Book Review: Subculture Vulture, by Moshe Kasher – The New York Times

SUBCULTURE VULTURE: A Memoir in Six Scenes, by Moshe Kasher

About three-quarters of the way through his new memoir, Subculture Vulture, the writer and comedian Moshe Kasher warns that, right about now, readers might want to bail and head to YouTube: Hes about to explain the Talmud.

Kasher, whose first book chronicled his early youth, spent many of his childhood summers flying from his home in Oakland, Calif., to visit with his ultra-Orthodox father, who lived in a Hasidic community in Brooklyn. He describes swapping his As cap for a yarmulke as he prepared to live the life of Tevye the Milkman for a few weeks a year.

Despite his warning, Kasher makes short and only moderately sacrilegious work of the various holy texts and their significance. The Mishna is a written version of collected oral law, he explains. It was eventually written down when people realized the Jews werent so good at oral, he adds with, I can only imagine, a click of his teeth and a wink direct to camera. If that sort of joke isnt to your taste, hes right: Abandon ship now.

Talmudic studies la Kasher offer the same solid balance he demonstrates throughout the book. Youll probably learn something unless youve lived an identical life to his, which seems statistically impossible and laugh in roughly equal measure.

In Subculture Vulture, Kasher details his experiences within six distinct communities. First comes his account of growing up in Young Peoples Alcoholics Anonymous after landing in rehab at the age of 13. Later he immerses himself in sober partying and drug-selling within San Franciscos rave scene. He parlays his experience as a child of deaf adults in a yearslong career as a professional sign language interpreter, before a stint manning the entrance at Burning Man, and, ultimately, a career in comedy. And, of course, theres his time in Brooklyn.

These abridged accounts of his life serve as part history lesson, part standup set and, often, part love letter. My mother loves masturbation. Its kind of her thing. Farting and masturbation, he writes in the chapter about deafness. Kasher spares no details of her fondness for a particularly loud vibrator or her unabashed flatulence. (Neither of which, he reminds us, his mother can hear.) He describes being the hearing child of two deaf parents as a nonconsensual sign language interpretation internship program. Still, by the chapters end, Kashers fondness for his mother and the deaf community is unmistakable.

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Book Review: Subculture Vulture, by Moshe Kasher - The New York Times