#380: I Survived The 2024 NYC Tremor, Total Eclipse of The Park & The 'Curb' Finalé

+ Your Poll Responses & Morris stakes dibs on his viewing chair

I hope you’re having a great week free of fault lines, flooding, or galactic anomalies. It’s been… another interesting week in New York.

A reader asked if New Yorkers really do eat hot dogs and bagels, or just if I just draw them in my cartoons. To this, I simply answer…

Pret-taaaaay Prettay Pretty Good.

After watching the finalé of my favorite show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, I went back and had a read of an old story I wrote in 2015, when Katie Couric commissioned me to draw Larry for the wall at Sardi’s. It was during his run of “A Fish In The Dark” —his offbeat comedy on Broadway. Morris stole my chair, so I waited 12 hours until he was done before sitting down to take in the episode. (Link to the story is below in the archives section btw.)

It was as silly and absurd as I expected; and then some. The Jerry cameo was nice. I was wondering when he was going to show up after seeing Tom Gammill’s photos of him on set last year. The story of the bearded woman at the circus when they meet up is exactly the kind of crap Scott and I talk about on and off air. This is how idiots like us collaborate and come up with jokes. It’s a derangement of the brain, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

There's something in the air when New Yorkers all experience something together, and it isn’t just horse poop.

It’s probably because we're surrounded by so much unnatural crap, that a natural event hits us so deeply, reminding us of how tiny we are amid the infinite galaxy full of other cities full of horse poop. Such was the case in the past week when NYC had an earthquake, and then got to take part in the viewing of the total solar eclipse.

Thank you to the paid subscribers who filled in the poll this past week.

From the results, it looks like you’re enjoying the long-form posts the most, and just about an even split between short posts and sketchbooks.

I felt the Earth. Move. (Under my feet.🎶)

When I drew the cartoon you see at the top of your email, it had been about 30 minutes from the time of the tremor… (hence the scratchy sketchiness of it.) Scott and I were throwing a heap of ideas at the New Yorker for a ‘bonus daily’ (they sometimes run them when something happens after deadline.) but alas, it didn’t get up. This is the first iteration of the gag, which —as you saw above— didn’t really need the caption or the additional layer of commentary. (Thanks to my fellow cartoonists for that note!)

As it turns out, life imitated art: After I posted this toon, there was already a line of shirts from a local New York vendor with pretty much this exact thing on it. Sales were doing pretty well at last check-in!

Until next time,
Your pal,

Jason

“Anyway this is my seat for watching the Curb finalé. Where are you sitting?”