Snarly and Sumac very much enjoyed appearing on A Bintel Brief: The Jewish Advice Podcast. A Bintel Brief (Yiddish for “a bundle of letters”) began in 1906 as an advice column in The Forward, the venerable old Jewish newspaper. It answered readers’ questions about romance, life as a greenhorn, adapting to the quirks of America, finding a job. Then came a Bintel Brief book that compiled 60 years of all kinds of letters, and then a delightful illustrated version by the great cartoonist Liana Finck. And now, a podcast! Hosted by the delightful Ginna Green, a movement builder on the boards of progressive Jewish orgs like Bend the Arc and the Jews of Color Initiative, and Lynn Harris, a writer-comedian-activist who founded Gold Comedy and co-created the superhero known as Breakup Girl, it asked us to come on and answer a letter writer’s Dungeons and Dragons-related apology question and to talk about apology in general.
Snarly (in her alter ego as Marjorie) also did a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) about apologies, Jewish children’s literature, and her hatred of borscht. (It is called “Ask Me Anything,” after all.) Snarly is no longer taking questions but you can read the entertaining conversation here.
In other news, SORRYWATCH HAS BEEN CENSORED IN CHINA! Lots of books are printed in China these days, and ours was supposed to be one of them. But after receiving the manuscript, the people in charge refused to print it. They would not tell us why. We have a suspicion, though: In the book, there is an apology-related story that involves the Dalai Lama. We suspect that there are a number of words that get one banned in China. We suspect that “Dalai Lama” are two of them. Never fear, the book is being printed in America and will, God willing, be on shelves on January 10th. You can pre-order it (please do! Pre-orders are apparently helpful things!) through any of the links here. Or just ask the nice folks at your local bookstore or library to order a copy. (Did we mention we love libraries?)
ANYHOO. We are truly living large, what with all these MEDIA DOINGS (Snarly also did a segment on the evening news in San Francisco about Will Smith’s pretty-good, B+-rated recent apology), and our lovely publisher, Gallery Books, even made us some SNAZZY NOTECARDS.
Lest you think this has all gone to our head, however, Snarly found one of the snazzy notecards lying on the kitchen counter with a corner ripped out of it. Someone in her household was at that very moment using it to make a FILTER for a JOINT, aka a hand-rolled cigarette of the marijuana, the devil’s lettuce.
EVIDENCE. EVIDENCE of MALFEASANCE.
That is sad. Nobody should be using your apology notecards for weed. Weed is great, but your apology stuff is better.
Heh, this is a lovely comment. Thank you.