Yesterday, I was in the city for a panel discussion at The Museum of The City of New York (the details of which are in the post below, so I won’t retype all that…) Apart from the fact my microphone was working perfectly and everyone could hear everything I was saying, it was a great event. The discussion ranged from the current Presidential race to races past and the role race itself played/plays in electoral politics – Particularly in the form of racial stereotypes. It’s always nice to get away from the drawing table and actually talk to the people who read our cartoons, and be reminded of the serious historical context political cartoons are seen in. In case you have trouble imagining what me speaking to actual people looks like – Here’s a pic (but taken at another appearance I had on Monday, at The Westport Y’s Women…Photo credit: Phyllis Groner, WestportNow.com)

On another important note. As a result of yesterday, I didn’t have time to draw a cartoon for today. September 11th. At first I felt negligent, as it somehow feels like a moral duty to draw something for this sombre event. But as I was driving in to my office this morning listening to Brian Lehrer on the radio (as always,) I was looking up at the very same beautiful piece of sky that one of the jets sliced through on its diabolical, seven years-old journey to the World Trade Center a few moments away. I realized that every cartoon I have drawn since September 11th, 2001 has been somehow affected by that single event. Almost everything we as a nation have done politically since then was borne from that surreal and shocking moment. I have at times agreed, but more often disagreed with our choices, and I see my cartoon responses as a miniscule, but constant tribute to those who lost so much. It is important not that we do something to repair the damage that was brought upon our collective humanity on that day, but that we do the right thing. How can it be that something that sounds so simple, be so difficult to achieve? I suspect it’s because we’re human – And as I saw yesterday, our history books are filled with political cartoons that illustrate that exquisitely. I consider it humbling, sobering and a privilege to be part of that long, black-ink spattered line.

I’ll be back with a drawing tomorrow to break this respectful moment of cartooning silence.

Here’s a pic of me giving a speech to The Westport Y’s Women on monday