<em>Go the Fuck to Shul</em>

LOLvis writes in with a link to Tablet Magazine's Go the Fuck to Shul: "Not only a witty response to criticism of Go the F*ck to Sleep ('Imagine if this were written about Jews'), it's funny enough to stand on its own."

It's Yom Kippur, and you're far away,
The last thing I want's to be cruel.
I'm your mother, son, you know I adore you,
But please go the fuck to shul.

You'd only go for a few hours,
Shorter than a full day of school.
You'll probably run into people you know
If you go the fuck to shul.

Go the F**k to Shul (Thanks, LOLvis!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: judiasm

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Anony Mouse

I dunno, I’m pretty meh about the original. I mean, I think it’s a cute idea, but firstly it’s not funny enough to be worth publishing, more like a B grade internet rage face meme funny – and secondly the scansion of some of the lines is diabolically bad. Go the fuck to poetry school!
Micah

I assume this is a direct reaction to the following quote from a stupidly overreactive CNN opinion piece:

“Imagine if this were written about Jews, blacks, Muslims or Latinos,” says Dr. David Arredondo.

Imagine no more!
Micah

D’oh. I just clicked through and saw that this actually WAS written in direct reaction to that stupid quote.
RebNachum

Meh. There’s an undercurrent of anger in the Tablet parody that’s lacking in the original. To me, this renders the parody less charming.
- Ari B.
  
  I’m not sure I agree. The original has a definite undercurrent of increasing frustration that starts to get angry at the end. Listen to Sam Jackson’s reading, he captures it awfully well.
  - RebNachum
    
    Sure, but the parent still loves the child. In Tablet’s parody, where’s the love? (I actually didn’t mean that ironically. Stupid contextual culture.)
Anonymous

It would be funnier if I knew what ‘shul’ meant.
- Anonymous
  
  “Shul” = synagogue (Jewish place of worship)
katkins

Hah, reminds me of the story told by Larry Adler
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Adler ) about being grilled by Al Capone as a young man… Capone was very concerned that Larry wasn’t skipping out on his proper education and filial duties being a musician at age 14 or 15.

Ah, found it:
http://books.google.com/books?id=MI6MH4u7oCwC&pg=PA259&lpg=PA259
chgoliz

It’s also less universal. Every single person on this planet has at some point or another been the kind of baby, toddler, or child that had their parents muttering “go the fuck to sleep already”.