heart of glass

Because I’m such a nerd, I give money to public radio. Making a recent donation scored me the nerdliest of rewards: tickets to see “This American Life” host Ira Glass at Atlanta’s Symphony Hall last night.
It was a geeky delight.
Glass, seated behind a desk on stage, played sound clips from the show and pontificated on the curious art of broadcast for an hour and a half. Though the content of his lecture touched on some behind-the-scenes aspects of putting the show together (how do they settle upon a theme, are pieces solicited or assigned), he was more interested in talking about bigger ideas such as storytelling philosophy and the constraints of a visual versus aural medium. It felt almost like a lecture in a journalism class—in a good way.
Glass ventured into a lengthy diatribe against the false gravitas that most TV and radio journalists bring to their stories; he called the fake-sounding broadcasting accent an “aesthetic mistake” that ends up stripping most stories of their relevance, and of their joy.
He also talked about how he’d realized well into his career that he structured all the segments on “This American Life” in essentially the same way: anecdote, anecdote, anecdote, reflection. He later realized that this is the basic structure of a sermon. He’d been working his entire adult life on this thing that was immediately obvious to anyone who’d ever sat through a worthwhile Sunday morning religious service.

What’s funny is that the recent New Yorker review of the new “This American Life” series on Showtime slams Glass for that very structure. I was disappointed, but also intrigued, to read Nancy Franklin’s dismissal of the program because, as she puts it “meaning is being forced into it.” God forbid.
She goes on to rail against Glass’s unusual voice (not exactly a hard target) and then, in the unkindest cut, says, “Glass hasn’t done anything really new here—unless you count the gimmick of having him speak while sitting at a desk that’s placed somewhere out of doors.”

I couldn’t disagree with her more. The Showtime series is, in my opinion, one of the most fresh and moving arrivals on television in a mighty long time. The BF and I became instant devotees and have seen all but one of the episodes, which have been visually thrilling so far and with more of the same oddball but oh-so-familiar human stories that make the radio program sing.

As expected, the audience at Symphony Hall last night erupted in applause when Glass announced that Showtime wants to do a second season. Curiously enough, he says he and his staff aren’t convinced they want one. He spoke of the TV show as a distraction from the radio program, and pointed out that public radio gets a heckuva lot larger audience than cable TV, which surprised me.

If you’re not watching the Showtime series, here’s a taste of what you’re missing.

funda-mentals

For this week’s illustration in CL, I thought I’d challenge myself to strip down the original line drawing and really arrive at a place of shapes and (absence of) color. I went with pink for the face partly because I almost never use pink my artwork, for some reason.
I don’t love the result, but I think I learned something from the experiment.

Blot: The man said his nickname was actually “Mental Health”

gun control now

Can a culture that so thoroughly celebrates the gun as both a toy and status symbol, a people who are desensitized to the impact of violence and who can’t seem to learn from previous incidents of gun violence, really be surprised when something like the Virginia Tech massacre happens?
That’s the real tragedy here. We just never seem to learn.

dating darwinism

My most recent column for Genre is now online:

Dating Darwinism: The very gay way of “Survival of the Selfish”

I never know when these things post until I notice a spate of referrals here from the magazine’s site. I also usually get a couple of letters. Good stuff. I’m always glad to hear from readers, even if they disagree with my column.

don’t touch my chihuahua

Another week, another doggy illustration. Why can I not resist the pet items?

Blot: He said he and the 42-year-old are friends, but the 42-year-old doesn't take care of the dog ...

all this happened, more or less

I was sad to read last night of Kurt Vonnegut’s death.
When I was about 15 years old, I remember hearing Vonnegut’s name on TV or something, and I made the connection that he’d written Slaughterhouse-Five (which, curiously enough, I recalled being discussed in the film Footloose a few years before). I went to the newsstand where I usually bought my comics in search of the book but the only Vonnegut title they had in stock was Hocus Pocus. I bought it and read it in great gulps — mainly because it made like zero sense to me. I just couldn’t get what all the fuss was about. The story seemed fragmented and really not all that compelling. I’d started reading a lot of suspense novels in those days (stuff like Ira Levin and Dean Koontz, god help us all) so Vonnegut’s style and agenda just perplexed me.
Mainly, it drove me crazy to think that this person was famous — lauded, even — because I thought the book was just dreadful. But ever the glutton for punishment, and bent on figuring out why he was so celebrated, I went to a different bookstore (the fancy B. Dalton’s at the mall, I think) and bought Slaughterhouse-Five. And then I understood. This would become one of those touchstone books for me that made me see literature and storytelling in a new light. I can’t imagine what I’d think of it now; it's been 15 years, after all, and maybe it doesn’t matter, because the damage is done.

While we’re talking books, last week I had the chance to meet Kevin Sessums, a celebrity journalist who was in town to promote his new memoir, Mississippi Sissy. I went to his event at Outwrite with no real intention of buying the book (bad, I know) but after hearing Kevin read, I knew I had to have a copy. He perfectly captures the cadence of Southern dialogue, and the peculiar worldview of a child growing up different in the deep South. I chatted with Kevin after the event at a cocktail party hosted by E. Lynn Harris, and we talked about what a bitch it is to write a memoir that’s actually true and meaning. He’s managed to do both.
My friend Heather has started a little book-club blog, and I posted a bit about Sessums's book there, also.

dude, where's my e-mail?

A new illustration for AirTran’s Go magazine. I’m digging these assignments because the column topics tend to be so abstract. This one dealt with strategies for managing e-mail overload.
My first draft of the drawing was 90 percent similar to this one, but the art director had one request: Make the main character younger. So, my original, bald-headed businessman got a fast makeover, now with a surfer shag and flavor saver.