Liars and Saints

  Julia Wertz receives a call from her mother, an invitation: "Let's collect eucalyptus spirals!" The trip is an occasion for mild antagonism -- Julia refers to Mom's "nonsense plan," and Mom implies that a certain assumption of Julia's is evidence of insanity. But the tension ebbs *and* flows -- rancor is forgotten when the two women become excited about a redwood log and a possible "new planter." The chat ends with a burp. There is a philosophical discussion. Is a burp a form of "comedic relief"--? Or is that strictly the job of a fart? I don't think these panels are revolutionary, but they're fun. Any kind of journey is (potentially) a story -- on its surface, the eucalyptus mission is banal, but then, it's not something we often see in art. Also, people burp. People talk about farts. I'm glad that Wertz is working to make this observation -- she is even smuggling her observation into the pages of "The New York...

 My family has a tradition of benign polyps. Polyps in the colon! They're benign sometimes, but they could morph. They could become vindictive--at any moment. What this means for me is that I get to "jump the colonoscopy line." For a long while, I've been thinking about my 45th birthday--that special time when I will drink a potion, spend hours in the bathroom, and then get probed. I'll always recall how gracefully my spouse handled this event in his own timeline. He even seemed to enjoy himself. He was loopy after the procedure--and we headed home to Brooklyn to watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm." (It was the one where Larry David steals flowers from an impromptu roadside memorial.) From certain angles, an early colonoscopy is not a twist to be celebrated. But I'm sort of pleased--because this will generate new material. And so I know how Julia Wertz feels. Wertz is my favorite cartoonist. I'm including her new work here.

  "Impossible People," by Julia Wertz . The writer Kate DiCamillo said, "It doesn't matter how fancy your sentences are. Good writing happens after you study and listen to people. Good writing is a product of listening, and telling the truth." Julia Wertz confesses to us that she spent her twenties in a drunken haze, in an illegal basement apartment in Greenpoint. She couldn't fall asleep before downing two or three bottles of wine. On Christmas, she found the one non-Christian liquor store in her neighborhood, and she congratulated herself on having taken a healthful walk to arrive at the store. Once, she stripped naked in the street and passed out; somehow, hours later, she found herself awake in her own apartment, next to a neatly folded stack of her discarded clothing. Wertz pushes back against AA, even as she appreciates the ritual. "I couldn't tolerate the God stuff, so I just thought of God as a Group of Drunks." "AA says you're...