What a guy! That's St. Jerome, an almost certainly fictional saint, as rendered by Albrecht Dürer in 1492. Here's Jerry, busy learning stuff in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and he's still got time to help out a kitty-kat. Or lion, actually. The lion's usually depicted hanging out under Jerome's desk, and there are times I've Continue Reading

I suppose I could start this with the well-worn "I read the news today oh, boy," but that plays too easily into the fact that it's mid-August, a lot of the world is experiencing record heat, and there hasn't been anything much happening because it's the height of the silly season in the world of Continue Reading

Apparently one needs to have no knowledge whatsoever of what one is writing about if one writes for the Washington Post, a fact which may shock several friends who do write or have written for that august journal and actually do know what they're saying. But blogger Jen Cheney, in her ignorance, has pointed out Continue Reading

Aus dem Ankündigungstext vom Nautilus-Verlag: "1967 beginnt Lutz Dammbeck ein Studium an der Leipziger Kunstakademie. Statt für den dort gelehrten Kanon des Sozialistischen Realismus ist er fasziniert von Cartoons und Rockmusik – er ist besessen von Pop, oder dem, was er dafür hält.
1986 stellt er einen Ausreiseantrag und verlässt mit Frau und Kind die DDR.

Dammbecks Continue Reading

One distinctly geeky pleasure I allow myself is web comics, and I spend about fifteen minutes each day reading a selection of comics far broader than any newspaper would ever give me. One that's not on my daily rotation is the Oatmeal, which is actually more a weird website than a comic, although it usually Continue Reading

When it gets to be around this time of year, people in newsrooms get a kind of glazed expression, as the heat and the inevitable lack of actually interesting stories come together. This year, we're lucky to have both the Olympics and the American presidential race going on, but the Olympics will soon be over Continue Reading