September Caption Contest Winner

 Posted by on October 7, 2012
Oct 072012
 

With many apologies for the delay in announcing the winner of the all-mighty cartoon caption contest for the sacred month of September, we at the New Dorker want to head right for our towels and get this ceremony underway. Ahem. Right, not very professional is I, being as this whole thing got farshlept. Well, the main thing is I’m here now with the finalist and winner after a very busy few weeks of holidays and new-semester workload. Despite the delay all the great prizes and honors will still be awarded. Yes, twenty five dollars. No small thing, considering this is the last caption contest with a cash prize — until the next bailout! I will continue to do caption contests, but it will now be primarily for the benefits of amusement of yours truly and anyone else who cares, meaning, there will be a much altered profit definition.

And with that…The runner-up to the caption contest is:

Matty: “Must. Keep. Practicing.”

This gave me a real chuckle. I love deadpan humor especially in strange situations! Must. Keep. Trying. Matty. No. Money. Surry.

As for the winner of the caption contest and of the twenty five bucks and the creator of my all new funny cartoon that fits right into my cartoonist’s portfolio-in-the-making:

David: “Why throw out the shofer with the bathwater?”

A Hasidic man blowing shofer in the bathtub

I love the whole bathwater concept because the analogy has been taken in every possible direction, stretched to fit the religious values of every stripe and creed. I always get confused by what the baby is and what the bathwater is, in terms of real life. What counts for the metaphorical baby? Is a pair of jeans a baby? Is a shofer a baby? Is shabbes a baby? Is God a baby? Really? What’s the matter with people taking an analogy and running with it?

From my perspective everyone should do whatever they want with their bath and bathwater, so long as there are enough bubbles to cover up whatever I’d rather not see. And in terms of religion, when people choose to distance themselves from religion altogether instead of staying partially religious as Modern Orthodox or LWMO or such, it is their choice, their preference. Leaving religion altogether doesn’t constitute an act of recklessness or extremism, it constitutes a choice in life.

On Sukkos

 Posted by on September 27, 2012
Sep 272012
 

A guy playing golf with Lulav and Esrog

Happy holidays, friends. If you get to play golf and be served five course meals and sit with your feet propped on a massage table, good for you. Holidays rock that way.

I built myself a small sukkah, this year as all years, a shrine to sweet childhood memories and an effort to pass those experiences on to my child. It’s beautiful, in a charming and cozy way. It’s a lot of work to set up and take down, but well worth the effort. Those who see me dragging the wooden panels across the yard call me a feminist, which makes my head swell way too big for the kosher part of the Sukkah. Building the sukkah is a tradition I couldn’t give up. I get a number of colored lights to blink away at night while we huddle with sweaters and our noses run.

Sukkos – the holiday of creativity and artistic expression on the panel walls – makes me reflect on my own artistic project; cartooning. I’ve made some progress with the craft of doodling itself, I think. I’m pretty okay at Photoshop now and I mostly only draw there. I’ve figured out how to use its great layering and pen tools too. I can still only do very basic drawings. Intricate settings stump me. I audited an art class in college, hoping to pick up some tips, but I just watched the most bizarre uses of paints instead. I myself never touched a canvas. One art student explained to me that her elaborate mysterious mush-mash of stuff and paint was a profound interpretation of an awesome dream she had with like, insight. Very nice, I said.

I’ll stick to this doodling thing, at home. And I’ll try not to do it asleep, dream awesomeness notwithstanding.

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