A few weeks ago, I spoke at the 92nd Street Y with Deborah Lauter, the Civil Rights Director of the Anti-Defamation League. She was talking about the changes wrought in the texture of American life by an increasingly assertive evangelical culture, and she said that many of these changes fall outside the bounds of law and politics. In some schools and workplaces, for example, bible study and prayer groups play a crucial part in social life, and while there’s no official pressure to join, the imperative to conform, especially at work, can be quite strong. Legally, there’s probably nothing that can or should be done about this—people have the right to free speech and free association. But it makes some people anxious all the same.
Afterwards, a woman came up to me and said that her daughter worked in such a place. I expressed my sympathy, and asked where. “The Justice Department,” she said.
Jonathan Biss and Benjamin Hochman (pictured left to right), two of New York’s most gifted young pianists, recently joined forces for a concert of masterpieces for piano duo here at the Y. They were joined by percussionists Jamie Deitz and Ayano Kataoka for Bartok’s pathbreaking Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Here is what Steve Smith of the New York Timeshad to say:
“In works composed for piano four hands or for two pianos, comparing performers is rarely the point. Still, the contrast between these artists, who played at the 92nd Street Y, was notable in Mozart’s Sonata in F (K. 497). At the upper end of the keyboard, Mr. Biss was effusive, shaping the performance with an impetuous push and pull that lent the work a Romantic cast. Mr. Hochman was subdued by comparison, offering warmly voiced counterpoint and primly executed trills. If the performance sometimes verged on unruliness, the unanimity of expression that these players demonstrated was remarkable…
...Mr. Biss and Mr. Hochman closed their program with a rollicking account of a boisterous piece composed for public display, Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. They were joined by James Dietz, a timpanist of elegant technique and an accurate ear for negotiating the composer’s tricky tuning changes, and Ayano Kataoka, a lithe blur of motion as she bustled from cymbals to gong, snare drum to xylophone.”
Hochman returns in March with the Zukerman Chamber Players who invite children and accompanying adults to attend a free pre-concert lunch with the performers. Their next performance is December 17 with tenor Philippe Castagner and pianist Ken Noda.
Em & Lo (Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey) were the resident “love” experts at Nerve.com for four years and with a slew of sex books (plus who knows what else) under their belts, they are now a four-legged walking, talking, and sleeping brand all their own. Tomorrow night, November 30, they bring their bag of tricks to Makor and promise some surprise giveaways. For now, watch them tag-team the 92YQ.
How many years, apartments and what neighborhoods have you lived in NYC?
EM: I moved here at the beginning of 1999: I was in various apartments in the East Village for about five years, then Williamsburg for about six months, and finally Fort Greene. At one point I lived in an illegal sub-sub-sub-sublet on 14th and C and had to walk down the hallway to use the bathroom. It had a padlock and only I could use it, but that didn’t seem to comfort my parents when they came to visit.
LO: Almost 10 years: East 15th and 3rd. I was born here and spent many kick-ass days roller-skating around Stuyvesant Square. 1 year: Fort Greene (before it was hip). Returned as an adult to an apartment which had a basketball court–sized living room, huge master bedroom, pea-sized second bedroom, and dish washer(!). I had a series of unusual, serial roommates: an ascetic coworker who liked to live on 99 cents a day, a young Brazilian woman who hated me, and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist I found on Craig’s List. 2 years: Bedford Ave near the bridge in Williamsburg (before it was too hip). An overpriced fourth-floor walk up in a dilapidated building. The previous tenant was a heroin addict who went on the run. The current tenants were mice- and squirrel-sized cockroaches. Shared it with a friend/coworker. At least we had the whole rooftop to ourselves (great for Fourth of July). 4 years: Above a bakery on Atlantic Ave on the border of Brooklyn Heights and Boerum Hill. A total score: nice, bright, clean (no cockroaches ever!), amazingly affordable and my wonderful sister for a roommate!
What’s your best (or worst) NYC taxi story?
EM: Before I moved to the city, I was in town for a job interview. A woman crossed the street just as the light was about to change, and an impatient cab driver wound down his window and yelled out, “Move out of the way, lady!” She immediately burst into tears and wailed, “I’m trying to move, I’m trying.” I was walking behind her, and four blocks later, she was still wailing, “I said I’m trying, oh god, I’m trying.” She was wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, and I was horrified at the thought that living in NYC was so stressful that just getting yelled at by a cab driver could make you lose it like that in an instant. I moved here a week later.
