Best Comics Not in Washngton Post: A Good Day for Arctic Circle and Edison Lee

With his image of an Armenia chess player, we discuss some of our favorite comic strips not found in the print version of "The Washington Post." While the post has a wonderful, eclectic mix of comic strips, there are still several which aren't in one of America's most widely read newspapers.

The reason for the Armenian chess player is a brilliant satire of chess in "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee," our second favorite comic strip behind "The Arctic Circle," which is a hilarious parody of LinkedIn users (well, I am one of them myself).

We also loved "Animal Crackers," which featured some subtle dark comedy which proves no one should try to reenact Icarus.

And, "The Pajama Diaries," dealt with a look at how a mother must try to figure out what to do with their teenager's bedroom that is all decorated with teen idol posters.

Here is our top ten:

1. Arctic Circle

2. The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee

3. Animal Crackers

4. The Pajama Diaries

5. Edge City

6. The Flying McCoys

7. Bleeker

8. Brevity

9. Get Fuzzy

10. Tina's Groove

www.gocomics.com/animalcrackers/

http://edisonleecomic.com/

http://arcticcirclecartoons.com/

http://pajamadiaries.com/

Quote of the Day/Week- Marcel Duchamp

Today, for the very first time, we quote the great French surreal artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) who is best-known for his....hmmm, there is no nice way to say this, his urinal piece.....

Duchamp was also apparently an avid chess player, a sport which according to the NPR show "The World," the former Soviet Republic of Armenia is apparently very good at; here is his quote:

"Chess can be described as the movement of pieces eating one another."

We gather there is even a "Peanuts" version of chess where (you guessed it) Charlie Brown is the king and Lucy van Pelt is the queen.

SIDEBAR: Oh, I almost to mention that I am on way to the Golden Corral in Rock Hill, SC, where Fred Thompson once stumped* to formally endorse the one Republican candidate who I see fit to hold office; his name is Zippy the Pinhead**.

*-true story

**-underground comic book character that is the creation of Bill Griffith

Quote of the Week- William Shatner

Admitedly, us Americans tend to overlook our neighbors to the north. In fact, my last entry dedicated to a Canadian may have been when I wished former UCLA gymnast and Canadian Olympian Yvonne Tousek a happy 30th birthday (on our other blog) last year.

But, this month, I am quoting all sorts of famous Canadians. And, perhaps no Canadian is as famous as William Shatner, who turned 80 earlier this year. He is, of course, known for playing Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" on tv in the '60s, and again with a series of films starting in 1979.

Recently, Shatner stunned the world by releasing a music album with his covers of songs like "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Having heard a snipet of the song on NPR, I can vouch that listening to the Oak Ridge Boys' song "Elvira" on an AM country radio station in Kentucky might be slightly less painful.

So, here is our quote from Shatner:

"How do I so healthy and boyishly handsome? It's simple. I drink the blood of young runaways."

SIDEBAR: Our good friend and fellow blogger Chris Knight took on Shatner in a spoof of "Priceline" commercials with the help of Addy Miller, who is the little zombie girl in AMC's "The Walking Dead." And, Shatner himself actually tweeted about the matter!

A similar thing occured several months ago when Harry Shearer, the voice of Principal Skinner on "The Simpsons," tweeted that my friend Jason Garnett was showing Shearer's documentary film about the Hurrican Katrina fiasco "The Big Uneasy" at the Shadowbox Microcinema in Roanoke, Va. That film is now out on dvd.

SIDEBAR TWO: Much focus has been on the futile marriage between Armenian-American model/celebrity/reality tv show star Kim Kardashian and Kris Humpries of the New Jersey Nets. For those who have been hanging out in Buddhist monastaries in Bhutan, the marriage ended after a mere 72 days on Monday. A Twitter site for the Nets actually asked fans if Kardashian should give her gifts back?

But, a more interesting thing appears to be happening in the Kardashian family's ethnic homeland. Of course, it is perhaps fittingly ironic that I am mentioning this, since I am a Turkish-American, but the NPR show "The World" ran an amazing story on Tuesday by reporter Shanti Shahrigian about an effort to educate Armenian school children about the game of chess.

