Bloomberg Dice Hola! Al ElBloombito

The best Internet meme produced by the tropical storm formerly known as Hurricane Irene came after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to repeat his advice en español, and he fudged a bit of the grammar, and up popped the @ElBloombito Twitter feed, offering such gems as: “No looto el bodega. Esta es Nuevo Yorko!” and “El MTA will resumo el subwayador y el buso the dia after tu metrocard de unlimitedo es expiredo. No refundo. Sorryo” and “No drivo tu car en el hurricano. No visibilidad. Muy Accidente!” and “El FDR es el cerrado por que muy aqua mucho. No drive el automobilador! Necesito un boat de row!” Well, ElBloombito officially achieved synthesis about an hour ago when the mayor’s official feed asked, “Me escuchas, @ElBloombito?” and linked to a video of Bloomberg responding, again in imperfect Spanish (I think I caught a “puedos in there where it should be podemos), to a reporter’s question about the ElBloombito Twitter feed. Welcome to 2011, folks.

But ElBloombito is, perfectly, the work of a half-Puerto Rican, half-Jewish (mother’s side) woman named (again, perfectly) Rachel Figueroa-Levin, as reported by the New York Observer and then our friends at Jewcy. “He has all the words there but the accent and the inflections are all wrong as if he’s just reading it phonetically on a card,” she told Jason Diamond. “Like the rich once-a-year-Jews who get called up for an Aliyah on Rosh Hashanah and have to fumble their way through a Union prayerbook transliteration. They sound terrible but nobody around them corrects them because they donate too much money.”

Meanwhile, if neither Spanish nor English but a certain Germanic dialect were your language, New York City had you covered, evacuation-wise.

Meet Rachel Figueroa-Levin, the Soap-Making, Jewryican Stay-at-Home Mom Behind Twitter’s ElBloombito [NY Observer]
Five Questions With @ElBloombito [Jewcy]