newyorkette

I’m sorry, but that’s the real story and if you don’t believe me, read this article on the bird flu (and its attendant fears) spreading to France in The Times (UK). Read all about French policemen going on wild duck shootouts, a swan who may or may not have existed in Disneyland before it was found dead of unknown causes (perhaps suicide?), and cocks bred for fighting dying of apoplexy when banned from cockfights.

If you’re not through scaring yourself, read: “Bird flu seen reaching U.S. within a year.” [ WaPo]

^{(image: carolita johnson)}

Though it’s not in the newsfeeds yet, NBC is saying (now, at 11pm) that DNA testing is pointing to a “the bouncer did it” conclusion in the Imette St. Guillen case. For the best round-up on this case see Gothamist.

I’ve worked with bouncers. My favorite bouncer, Mikey, kept me safe from lowlife scumbags and let’s just say “moody” women on steroids when I hostessed at The Coffee Shop in Union Square years ago. Mike was an ex-Navy Seal, though. Not an ex-con.

Anyway, here’s a bouncer’s P.O.V. on bouncers. Should you worry that something like what happened to Imette St. Guillen might happen to you? His answer: “Hell, yes!”
For more: [Clublife]

^{[image with comment from worldviews]}

The comic strip Jesus & Mo doesn’t always get a laugh outta me, but sometimes they are so perfectly a propos, so I believe in them. And needless to say, I believe in a couple of cartoon characters’ ability to say what the papers can’t (but oughtta) say, though Le Monde did notice with irony that the ban was signed on the eve of International Woman’s Day: [Jesus & Mo]

She should, you’ve seen her a million times. If you’re like me you’ve seen many examples of this artist’s work a million times, too, without wondering whose work it was. His work draws your attention to his subject more than to himself. We’ve seen his work on stamps (his Cary Grant stamp is very very mmm mmm, and Audrey Hepburn is everything we dream of in hers), on covers of Time magazine… Though I have no comment about his “Cows in History” painting. I found this article on the artist by accident, here: lines and colors
For the artist’s own website: michaeldeas.com

Nope, not me! But other bloggers do. And Walmart is counting on these bloggers paying their own way to a Walmart media conference in Bentonville, Arkansas. I guess they’d do it for the conservative glory of it all? Or out of the goodness of their hearts? I can’t figure it out why a blogger would let Walmart crawl into their pants like that. And for free, it seems.
[NYT]

Xeni from boingboing.net has found her blog blocked by an internet censoring company called “Secure Computing,” in particular by a woman named Phyllis who rates Michelangelo’s “David” as nudity, and therefore censorable. The upshot of this is that if you work at Halliburton or Fedex (among others) you cannot look at Michelangelo’s David (or at David’s Johnson) on the job.
So, here’s some nudity for ya (assuming you’re back home now).

BTW, I wonder what Phyllis would’ve done if she’d found my favorite unusual root formation in Central Park? Have a look: “Do you see what I see?” Is it nature, or is it obscenity?
For more on this story:
[NYT]
[boingboing]
[wnyc: brian lehrer and xeni (this is a link to an mp3]]

Oh great. I’m already having palpitations because of the latest suspense on “24”which just ended, and now it turns out there’s an extra episode on right afterwards. I mean, right now. This show is killing my cartoonist career. I”ll be up all night. More later.

It used to be that I couldn’t enter L’Occitane without stopping to sniff at eclectically scented candles, or muse over a quaint, tiny tin of solid lavender perfume. But L’Occitane is no longer a novelty. It’s been there for years. After a while I realized I didn’t need expensive soap, so I stopped going. But then I rediscovered L’Occitane as the place to get the thing I want when I get to the corner of Prince and Mercer with my sugar low: a cappucino and a nice moist and “meaty” croissant.

A good croissant is hard to find in this town. First of all, if you find one, you may have to suffer for it. Try going to Balthazar in a state of hypogycemia. You won’t like it. Hopefully you will have left your machine gun at home. Read the rest of this entry »

^{(image from Dr. Strangelove: or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb)}

Well, forget it. “Not in my lifetime,” says Linton Brooks, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, of the USA’s goal of nuclear disarmament. And then he went shopping for some new and improved nuclear warheads. [AFP]

I take this all very personally, because when I was a student in France, typing 40,000 words a day in a translation bureau, one of the transcriptions that my fingers typed out happened to be an International Court of Justice document. I’d just like to post this exerpt from it, in fond memory. Read the rest of this entry »

This just in: The Other Talent Show, where you can see people known for one talent showing off their “other” talent(s). I’ll be going to see my friends (above), The Dougless Trio, three cartoonists from The New Yorker, Marshall Hopkins (voice & mandolin), Eric Lewis (surprisingly good voice and guitar), and Matt Diffee (terrible voice and great banjo). (Just kidding, Diffee!) I wonder if they’re gonna do a bluegrass version of “I will survive” as I suggested?