What era, day or event in New York ‘s history would you like to re-live?
EM: The black-out of 2003. Everyone was so freakin’ nice that day. I’d sublet my apartment for the whole summer because I was on a book tour (for our first book, “The Big Bang") but I happened to be at JFK between flights when the power went out. So I just headed into the city. I’d spent all my cash on the cab ride and couldn’t get any more out, obviously, but I managed to trade a signed copy of “The Big Bang” for free drinks for me and my friends all night at Baraza. People were dancing and drinking and barbequeing in the street, I’d never seen anything like it.
LO: The black-out of 2003. I totally missed it, because I was still down in North Carolina, the last stop of our book tour. Bummer.
Describe that low, low moment when you thought you just might have to leave NYC for good.
EM: I was 30 years old and $20,000 in credit card debt because I was trying to make it as a freelancer and refused to live anywhere besides the East Village (and so long as I was living in the East Village, I figured it was a waste of good real estate if I didn’t eat and drink out every night). Actually, I guess my biggest problem was that I never really did entertain the idea of leaving NYC. I dug my way out by putting everything I owned in storage and crashing on a friend’s couch in Williamsburg until I was debt-free. I haven’t carried a balance on my card since.
LO: 9/11/01.
Who do you consider to be the greatest New Yorker of all-time?
EM: E.B. White.
LO: Woody Allen.
What was your best dining experience in NYC?
EM: One Thanksgiving I decided to host a dinner for all the waifs and strays who weren’t going home. Halfway through the day—and multiple bottles of wine in—the turkey caught fire, and nobody knew what to do (we didn’t exactly cook very often) so I called the fire department for advice. I told them they didn’t need to bother sending anyone over, I was just wondering if they could give me some advice on how to put out a turkey fat fire. I guess advice goes against their policy, because they sent out three fire trucks, sirens and everything. I’ve always had a bit of a fireman thing, and this was so much better than the “fireman” stripper my friends had imported from Albany for my previous birthday.
LO: A toss-up between one Valentine’s Day evening at Pure Food & Wine and many hangover-curing breakfasts of Eggless Rancheros at Life Cafe.
With a nod to Milton Glaser, how much do you really love New York?
EM: It’s a pretty dysfunctional relationship: I’m forever making excuses for it and forgiving it in the morning. But I think you probably have to make at least $500,000 a year before you can enjoy a fully functional relationship with this city.
LO: I love it like a long-term partner: I take it for granted when we’re together, I miss it when we’re apart, I constantly pick out its faults, but I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t always there for me.
Of all the movies made about or highly associated with New York , what role would you have liked to be cast in?
LO: Annie Hall. I actually wore ties and vests with a hat like that in junior high (before I ever saw the movie).
What happened the last time you went to L.A. ?
EM & LO: We were just there on our book tour. We had heard that there was a live-karaoke band going on right after our book party, and seeing as we’re both karaoke whores, we figured it was a perfect fit. (That said, Lo is the one who’s always dragging Em up: Lo likes the performance aspect of karaoke, Em likes the idea of karaoke). But anyway, it turns out that in LA, a city of serious actors and Idol-wannabes, “so bad it’s good” isn’t the karaoke mantra, and people get kind of embarrassed for you if you hit a wrong note or act stupid up there. So we just sat it out.
If you could change one thing about New York , what would it be?
EM: When I lived in the East Village, I used to run a loop down the East River, up the Hudson, and back home through the West Village, and I had this recurring fantasy that some old lady would collapse in my path and I’d save her life and she’d be so grateful that she’d bequeath me her amazing West village apartment that she owned, mortgage-free. With apologies to all the old ladies of the city, I’m still occasionally disappointed that this never happened.
LO: New Yorkers’ manners! When you’re walking in New York, have you ever noticed just how many of those blackened, flattened corpses of bubblegum wads line the sidewalks? It’s mind-boggling. The only thing worse are the spit and loogie puddles. A passerby, who didn’t grasp the simple concept of covering one’s mouth, once sneezed on me on the sidewalk: my only recourse was to wipe the spittle from my shirt onto his. It defies logic (and physics) to barrel your way onto a crowded subway car before letting the departing passengers off first, yet this is the New Yorker way. I once nicely asked a crowd of seated passengers if one of them would give their seat up to this 90+ woman standing beside me, and nobody moved! And I can’t tell you how many smart, well-educated, successful men in this city still don’t know that it’s rude (not to mention aggressive, disconcerting, awkward...) to face a stranger in an elevator. Face forward, people!