As it turns out, even though Armenia has a population of circa three million people, the country has some 30 chess grandmasters. Teacher Grigor Martikian is running the elementary school program, and so far it appears to be quite succesful.

I more or less quit playing chess after losing to an eight-year-old girl who was the reigning Virginia state champ in her age group, an incident which occured some ten years ago. That girl is probably old enough to vote now!

This and That- Dr. Oz Makes the Cover of Time Magazine

Yesterday, while browsing magazines at a local Barnes and Noble, I noticed that Dr. Mehmet Oz, who the world simply knows as Dr. Oz, was on the cover of "Time" magazine.

A tweet from Namik Tan, Turkey's ambassador to the United States, said that Dr. Oz was the eighth Turkish citizen to grace the cover of the magazine. I presume Dr. Oz has dual citizenship, and that one of the other seven people was Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey.

And, a report from the English-language version of "Hurriyet," one of Turkey's most-read newspapers, confirmed that Dr. Oz was the eighth person to be on the cover of "Time" though no mention was made of the other seven. I am curious to know if Mehmet Ali Agca, arguably one of the most infamous people from Turkey in the last fifty years, was on the cover of "Time." 30 years ago, Agca attempted to assasinate Pope John Paul in Vatican City, and I'm wondering if this is the reason why no mention is made of who the other people are.

Though I am a "Newsweek" subscriber, as a fellow Turkish-American, I am very happy for Dr. Oz. The cover story deals with his own colon cancer scare. Dr. Oz, who was born in Cleveland, will turn 51 on June 11.

Speaking of Turkey, a tweet from Marc Guillet, who I presume is an international reporter, said the following which made me home-sick for my father's country, even though like Dr. Oz, I was born in America.

The tweet reads as follows:

"I'm at Kadikoy ferry where young people from the Black Sea region are dancing traditional music. I love it."

Kadikoy is arguably the most populated section of Istanbul on the Asian side of the megalopolis. The Trabzon-Rize region in the eastern Black Sea is indeed very well-known for folk dancing as well as tea farms.

While I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday, I also saw a book entitled "The Invisible Gorilla" by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simmons. The book is meant to show that our instincts are not always the most logical ways of resolving problems.

One part of the book deals with what chess masters and criminals have in common, and while one may think it is that both plan ahead, the answer, according to a member of the South Dakota Chess Association, is that both groups have high degreees of confidence. We wonder what Boris Spassky, the great Russian chess player, would make of this?!

Lastly, we have more details about the attack on the Paul Gauguin* painting "Two Tahitian Women" (1899) that goes for 1899 and is worth $80 million. The painting is on the display until today at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

I saw the exhibit several weeks ago, and I had blogged about the early April incident, which occured long before I went to the National Gallery, here. But, I realized that I had overlooked how the painting was attacked.

Apparently, Susan Burns, 53, from Alexandria, Va., a suburb of Washington, DC, did not attack the painting with a fork or a knife as I had presumed. I was wondering how she would have gotten past the tight security at the museum. As it turns, while yelling: "This is evil!," she tried to take the painting down before the guards restrained her. It has been reported that Burns felt the painting of two topless Tahitian women carrying mangos, which is one of Gauguin's most famous painting, was 'too homosexual.'

*-Alas, we also learned that we did not spell Paul Gauguin's name correctly in that entry!

True Confessions Quiz (Entry 1 of 11)

Readers of this blog who might be curious about sometimes mundane existence now have a chance to learn a little bit more about me.......hmm, legal experts might say this is a very bad idea.

But, now is your chance to guess which one of these statements about me is NOT true.

A) I was a far right wing child who looked up to the now deceased Alpastan Turkesh, the founder of the Grey Wolves, a man who made Pat Buchanan look like Jane Fonda in the sixties. I once went so far as to write Turkesh slogans on a sidewalk next to our apartment.

B) As a very liberal college student who thought Bill Clinton should have been a Republican, I almost went on a trip to Cuba with a group of young socialists.

C) I lost a chess game to an eight-year-old girl and have since played the game very rarely.

D) I was an extra in Charles Cullen's "The Day the Whole *&%king World Blew Up." Cullen is a local filmmaker in my hometown of Roanoke, Va., who actually has an international cult following.

Good luck with this one.........it's hard to believe three of these statements are actually true.