Just because Jules Feiffer has come to believe that there's little, if any hope, for change in the status quo doesn't mean you have to. Each of us has to choose our battles, and if you don't think you can win them, or believe that you can no longer affect the outcome, then perhaps there are different places better served with your energy. Like your family. Or your art. Lot's of folks want to change the face of politics and sometimes it feels like it just might happen. Other times, it's more of a slog. And slogging about in the muck doesn't really improve the shape of the world. You just end up soiled.
Feiffer, who captured the attention of leftists and the powerful alike with 42 years of Village Voice cartoons and the Academy Award-winning Munro, decided at the millennium that there are more noble callings than throwing darts at the likes of George Bush and Dick "the Dick" Cheney. Especially since none of the poison pen ink seems to be able to tattoo thick Republican skins and many Americans seem more content with shopping at Nebraska Furniture Mart than marching against the war on any given Sunday.
As Twain(?) said, in order for satire to work, people have to be well read. Well, here's to reading.
So Feiffer has moved onto a calling at least as noble as that of a serious comix artist - that of writing and illustrating children's books. His daughter, Kate, also writes children's books and together they presented a Feifferian view of the world according to the infinite childhood.
The Feiffers, along with other Merry Pranksters, were in Kansas City for the Reading Reptile DNA Literature festival held again this year at the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Community Christian Church. One of Feiffer's early collaborators in the absurd, Norton Jester ("it's Juster, Norton Juster you fool!"), was baffled, as have been many before him, by which of Wright's sensibilities, if any, went into the church's design. No one knew, thus Jester dropped his shoe on Wright and the architect was exposed as curmudgeon.
Juster, whose classic book The Phantom Tollbooth ,initially confounded critics, but delighted both children and parents (thus the critics were forced to follow suit), followed the Feiffer family with a stump speech that played like a stack of 3 x 5 Groucho Marx index cards. Juster stopped short of dancing a jig but the crowd hardly noticed; they were waiting for the magic word. When the duck finally dropped even Norton seemed surprised that the word was delight.Jane Yolen, who's written more books (~300) than the President has read in a lifetime capped the festival with a finely crafted story about the process of re-writing what's already been written. Park would be happy to know that this post, having been rewritten as least 4 times, is still unfinished, but alas, time to move on to satire.
elsewhere:
smitten by mittens
the interrogation of junior
knocked out of the park
yolen along
the potter family
feiffer gives it up