Dear Tante Bayla,

A couple of weeks ago, my beloved and I decided to visit the Dali exhibition at the NGV for the Art After Dark session. When we arrived we were dismayed to find that the queue to buy tickets was at least an hour long, taking up the entire atrium. If we actually got in, we’d have hardly any time to see the exhibition before it closed for the day. As we were debating whether or not to stay, I spied my old high school art teacher — let’s call her Mrs Chagall — out of the corner of my eye. She waved us over to her spot at the front of the queue, and told us that her sciatica was playing up and she was going to go home, but we were welcome to take her spot in the line.

Before I could even begin to formulate a response my beloved jumped the rope and voila, we were at the front of the queue. We had our tickets within ten minutes and ample time to peruse the exhibition. But I feel guilty that we pushed ahead of all the other people patiently waiting. Was it right of us to accept Mrs Chagall’s offer? Shouldn’t we have bided our time in the queue like everyone else? (Beloved said no! carpe di queue, etc.)

What should we have done?

Guilty Art Lover, Bentleigh, VIC

Dear GAL,

This is a tough one. On the one hand, had you waited in the queue with everyone else, you could have missed out on seeing the exhibition entirely. And technically, you didn’t make the queue any longer for the people behind you – you were simply replacing Mrs Chagall. On the other hand, what you did was morally dubious. You jumped the queue. You took what wasn’t yours! In the school tuckshop line, this sort of exchange is called a “Chinese swap” (nu, primary school kids aren’t known for their political correctness) and is seriously frowned upon as the ultimate manifestation corruption and dishonesty. In thirty-six degree heat, you just gotta wait your turn for your Sunnyboy like everyone else.

But primary school morality is perhaps not the best arbiter of right and wrong. So let us turn to the Good Book, where there’s plenty of queue-jumping and dubious decision-making to reflect upon!

Case in point:

Jacob convinces Esau to hand over his birthright as firstborn in exchange for THE BEST CHULENT OF ALL TIME. Aided by his mother, Rebecca, Jacob then dons a hairy disguise and steals some blessings from Isaac intended for Esau, thus starting the biggest rivalry EVA and altering the course of Jewish history for all eternity. Jacob is also considered to be the granddaddy of the Jewish nation. (Sucks to be Esau.) So it would appear that you can indulge in your queue-jumping sans guilt, safe in the knowledge that you are emulating our righteous (cough, cough) forefathers.

BUT. Jacob gets his comeuppance. He’s conned by Leah and Laban, the BEST QUEUE JUMPERS OF ALL TIME. They make you and your Beloved and look positively saintly. Leah marries Jacob ahead of Rachel, and Jacob is forced to toil another seven years for Laban until he finally gets to marry his true love. (Happy sigh.) But ultimately Rachel and Leah have a very dysfunctional, unhappy relationship, with Leah constantly flaunting her fertility and never able to reconcile herself to the fact that Rachel is Jacob’s true love. (Echoes of The Bold and the Beautiful here.) Then poor Rachel dies giving birth to Benjamin. And then there’s the whole saga with Joseph and Benjamin and the other brothers kidnapping Joseph and then pretending he’s been killed, etc. (Echoes of Dr Phil, anyone?)

So, in conclusion – queue jumping is bad. It has led, respectively, to:

1. The Arab-Israeli conflict;
2. Slavery of Jews in Egypt; (and by extension, the invention of matzah… *shudder*)
3. All subsequent Jewish suffering and persecution;
4. Bad soap opera plots (see B&B reference above);
5. Bad self-help reality TV (refer to Dr Phil).

So unless you want to initiate a world war, accidentally marry your Beloved’s sister, or end up on daytime television, I would advise that queue jumping of any sort is best left well alone.

As penance, say eighteen Hail Marys and tune in to Galus’ liveblog coverage of John Safran’s new TV show tomorrow night. (There will be no queues.)

Love,

Tante Bayla

Dear Tante Bayla,

We have been blessed with three intelligent, sensitive, creative, independent-minded children. But the fourth, our youngest, is turning into a conservative little son-of-a-neo-con. We don’t know where we went wrong. Normal teenagers have posters of Ben Harper on their walls; Mark* has a picture of Joseph and Hadassah Lieberman’s 2008 Channukah card. Instead of spending half of Sunday sleeping, he reads the Fin Review and works on developing his online business model. Whatever that means.

Look, we love Mark, he’s a good kid, studies hard, respects us, etc. But the problem is that he wants to study LAW, then go into FINANCE and make (quote): “shitloads of money”. He keeps threatening to vote for the Coalition in the next election. We just want him to play guitar, wear t-shirts with slogans and study something fun, like literature or art or surfboard making. In short, we want him to be more like us.

Help!
Ageing Hippies, East Malvern, VIC

Tante Bayla

Dear Ageing Hippies,

So your son wants to be a lawyer and make money. My condolences.

I totally get where you’re coming from: of COURSE you want your son to be just like you. Ultimately, all parents do. They’re not meant to admit it, but all that unconditional love is really just code for “please be like me”. This shouldn’t be the case, of course. It is bad and selfish and parents should not be bad and selfish; they should embrace diversity in all its beautiful diversity, especially when it comes to their children.

Great. Now that we’ve established your political incorrectness (tick!), let’s move on to the actual advice:

I have to admit my limitations in advising you on this matter. I am, after all, a tante – not a mameh. My knowledge of child rearing is derived mainly from popular culture. In fact, all of what I know about anything is derived from popular culture. (This is because I studied something ‘fun’ at university. I now earn about $8 an hour working in retail. But I’m really fulfilled, you know?)

