Dear Sir:
It’s National Pastrami Day!
Admittedly, not here in the U.S., where, as every schoolchild knows, National Pastrami Day is January 14. But surely somewhere else on earth it’s National Pastrami Day for Foreigners.
For this reason I include, below, the following bit of ephemera. It is not new. I wrote it (by sheer coincidence) two days after the real National Pastrami Day in 2015. But it has, to my knowledge, never before been published except on Facebook, and thus may be of interest to both your readers.
I offer it, not only in the spirit of disinterested advocacy of the arts, and of pastrami, but out of a deepening concern for the upkeep of the Sherman Oaks Review of Books. It is plain to every eye that the Review’s once-vigorous pace of publication has, of late, diminished. Why this should be so is a matter of conjecture. Perhaps its editor is “tired.” Perhaps its contributors have better things to do. Perhaps the nation’s creativity is consumed, every day, with making fun of that fucking asshole Trump.
Whatever the cause, please accept this modest contribution as a gesture of goodwill, of encouragement, and as a tiny flame set alight in the service of keeping the SORB fires burning, whatever that means.
Yours faithfully,
Ellis Weiner
Editor, The Sherman Oaks Review of Books
Cool for Katz
First watch this.
Then read this:
It’s lunchtime at the Deli and the place is bleedin’ packed
I tell the girl “just me” and then she goes into her act
She asks for reservations and it’s not some-fing I have
She smiles and says to wait and so I ask to use the lav
And pass a gang of townies taking weeks to eat their chav
About an hour later there’s a table set for one
The girl hands me the menu and it weighs a bloody ton
There’s pictures of the brisket and a closeup of a knish
A photo of a bocci ball that says Gefilte Fish
And pickles on the table in a little metal dish
I fancy the pastrami with some Russian and the slaw
I put my mouf around it and I dislocate my jaw
I stagger to the register, I’m stuffed wif meats and fats
The owner looks so happy, makes me want to say ‘congrats’
At twenty bucks a sandwich, yeh, this place is cool for Katz
It’s cool for Katz
Steve Fishman
http://tinyurl.com/n82nz6c
