not after all these years — but he played his role well, and his role was to be a bit of an asshole. And he's a rich guy living in L.A. Not a poor guy in New Jersey.
Anyway, the finale became available on Max on Sunday night, and I guess the real "Curb" fans watched it then. We were preoccupied on Sunday evening, driving to southern Indiana to position ourselves for the total eclipse. Quite aside from the eclipse itself and driving back north, we were preoccupied on Monday with the finale of greater importance, Purdue versus UConn. Meade's hometown is West Lafayette, Indiana, the location of Purdue. So we got off the interstate in Farmer City, Illinois, popped up the camper, and watched the game on my iPad. "Curb" had to wait until Tuesday night. I thought it was great!
And the eclipse? Have I weighed in yet on the eclipse? The eclipse that we traveled 13 hours to experience?
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As a Jew (boy, do I love firing that back into my liberal relatives faces!) I politely, yet firmly request that Larry David STFU.
Larry David, more than any Jew comic, is responsible for mainstreaming Jew self-hate, which of course only encourages Gentile Jew hate. Sacha Baron Cohen is up there with him, but the 11 seasons of Curb were both Petri dish and battle prep for the explosion of Jew hate and asaJewhate we’ve seen since Oct 7.
The coffin was nailed shut for me on him at the end of last season, with the episode about the shoes at the Holocaust museum. The vileness of that, surrounded by a bunch of other Jewish professionals, is incomprehensible. I wish him ill.
It's David Remnick. Need I say more?
I've never found any Seinfeld clip entertaining.
I loved the final episode. My favorite scene was where Larry tried to form a heart with his hands to pander to the jury but just couldn't pull it off. The fact that Larry escaped his sentence because of one juror's refusal to follow the rules was also pretty good. I'll mostly miss the Larry David / Richard Lewis improv bits.
"Did Larry David ever intend charm?"
Perhaps not. But Remnick is right that effective comedy depends on the assumption of a normal intact civilization. He forgot to add that progs like him have helped to tear it down and cheer on the barbarity.
Is there anything that comes out Hollywood and/ or the media that doesn't veer off into the Trump ditch. It's not syndrome, it's an obsession.
I haven't seen the finale of CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM. In fact, I've not kept up with the last few seasons. I suppose to catch up I should start over watching from the beginning and...get to the end when I get to the end.
BTW, if no one else mentions this, Seinfeld and David have said the finale of SEINFELD was a doubling down on their underlying perspective: NOBODY LEARNS, NOBODY CHANGES. I think that's more or less true, but some people do learn and change. Just not most of us.
I don't know how this perspective may apply to CURB's finale, but I'm guessing it does.
This is less a comment on the subject of blog post than on the post iteself. Remnick is a big pooh-bah in the world of journalism/commentary/whatever. Curb is a big deal in that world. He writes about it (perhaps out of duty?) Althouse, with a few questions, skewers Remnick.
I often find myself, when reading a particulary vacuous article in the NYT or wherever, (Did you see the recent 12 paragraph article by a guy who was switiching from fine coffee of instant), thinking "Althouse would make hay out of this. This post on Remnick is quintessential Althouse, and why I read her every day.
We spent three hours each way driving fewer than 100 miles to reach the center of the path. Waze overloaded small country lanes and then rerouted the cars following, sometimes only a block before the scheduled turn.
I tried to watch a Curb your Enthusiasm episode and had to turn it off. David has a certain type of comedy. He's basically "George" doing outrageous, norm busting behavior and causing embarrassment. Unfortunately, David isn't Jason Alexander. He has no personal charm to take the edge off. So, he comes off as obnoxious.
His humor is also very Jewish and very Hollywood. He's writing about his world. So, you need to find that world engaging in some way.
Hollywood Jews are the reason people reflexively hate Jewish people. All of the asshole, but none of the religion or integrity.
According to the liner notes in Bruce Springsteen's Born To Run album LP, it's "Mary's dress waves..." He's been singing it that way for damned near fifty years.
"BTW, if no one else mentions this, Seinfeld and David have said the finale of SEINFELD was a doubling down on their underlying perspective: NOBODY LEARNS, NOBODY CHANGES."
That's the most-mentioned thing in the reviews of the finale and in the finale itself. Seinfeld himself is there and saying it explicitly. If anything, it's too heavily hammered.
Larry even yells it in the face of the kid whose mother is trying to teach him a lesson: There are no lessons.
