GOLDA Gang, I can’t wait to see you tonight at our screening of The Floaters—it’s at 7 p.m. at Quad Cinema and afterwards I’ll be moderating a conversation with the film’s director Rachel Israel and producer Shai Korman. Get your tickets here.
Yesterday a friend sent me a photo from our summer camp, where she was visiting after touring the nearby boys’ camp for her son. It was a picture of the Bunk 2 plaque from the summer of 1995, featuring mine and my bunkmates’ names from my first summer there. It was an image that, despite having not seen or thought about it in 30 years, brought me right back.
I remember it viscerally: at the end of each summer, the bunks would choose how they wanted to memorialize the experience on the bunk plaque, with each camper and counselor’s name incorporated into a design that the most artistically inclined of us would then paint. It was 1995, so we picked POGs—each of us selected one from our collection that typified our personality and bravely parted with it. I picked a Pat Riley pog (I told you I loved the Knicks). The counselors were all slammers, one of which doesn’t seem to have lasted the test of time and adhesion.
There’s an early scene in the new movie The Floaters where Nomi, played by Nobody Wants This scene stealer Jackie Tohn, explains the plaques lining the walls of Camp Daveed’s theater department to the misfit campers under her watch. Each summer they’d inscribe the memories, inside jokes, and silly references that defined the session, she tells them, and all these years later she’s back at the camp as a counselor staring at hers.
Nomi is an unlikely counselor—she’s just gotten kicked out of her band, and her best friend Mara (played by Sarah Podemski), who now runs the camp they attended, convinces her to come fill in at the struggling camp after an exasperated counselor quits on the first day. (That counselor looked familiar; it turns out it’s Shira Averbuch, the artist-in-residence at B’nai Jeshurun on the Upper West Side who does a delightful ukulele-filled kids’ Shabbat service).
Nomi gets assigned to the “floaters,” a group of kids who haven’t signed up for anything. The film is a clever mash-up of The Breakfast Club, School of Rock, and the Parent Trap (with some Dirty Dancing mixed in), and we watch the group bicker, bond, and ultimately perform in the Maccabiah Games against rival Camp Barak in a bid to save their camp. It’s sweet and sharply funny, filled with if you know you know nods to the Jewish summer camp experience. Our pal Jill Kargman even has a fun cameo as one of the campers’ moms (The Floaters’ director Rachel Israel also directed Kargman’s Influenced). I highly recommend finding a screening near you—or joining us tonight at Quad Cinema for the 7 p.m. showing and my conversation with a very fun crew from the film.
The Floaters star Jackie Tohn is our guest on the latest episode of GOLDA Girls, and I got to talk to her about filming down the road from the real-life summer camp she attended, becoming known for playing memorable Jewish characters, and our shared love of Susan Alexandra.
Two of the GOLDA Girls, Gabby Deutch and Rabbi Diana Fersko, were on vacation this week, so I brought in a ringer: My former Unorthodox co-host Mark Oppenheimer. It’s a lot of fun: listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There are still a few spots left at tomorrow’s Montauk Mahjong and Wednesday’s NYC Mahjong! Both events are open play and designed for anyone comfortable playing without an instructor. Thanks to The Mahjong Line for the beautiful sets, CANN for being our beverage sponsor, and to our friends at Literie Candle, Rowan, Social Goods, Evereden, Sqween sunscreen, Serve It Up Designs, and the newly launched party supplies line NESSI for donating prizes. See you there!
Check out all of our GOLDA events here, and get in touch at [email protected] to bring our signature GOLDA programming to your community.
Happy camping—and stay GOLDA,
Stephanie
