from Vanamonde #669 (2006)
Unexpectedly finding myself before a television set at the end of the evening, I saw Shizuka Arakawa (Japan), Sasha Cohen (U.S.), and Irina Slutskaya (Russia) in women's free-skating broadcast from the Winter Olympics, Taurino, Italy. Arakawa, elegant and perfect, won the gold medal, her country's first Olympic figure-skating champion. I was so happy for Japan I wrote to friends on the Nippon 2007 Worldcon committee. Cohen skated beautifully, and even after two mistakes she still gave everything. Tamie Inoue, wife of chairman Hiroaki Inoue, wrote back "She did wonderful skating afterwards.... I praise her indomitable spirit. Congratulations on a wonderful silver medal."
Another time. There was The New Yorker of 29 Nov 04, with a cover unmistakably by R. Crumb, the best part a Pilgrim woman at lower left startled by her book. On p. 121 a P.S. Mueller cartoon "Did you pay the gravity bill?" On pp. 138-39 a Gahan Wilson cartoon of the city, a food vendor selling THINGS on a stick, a man in the air on bat wings obeying a lit-picture traffic signal letting him fly, an Alien Taxi cab with a light "Return to Home Planet" carrying a fiendish driver and an unhappy couple. On p. 153 a review of B. Blackbeard ed., Necromancy by the Blue Bean Bush (2004), fifth Fantagraphics anthology of G. Herriman's Krazy Kat (1913-44), "mushrooms blooming like umbrellas under a cheese-slice moon"; it always looked more like an ice-cream scoop to me; the sixth, A Wild Warmth of Chromatic Gravy (2005), I nominated for Best Related Book on the Hugo ballot.