Art School

We want to be sure to get the spelling right: Art Spiegelman's new book is called Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@?*! The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus has been telling some of the stories behind his stories in serial form for a while now, and is on tour with them in collected form. We hope he isn't too upset that the title of his book is not being taken seriously in some quarters. We've seen it spelled %@&*!*, if you can believe it. And its true orthography actually includes a squiggle not available on keyboards, so even we, who give a #^/?, are just vamping. We mention all this because we imagine you don't really need to know anything about Spiegelman's work: its massive significance, its delightfulness, its power to inspire. Same reason we're about to tell you that Spiegelman was party responsible for the most disgusting product ever aimed at children: Garbage Pail Kids, trading cards with none of the above qualities. Did you already know that? We did not $#^&ing know that.
Tue., Oct. 14, 7 p.m., 2008