Alright, this is where I gush like everyone else. Nothing original here. Leela and I have just returned from Maui where we taught in Makawao for 10 days and ravenously visited the rest of the island in our free time.
It’s paradise. Maui’s the first place for which I want to drag out that term, throw it around and see if it fits. It does.
The place is so full of life, of green and moisture and ocean and streams and lovely birds and wild-looking delicious fruits. It’s got wild chickens (see right (or is that one some sort of pheasant?)), lovely people, a defunct volcano (2 actually), hundreds of microclimates (including types of desert, tundra, rainforest, etc.), great coffee, silence, color, a love of art, the 4th best observatory on the planet (off-limits to the public), ranching, rodeos, plein-air art festivals, hula, keiki, craters, cattle, sugar cane everywhere, mangoes to die for, dragon fruit, glorious avocados
,folk-art, giant trees, zen monks, taiko, pork-in-the-dirt, spam sushi, surfer car rental places, a long and fascinating history and tropical fish that will basically swim up to your cheek and kiss you in your pores, as if you needed one more reason to begin sobbing from the beauty of it all.
And the people are wonderful.
Hello to the fabulous Kelly McHugh, Caroline who runs the Hui, her wild and hugely interesting family, and to Maggie, Nathalie (Yay Nathalie), Keri, Miguel and Miguel, Lana, all the great students and the many others I’ve no doubt forgotten or whose names I can’t spell. I doubt anyone on Maui is so gauche as to google alert their own name, but in case Maggie Sutrov is listening, hello Maggie! Here is a link of her in the act painting her most recent splendid view of the island. (See bottom.)
And Travis Fristoe, if you go to Maui, you have a coffee waiting for you at HAZ BEANZ in Pai’a. They’re only open 7am – 1 pm so go early and then go sit with the sleepy dog next door.
I reviewed Ron Rege’s AGAINST PAIN in the latest Comics Journal, #298.
(He implores a character to read his Joycean epic “for his style, man!” It’s a charming, stupid moment.)
HELLO WORLD,
Well, this year’s Post-Thanksgiving KGB Reading was a giant success, standing room only, IF THAT. We turned people away, the readers were mere inches from the audience. Here’s two photos, of Sarah Glidden and Matthew Thurber reading. With the depression looming, this will be a night we all remember as one of the best in recent years. A NIGHT TO REMEMBER!
Tom Hart, Sarah Glidden and John Kirshbaum will be chatting it up at the Comic Book Club at the PIT theater.
The 92Y in New York City is opening a hip, beautiful new space in Tribeca and are christening their space with a show of their three cartooning teachers: Lauren Weinstein, Matthew Thurber and Tom Hart
From Seth Kushner, a photograph, cropped and shrunk above. Click through to read and see more.
