Virtual Memories Show 404:
Michael Shaw
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“The Elements of Stress is the perfect gift for the person who HAD everything.”
Got the election / pandemic / climate change / midlife / inexplicable rash blues? Then listen to me and cartoonist & humorist Michael Shaw talk about his new book, The Elements of Stress and the Pursuit of Happy-ish in this Current Sh*tstorm (co-authored by the great Bob Eckstein, from Weekly Humorist Press)! We get into how Michael and Bob managed to mash up Strunk & White with Thurber & White to create a prose & cartoons handbook to dealing with This Whole Situation, then explore Michael’s history in cartooning and humor, how he balances that with a day job in writing and editing, his discovery that if he drew cartoons any better he’d be terrible, and why he took a hiatus from submitting gags to The New Yorker (and whether they know he’s taken said hiatus). We also get into his literary loves, the perils of listening to William S. Burroughs audiobooks on late-night commutes, how his florid-rococo style balances with Eckstein’s Hemingway-on-valium approach, the lesson he learned from Milton Glaser about One Element of Dissonance, and more! Give it a listen! And go read The Elements of Stress and the Pursuit of Happy-ish in this Current Sh*tstorm!
Enjoy the conversation! Then check out the archives for more great episodes!
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About our Guest
Michael Shaw’s cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker since 1999 and have a habit of going viral—appearing on an ABC news special following the World Trade Tower attack and on 60 Minutes as one of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff’s “top five favorites.” Shaw’s cartoon on Charlie Hebdo led to his appearance on Ronan Farrow Daily on MSNBC. His cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker Book of Literary Cartoons, The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker, The Rejection Collection I and II, The New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons, The Ultimate Cartoon Book series, and in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Harvard Business Review, Weekly Humorist, and Prospect magazine. His new book, with co-author Bob Eckstein, is The Elements of Stress and the Pursuit of Happy-ish in this Current Sh*tstorm.
Follow Michael on Twitter and Instagram and visit the Chinese sports gambling site that took over his website after he let the domain name lapse.
Credits: This episode’s music is Fella by Hal Mayforth, used with permission from the artist. The conversation was recorded remotely via Zencastr. I used a Heil PR-40 Dynamic Studio Recording Microphone
Thanks Gil! It was an honored to be encased in your wall of captured souls. And trading you Futzie Nutzle for Kliph Nesteroff.