The End of The World is finally happening. What are you going to do with your last 24 hours in NYC?
EM: I’d probably grab my husband and my dog and head to the Sunburnt Cow on Avenue C. They first opened on the night of the blackout in 2003, and that didn’t stop them from throwing a great party. They just barbequed on the sidewalk instead, and the owner Heathe was so chilled out. So I know they’re good in a crisis. Plus, that was where my husband and I had our first date, so it seems as good a place as any to go out.
LO: Get a group of friends together and storm one of NY’s fancier places with a view (the kind we can’t afford in real life), like the Mandarin Oriental hotel, and have a big, Ecstasy-laced, orgiastic party (the kind we never have in everyday life).
Girl About Town of the Upper East Side Informer blog turns out another great review of an Unterberg Poetry Center event, last night’s talk with Rick Moody and Stephin Merritt:
Merritt seemed reluctant to talk about the meaning behind the lyrics he’d penned—most of which had been scribbled into his little black book as he sat in dark corners of bars, he said. Almost a smidgen resentful—or at least ready to flip the question back to the interviewer, author Rick Moody—was Merritt if Moody probed too deeply for more telling responses.
Even when Moody mentioned that “Book of Love” was played at both his wedding as well as, coincidentally, the wedding of a Y staffer, instead of answering the question thereafter posed—as to if knowing this was at all satisfying to Merritt as an artist—the singer-songwriter instead turned the question back on Moody.
“Well, why did you decide to pick that song?” asked Merritt.
“It has tremendous emotional force,” said Moody.
And, yet, a force that Merritt would all but deny, seemingly unwilling to admit or agree to the potency of his own lyrics—even to Moody, a well-versed fan who in his introductory statement of the evening, spoke the accolade: “He’s the finest singer-songwriter of my generation.”
A dedication mirrored by the tenth-grade English teacher next to whom I happened to sit, who also sung Merritt’s praises before the show began. The teacher had traveled from Queens with a group of high school students to attend the performance.
I went into NYC with Keith, Craig, and Kelli to see Stephin Merritt. He was a part of some “Lyricist’s Voice” event held at the 92nd St. Y, and what I thought would be a boring lecture on music with a couple Stephin Merritt songs mixed in was actually an AMAZING interview with Stephin Merritt with a couple Stephin Merritt songs mixed in. Stephin is a fascinating, brilliant, and genuine individual, and hearing him talk about his music (and Meat Loaf’s music) while playing songs in between (Aging Spinsters, Walking My Gargoyle, The Book of Love) was a true treat.
Todd Rosenberg, aka Odd Todd, is a bit of an Internet legend. (He even has a Wikipedia entry to prove it.) After being laid off from Atom Films in the dot-com “Bummer in the Summer” of 2001, he started to document his unemployed life through cartoons. Very popular cartoons. You can catch his work on the big screen and meet the real-life action figure behind Odd Todd at the NYC Animation Block Party at Makor this Saturday. He’s currently developing a sitcom with CBS that centers around a bachelor who lives in Brooklyn. If it’s half as entertaining as his NYC Q&A below, we’re sure it will be a hit.
How many years, apartments and what neighborhoods have you lived in NYC?
I was born in Manhattan but grew up in the burbs. I’ve lived in NYC for about eight years in three apartments. First it was an Upper East Side studio that was like 35 square feet. Then West Village and now I’m in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.
What’s your best (or worst) NYC taxi story?
I have two.
1. I was riding along minding my own business when all of a sudden I saw a giant cockroach race by on the partition glass! On my side! Then it disappeared! I freaked out! I’m totally scared of bugs. For the rest of the ride it kept feeling like the roach was on my neck or up my pant leg or on my arm or something. I think the cabbie thought I was on drugs because I was all jolting around and stuff.
