Jan Freeman writes The Word column for Ideas.
Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based writer, editor, and multimedia
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« Do you speak Dingbat? | Main | The odds must be crazy » Wednesday, March 21, 2007Chris Ware vs. This American Life mashupNot exactly a mashup, I confess. But here is something else that has the blogosphere buzzing today. Cartoonist Chris Ware, about whom everyone knows already, has produced his first cartoon, an animated version of one of the stories from the premiere episode of Showtime's upcoming "This American Life" show. Which is a spinoff of the public radio program, about which everyone knows already. The TV show debuts tomorrow evening.  The story, which sounds too good to be true, is about a bunch of 5th and 6th grade kids who all make pretend TV cameras out of cardboard boxes; they soon band into competing news operations. The teacher who tells the story says that the cameras were finally confiscated after he found one boy pummeling another boy on the playground, both circled by children aiming the fake cameras at the fight and reporting on it breathlessly.  Ware, who is almost as good as Laylah Ali at depicting man's inhumanity to man via round-headed cartoon characters (see his cover for the recent Penguin edition of "Candide," for example), does a fine job here. I have to say, the video makes me want to watch the show, despite what Joanna Weiss said about "This American Life" in the Globe this past Sunday. Too bad I don't have cable. UPDATE: Funny "This American Life" parody, here. Posted by Joshua Glenn at 02:13 PM
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