I loved Doug Marlette. His political cartoons were so sharp that I almost always laughed out loud—even when he slaughtered some of my sacred cows. I suppose that's one of the signs of really good political humor, since all of us can laugh at the other side's foibles.
It was a fascinating place—but it was <I>his</I>. Other than comic books, a Hitchcock film is the only place where it makes sense for a wrongfully accused man to have to catch the real villian. Yet, the plots were never the point, were they?
Some music really does suck—um, create a differential affect gap.
<I>The New York Times</I> has a dating column? The things you miss if you don't buy the Sunday Getting & Having edition.
David Murray has a new jazz album out. A decade or two ago, this wouldn’t be worth a shrug (though it would be worth a trip to Tower); he came out with two or three jazz albums every month. Those of us lucky to live in New York could also go see him lead his big band at the Knitting Factory every Monday night and see him play in a half-dozen other bands, as leader or sideman, at clubs all over the city. Then, in the mid-‘90s, he fell in love with a French woman, moved to Paris, broadened his musical palette (playing with Guadaloupean drummers, for instance)—all to nourishing effect, but the few times each year when he returned to New York and hooked up with a jazz quartet or octet again, it was a nearly always a spine-tingling experience (yes, a clich, but it really was).
Mistakes—we all make 'em. Why, just yesterday a kindly friend corrected my typo "Little Deuce Coop" before it appeared in print under my byline. But what if your <I>oops</I> involves a thermonuclear device?
Someday I'll grow up, but until then I find this hilarious.
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A nuclear physicist reviews <I>Plutonium: A History of the World's Most Dangerous Element</I>, arguing that understanding the element could help us construct a rational policy for dealing with its dangers.
"You better not lie," the song tells us, but flying reindeer and a benevolent fat guy in a red suit is hardly an advertisement for truthiness.