"He's basically "George" doing outrageous, norm busting behavior and causing embarrassment. Unfortunately, David isn't Jason Alexander. He has no personal charm to take the edge off. So, he comes off as obnoxious."
That's what makes Curb edgier than Seinfeld (even though in Seinfeld, the characters are, more or less, poor and living on the edge). In Curb, they're all rich and completely comfortable and successful.
There's something yiddishkeit about Remnick's clever amibiguity about whose deaths he is referencing. And something yiddishkeit too about Larry David's brand of self-eviscerating cringe comedy. The biblical narrative of a people betraying their God, suffering punishment, begging forgiveness, and then restarting the cycle is very much embedded in the works of Remnick and Larry David.
Both Remnick and Larry David have done a fantastic job of marketing themselves. Not so sure that they've marketed yiddishkeit, with its intellect and generosity of spirit, as well as they might have.
Re: the eclipse. People love that stuff. Reminded me of druids gathering around Stonehenge. I laughed at Charles Barkley's comments Here I did go out at 2:05 and borrowed a neighbor's glasses for a "peak" at peak eclipsiness around here. Was amused by the Hispanic yard guy across the street whose boss came over and gave him a pair of glasses - he put them on and looked up for 3 seconds, said "Ay caramba!", took them off and returned to doing his job which involved looking down at the ground and cleaning up yard debris.
I judged the traffic/hassle/cost of getting to the prime spot, and then doing the traffic/hassle of getting back to be not worth the reward. But great for those who did. Better for those like my brother on the farm north of Indy who could just look up without any cost or disruption to daily life.
Likewise on the NY/Jewish humor of Woody Allen/Seinfled/Curb. Juice not worth the squeeze for me, Mel Brooks excepted. And NYer Remnick whining in the NYer about other NY people whining -- as Hedley Lamarr said, "Too Jewish." It's a big world, and it's great that lots of people like this humor and like planetary phenomena.
"Hollywood Jews are the reason people reflexively hate Jewish people."
Do you know many people who reflexively hate Jewish people?
I'd guess the people who reflexively hate Jewish people are those who have been raised to hate them, just as those who hate black people are predominantly those who have been raised to hate them. Prejudice is taught.
I'm not Jewish... I'm not even American, being born and raised in the Great White North. I have some Jewish friends, some Muslim friends, but mostly everyone I know is pretty non-aligned when it comes to religion. But that's generally more true of Canadians than Americans.
I find Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm hilarious. Maybe it's me, but I often find myself questioning the same cultural mores that he does...except he gets to say things that most of us wouldn't date. I don't particularly see him as representative of all Jews, so whatever he gets up to doesn't rub off on me as contributing to Jew-hate. Or Jew-love, I suppose. Jeez. It's comedy. Either you enjoy this particular approach, or you don't. I do.
I haven't seen the finale. I did see the eclipse, because I live about thirty miles from Niagara Falls, and we watched it from my backyard. I'll let you know which one was better...
I have started the series again at Season one episode one. Shocking to see how young they all were when the show began.
The Finale had one of the greatest lines from the entire series. "I'm 76 years old and I've never learned a lesson in my entire life>"
the finale of SEINFELD was a doubling down on their underlying perspective: NOBODY LEARNS, NOBODY CHANGES."
For the first time, I get why the finale was so bad. I've read this quote a lit but never made the connection.
Seinfeld was the show about nothing. But the finale hit us on the head with the message they wanted to emphasize, and even doubled down on it. Which in doing that took us out of the world of the rest of the series and made it about SOMETHING. It was artifical and out of rhythm of the rest of the series because of it. It just feels fake within the world they created. Like all message driven media it takes us out of the world and hits us with point. That it doubled down on it made it all the less effective. We're there people who thought Seinfeld was a show about learning and growing as human beings? Of course not. So who was needing to get the lesson that David was insisting to show? It was an episode for an audience that was new to the series.
Shorter Remnick: That's not funny.
"That's what makes Curb edgier than Seinfeld (even though in Seinfeld, the characters are, more or less, poor and living on the edge). In Curb, they're all rich and completely comfortable and successful."
More or less poor, living on the edge? That's not at all my perception of SEINFELD's characters. Jerry himself is a middling-successful comic who appears on tv and occasionally goes on tour, and is definitely comfortable; Elaine works in publishing (for most of the series); George is serially employed, rarely unemployed. Only Kramer's income is a mystery. He seems never to work, but he maintains an apartment in a decent UWS building and never seems to be scrabbling for sustenance. Aside from the mystery of Kramer, I see all the characters as solidly middle-class New Yorkers.
