Could You
Just Plotz?
I
t was Christmastime 1994 and Bar-
bara had had just about enough. It
seemed like everyday a cheery co-
worker would approach her desk and
offer to decorate it with some Yuletide trim
— a wreath here, a little mistletoe there.
"I would say, 'No! rm Jewish!' " recalls
Barbara, who uses only her first name.
"And I thought, 'Enough already!"
The religious insensitivity drove the 35-
year-old Manhattanite to pen a missive
decrying the Santa-led oppression she felt
bearing down on her every December.
"... It also really pisses me off," she wrote,
"when people just assume that I celebrate
Christmas too and keep saying 'Merry
Christmas' to me or ask me what I'm do-
ing for Christmas. (What do you think rm
doing? rm going to the movies and eating
Chinese food) ..."
And so Plotz: "The Zine for the Va-
clempt" (sic) was born.
`Zines (the word is derived from their
brethren, magazines) are a '90s cultural
phenomenon akin to garage bands: grass-
roots in nature, they're patched together
Cr)
L1J
LLJ
CC
F-
LU
L11
F-
71
by neophytes passionate about address-
ing very specific and often arcane
topics.
If you haven't already guessed, Plotz ex-
amines Jewishness —,being Jewish, not
being Jewish, Jewish burdens, Jewish
quirks, etc. Barbara has published five is -
sues so far, and Sassy magazine recently
named Plotz its "Zine of the Month."
Pretty impressive considering the pub-
lication's simplicity: black-and-white type
copied onto folded 8-1/2 by 11-inch pieces
of paper. It's the writing that gives Plotz
its kick. Barbara has perfected a casual,
intimate, sardonic tone that makes for
quite an entertaining, and at times sur-
prisingly enlightening, read.
Like this excerpt from a Q&A. interview
with rock musician Dan Segal of the Su-
persuckers.
Plotz: "Yom Kippur is just around the
corner. What will you be atoning for?"
Segal: "I haven't flossed my teeth
enough. I should devote more time to that."
Or issue No. 5's Yiddish Word of the
Month: shmutz. "Example: You look beey-
ootiful, but you've got a big
piece of shmutz on your face."
Barbara, a freelance music
writer and office temp, grew
up in a Conservative Jewish
home in Philadelphia. She
went to Hebrew school and
remembers her parents
changing the dishes for
Passover and her mother
lighting the Sabbath candles
each Friday night. But it
wasn't until a few years ago
that she rekindled her inter-
est in her Jewish roots.
"I'm starting to get into it
again," she says. "I want to
take pride in who I am."
Before Plotz, Barbara pub-
lished a 'zine called Hey
There, Barbie Girl, a not-so-
complimentary deconstruc-
tion of the Barbie doll. Mattel
was especially displeased and
sent Barbara a nasty cease
and desist order, which made
The Plotz logo was created by Jeff at CRANK.
her cry. Thus, she's attempting to remain
incognito during her current publishing
venture.
Irreverence is a 'zine trademark, and
Plotz delights in using Jewish humor to
poke fun at tradition. Less funny and more
poignant is the surprisingly brazen anti-
Semitism Barbara and her contributing
writers have experienced, which they write
about frequently.
Barbara herself bitterly recounts being
accosted on the subway and in front of her
apal tment with anti-Semitic slurs. She
refers on occasion to her prominent nose,
which seems to act like a bigot magnet.
Writing with a sort of hip indignation
(the columns are titled things like "Jew
Girl's Anti-Semitic Experience of the
Month" and "Same Story, Different Slur"),
Barbara powerfully conveys the shocking
ugliness of her run-ins.
"Why is it that I can't even walk down
the street in New York City without some-
one harassing me because I'm Jewish?"
With five issues under her Jewgirls
Productions moniker, the mysterious
Barbara explores beingJewish, not being
Jewish, Jewish burdens and Jewish quirks
in her "zine for the vaclempt (sic)."
LIZ STEVENS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS