Get Lost

I fear that America is lost. I don't mean lost in some metaphorical, fin-de-siecle, last-one-out-turn-off-the-lights way; I mean lost, as in "where the heck am I?" How else to account for the proliferation of GPS devices and services? From the way they are being marketed for cars, hikers, PDAs, cell phones and probably other things I have missed, one would think that we were a nation of bubbleheads who can't make it to the corner store without a little voice saying "...avoid the panhandler immediately in front of you and turn LEFT into the pharmacy in fifteen feet..." I get that the point of manufacturing is to sell things, and that the point of marketing is to make people feel that they will be left out, laughed at or ostracized if they don't run out and get the latest whosis RIGHT NOW, but GPS seems to be even less essential- for most people- than SUVs. And there aren't many people who actually need an SUV (remember those big station wagons?). Of course they're cool, and they can put you within six inches of any place on the globe, and for some that's reason enough to buy one.

But if we're really buying them because we're lost, that does not bode well for the future.

Will Elder, R.I.P.

He drew pictures that even today make me gasp for air as I laugh. He didn't have the sophistication and technique of Wally Wood, but the content of his panels made the work he did for the early Mad classic. Ping-Pong, Dragged Net, Starchie - Elder, along with the crazed Harvey Kurtzman, savaged the contemporary comics and movies of their day, and did so with staggeringly funny pictures and words.

I was too young to see their work in the original Mad comics, but the paperback reprints of the '60s and the full color reprints of the '90s have been the source of hours of laughter. I had no interest in his later work, but for what he did in his time with Mad I will be forever grateful.