Jews like Remnick, safely ensconced in wealthy neighborhoods of the United States, should probably spend a few years in Israel to understand the difference caused by living surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered by people only 10s of miles away or less that would happily cut your head off and rape your dead body.
If NOBODY LEARNS, NOBODY CHANGES is the take-away, then that explains Remnick's kvetching about jokes during These Troubled Times. The Palestinians will always try to kill Jews - they wont learn, they wont change -- so Isreal may as well wipe out as many as they can now. Lasting peace is a hopeless cause. I suppose he would say Isreal wont learn or change either, though that's unsupported given the many offers of peace going back to Bill Clinton.
Van Zandt & Springsteen were also in the oddly satisfying finale of "Lillyhammer" which I recommend.
“In Curb, they're all rich and completely comfortable and successful.“
Of course it's ridiculous for a successful, affluent guy in Hollywood to be so petty. That's the joke. If he was a service industry worker the story lines would evoke pathos, not humor.
I gotta say that I loved the seinfeld finale and don't mind horrible characters acting horribly. They are supposed to be funny - not role models. My problem with "Curb your enthusiasm" isn't in the morals, meaning and message - its in the execution. Larry David, at least for me, doesn't have the comedic acting chops to carry a show. Further, too much of show seems to be ad-libbed, which may be "realistic" but is also boring.
If it really is all scripted, well....
I suppose Curb is the more realistic Seinfeld. Which is why its on HBO.
His funniest role was Bernie Sanders because he looks, acts and thinks just like him.
I’ve never watched more than a few minutes of Curb here and there. It won’t be missed. I guess I never “got it.”
Sorry, I just wrote my comment and then saw Althouse had responsed to my previous comment. Yes, Curb is "edgier" - some like that, some don't. I'm not edgy or not edgy - I just want to laugh. And I generally don't find obnoxious funny unless you have a comedian who can pull it off.
Most famous comedians played people who were horrible. Drunkards, Cowards, fools, skinflints, conmen, etc. If you met a WC Fields character in real life, I doubt you would laugh, you'd probably hate his guts. And thats the same with Marx Brothers, or Bob hope's coward/wolf persona.
I'm just rambling. No response required.
I never watched Curb because Larry David is nails on the chalkboard for me. Plus I won't pay for cable or streaming services.
Stopped watching after Marty Funkhouser passed away.
"Larry David, more than any Jew comic, is responsible for mainstreaming Jew self-hate,"
Such bullshit. If there are Jews who suffer from "Jewish self-hate," it comes from their parentage and homelife, as is the case with nearly all types of "self-hate" and emotional problems that people develop growing up. "Jewish self-hate" is also a handy and spurious label to criticize and invalidate the opinions of Jews who dissent from some or much of the ideas and attitudes claimed by those with self-interested motives to be "concensus Jewish" thinking, particularly directed at Jews (and Israelis) who criticize Israel's policies and actions.
"NOBODY LEARNS, NOBODY CHANGES."
That is actually the message of the Roadrunner.
I find Larry David and Curb Your Enthusiasm hilarious[...]he gets to say things that most of us wouldn't da[r]e.
Adam Carolla describes this as "fuck me money".
Fuck you money is when you're rich enough that you don't have to do something you don't want to anymore.
Fuck me money is when you're so rich that you're wiling to spend more than necessary, and even screw yourself over, to achieve a desired result.
In Curb this was seen in the "Spite Store" plot of last season.
As far as I can tell the Jews are the only ones who label each other as "Self-hating". Its an odd way to talk. When's the last time anyone said "Hey, he's a self-hating American" or "Hey, he's a self-hating Catholic".
It seems to be a way to make any criticism of Jews by Jews illegitimate. Don't respond to the criticism - just attack the critical Jew as "Self-hating". Anyway, I sincerly doubt Larry david or anyone involved with Seinfelt is a "Self-hating Jew". More like "I need to be funny Jews".
BTW, its interesting how the New Yorker has changed from a magazine under William Shawn, which was mostly written by Jews for everyone, to a magazine that full of explicitly Jewish content and Jewish writers writing as Jews.
