Hollywood: I Drive Therefore I am Free
Shirley Temple with Baby LeRoy cruising in a Fire Chief car, early 1930s. The automobile represents freedom. You climb into a car and go, go, go, whenever and wherever you want. The car is modern man’s...
View ArticleA Duck Dynasty Purim!
The 2014 Purim celebration begins on Saturday night March 15 and continues through the 16th. On the holiday of Purim, Jews listen to a reading of Megillat Esther, send gifts of food to friends and...
View ArticleTake #1: The Meaning of Leaning in Hollywood
Jean Harlow relaxes on the set of Dinner at Eight (1933). Costumes by Adrian, b. Adrian Adolph Greenburg. Leaning boards ( also called Slant boards) were invented for Hollywood players to relax between...
View ArticleFriday Photos — Scattered Edition
BB thinks it over. Usually, we publish photos organized around a central theme. Not today. We’re feeling a bit scattered. We’re spooked by the Emperor Obama, by what’s happening to this country. And of...
View ArticleFriday Photos: Just Because the World is Still Burning…
Brigitte Bardot, photo by Douglas Kirkland, 1965. It’s been another terrible, horrible very bad week with the release of a Democrat, ahem, study, that seeks to persecute President George W. Bush and...
View ArticleIs Livia Dreaming of Electric Sheep?
Is Livia dreaming? As Livia was sleeping, I sat and watched over her for about 20 minutes. Every once in a while she twitched or shuddered. Livia clenched and unclenched her fist. Her eyelids fluttered...
View ArticleSomeone To Watch Over Me in 2015
As we said yesterday, Seraphic Secret aspires to optimism. Not an easy task when reality suggests the opposite world view. And so, on this first day of 2015, we are not posting about the latest outrage...
View ArticleFriday Photos
Offspring #3 and Ariel Chaim visit newborn Livia Yarden. The family circle widens. Karen and I wish all our friends and relatives a lovely and inspirational Shabbat.
View ArticleFriday Photos: Mood Board
In shul, a guy sitting next to me said: “Hey, your techeles matches your shoes!” This morning, after Daf Yomi, my friend turned to me and said: “Some week, huh?” I said: “It seems that every week is...
View ArticleFriday Photos: The High Horse Edition
John Wayne (right) on his high horse, “The Searchers”, 1956. At the National Prayer Breakfast yesterday, Barack Obama warned that we should not “get on our high horse” over the immolation of Royal...
View ArticleFriday Photos: Islam Denial Edition
A Jewish man with his tallis, prayer shawl, Jerusalem, 1920s. The verbal gymnastics of the Obama administration have reached a level of weirdness that defies common sense. The targeted murder of Jews...
View ArticleFriday Photos: ObamaNet Edition
The other day Karen and I were walking along La Brea Boulevard when we came upon this giant sculpture of Lenin outside a building owned by Ace Gallery. “Miss Mao Trying to Poise Herself at the Top of...
View ArticleFriday Photos: There is No End of History Edition
Jewish children wearing Purim costumes are guarded by Israeli soldiers in the indigenous Jewish city of Hebron, currently under occupation by Arab Muslim imperialists. Benjamin Netanyahu, in his...
View ArticleFriday Photos: Announcing a New Jewish Holiday Edition
Eleanor Parker (’22 – ’13) was a brilliant actress who played comedy as deftly as she played drama. Her voice was film noir husky, and she used it like a musical instrument. Raised a Protestant, she...
View ArticleFriday Photos: Everything But the Kitchen Sink
“I’ve worked with a lot of great glamorous girls in movies and the theater. And I’ll admit, I’ve often thought it would be wonderful to be a femme fatale. But then I’d always come back to thinking that...
View ArticleFriday Photos: The Image is the Message
Carole Lombard The other day I was talking with an aspiring screenwriter about great film actors. I mentioned Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn, John Wayne, Kirk...
View ArticleFriday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions
“You know what you can do with this.”—Myrna Loy to MGM when they sent her a letter reprimanding her for speaking out on behalf of German Jews. Her call against Jew-hatred resulted in a loss of revenue...
View ArticleFriday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions
“There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when...
View ArticleSeraphic Secret In the Land of Israel, Part I
No matter how many times we visit the eternal, undivided city of Jerusalem, we are overcome with emotion. In the center of the manhole cover is the Lion of Judah, symbol of the city that was...
View ArticleSeraphic Secret in the Land of Israel, Part III
Karen and I commissioned a new headstone for our beloved son Ariel Chaim, zt’l. The Israeli company that did the engraving were acutely sensitive to our needs and made sure to get language and image...
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