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Art Nut IV

 David Sipress often uses his own life in his art. (When it's bad for one's life, it's good for one's art.)


In early adulthood, Sipress was studying at Harvard to obtain a doctoral degree in Russian history. He knew this was a wrong move; he knew his destiny was to draw cartoons. When he finally found the courage to quit school, he called his father, who actually placed a curse over the phone. The trauma of the call was so great, Sipress sort of attempted suicide. Then he avoided not just his father, but also his father's city (New York), for many years.

I think most people would respond to this moment by burying the memory, or by speaking only in a self-pitying way. But Sipress's gift is for counterintuitive moves. In one cartoon, he seems to empathize with his father: OF COURSE his father had a valid point. The cartoon in question shows a man on a date. Bluntly, the man says, "I thought I was a writer, but it turned out to be a chemical imbalance."

The lunacy of this confession is matched by the cartoonist's style: Wobbly lines spill out from window frames, and even the salt-shaker seems to be vibrating. The letters of "CAFE" are spaced apart crazily, so that the venue seems to be called "C. A. FE" .....

The other areas where Sipress “borrows" from his life? He writes about the pleasures of unhappiness ("Dad chose one restaurant just because the waitress antagonized him"), and he writes a great deal about his own thorny history with money ("Apple Pay does not mean Apple Pays.....")

Have I mentioned I loved his book?

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