Here’s the show’s own blurb:
Hosted by Jon Friedman (The Rejection Show) and Michelle Collins (youcantmakeitup.blogspot.com), The Other Talent Show is a gathering of comedians, writers, and other artistic types performing their hidden or “other” talents. Comedians singing, musicians doing comedy, writers juggling, and many more crazy hidden gem talents! Featuring a very special guest whose hidden talent will knock your socks off!

For tickets, click on the link:
Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction
March 6th @ 8:30PM
34 Avenue A (2nd and 3rd St.)
(212) 777-5660
F or V to Second Ave.
$6

(the view from my kitchen window Thursday morning)

This week’s “new york life” posts were all about Dubai but with a twist on The Night of the Hunter, starring DP Mitchum and Hillary Gish, with comic relief from Captain Hamad.
It was my crazy mother’s birthday.
And then the next day it was my birthday: [Thanks to you, John & Daisy Johnson]
I (nose) New Jersey more than ever! [I (nose) NJ]
Monday I languished in cartoonist self-pity all night. But Friday I celebrated selling a cartoon to The New Yorker by permanently retiring a cartoon they have refused to buy for two years: [RIP: losing my Latin]
And I decided not to use the eff word anymore, at least until the next time I go outside and face the world [eff no more].
Have a nice weekend!

(image: carolita johnson)

Thursday is the day that cartoonists either hear from TNY or don’t hear from TNY. Yesterday I heard from TNY, which means I sold a cartoon this week. So, to be gracious, I will cease and desist in my efforts to try and sell them the above cartoon. It has been submitted and rejected every couple of months over the last two years, after all. And Bob Mankoff has refrained from cramming it down my throat, which proves he is a very kind man, or perhaps hasn’t noticed it at all.

This cartoon has been in The Rejection Show, and had a laugh, so these two have had their day. Inspired by my medieval anthropologist friends (who I left behind in academia to pursue I forget what), who are all unemployed or working in telephone call centers now. And me, all I have left from that past is my famous translation of per ardua ad astra: “work your ass off and you’ll be a star someday!”

You know what I’ve noticed while reading blogs lately? We all seem to think we have to fucking say fuck all the time. I have nothing against profanity, fuck no! But when you’ve been reading fucking this and fucking that all day, you kind of get all fucked out by the end of the day. It’s kind of like when you go into a several boutiques looking for that elusive decent sweater, and by the fifth boutique the salesperson to whom I growl, “Don’t start with me,” is simply the 25th one to accost me with the ubiquitous “hi, how ya doing?” Empty repetition makes me feel hostile.

For the heck of it, I did some research. About 19,ooo blogs contain the word “fucking.” That’s more than contain breasts (3,552), “cure for cancer” (738), or “world peace’ (17,562). This is according to technorati. I’m gonna see what it’s like not to use the eff word anymore. It’ll be hard, seeing that I’m a New Yorker. But what the fuck? I’ll give it a try.

I realize I’m just a cartoonist with a big mouth and who am I to talk politics? But if all I can manage is the quick scan of blogs and news headlines, barely being able to read entire articles, I’m all about supplying a quick summary for the attention-limited like me.

Daily Kos has the most succinct update on the situation. The upshot of which is that London has allowed the Dubai Ports deal to go through on the English end of it. There’s only the 45-day review to get by now. And objections which may be presidentially vetoed.

Bill Clinton has been mediating, giving Dubai helpful suggestions (he suggested they submit themselves willingly to the 45-day review), while his wife is seeking legislation to stop ports being run by foreign state-owned companies. He supports her too. He just wants everybody to be friends. And it seems like Dubai Ports World has a lot of Americans working (Bilkey) and lobbying for them (Dole, Daschle), and supporting them for reasons of their own (Clinton, Powell… Bush).

Why all this support? You know that the real question we’re asking ourselves is not “are all arabs terrorists?” (they’re not) but rather, “are our politicians selling us out?”
This kind of nagging fearfulness reminds me of “The Night of the Hunter,” where all the adults in charge are murdering hypocrites (James Mitchum excellent as the serial killer preacher), corrupt, or just plain stupid, while the only ones sensing danger are one kid and one little woman with a gun, played by Lillian Gish, who saves the day with her wit and goodness. Is this how we see ourselves now? Read the rest of this entry »

(image: carolita johnson]

When they asked for suggestions for the new New Jersey slogan, I submitted “New Jersey: what’s that smell?” NJ stinking it up again, as usual. Gothamist has the latest on New Jersey stinking up lower Manhattan and causing evacuations: [Gothamist]

(image: carolita johnson)

“A week later, Daniel Clair noticed that many of the 11,000 turkeys on his farm were suffering from diarrhea.” Read the whole article, but that line was as good as it got. Bird flu hits turkeys in France: [NYT]

(I owe it all to these two, above. Daisy Moreno met John A. Johnson at Roseland. She was beautiful and didn’t speak a word of English. He looked half-decent and didn’t speak a word of Spanish. They soon married, and had me!)

I’ll be taking the day off!

BTW: my mom eventually learned to speak English, and last I heard, she was chasing my dad with a lead pipe.