2. I got in a cab with a cabbie who at first seemed really cool because he looked totally old school. Like he’s been driving a cab for like 40 years or whatever. Big cigar and hat and crap on the dashboard and everything. I like talking to cabbies in general so I decided to chat it up with him. He soon made it clear that he was all sorts of crazy, mumbling and talking about government electronics and science crimes. Then I noticed his meter was running super fast. Like the dollars at double speed. When I called him out on his scammy meter he just acted crazier and drove faster. Mumbling and weaving. It was probably an act but it worked on me. So eventually I just sucked it up and buckled up and shut up. I got home safe and paid him his stupid money. But I felt like a sucker for days. Like I should have had the balls to just get out at a traffic light and run.
Ooh! I just thought of one more! I was talking to a cabbie and he told me he was a painter. He was sort of shy about it but eventually he fessed up that he had some paintings with him. They were rolled up inside paper towel tubes and he started handing them back to me to look at. They were good! Simple houses on a river bank. All of them. I bought one for $30 or something and framed it. It’s hanging up over there (I’m pointing at the wall to my right.)
What’s your New York motto?
“What’s the worst case scenario?”
Describe that low, low moment when you thought you just might have to leave NYC for good.
Actually it was a few months after I got laid off. I couldn’t afford my apartment in the West Village and the dot-com thing was bottoming out. I was interviewing for really sucky jobs. Like sales cold-calling for commission and stuff. (And I wasn’t even getting those jobs!) So I started thinking about alternative careers like being a lobsterman, pro-scammer, or tropical bartender rumhead.
Who do you consider to be the greatest New Yorker of all-time?
Probably the person who was smart enough to draw a line around Central Park back in the day and save it. That guy (or chick)—but I guess that’s not an answer. Instead of Googling around for a name I’ll just say Woody Allen instead.
What was your best dining experience in NYC?
It’s hard to say. I used to go to a bistro type restaurant nearby that actually let me bring my dog (Roscoe) inside which was totally cool. One snowy day I went there mid-afternoon. I remember having a bowl of onion soup, feeding my dog crusts of bread, and drinking some wine while reading a book. It was perfect. So that stands out.
(A couple months later, I stupidly went to that health inspection website where you can look up health-code violations of any restaurant and found out that my favorite bistro place was super filthy and almost seriously flunked inspection. Tons of violations. Evidence of rats, not mice, RATS! So that place is all ruined because I was nosey. Haven’t been back. I guess I shouldn’t have been all that surprised… after all they let friggin’ dogs inside.)
With a nod to Milton Glaser, how much do you really love New York?
Thisss muccch! (I’m holding my arms out with finger extended. Hard to type this way.)
Of all the movies made about or highly associated with New York, what role would you have liked to be cast in?
Spiderman.
What happened the last time you went to L.A.?
A friend of mine took me into one of those exclusive semi-secret clubs. He knew someone who knew someone or something. I was all excited and felt cool. We finally get inside and it turns out it was just a regular bar with a bunch of lunkheads standing around staring at each other. I felt self-conscious about my jeans being wrong.
If you could change one thing about New York, what would it be?
I think there should be a requirement that any new building that goes up should be easy to imagine still standing in 150 years. Any new building that doesn’t meet that requirement should be ripped off its foundations and thrown in the river by a giant robot.
The End of The World is finally happening. What are you going to do with your last 24 hours in NYC?
I doubt I’d be able to pull any decent plan together so I’d probably just sit on my couch and watch it all on TV.
Focusing on Hamas: Options Ahead with David Makovsky, director of the Washington Institute’s Project on the Middle East Peace Process and former executive editor of the Jerusalem Post
Family Reading: Tales of Spiderwick with Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
Chocolate Tasting: Culinary historian Alexandra Leaf; Clay Gordon, founder of the New World Chocolate Society and editor/publisher of chocophile.com; and wine expert Costas Mouzouras of Gotham Wines
Robert Altman and Garrison Keillor at Makor, October 30, 2006
Like many movie-lovers around the world, we were saddened to learn of the passing of legendary director Robert Altman yesterday. Altman, whose films included MASH, Nashville, The Player and Short Cuts, was an American original and one of the most distinctive filmmakers of his generation. Nominated five times for an Oscar for Best Director, he was awarded an Academy Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement earlier this year.
We were very lucky to have him here at Makor just a few weeks ago, for a screening and discussion of A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. Below, listen to a 19-minute clip of excerpts from that evening.
