472. New York Explodes (with boos), A New Yorker Knicks Cartoon, & Austin Kleon returns!
Plus! New Yorker Softball, High Line Sketchbook , and Morris is thrilled to participate in the festivities.
Good morning from New York!
I’m groggily writing this with the windows open, listening to the scrape of cleanup crews dragging last night out of Bryant Park. Oh, did I write JOY in the headline? I meant Booooos.
The Knicks lost. They didn’t just lose; they were cursed into losing, undone by a sleeping giant in the stands. A man so still, so blissfully unbothered, that the Jumbotron found him and the entire arena turned on him with a fury usually reserved for referees and people who stop at the top of subway stairs. They showed his face. They booed. I won’t name him. (He knows. The city knows. Bryant Park knows, and Bryant Park will be finding evidence of it for days.)
Quite the night.
Thank you to everyone for the kind words about Scott and my toon in yesterday’s New Yorker for the daily - it went a little nuts, to be honest. Knicks fans are VERY vocal on social media about ticket pricing. It’s a huge part of the conversation.
I’ve been writing a lot lately.
I don’t blame you if you haven’t had time to read all of it. I’ll post some stuff below you might have missed in case you get time to file it away for a quiet summer day by the pool…
I wrote about my cartoonist lunch with the Hollywood director Gus Van Sant where I pitched a joke and got giant groans from the table…
I wrote about the increasingly impossible notion that an artist could use their social media following to reach the people who opted in to see their work…
I wrote about drawing New Yorkers’ dogs for a dog rescue/adoption charity in the West Village…
I wrote about drawing Michael Pollan for the Waking Up App…
I wrote about busting Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s balls backstage at the Comedy Cellar before a live podcast taping
I wrote about the ailing print media industry after seeing the sequel to The Devil Wears Prada in NYC
Last but definitely not LEAST, I celebrated my little fur goblin’s 7th birthday!
50 Eps at 30 Rock
My friend Nayeema celebrated her 50th episode of Dumb Girl, Smart Questions at Rockefeller Centre this month, with a big blowout party at the newly opened Pebble Bar. I’m writing up her latest live episode taping with iconic New Yorker journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, which happened to feature Anna Delvey in the crowd. You can read up on a previous live episode of the show here…
Slingin’ Zingers in Queens
After the insanity of the finals subsides (possibly?), you can catch me this coming Friday at “End of the Line Comedy” at QED in Astoria. Getcher tickets here!
My right shoulder is throbbing, which can mean only one thing…
That’s right— It’s that time of year again!
Time for another annual edition of:
Each week in summer, the New Yorker softball team meets to play writers, fact-checkers, cartoonists and staff who work at other magazines based in New York City. I am probably the least valuable member of the team, with the pitching arm of an old chair and the knees of a septuagenarian. That said, I do bring the warm beer…
I’m happy to report an opening day victory for the team last Tuesday, with an 8-7 walk-off win over Defector/HellGate. Tonight at 7 pm, we will look to extend our winning streak, facing The Infatuation at our home field of Central Park North Meadow #2.
The Sketchbook I’m sharing with you this week is a quick sketch I made on the High Line in Chelsea. I used to walk this every morning when I lived in Hudson Yards.
This week you can catch me talking with repeat guest Austin Kleon about his epic new book DON’T CALL IT ART!
If you missed my previous 5 episodes since the last issue, you can catch up here:
If you want to support my work, please take out a premium subscription (just $1 per week).
PS. Look, if this actually did something for your brain (or at least distracted you from the creeping dread of your own inbox for six minutes), please consider restacking this and sharing it with your people. It’s the only way the word spreads
I wrote the very same comment on some other page---Trump is a loser and his non-presence jinxed the Knicks from the start. That and the fact that they couldn't make a three-pointer to save their lives. Cheer up. This means there's more basketball for all. Happy Tuesday!
Go San Antonio Spurs Go! On another note, I’m glad you’re doing a livestream with Austin Kleon.