Tom Gauld’s Both: If Edward Gorey Did Contemporary Quirk-Comics

What a morally outraged sweetcorn kernel has to do with some not-so-bright astronauts and Mexican wrestlers.

London-based cartoonist and artist Tom Gauld might just be the Edward Gorey of our time, channeling his wry humor and macabre aesthetic through exquisite black-and-white illustrations. In 2002, he collaborated with fellow RCA alum Simone Lia on Both — a lovely little book blending two previous volumes, unequivocally titled First and Second. It’s a quirky story about, well, a morally outraged sweetcorn kernel, some Mexican wrestlers, some astronauts, a rabbit, bread and bhagis, among other oddballs, who explore the bittersweetness of the world through offbeat vignettes and minimalist narratives full of sometimes subtle, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny humor.

Though the book is currently out of print, you can snag a used copy on Amazon for as little as $8 or try hunting it down at your favorite local offbeat bookstore.

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The Vowels: A Ken Burns Parody

What the secret quasi-history of vowels has to do with the Founding Fathers’ prankstership.

Ken Burns. Prolific documentarian. Potent distiller of history and culture. As fascinating as his films may be, however, they tend to take themselves a bit too seriously. At least that’s what Sam Cherington, Andrew Flanagan, Daniel Inkeles, William Morey and Benjamin Smith wink at with the excellent The Vowels: A Film by Ken Burns — a short film that isn’t, of course, by Ken Burns but is instead a wildly entertaining parody.

And to add to the comedic value of this find, spotted on Meta Filter, here’s a gem from the discussion thread on the post, a real why-we-love-MeFi treat:

I once rode in an elevator with Ken Burns. He got off after four floors. Good thing, too, otherwise we would have all turned sepia.” ~ jonmc

And the fitting response:

And your elevator panel choices were Up, Down, Pan Left, Pan Right…” ~ hal9k

Ah, MeFi.

For some of the real Ken Burns stuff, you won’t go wrong with The Civil War or, my personal favorite, Jazz. And for some real stuff for language-lovers, look no further than these 5 essential books.

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John Lithgow Reads Mark Twain, Live-Illustrated

What a chronically sleepy man has to do with litmus tests of literary success.

LIVE from NYPL is a fantastic live event series from the New York Public Library, featuring readings and discussions by, with and about cultural icons and luminaries ranging from Jennifer Egan to Lemony Snicket to Jay Z. (A Brain Pickings favorite from a few years ago: The excellent panel on remix culture with Lawrence Lessig, Shepard Fairey and Steven Johnson.) In the spring of 2009, NYPL put on an event titled How to Live Dada: Andrei Codrescu, Henry Alford & Mark Twain Interview Each Other!, as a teaser for Codrescu’s then-new book, The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess. Part of the program featured never-before-published works by Mark Twain, read by John Lithgow and live-illustrated by NYPL artist in residence Flash Rosenberg, in a style reminiscent of the RSA‘s.

This segment is based on Chapter 2 of Twain’s Who Is Mark Twain, titled Whenever I am about to publish a book…. In it, Twain outlines the fourteen types of people, who he believes are archetypes representative of the general public in sum — including an intensely practical person, a sentimental person, a hypercritical person, and a man who inevitably falls asleep — and concludes:

But the man whom I most depend upon is the man who always goes to sleep. If he drops off within 15 minutes, I burn the book. If he keeps awake three quarters of an hour, I publish, and I publish with the greatest confidence, too. For the intent of my books is to entertain and by making this man confortable on a sofa and timing him, I can tell, within a shade or two, what degrees of success I’m going to achieve.” ~ Mark Twain

Who Is Mark Twain features 24 priceless pieces by the iconic author, culled by by Robert Hirst, General Editor of The Mark Twain Project at UC Berkeley.

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