Reports from Knish Alley

The  first Knish Alley Revival is entering the annals of history. Click on this image for more photos.

Sunday's processional on Second Avenue included a knish virgin-turned-convert (in tie). Photo by Cheryl Daitch.

From InTheMoment, Moment Magazine’s blog, right above Sarah Silverman:

It’s cheese! It’s mustard! It’s…a knish?

If you happened to be walking down Second Avenue in New York’s East Village last Sunday afternoon, you might have seen an unexpected sight:  a small and solemn processional of people dressed in yellow.  This was no McDonald’s protest or cheese parade.  Instead, it was a celebration and memorialization of an oft-forgotten history.

From a student in Parsons’ MFA Design & Technology Program, Major Studio 1: Interface 2010 class:

We met, the “KNISH WOMAN!!!!”. In my best attempt, I tried to be as involved as possible, conversing with them about the KNISH REVIVAL! We spoke with them for what felt like a half hour; Confluxing it up. They told us about how they cooked knish earlier for the people, and even talked to us about the Yiddish Walk of Fame, as well as the Village of East City Cinemas, it was an amazing time. At the end, we walked over to the Yiddish Walk of Fame to gaze at amazing stars such as “Fyvush Finkel” (true story) who are forever immortalized on the Yiddish Walk of Fame, located in front of Chase Manhattan Bank.

And my own recap on the Lo-Down blog:

They came from the Bronx. They came from Boston, They came from Newfoundland and yes, they came from the Lower East Side. They came to join in the knish processional and some of them were people I had never seen before.

Second Avenue Revival

Great news:

Get ready for a homecoming.

The Knish takes (back) Second Avenue.

I will be participating in the Conflux Festival and leading a knish processional on Sunday, October 10, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.

That morning, the Yiddish Theatrical Alliance will make its annual trek to Mount Hebron cemetery in Flushing, Queens, where my great-grandfather is also buried. He was not a thespian, alas, but a saddle-maker, according to his death certificate. I like the idea of making the pilgrimage en masse and am eager to meet members of the storied Alliance. I hope Fyvish Finkel, one of the last greats, will be on hand, but he’s also got a show in the works.

Come one, come all. Knish lovers, knish enthusiasts and new initiates of all sizes, shapes, affiliations and taste preferences are welcome to join in the procession — or to join the flocks of onlookers.

Meet the Human Knish

Regards from my pal Liz’s porch, Madison, Wisconsin.
Spreading the gospel of the knish as trees break into mustard, I mean, blossom.

Consider the Knish: The Final Stretch

I’ve sent my presentation off to Adult Ed for Tuesday night’s shindig, and in a very rare email message from my mother’s account, Mickey the Mustardeur (aka my dad) reports that his latest homemade batch is ready to go. It’s five-star (his term, echoed by friends who have tried it) and several alarm, à la chili.  It’s going to be spicy, kiddies.

And I can only hope the same for my talk and slide show, which will obviously include a special post-Passover State of the Knish address. I can’t reveal any of that before the fact, of course, but I will let you in on some of my planning for the talk. I started out with this schematic, handily posted in my living room, which covers the bulk of my knish research over, oh, say, the last five years.

It morphed quite a bit and now focuses on six of the original ideas on the post its, but that’s the joy and the rigor of editing.

Now to practice the delivery. And yes, there will be homebaked knishes on hand.

Collaborative Performance: A Way to Escape the Narrow Places

In the spirit of down-home happenings, I humbly present a preview of the Knish Color Guard. Thanks Lee and Natasha.

All hail the underbelly.

Last week I went to two most amazing performances:

Commemoration of the 99th Anniversary of Triangle Shirtwaist Fire

Great Small Works’ most fantabulous Spaghetti Dinner

Great to be around old-time New York types who challenge the establishment and invite people of different ages, backgrounds, cultures, and money levels to share space and food. Bravo! Proof that New York is not just about glitz and glam but also about coming together and making a difference for people of all walks of life.

I like to think about this, especially on the eve of Passover, which is all about challenging the confines, structures and strictures we set for ourselves.

Pretty great how a bowl of popcorn or a plate of spaghetti can unite a crowd, spark a conversation, create commonality. I cleaned my plate at Great Small Works’ Spring Spaghetti and took in a smorgasbord of entertainment: a quartet of tiger puppets, a face-changing Peking opera performer, a story about the history of oil, an excerpt from a novel about online dating for the uber-hairy, and a sultry singer with a southern twang. But wait, I’m forgetting an important thing — the presentation by independent relief workers in Haiti and reports of their new projects.

At the commemoration of the 99th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Annie Lanzilatto placed a phantom shirtwaist on a stick in my hand when I walked in and urged me into the procession with a one-ply specter of a shirt dangling three feet above my head. All of them had names. Mine said: unidentified woman. Annie is Bronx-born Italian with the accent and heart to prove it. “What do you want to change?’ she thundered to the crowd. “Do something.”

What does all this have to do with knish culture? I love these events for bringing people together with a focus on what’s inside on a person. Spectacle is about surfaces and what we perceive, but both of these shindigs also gave light to the invisible — heartbreak, injustice, people and perspectives that can be tough to find in the hullabaloo of the big city.