If OK! Was Around in the First Century.
The baby twins on the cover of Shalom! -- the top selling papyrus celebrity mag in all of Israel - drew Miriam in. Having just given birth herself, she couldn't help but compare every precious bundle to her own. But when she unrolled the scroll, she saw King Herod's decree: "All baby boys in and around Bethlehem under the age of two shall be killed."
Oh, my God! Yeshua was only three months old. If only she had 20 pieces of silver, she could afford to travel to Egypt. But aside from prostituting her body, what did she have of any value that anyone would give her even five shekels for? Gazing again at the twins on the cover, inspiration struck.
Israel was overrun with lowly scribes who hawked sketches of every baby Barabbas and Lazarus in town to scrolls like Shalom, Drek and The Star and the Sun. Miriam pulled out her parchment paper, dipped her quill into ink and made her pitch.
Dear Editor,
My baby, Yeshua, is the most amazing baby you've ever seen. His drool, his burps, his farts - they're otherworldly. I am prepared to negotiate rights for images of him. I believe that 50 shekels is the going rate, and even though Yeshua is worth far more than this, I will sell them for a mere 30 shekels.
Shalom, and peace be on you and your home,
Miriam
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Whoa Miriam, I think you got the wrong publication!
Some papyr-loids are gonna pay big money to celebs like Caiaphas for sketches of their babies, but not me. We pay papyrazzi who hang around near the temple and grab sneak peeks without the parents' consent. Much cheaper. And if you get some Samaritan kid having a meltdown over puppies, it's HUGE!
But this baby craze - the baby bump watch, then the blinged-out baby thing - is so Bronze Age, unless you're an unwed teen mom and your boyfriend made a sketch of you in a manger without your tunic. The happening thing now is breastfeeding. Send me something of you nursing the kid. If the mom has big bazungas, and the kid sits astride a donkey but is still sucking tit, we could pay a few shekels for that. A little more if you have a wardrobe malfunction.
Handl Farshtinkener
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Mr. Farshtinkener,
I am an unmarried teenage mom, but I'm a virgin, for heaven's sake, and if you knew who the baby daddy was, you would just plotz!
I am nursing, but I come from an extremely modest, Jewish family and absolutely will not expose my breasts to all of Israel for profit. My Kabbalah teacher Esther Madge says that women are more than a sum of our body parts. We are spiritual beings and that includes my nipples.
I'm sending along a sweet drawing of me cradling Yeshua and gazing lovingly into his angelic face. I hope you can use it.
Blessings,
Miriam
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Miri,
Lemme give it to you straight: Our readers aren't interested in looking at a circumcised Jewish baby with black hair. I'm not saying he isn't cute, but I'm talking about Romans and Egyptians here. They go gaga for dark Nubians or a pale Roman perhaps.
I don't know from the Kabbalah, but Miss Madge has sure used her body for profit. This is a tough world, and a girl's gotta use her God-given gifts to succeed. It's the Madonna or whore. Too bad you can't give us both.
Sources tell me that some new age guys saw a sign in the sky and all that cockamamie stuff, that some baby was being reincarnated. So they followed the star to Bethlehem near you and brought gifts and worshipped him. By any chance, you know who that baby was? I'm not big into worshipping babies, but if we recreated the scene, it could sell - the star in the sky, some cute, blonde baby and those crazy Persians and all their mumbo-jumbo.
Sending you Godspeed,
Handl
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Handl,
Yes, I met those men - they'd been travelling a long while and they brought frankincense. Thank God, because did they ever reek! They should only take their eyes off Orion and the Big Dipper and bathe once.
Here's another drawing of me with Yeshua but without the burp cloth so you can see my collarbones.
We leave tomorrow for Egypt. Herod is out for the blood of innocents. Not to a dog, it should happen.
With honor,
Miriam
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Miri,
I feel bad for you - you gotta get your tuches moving. Look, I'll have my guy Michael work with your drawing, and if he lightens your hair, gets rid of your baby weight, exposes part of your breast, and reverses Yeshua's' circumcision, people might dig it.
But Miriam and Yeshua are too ethnic. How do Mary and Jesus sound? If we surround the drawing in some golden halo that would totally nail it. Who knows, this baby thing might be BIG.
I'm enclosing 30 shekels, which isn't bubkes and it should get you to Egypt. Be well, and God bless.
Handl
Originally published online at DAMEMAGAZINE.com