Mandolin Reads: “Run Of The Fiery Horse�

I’m rehashing the comment I left at Yglesias’ blog here, but based on the current political climate, I can’t imagine how Obama’s running mate won’t be one of two choices. Neither of them are my first choice personally, but every sense of logic indicates how necessary either of them would be. Given that carrying Virginia will be a necessity for Obama, you have to go down all the available options there for one of Obama’s possible running mates. His firs... more

Our dog Buddy has made a permanent indentation in the back cushions of our chairs. This is a very typical pose. Rendered with a Pentel brush pen Friday night 3/28/2008.... more

There’s an inverse proportion of doing stuff and blogging about it. I’m so busy I don’t have time to write about it. When I have time to write a lot it means I don’t have a lot going on.... there should be a Wheeler’s Blog Law of inverse doing-stuff. We spent another day at Saturday Market promoting the opera. As soon as I’m someplace with wifi I’ll post the Martian doing the Capitalist Song. The day rocked. My personal highlight came when I stood nex... more

The NY Times Arts & Leisure section has a wonderful profile of Al Jaffee , the cartoonist behind MAD Magazine’s long-running "fold-in" gag and "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions" series. Among the many great MAD cartoonists, the most influential for me as a young, budding toonster were Sergio Aragones, Mort Drucker, George Woodbridge, and Jaffee. Drucker had spot-on caricatures, and Woodbridge had such a biting style. But Jaffee and Aragones drew what I considered proper "cartoons" by p... more