Media Nugget

Bob & Ray

Bob & Ray

Before David Letterman and Saturday Night Live popularized droll, off-beat comedy on television, Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding were making an art of it with bizarre radio parodies of everything from soap operas to the nightly news. Sly sketches like "Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder," "One Fella's Family," and "Webley Webster," about a book critic with a weird penchant for pirate stories, practically serve as a blueprint for the smart, ironic comedy of today. Astoundingly, much of it was done without a script.

Presidential Elections

U.S. Voters
Presidential Elections
every 4 years

A third-party spoiler. Overzealous media outlets. The electoral college at odds with the popular vote. Wow. If you are one of the 100 million or so eligible voters who decided to sit this one out, you owe the rest of us for providing you with one hell of a roller-coaster ride. Any way you cut it, 2000 will go down in history as a classic.

Victory of Samothrace

Artist Unknown
Victory of Samothrace
190 B.C.

World's most beautiful accident.
The human spirit in stone.
Arms would slow you down.
A head would make you merely sculpture.

Mom and Dad

William H. Johnson
Mom and Dad
1944

Most Americans have probably never heard of him, yet William H. Johnson is one of our greatest artists. Classically trained in Paris, his work took off when he infused his academic skills with his folk-art roots. Johnson did most of his painting in Europe and Harlem, but Mom and Dad was painted during a trip back home to Florence, South Carolina. The National Museum of American Art has a fantastic archive of Johnson's works, many of which can be viewed online.

Eddie Izzard

Eddie Izzard

Generally acknowledged as one the freshest and funniest comedians to come along in years, Izzard's signature style is the one-man, multi-character improvisation. Whether treading familiar comedic ground -- God (as voiced by James Mason) bickering with Jesus -- or ranging to the farthest corners of the cultural zeitgeist, Izzard's genius is his ability to interrupt his routines, ramble discursively (and hilariously), and eventually meander back to complete the scene. His cable specials, Glorious and Dress to Kill, are tours de force both. It's true.

Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha

From his early paintings, which featured a single stylized word emblazoned on a solid background, to his recent canvasses of mountain peaks superimposed with seemingly unrelated text, much of Ed Ruscha's work explores the relationship between image and language. Despite this motif, his portfolio is well mixed, including everything from photo-essays documenting gas stations, swimming pools, and parking lots, to a series of paintings stained with cherry extract, egg yolks, and spinach. Always sharp, sometimes enigmatic, Ruscha's art undoubtedly provokes responses just as varied as his subjects and techniques.

Dennis Potter

Dennis Potter
1935-1994

A writer, actor, producer, and director, Dennis Potter is probably best known for his television series, The Singing Detective, a noirish psychological study of a middle-aged mystery writer immobilized in a hospital ward. As in many of Potter's tales, the action moves back and forth between fiction and memory, jumping from a dizzily remembered past to a jarring present, filtered by pain, humor, and hallucination. In Pennies from Heaven, with Bob Hoskins, Potter uses '30s and '40s musical numbers to paint his characters' inner lives; in The Last Interview, he speaks sensitively and insightfully, morphine flask in hand, about his life, work, and his imminent death.

Edward Gorey

Edward Gorey
1925-2000

"Many of Edward Gorey's most fervent devotees think he's (a) English and (b) dead. Actually, he has never so much as visited either place. But his work has imprinted itself on the American consciousness as something from long ago and far away."
          ---The New Yorker

Sadly, this is no longer accurate. The author and illustrator of such strange little books as The Doubtful Guest, The Curious Sofa, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies died on April 15 at the age of 75. He has yet to visit England.

William Atherton

William Atherton

You probably didn't even know his name. But chances are, you hate William Atherton's guts. Don't worry. It's perfectly natural. In film after film, he plays the smarmiest, weaseliest, oiliest guy on screen. But that's what makes him so much fun to watch. Though he began his career as a leading man (Sugarland Express, Day of the Locust), Atherton soon found a niche playing brainy bad guys and unctuous jerks (Ghostbusters, Die Hard). People might go to the movies to see big stars, but it's the character actors like Atherton who keep things interesting.

Joey Skaggs

Joey Skaggs

Since the late '60s, Joey Skaggs has been perpetrating elaborate hoaxes on the media. Take 1976's "Cathouse for Dogs," where it was rumored pet owners could bring their dogs for sexual fulfillment. After the hysteria died down, Skaggs calmly revealed the hoax, much to the dismay of the many reporters who had conveniently neglected to confirm the basic facts of the story. More recent Skaggs stunts include "Fish Condos" and last year's "STOP BioPEEP," which described a virus that could addict consumers to any product. Whether you love him or hate him, the self-proclaimed "media activist" inevitably makes you stop, take notice, react, and maybe, just maybe, consider the world a little more clearly.