RCOCEAN II said at 12:44 : "Don't respond to the criticism - just attack the critical Jew as "Self-hating""
Mostly I think it's a way to make it easier, more acceptable, to hate Jews in general. Hey: If the guy hates himself, who am I to disagree, amirite?
I never would have thought that antisemitism could resurge so easily, and be institutionally facilitated.
no the new yorker is not good for anyones understanding even brian the dog,
I remember I started reading Remnick, for his coverage in Russia, it turned out to be very narrow relating to Yeltsin's tenure, his forest depleting hagiography of Obama was legendarily bad,
The self hating Jew trope is a myth perpetuated by antisemites and mouth breathing morons. It assumes a monolithic race and culture. Are the bigot white Trumpers who hate woke white libtards and vice versa, "self-hating"?
it can lose its charm when civilization succumbs to barbarity. In life, as in comedy, timing is essential
Ah, the "burden"... uh, burden of life. Not that there's anything wrong with it. #HateLovesAbortion
I missed the kids on the show. The pre-gay kid. They sharpened the edge and cut Larry with it…
Another braindead Democrat Party member response from New York lib Cook. People hate New Yorkers too, but they aren't taught that from birth. They meet people like Larry David, Michael Rappaport, Bernie Sanders, AOC, Anthony Weiner, and Robert Cook and they learn that New Yorkers are assholes.
"The self hating Jew trope is a myth perpetuated by antisemites and mouth breathing morons."
What is the "Trope"?
Remnick seems to be the self-hating Jew here, evidently distraught over the fact that Jews are killing people who murdered and raped women and children and vow to do so again and again.
I enjoy David's humor, both on Seinfeld and Curb. For one thing, it doesn't reflect his politics at all. He's very good at ridiculing and showcasing the hypocrisy of white liberals, and is often very "politically incorrect." I'm thinking, for example, of the "You don't want to wear the ribbon?!" scene in Seinfeld. Or on a recent episode of Curb, Larry is confronted by "Ken," who used to be "Kendra", with whom Larry had a steamy relationship with 25 years ago. Larry is obviously VERY uncomfortable and insists against all opposition that "Ken" is not "Kendra." One of the funniest scenes of the whole season. He even ridiculed Muslim fanatics a couple of seasons ago with his "Fatwa: The Musical" series.
I haven't watched the Curb finale, but I thought the Seinfeld finale was a brilliant wrapping up of the whole series. I know a lot of people who used to say they didn't like Seinfeld because the characters were all so selfish, which I thought completely missed the point. We're supposed to laugh at them, not see them as role models. And in the finale the bad karma finally gets them.
David is not charming...he is a professional asshole and he got rich because of it.
He is also a lunatic, unhinged lefty, and like most women, should never be allowed to vote.
IIRC, people were doing comedy during WW2, the Cold War, and during every other atrocity and tragedy. There's nothing special about this time* that demands its cessation.
*That you and your sensibilities are around now doesn't make this time particularly special.
The very idea of a "self-hating Jew" is bigoted, as if all Jews are supposed to think the same about everything. You see this with black people a lot, but I don't think even to the same extent.
It doesn't help that the definition of "Jew" is often vague and cultural, and not necessarily tied to religious belief or ethnic origin.
Over-compensating Non-combat "vet" Howitzer Howard: "The self hating Jew trope is a myth perpetuated by antisemites and mouth breathing morons. It assumes a monolithic race and culture. Are the bigot white Trumpers who hate woke white libtards and vice versa, "self-hating"?"
If anyone was wondering how our weak minded Howard was handling the undeniable reality of the dems/islamic supremacist global alliance and his inability to simply wish it away, his post from above should clue you in fully.
"Not well" is the answer.
Howitzer Howard: "Are the bigot white Trumpers who hate woke white libtards and vice versa, "self-hating"?"
The realignment of increasing numbers of minority voters to Trump and panic it has created amongst racist democratical political plantation overseers like Boss Hogg Howard is also a wonder to behold.
Expect Howard's language to coarsen further when those darn non-whites continue to reject his pathetic white leftist ravings.
"A Jew should not do Jewish humor at a time when Jews are conspicuously killing people." I disagree. Jews do Jewish humor at times when people are conspicuously killing Jews. That's most of the time.
I actually thought that the pseudo-finale of Seinfeld on Curb Your Enthusiasm (with the associated subplots) was funnier than the actual Seinfeld finale.
