A Little Touch of Doonesbury in the Night
I've been derelict in real-time tracking of the B.D. story in Doonesbury, despite prior lifetimes when the strip was a must on my regular list. I guess it could be marked up as casualty to increasingly intense political on-line text time.
I regret that. I have vague recall of doing some makeup with a bound compilation featuring one-legged B.D., but that is not quite the same thing as reading in real time.
But I'm passing you on to great interview/column with added personal interest story on Ms. GBT, i.e. Jane Pauley, a heroine in her own right. I will excerpt briefly but strongly encourage you to track down original.
Since the subject seems to arouse no interest, and often startling hostility, I try to keep my admiration-bordering-on-awe for Garry Trudeau and Doonesbury under wraps. It has been awfully hard, though, in the case of the two-year-old recurring plot line involving erstwhile football hero B.D.'s loss of his leg in Iraq, and his continuing struggle to return to his life.
I do want to mention that yesterday's Washington Post Magazine carried a rare and outstanding profile of the publicity-phobic Trudeau by Washington Post humor columnist (and online chat host) Gene Weingarten, who followed up today with a terrific online chat session.
In the chat session, for example, Weingarten shared the gnarled history of the cover illustration (see above), drawn for the occasion by Trudeau:
One question many of you are asking involves the cover the magazine: Yes, Trudeau drew that specifically for The Post. The general idea was mine--having B.D., with his missing leg, ruminating on the nature of "The Creator." There's a funny story behind this.
-clip-
I had no idea of the extent to which Trudeau has immersed himself in the world of the wounded war returnees. So I also had no idea that it was made possible in large part by contact initiated from the Pentagon following publication of the strip in which B.D. was injured, offering cooperation that opened this whole world to him. This may, tragically, be the most caring thing the military has done for the veterans who have returned un-whole from our ill-advised military adventures.
-clip-
Trudeau's wife, Jane Pauley, thinks the B.D. story is the best work he's ever done, which is interesting, if unsurprising, but not the point I wanted to pass on, which is the special connection she feels to this story. I think this has to be told the way Weingarten himself tells it, near the end of his piece:
AT 55, Jane Pauley is still beautiful, and she still projects frank vulnerability, or vulnerable frankness, or whatever is that subtle combination of qualities that made her America's preeminent morning-show host in the 1980s. We're meeting for breakfast because there is something Trudeau wouldn't really talk about, and Pauley will.
In 2001, Pauley nearly lost her mind. After receiving steroids to control a case of the hives, she began doing oddly intense things. How intense? She bought a house one day, for no good reason, on impulse, from an ad on the Web. Misdiagnosed with depression, she was hospitalized under an assumed name, to protect her privacy. Eventually, she was found to have a bipolar disorder--triggered but not caused by the steroids--for which she is still undergoing treatment. Pauley chronicled her struggle in a 2004 memoir, Skywriting.
Trudeau was largely absent from Skywriting, and he had been guarded with me about the effect of Pauley's illness on him and the family. He volunteered only two things: "I was told by a doctor that 40 percent of marriages just don't survive it, so from the beginning I knew we were up against something really significant"; and, "The disease subverts your basic survival instinct in the sense that the people who you need to help you survive are the same people you are attacking."
So that's what I ask Pauley about.
"Yes," she says, dryly, "there is a free-floating anger that needs a target and will find one."
-clip-
It's always great to be reminded that there are celebs who can be great - even regular - people. Not everyone who gains fame is an authoritarian control-freak. Just most of the current right-wing politicians, I guess.
I regret that. I have vague recall of doing some makeup with a bound compilation featuring one-legged B.D., but that is not quite the same thing as reading in real time.
But I'm passing you on to great interview/column with added personal interest story on Ms. GBT, i.e. Jane Pauley, a heroine in her own right. I will excerpt briefly but strongly encourage you to track down original.
Since the subject seems to arouse no interest, and often startling hostility, I try to keep my admiration-bordering-on-awe for Garry Trudeau and Doonesbury under wraps. It has been awfully hard, though, in the case of the two-year-old recurring plot line involving erstwhile football hero B.D.'s loss of his leg in Iraq, and his continuing struggle to return to his life.
I do want to mention that yesterday's Washington Post Magazine carried a rare and outstanding profile of the publicity-phobic Trudeau by Washington Post humor columnist (and online chat host) Gene Weingarten, who followed up today with a terrific online chat session.
In the chat session, for example, Weingarten shared the gnarled history of the cover illustration (see above), drawn for the occasion by Trudeau:
One question many of you are asking involves the cover the magazine: Yes, Trudeau drew that specifically for The Post. The general idea was mine--having B.D., with his missing leg, ruminating on the nature of "The Creator." There's a funny story behind this.
-clip-
I had no idea of the extent to which Trudeau has immersed himself in the world of the wounded war returnees. So I also had no idea that it was made possible in large part by contact initiated from the Pentagon following publication of the strip in which B.D. was injured, offering cooperation that opened this whole world to him. This may, tragically, be the most caring thing the military has done for the veterans who have returned un-whole from our ill-advised military adventures.
-clip-
Trudeau's wife, Jane Pauley, thinks the B.D. story is the best work he's ever done, which is interesting, if unsurprising, but not the point I wanted to pass on, which is the special connection she feels to this story. I think this has to be told the way Weingarten himself tells it, near the end of his piece:
AT 55, Jane Pauley is still beautiful, and she still projects frank vulnerability, or vulnerable frankness, or whatever is that subtle combination of qualities that made her America's preeminent morning-show host in the 1980s. We're meeting for breakfast because there is something Trudeau wouldn't really talk about, and Pauley will.
In 2001, Pauley nearly lost her mind. After receiving steroids to control a case of the hives, she began doing oddly intense things. How intense? She bought a house one day, for no good reason, on impulse, from an ad on the Web. Misdiagnosed with depression, she was hospitalized under an assumed name, to protect her privacy. Eventually, she was found to have a bipolar disorder--triggered but not caused by the steroids--for which she is still undergoing treatment. Pauley chronicled her struggle in a 2004 memoir, Skywriting.
Trudeau was largely absent from Skywriting, and he had been guarded with me about the effect of Pauley's illness on him and the family. He volunteered only two things: "I was told by a doctor that 40 percent of marriages just don't survive it, so from the beginning I knew we were up against something really significant"; and, "The disease subverts your basic survival instinct in the sense that the people who you need to help you survive are the same people you are attacking."
So that's what I ask Pauley about.
"Yes," she says, dryly, "there is a free-floating anger that needs a target and will find one."
-clip-
It's always great to be reminded that there are celebs who can be great - even regular - people. Not everyone who gains fame is an authoritarian control-freak. Just most of the current right-wing politicians, I guess.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 9:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home