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Soviet Intelligence expert Jerrold Schecter served as Time magazine’s Moscow bureau chief in the 1960s/70s and was an associate White House press secretary and spokesman for the National Security Council under the Carter Administration. His historical accounts of Nikita Khrushchev, the Kremlin’s intrigues of the 1940s and 1950s, Communist espionage and foreign policy are primary sources for many academics and historians. Few people have had their finger on the thermometer of the Cold War like Schecter. He’s taking part in our Russian Sundays at the 92nd Street Y series with a discussion, Reinventing the Bolshevik Code: From Brezhnev to Putin, on November 26.
First, we asked him to put on his old media hat and explain how a former Communist spy turned government informer, Whittaker Chambers, was able to become Time magazine’s managing editor in the 1940s. Schecter’s reply:
Whittaker Chambers rose to the position of foreign editor of Time in 1944 because he was a brilliant wordsmith and his views on the threat of Communism fit with those of Time Inc. Editor in Chief Henry Luce. Chambers was a natural enemy of Time correspondents in the field because as a former Communist he was convinced that he knew the world better than they did. “.. he knew what went on in the dark and they did not,” as the late Thomas Griffith, a legendary foreign editor of Time explained, in his book Harry and Teddy: The Turbulent Friendship of Press Lord Henry R. Luce and His Favorite Reporter, Theodore H. White. See Chapter Ten, The Rebellion of the Correspondents, which makes for a rich read filled with well-written anecdotes on Chambers, his wars inside Time Inc. and the alliances he formed and those who fought against him, such as Teddy White and John Hersey.
In 1940 when Chambers joined Time as a book reviewer his Communist past was known, but not his role in transmitting espionage materials from Alger Hiss to his Soviet control officer, or Chambers’ contacts with Harry Dexter White at the Treasury Department. In 1948 when Chambers’ role as a courier of materials from Hiss was revealed by Richard Nixon, his position at Time was fatally compromised and he resigned. See Sam Tanenhaus’ Whittaker Chambers: A Biography, Chapter 24, Indictment.
From the book Wonderplay, by our own Fretta Reitzes and Beth Teitelman:
Children love to be part of the Thanksgiving preparations. Tearing the bread for stuffing and adding ingredients into the bowl is a perfect job for them. But you don’t have to wait until Thanksgiving to make this.
Ingredients:
8"x 8” pan
1 loaf day-old Italian bread
4 small apples, chopped
4 large mushrooms, chopped
1 small bunch parsely, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 stick of margarine or butter
½ tsp. poultry seasoning
2 eggs
optional: green pepper (chopped), fresh peas, onions (chopped), nuts
Kids Instructions:
Tear apart bread in large bowl
Add apples, parsley, mushrooms, celery and spices. Mix well.
Moisten with margarine and eggs.
Bake in 350-degrees Fahrenheit oven for 30 minutes. (Mom or Dad, this one’s up to you).
Is your kid on a culinary kick? Sign them up for the next available section of Kids in the Kitchen (2½-5 yrs). Our full winter/spring season will be available online Thursday, December 7.
Poet/essayist Joseph Brodsky was charged with being a “social parasite” by the Soviet authorities in 1964. Here’s a famous excerpt from the transcript of his trial smuggled to the West by Jerrold Schecter:
Judge: And what is your profession in general?
Brodsky: Poet translator.
Judge: Who recognized you as a poet? Who enrolled you in the ranks of poets?
Brodsky: No one. And who enrolled me in the ranks of humanity?
Judge: Did you study this?
Brodsky: This?
Judge: To become a poet. You did not try to finish high school where they prepare, where they teach?
Brodsky: I didn’t think you could get this from school.
Judge: How then?
Brodsky: I think that it ... comes from God.
Steve “Woz” Wozniak—engineer, inventor, prankster, comedian, grade-school teacher, Segway Polo enthusiast, phone phreak, philanthropist, computer hacker, co-founder of Apple Computer and creator of the original Apple computer—treated the Y audience to stories of his youth last night. We knew that Woz was the epicenter of the personal computer revolution and that his projects for the Homebrew Computer Club in the ‘70s effectively changed the world as we know it, but we didn’t know a lot of other things. For instance:
· As a kid, Woz eschewed Hardy Boys books for the less popular Tom Swift science-fiction adventure books.
· Woz’s first homebrewed computer was not the Apple I but the 1971 “Cream Soda Computer"—so named because of the cans of cream soda that fueled its construction.