The penultimate Seinfeld episode was a clip show that ended with “I Hope You Had the Time of Your Life” (real title “Good Riddance”) by Green Day. It was surprisingly moving.
As a Jew, and even though I guess Jews are supposed to be smart, I have no idea what point Remnick is making. I mean "amid the cruelty and carnage of the past six months"? I know about cruelty on October 7. I know about the cruelty of Hamas stealing all of its people's food delivered by the Israelis. But really, Curb has been on since 2000. Did the Syrians, Iranians, Iraqis, Afghanis, Houthis, Sudanese Muslims, warring tribes in the Congo, Somalia, Eretria, Myanmar, the Russians, the Chinese, the NATO allies in Lybia, etc., did they all of a sudden all up the tens of thousands they've been killing all along suddenly these past six months? All to no interest whatsoever from the Remnicks of the world unti then?
I don't go with the "self-hating Jew" stuff at all, for Remnick or anyone. As for him, he doesn't hate Jews. He's got it in for Israelis. That's all.
I get a big kick out of Curb Your Enthusiasm. This season (I'm up to episode 5) is a hoot. Skewering all the libs who are all a-flutter over that silly Georgia regulation just so they can feel superior to the unwashed. Larry's got 'em all nailed. Very entertaining.
I am not so sure about Larry David, but I have always thought that the whole point of "Jewish" humor--at least the good stuff--is to find a way to laugh when "civilization succumbs to barbarity."
And "civilization" has been a hell of a lot more barbaric than it is now for a very, very long time. It may currently be tawdry, ridiculous, cheap, not up to snuff and on the decline, for any number of reasons (which may vary considerably according to the perspective of the observer), but the barbarism quotient is way down. Some current well-publicized examples notwithstanding.
Drago: Boss Hogg wasn't a plantation overseer, just a political boss.
Somon LeGree is the classic plantation overseer type.
I didn't know Meade was from West Lafayette. Ask him if he was living there when a restaurant named 'Mountain Jack's' opened up in that town in...I think it would be...the late 70s.
I was a young guy working with the corporate team for that company back then. We were there as the corporate opening team. And that...that opening was legendary for years throughout our company.
It was busy. It was crazy. And we were out of control. So much so the corporate team got kicked out of our hotel. All 40 or so of us had to pack up and find a new home mid-week, during one of our busiest openings. But it was not just us. Those people in West Lafayette certainly liked to have a good time. At least they did back then. They definitely get an assist in our getting kicked out.
I think that's all I've got to say about Larry David. Or Bruce Springsteen.
And as for Jews, like other people, we come in all sizes, shapes, and character. And some of us are funnier than others.
In my sheet music for Thunder Road, which I bought in 1984, the lyric is "sways."
I've never heard anyone sing "waves," and have covered the song in various bands going back to 1985. You really CAN'T sing "Mary's dress waves" without eliding the terminal /s/ in "dress" and the initial /w/ in "waves," producing "swaves," which sounds bad.
I'm pretty sure we all knew back in that the lyrics in the Born to Run album were wrong. I have a vague memory of there being conflicting lyrics of "Blinded by the Light" that were also cleared up by the sheet music, but I can't find it.
This "controversy" seems like just another a made-up internet thing.
I could not care less about CYE, but David Remnick with his genteel distaste for Jews defending themselves can go straight to hell.
Remnick was deep in with Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, and Rasheed Khalidi to conceal the extent of Obama's expremely long and intimate relationship with domestic terrorists who received money from and endorsed the destruction of Israel. Remnick lied repeatedly through the 2008 election to conceal these facts, depriving American voters of extremely important information. He's pals with actual anti-American and anti-Jewish terrorists. He spent the post-election morning with terrorist Bill Ayers, who believes Israel should be destroyed. Had anyone had the knowledge Remnick concealed, Obama would not have become president. It speaks volumes that the New Yorker has stooped so low to employ someone who should be banned from professional journalism, especially when the standards were once so high for other people.
Mikey NTH: "Drago: Boss Hogg wasn't a plantation overseer, just a political boss.
Somon LeGree is the classic plantation overseer type."
Yes, I know. However my comment delivered the visual I was seeking.
"David is not charming...He is...a lunatic, unhinged lefty, and like most women, should never be allowed to vote."
A succinct statement by the not-lunatic Joe Smith, (or "Joe Smith").
Weird. I thought Remnkick was the self-loathing Jew and Larry David seems like a happy, well-adjusted guy.
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