Art Spiegelman, the force behind both Wacky Packages and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Maus,” is that rare artist who knows great art may disregard the precision brush strokes of attempting “the masterpiece.”
Waldo accrued rather a lot of wisdom in his travels. His books teach us to pay attention, if we want to spot the hidden details of the universe.
We expect to get our way and often think we will get away with cheap and easy and quick. Nowhere is this more obvious than with food.
Some griefs, like my overreaction to “Lessons in Chemistry,” overlap with our own past hurts.
“The Mercy Seat” is a five-minute tour of a death-row inmate’s dirge and final thoughts before death by electric chair pits an ancient Old Testament object against New Testament teachings, turns everyday objects into hallucinations, and laughs at the idea of knowing truth from falsehood, or justice from mercy, when faced with death.
Shepherd’s Centers is a network of fifty-seven affiliate chapters across the country that offers some 165,000 people “services such as transportation, handy helpers, friendly visits, grocery shopping, and respite care to help older adults remain living in their own homes and communities.”
These are tiny disturbances of the domestic sphere, brief incursions of chaos. They remind me of the finite limits of our budget, my patience, and my life span.
“The U.S. Constitution was derived from the Iroquois [Haudenosaunee] Confederacy,” he points out, and surreptitiously, I jot a note. How did I not know that?
Given several decades, money, and a certain angle on history perhaps planned cities can and do work on some level, and for certain people. The problem with politicians’ well-laid plans is that they rarely work for anyone but the well-off.
Whatever you might think about advertising as an engine of the market economy, it is often juxtaposed with death in the media, nowhere more than online, and it is a symptom. It is a relief to lie in my bed at night and read the print issue, which I got as if by the publisher’s afterthought in a discount deal for my online subscription.