When we think of George Carlin, a number of strong descriptors come to mind: hilarious, brilliant, atheist, no-bullshit. But “romantic” isn’t exactly at the tip of our tongue. Letters of Note corrects this misapprehension, posting a brief missive from Carlin to his wife, one of many that appears in her memoir The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade, published last month. The note, which is both sweet and funny, addresses Wade as “Sallyburger” and features a delightfully absurd quantification of Carlin’s love for her. See it for yourself after the jump, and click over to Letters of Note for a transcription.
Christopher Hitchens. Richard Dawkins. And, of course, Charles Darwin. These are the names we usually hear associated with the Great God Debate. But this holiday season, Ricky Gervais has let loose a missive reminding us that atheism isn’t just dour lectures and attempts to discredit Mother Teresa — it can actually be funny. “Next time someone tells me they believe in God,” Gervais writes, “I’ll say ‘Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…’ If they say ‘Just God. I only believe in the one God,’ I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869.”
In fact, poking holes in religion has long been one of comedy’s greatest pastimes. After the jump, we round up our favorite irreligious quotes from our funniest atheists, from Woody Allen and Cloris Leachman to David Cross and Sarah Silverman.
In recent years, celebrity mugshots have become commonplace — in many cases, they’re hard to distinguish from any other head shot in a starlet’s collection. Rachel Schmeidler‘s series Hollywood Most Wanted, which was inspired by her work with journalists on Michael Jackson’s criminal trial in 2005, takes these familiar images and subverts them. Using silkscreen and digital image techniques that produce Warhol-inspired pieces, Schmeidler combines her passion for popular culture, government, and technology. “We are all ultimately the same before the flash of the mug shot bulb,” she says. Included in her portfolio of over 70 mugs are reconstructed images of Hollywood celebrities, mobsters, and political figures.
It’s hardly a revelation to point out that there are more than a few obsessed fans of TV’s Lost out there, but few are obsessed in quite the same way as Jeff Curtin and Adam Schatz. Together, the two are Previously on Lost, a New York-based “recap-rock” band dedicated to chronicling the adventures of everyone’s current favorite castaways (sorry, Gilligan). During last year’s season 4, the duo wrote a new song about each episode of the show within 24 hours of its airing. The collected results became The Tale of Season 4 and the Oceanic Six, a 13-song album that documents the entire season.
To celebrate the long-awaited season 5 premiere, which airs Wednesday Jan 21 on ABC, the group has put together an appropriate celebration at Brooklyn’s Bell House. A screening of the two-hour TV event will be accompanied by a performance from Previously on Lost, complete with free leis and cheap rum punch. We caught up with Schatz ahead of the big night to find out what the group has in store for the future, whether it has received official endorsement, and how it all relates to photosynthesis, George Carlin, and the World Cup.
