Kaleidoscope

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Published: Jun 2, 2009

I went to the Art Star Craft Bazaar to buy a card for a friend's wedding. (I left with a set of turquoise button earrings and a pearl-and-brass-knuckles necklace. Oops.) Julianna Holowka 's Mean Cards (meancards.com) booth was tempting, but perilous: "It will never last" and "It won't hurt, you'll like it" are hilarious, but probably friendship-crushing. I'll be back when she starts popping 'em out, though, because "One more and you're trailer trash" is kind of perfect.

Appearing at the Free Library on Tuesday are two frequent New Yorker illustrators and big clues that we are in a great age of the graphic novel. The new one by mono-monikered Seth, George Sprott (1894-1975) (Drawn and Quarterly), is the stylish and deceptively dark life story of a news anchor. Adrian Tomine 's Shortcomings (also D&Q) concerns the rocky relationship of Miko and Ben, twentysomethings whose flaws are likably typical. Tomine's a master of pouring real emotion into tight black-and-white panels.

Iron & Wine 's two-disc compilation Around the Well (Sub Pop), tentative and precious, is best imagined as an album played by our parents when they were young and doe-eyed for each other. Disc 1 starts twangy and ends on the molasses-slow "Such Great Heights" note we've heard before; Disc 2 is a little more Garden State than O Brother, Where Art Thou?, full of ballads to girls called Rebecca. Which, incidentally, is my mother's name.

 

There's a scene in The Hangover (see Drew Lazor's review below) in which Zach Galifianakis , playing brother-in-law-to-be Allen, reads a letter of friendship to his bachelor party bros. It's a perfectly awkward moment, with Galifianakis sputtering and stuttering in all the right places. It's not just that his character isn't in on the joke. It's that, to him, it's inconceivable that a joke could even be made. Galifianakis' standup is off-puttingly hilarious in the same way. Rent Comedians of Comedy: Live at the El Rey (Starz) or Live at the Purple Onion (Shout! Factory) and bask in the discomfort.

First Friday Focus
Down the Garden Path
Lucretia Mod
Avenue X
Pennsylvania Ballet
Back on My Feet Benefit
Matthew Palladino and Eric Shaw: New Works
James Frey