News, Views, and Shmooze....

Seraphic Secret

Screenwriter Robert Avrech is blogging about his experience researching his award-winning film, "Within These Walls."

You don't want to miss this.

Jewish Blog Awards

The Jerusalem Post is conducting the Jewish & Israeli Blog Awards, with multiple categories:

• Best Designed Blog
• Best 'Life in Israel' Blog
• Best Jewish Religion Blog
• Best Series
• Best Post
• Best Overall Blog
• Best Jewish Culture Blog
• Best Jewish Humor Blog
• Best Israel Advocacy Blog
• Best Politics and Current Affairs Blog
• Best Personal Blog
• Best New Blog 2005
• Best Overall 'Mega' Blog
• Best Podcast
• Best 'Student Life' Blog
• Best Group Blog
• Best of Rest

You still have time to check out the nominated blogs - read entries.

And vote.

To Shmooze or...Schmooze?

So I learned today at Lee Goldberg's blog that  someone else has a blog titled News, Views, Schmooze.

Writer/producer Bryce Zabel.

There's room in the blogosphere for both of us.

Bryce has a "c" in shmooze. And he writes mostly about Hollywood.

"C" or no "c"?

"Shmear" or "schmear"?

That is the pressing question.

High-Low

In between writing the first draft of a proposal for a stand-alone, I've visited a number of blogs.

On Hardscrabble, a woman talks with unflinching candor and courage about her infertility. Her posts are searing, poignant, raw. They pain me and humble me. I read the comments--there are hundreds--and marvel at the outflowing of support that she says sustains her.

On Seraphic Secret, Emmy-award-winning screenwriter Robert Avrech (Body Double, A Stranger Among Us, The Devil's Arithmetic) has been unfolding in delicious detail his love affair with Karen, his wife of over twenty years. Karen often adds her perspective on their courtship. Singly and together, their story is romantic, uplifting, humorous, real.

The Blogs That Bind

Since I began this blog in early March, I've connected with people all over the world. One of them is Danny Bloom, who lives in Taiwan and recently wrote, "Why Do Jews Blog?"

Another is Pearl from Toronto. Pearl and I have been e-mailing for several months, and this past Sunday we finally met at the second annual memorial lecture for Ariel Avrech, alav ha'shalom, sponsored by his parents, Robert and Karen.

I had seen a photo of Pearl, so I recognized her as I stepped out of my car, which I had parked directly in front of the synagogue where the lecture was to take place. Pearl recognized me, too, from my photo on this blog.

There was something almost cinematic about our arriving at precisely the same moment, with no one else around. We smiled at each other, entered the synagogue together, sat next to each other during the lecture and the brunch that followed.

And there was something unusual and noteworthy about Pearl's having traveled from Toronto to Los Angeles to attend a memorial for a young man she had never met, a young man she came to know through Robert's blog.