Therefore, allow me to dip into the venerable pool of wisdom that is popular culture. Fortunately, there’s a movie that explores exactly the predicament you find yourselves in: The Rage in Placid Lake (2003). (‘Rage’ is a memorable film, mainly because every time I remember it I think, “Must remember to not see Ben Lee act ever, ever again.”) Basically, what happens is this: Ben Lee’s character, Placid, is raised by hippie parents. He rebels and goes to work for an insurance company. Meanwhile, he’s got a lovely best friend, played by Rose Byrne, whose father expects her to become a great scientist and she’s not sure she wants to. Of course, Placid’s in love with Rose Byrne but he doesn’t realise it. Can’t quite remember the rest, but they end up together and I think Placid gets over wanting to be a capitalist because he’s got Rose Byrne.

Ooh! And actually there’s another movie worth mentioning: Everyone Says I Love You (1996). (Everyone Says I Love You is memorable too, mainly for the fact that Drew Barrymore appears to not be wearing a bra in most scenes, and also because we’re supposed to believe that Julia Roberts would fall in love with Woody Allen.) Anyway, there’s a minor subplot involving Alan Alda’s son, Scott, who, despite being born into a sickeningly-sweetly-neurotic uber-liberal Upper East Side pseudo-intellectual family, starts talking about the right to bear arms and voting for the GOP and other awful non-liberal values. Happily, it turns out Scott has a benign brain tumour (or maybe it’s his thyroid, not sure), and once it’s removed he reverts to family type and presumably ends up writing a thesis on post-colonial paradigms of off-Broadway masculinity at Berkeley. Or making surfboards.

To conclude:

There are two distinct possibilities for you to explore here: either young Mark has some sort of not-too-serious undiagnosed medical condition, which, once resolved, will return him to you in his full, prodigal glory. We can only hope. Make some appointments at Cabrini.

Another possibility is that he just needs a girlfriend. In which case he’s much like any other adolescent male – too many hormones and not enough sex.  I’d suggest sitting tight for the next couple of scenes, as the problem may be resolved in a neat cinematic arc, a la Placid and Scott.

If not, you’ll just have to don suits, become lawyers and start working in finance. For the rest of your lives. (Reverse psychology is nothing if not a commitment.) It’s the least you could do for Mark, really. Hopefully the thought of his parents muscling in on his territory will be enough to turn him towards something more… fun.

Love,

Tante Bayle

* Name has been changed.

At Galus Australis, we are concerned that our community has forgotten the importance of utilising the wisdom of our elders.  That’s why we’re doing something about it!  We’ve recruited a genuine Zaida, as well as a Tante, to answer any questions our readers might have.

So for those of you who have any questions on any topic whatsoever, please direct them to either Izzy (izzy@galusaustralis.com) or Bayla (bayla@galusaustralis.com), and they’ll be only too happy to tell you what to do. Or where to go.

Dear Tante Bayla,

For the past twenty years, my father-in-law (let’s call him Motek) has been responsible for running our pesach seders. The seder is a contentious ritual in our family – Motek favours a speedy, cut-through-the-maggid-to-the-fressing bit, as does my husband, J. I prefer a more philosophical and intellectual approach; drawing from various haggadot as well as readings from secular-Jewish and non-Jewish sources. My brother-in-law is quite frum and likes a very traditional, Orthodox (and long) seder. My sister-in-law, like Motek and J, just wants to eat ASAP (but I think she’d like all of our our children to participate more).
Anyway, dear Motek is getting on in years and recently announced his abdication from the Head of Seder post. He feels it’s time to pass the role on to the next generation. I can see conflict brewing, come pesach-time. How do we find an amicable way to resolve our differences?

Thanks,
BaSeder, East St Kilda, VIC

Tante Bayla

Dear BaSeder,

So, “dear Motek is getting on in years”, is he? Oh, you can barely contain your glee, BaSeder. Admit it! Finally, the alte kaker has bowed out. A power struggle forming! This is your big opportunity to come out on top! And there’s a lot at stake, too – shalom bayis, boredom, plagues, continuity, tradition, whinging children, religious differences, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, getting to eat your kneidlach before midnight.
BS (hmm), this is a matter of urgency – spiritually, politically, etc. Though you’ve couched it in much more PC-language than I would have – shkoyach! That does, however, say something about the sort of seder you’d run, and I’ll be frank – it’s not my cup of salted water. I’m a Motek sort of gal at heart. After many, many years of seders (of all sorts of ideological and religious affiliations and permutations), I get it. We were slaves, The Almighty redeemed us, now we’re free, let’s all hold hands and talk about Darfur for ten minutes, etc. These days, I just want to eat my roast chicken and gefilte fish and make Masterchef-esque looking korech structures from multiple layers of charoset, lettuce, matzah and maror.
Having said that, I admire your noble, post-modern proclivities. I get where you’re coming from. As far as I can see, there is only one fair way to resolve a power struggle in our post-modern, self-referentially ironic, inter-webzy world: a reality-TV style competition. Truly, is there any greater arbiter of cultural value today than a child with a mobile phone, opposable thumbs and a working television? NO! (Your sister-in-law will love it!) Picture it: SederMaster Australia. A cook-off, read-off, learn-off, source-gathering-off SPECTAC. A different contestant eliminated each week. The process would culminate in a epic, six-hour seder-off, with the winner crowned SederMaster by the children in the family until death (or senility)!

I love it. I’m on shpilkas. Someone get me The Shtick on the phone.

Love,
Tante Bayla