Reverend Moonbeam

The cruelest paper in Paris is also the funniest and most solvent

Darren Atwater — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 11:50:28 GMT

Canard, on the other hand, France’s only satirical weekly newspaper, is doing well in this ailing country. Circulation went up by 32 percent in the first two years after Sarkozy’s inauguration, and thanks the country’s numerous scandals it now prints 700,000 copies per week. Net profit was roughly €5 million ($6.9 million) in 2009. For decades, the paper has covered France’s scandals with credible and reliable reporting, while at the same time publishing decidedly malicious cartoons, tongue-in-cheek opinion pieces and fictitious columns by politicians.

The paper is owned by its editors and has an incredible cash reserve and property holding of €110 million.

Gerry Adams singlehandedly changes British constitution by resigning from Westminster

Darren Atwater — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:15:01 GMT

One of the joys of having an unwritten constitution, such as the one that the UK operates under, is that it can a) bend to new circumstances and b) change in a heartbeat if someone refuses to obey stupid rules.

For the past 400 years, MPs have not had the option of resigning their seat, their only way out was to be disqualified. The honourable way of being disqualified was to accept an office of profit from the Crown. Two such positions, Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham and the Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead were available, if applied to, and granted by, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Otherwise, you’re stuck.

Today Sein Fenn leader Gerry Adams took a third option. Desiring to run for a seat in the Irish parliament, which does not permit sitting Westminster MPs, Adams sent a letter to the Speaker resigning his seat. No Crown Steward position. No Bailiffing. And 400 years of history are kaput.

Gerry Adams makes British Parliamentary history

New Yorker buys abandoned men's club and turns it into a private residence

Darren Atwater — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:58:57 GMT

Wow. Here’s the tour.

Interview with Al Jaffee

Darren Atwater — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 11:53:34 GMT

Mad Magazine’s fold-in artist Al Jaffee is interviewed by the Huffington Post Hint: he does the answer first, then draws the fold.

Remembering Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde

Darren Atwater — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 21:00:05 GMT

Codex99

A beautiful little vignette on three 60s and 70s magazines published by Ralph Ginzburg, Eros, Fact, and Avant Garde.

Six months after Fact closed shop Ginzburg and Lubalin collaborated on their third periodical – Avant Garde. The magazine, which Ginzburg intended for “a rarified, even elitist audience” was both editorially and artistically equal parts of the sexuality of Eros, and counter-culture politics of Fact. Perhaps no other magazine so successfully captured the zeitgeist of the late 1960s: