The Strangest Sport Ever

(No, Not the Most Annoying Sport Ever)

The following paid edition is mostly writing advice, using the enclosed long-form piece The Strangest Sport Ever. Included behind the paywall are the Cartoon of the Month, Shop Talk and my recommendations of the month. Subscriptions are free for students and seniors or buy a subscription — I’ve included with a 20% off coupon.

We just said goodbye to our film producer friend from Brussels, who is a huge fan of American TV and ushered in the new year with us. Our friend got us to watch more TV than I have in the last years put together and every meal was an event — his stay rejuvenated my culinary skills. I was convinced I had to deprive myself of TV, that I needed those hours for work. So I soaked in his recommendations which included the standards (kicking and screaming as I tried This Is Us… “How can you give up after five minutes?” and, conversely, loving the Beatles’ Get Back. I Dig a Pony is my current ear-worm.)

Cartoon from The New Yorker

Plus I dove into the current wave of cinema; Barbie, Maestro, Anatomy of a Fall, etc. I highly recommend Anselm about one of our generation’s most important artist, Anselm Kiefer (and I thought Godzilla Plus One was a hoot — I loved the colors and cinematography.)

Cartoon from Barron’s

What I won’t highly recommend (and won’t even supply the proper title of) is George Carlin’s latest comedy special. No, not that George Carlin but the George Carlin created by AI, the AI melting the soul of our Arts. The special opens with an earnest explanation justifying the ripoff as a form of flattery that will certainly be heard down the road in a court of law (What’s next? Marlon Brando make a comeback in a rom-com reboot of Gilligan’s Island? A new Beatles double album called Let It Beep?).

This early rough drawing of the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia from my upcoming book, Footnotes from the Most Fascinating Museums, will be highlighted on WVIA PA Public Television's live Keystone Arts TV show January 29th.

WVIA’s Erika Funke will be hosting the program and inlcude myself and renown performance artist, Heather Sincavage. Both are wonderful and I’m looking forward to this event. We will be talking art and as well as Rosie O’Neill, who is considered, by many, to be the first female gag cartoonist. Heather Sincavage is also Director of the Sordoni Art Gallery and last year curated a show on O’Neill. From the gallery’s website:

Rose O’Neill, an American illustrator of the early 20th century, was a woman of many accomplishments. She was the first woman illustrator for Puck magazine, the leading men’s magazine of the late-19th century, entertaining its readers with considerable satire and political commentary; creator of the Kewpie Doll, the subject of a major merchandising campaign, which made her fortune; activist for women’s suffrage; and accomplished artist and sculptor of “Sweet Monsters” featured in exhibitions in Paris (1921) and New York (1922).

One of the goals I had this year was to reach out to old friends. I heard from a few and I am going to share one (because one of my other New Year’s resolutions was to cut back on the name-dropping). I had a special phone call with Professor Bill Fasolino from my freshman Foundation class in Pratt Institute. I got a chance to tell him how grateful I was to him, how his Color-Aid* exercises help me today and then we compared notes about teaching (he became Dean of Pratt before retiring in 2015. I started teaching at Pratt in 1985.).

*Color-Aid costs $26 a box when I was a student. It is now over $200.

One of the conversations I have with veterans is about the shift in humor. Does comedy have to be funny?