EXPLAINING MISHUGAS

For those of you who didn't grow up in a Jewish neighborhood on the East Coast, I want to give a necessary definition of my blog name: Mishugas. Mishugas is the Yiddish word that we use to describe those habits, actions and thought patterns that seem peculiar to Jewish people. It might be translated "craziness," but that just touches the surface of this rich and complex concept. Mishugas is used to describe that Jewish way of looking at life that helps us know when we have encountered another Jewish person. It is also the name of the column I have written since 2000 for the Jewish Journal of San Antonio after having lunch with the editor. We were talking about what we wanted to be "when we grew up," and I blurted out that I always wanted to write feature articles or personal essays for a national magazine. Barbara Richmond, the editor of the Journal at that time, responded by asking me to write something for her, and if she liked it, she would publish it...That was 12 years ago this fall. Though my original plan was to write simply a humor column, over the years I have had the pleasure of commenting on everything from the Jewish love of Chinese food to my unabashed adoration of Nora Ephron's writing. My blog is where I am uploading my columns, one by one, so that I can share them with a wider audience. I also have a CD, Mishugas Live, which contains my reading of ten of my best columns interspersed with the music I have written over the years for local productions. My own personal Mishugas is my announcing to a room of Golden Globe attendees (our San Antonio theatre awards) as I received my second trophy for Best Musical Score that I will not leave the planet until Barbra Streisand sings one of my songs!