· As a young phone phreak, Woz once used a blue box to telephone Pope Paul VI. He impersonated Henry Kissinger and got as far as the Pope’s translator.
· Woz loves phone numbers with repeated digits. Previous Woz phone numbers include 996-9999, 255-6666, 353-3333, 354-4444 and 888-8888. The latter phone number closely resembled that of Pan Am Airways and Woz enjoyed booking flights with absurd routes for unsuspecting Pan Am customers who called him by mistake.
· The suggested retail price of the first Apple computer was $666.66. Woz liked the repeated digits but neither him nor his partner Steve Jobs realized the price’s resemblance to the Number of the Beast.
· Woz dropped out of college to help start Apple Computer. After the company became wildly successful, Woz went back to school and attended UC Berkeley under an assumed name: Rocky Raccoon Clark.
· Woz carries around a notepad comprised of sheets of uncut $2 bills. The bills are legal tender and he enjoys paying for things with stacks of sheets.
Next up in our Giants of Science series with Robert Krulwich: Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute.
Reading Series: The New Yorker‘s Roger Angell with Francine du Plessix Gray, biographer/beauty icon and author of Them: A Memoir of Parents which chronicles the social climbing of her Russian-born mother and stepfather, publisher/artist Alexander Liberman, who became second in command at Condé Nast. Introductions by Calvin Trillin and Frederic Tuten, respectively.
Films of Mel Brooks with Jeremy Dauber, Columbia professor of Modern Yiddish Literature.
Tuesday
Koret and People’s Choice Awards Celebration: An evening of readings, book signings, wine/cheese/dessert reception, and special video showing of Jonathan Safran Foer and David Grossman. Award categories include Fiction, Jewish Life & Living, Jewish Thought, Children’s Literature, and a People’s Choice Award determined by online voting at JBooks.com.
Saul Steinberg’s “View of the World from 9th Avenue” cover for The New Yorker, March 29, 1976.
We’re not ashamed to acknowledge a nice compliment thrown our way and we’re especially pleased with the sentiment behind this one from Bart Collins of The Well-Tempered Blog:
Check out the 92nd Street Y’s Blog. It’s not just for New Yorkers! There’s loads of good stuff to be found there for anyone interested in the arts.
We hope others feel that way too; we are always striving to make our programming as accessible as possible and this week’s announcement about our partnership with Sirius Satellite Radio demonstrates our commitment. For quite some time we’ve been providing other ways for people outside of New York to experience the 92nd Street Y. We hope you check back here often—more interviews and podcasts are on the way.
Sirius Satellite Radio has stepped up its talk program, announcing plans Tuesday to broadcast interviews from Gotham’s “92nd Street Y” series starting early next year.
The satcaster will offer its 5.1 million subscribers archival interviews dating back to 1949, which over the years have included presidents, sports figures, actors, writers and musicians—including Bill Clinton, Katie Couric, John Travolta, Paul McCartney, Henry Kissinger, Jay Leno, Annette Bening and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
“It’s one of the real uncovered gems of archives and there’s huge content,” said Sirius’ entertainment prexy Scott Greenstein. “These interviews today are as vibrant as they ever have been.”
Read the full press release and check out upcoming lectures. Our winter/spring catalog will be launching in early December so stay tuned for even more great programming.
That is according to the esteemed panel of graphic novelists we had here recently, as reported in The Beat, the comics blog by Publishers Weekly:
On Sunday night a variety of voices gathered at the New York City 92nd Street [Y] to discuss graphic novels. In attendance were Jessica Abel (La Perdida). Mark Siegel (editorial director of First Second Books), Andrew Helfer (former editor of DC Comics’ Paradox line and current editor and writer of Hill and Wang’s Novel Graphics imprint) and Joann Sfar (The Rabbi’s Cat). The panel was moderated by WNYC radio host Leonard Lopate.
When asked about whether they prefer the term “graphic novels” or “comics,” almost everyone came down on the side of “comics,” with Abel saying, “A graphic novel is a description, not a definition of an art form. We really need to repossess that word [comics] and make it something we can use.”
If you appreciate novels with great graphics however we highly recommend our forthcoming panel on the art of the book with Dave Eggers, Chip Kidd and Milton Glaser.
Steve “Woz” Wozniak—engineer, inventor, prankster, comedian, grade-school teacher, 
That is according to the esteemed panel of graphic novelists we had here recently, as reported in 
