3/28/2008

Room for Misconceptions

“When we stop looking at things, we make all kinds of crazy generalizations. We refer to things and use words and we don’t know what we’re talking about. Look at the history of other races. We think we can say things when we are not looking carefully enough to see what the right thing really should be. Images are a corrective to the text, and the text is a corrective to the image. When you deal with one alone, there’s room for misconceptions,” he said.

-Ben Katchor, one of our greatest living cartoonists, in an interview with New Jersey Jewish News. It's an interesting quote, wise words! but/and it's a few steps removed from its original context so it may be roomier in here. (But there's room for misconceptions and then there's room to breathe)

3/18/2008

Ganges 2


There's some pages from Ganges #2 floating around the web here and here and here. We hope it will convince you to buy our comic book and we hope you will enjoy it. It should be out in mid-April.

NOTE: The panel reproduced here has Glenn saying "I'll probably just vote for Nader." People please take note, the story takes place in 2000, this panel is taken out of context, and should in no way be understood as my supporting Nader's candidacy then or now! Glenn is a fictional character, and like most Americans sometimes votes for the wrong candidates. You can find more insightful commentary on contemporary America in Ganges #2, out in mid-April!!

2/29/2008

LEON


If you haven't noticed yet, the USSCatastrophe Called Quest are doing a new strip here in STL. It's about interesting facts and trivia. You can read about it here on DZA's blog, and click here for the strips. Pictured is a "taste" of the next installment which appears I think in 2 weeks.

2/28/2008

The Rare Sound of Laughter

Exxon Mobil, the giant oil corporation appearing before the Supreme Court yesterday, had earned a profit of nearly $40 billion in 2006, the largest ever reported by a U.S. company -- but that's not what bothered Roberts. What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion -- roughly three weeks' worth of profits -- for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

"So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. "Well," he said, "it can hire fit and competent people."

The rare sound of laughter rippled through the august chamber. The chief justice did not look amused.

-Dana Milbank, Washington Post

"...rippled through the august chamber."

What a sentence.

2/21/2008

Peace Lessons


Today is the 50th anniversary of the Peace Symbol. When I was in junior high school, circa 1990-1, one of my teachers told us that the symbol was anti-Christian, designed as an upside down cross with its arms broken downward, which is how Apostle Peter was crucified. Unfortunately it wasn't until years later that I learned that this was not the case.

11/05/2007

Memory Palaces

If you can convert whatever it is you're trying to remember into vivid mental images and then arrange them in some sort of imagined architectural space, known as a memory palace, memories can be made virtually indelible.
-from Joshua Foer's article on Memory in the November 2007 National Geographic.


...vivid images...then arrange them in some sort of...architectural space...

Sure Shot Sharpshooter

Apocalyptic Imagination

...Well, I know that the apocalyptic imagination is usually a lack of imagination; it refuses to face the dull prose of suffering, refuses to understand just how bad things can get without history coming to an end. Empires can limp on for centuries.

...My framed Ulysses poster fell off the wall and shattered, but I’m the kind of guy who keeps a spare framed Ulysses poster in the basement.
-metameat

10/16/2007

Signing





I'll be at Star Clipper tomorrow with John Porcellino, Ted May, Dan Zettwoch from 5 to 8pm.

10/03/2007

Geology

Wilful Are the Ways of the Countryside



-from Travaux publics (Éditions Matiére)
Yuichi Yokoyama (new book out soon from PictureBox)

Reminds me of:








-from
Legal Daisy Spacing by Christopher Winn.