ben’s blog

I’m a big fan of the 1950 Jimmy Stewart film “Harvey”, so you can imagine my delight when I recently discovered that Hollywood was planning to create a remake of the classic film, tailored to the modern sensibilities and the keen artistic standards of quality that are so characteristic of modern cinema.  Below is a preview of the genius behind a project that will turn a classic film that was ‘good’ into something that will be absolutely ‘great’:    

Am I being slightly sarcastic about my love for modern remakes of classic films?  Nooooooooooo. 

My thanks to John Seigenthaler, Sr. for nominating my work for the Pulitzer this year.  I was proud to see that one of my favorite editorial cartoonists, Mike Ramirez, received the award this year. Ramirez is, without a doubt, one of the most talented cartoonists in his field.    In other news, The Newseum, the national museum of the news in Washington D.C., opens today.  Featured among the archives in this amazing new Pennsylvania Ave. building will be my Pulitzer-nominated “Today, We Are All Hokies” cartoon along with some of my original sketches.    

The University of Richmond’s Collegian, my alma mater’s student newspaper, did a front page article this week about my Pulitzer nomination (click here to read the online version).  I really enjoyed drawing regular weekly cartoons for the Collegian from 2003 - 2005.  This article marked the first time since 2005 that I had a cartoon appear in the Collegian, and it was great to be back.  

I remember one of my first concerns after being accepted by UR was to make sure that I could become the campus cartoonist.  Finding time to draw cartoons between term papers and final exams wasn’t always easy, and some of my cartoons drawn during this period are hopefully long forgotten.  Fortunately, the great folks on the Collegian staff put up with my cartoons over the years.  With that said, I was pretty proud of some of the cartoons printed while I was at school.  Here are some cartoons published in the Collegian back between 2004-2005:   

As if the new benlansing.com website wasn’t exciting enough, even more good news: “Today We Are All Hokies”, my cartoon tribute to the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy, has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for cartoons by John Seigenthaler of the Freedom Forum. 

Well, I finally did it.  I left all that was familiar and comfortable, abandoned my upbringing, and plunged myself into the black abyss of the unknown.  I finally said goodbye to PC’s and purchased my first Mac (a 24″ iMac).  I have to say that after several weeks of being a member of the Mac world, I’m already a huge fan.  The navigation, the customer service, the simplicity of design and functionality… it’s all great.

And yet, there is one issue about which I am not at peace… My iCamera.  This iMac is the first computer I’ve ever owned to have a built-in camera in the screen.  This troubles me a little.  How can I be sure that it is off?  How can I be at peace that Steve Jobs, or Apple tech people, or those tattooed, lip-pierced ‘hip people’ in the Apple store aren’t monitoring my every move?  I really can’t be. I’m just expected to blindly throw myself to the mercy of Apple, having faith that my software is secure enough for outsiders to not see me without my knowing it.  

I know, I know.  I sound paranoid.  But I’ve read 1984.  I’ve read the Lord of the Rings.  The great eye is always watching; never blinking, never sleeping.  Unless, of course, I cover it with one of those handy apple stickers that came with the computer. 

  I had the pleasure this evening of attending the Virginia Press Association’s Awards banquet at the Hotel Roanoke in Roanoke, Virginia.  Great to see so many folks that I’ve been able to know through illustrating and publishing at the reception.  My illustration work for the Southside Messenger  received first and second place for artwork and one of my illustrations (see above image) was named ‘Best In Show’.  Very exciting.  Congrats to the staffs of the Southside Messenger, the Culpeper Star-Exponent, the South Hill Enterprise, the Richmond Times Dispatch, Richmond Magazine, and all of the folks that received awards this evening! 

Here’s yet another example of the mainstream media’s inability to focus on the truly momentous news stories of our day.  Right now, most news networks and websites are focusing on the resurgence of the Clinton campaign, or the gloomy economic situation, or the coming apocalypse of global warming that can only be prevented by Al Gore and friends.  But one story has been completely ignored.  I’m speaking, of course, about the latest on my book, Bigwigs of Classical Music.  I discovered classical music when I was twelve and loved it so much I wrote and illustrated a music history guide during my teens.  For the past two years, it has been available through Rainbow Resource Center, Amazon.com, and lulu.com.  Today (big news) it can now also be purchased through the Music in Motion catalogue.  As the great, respected, esteemed musicologist Frank Zappa once said, “All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”  So why not take the time to learn more about the music, the people, and the ‘wigs and stuff’.?  Even if you’re not a huge classical music fan you should get yourself a copy just to find out what happens when a teenage cartoonist tries to explain history’s greatest musical masterpieces.   …In other news: Strange report out of Austria… The sounds of a body rolling over appear to be coming from the tomb of Wolfgang Amedeus Mozart.

• Click here to get your copy of Bigwigs of Classical Music
• Read a review of Bigwigs of Classical Music
• Visit my little book preview that I created several years ago 

I owe a lot of thanks to the Southside Messenger in Keysville, VA for all they’ve done for me and my ‘toons over the past couple years. The Messenger was one of the first local papers to take on my editorial cartoons and it was with the Messenger that I received my Virginia Press Association award last year. So I was proud for them to make the official ‘in-print’ announcement of my Pulitzer nomination in this past week’s paper. Check out the article at http://www.southsidemessenger.com/articles/2008/02/18/news/top_story/ts1.txt.

(You probably should also get yourself a copy of Snoozing in a Hurricane written by the Southside Messenger’s editor, Averett Jones, and masterfully illustrated by - ahem - yours truly… Find out more about the book at http://www.southsidemessenger.com/our_columnists/rural_legends/).

I’m disgusted with myself. A couple of days ago a wildfire threated to burn down my house. For the first time in my life, I found myself with 5 minutes to consider what possessions I wanted to save. I have to be honest… I didn’t grab a photo album, or my family heirloom bible, or anything of lasting importance. I was surprised by my knee-jerk reaction…….. I first grabbed my ipod.

I know, I know. But my ipod is an important part of my life… I just didn’t know it was that important. And it’s about a lot more than music. More than anything, podcasts are what make my ipod such an essential part of my life. On a daily basis, I enjoy a number of fantastic, regularly produced programs about everything from finance, to theology, to history. If I had instead grabbed a photo album or some other bulky item, I might have preserved irreplacable memories, but I would have lost some of my favorite podcasts. Here’s a list of a few podcasts that I simply can’t do without:

1. Dr. Maxie Burch: Church History ( http://www.rhinocrash.org/audio/podcast/echpodcast.xml); I cannot recommend this course highly enough. Dr. Burch introduces a potentially dry subject with a rare combination of humor and insight. Dr. Burch has released two podcast courses: (1) history of the early church and (2) the Middle Ages and the Reformation.

2. Naxos Classical Music Spotlight (http://www.naxos.com/podcasts/podcastslist.asp#0); I couldn’t believe it when I first discovered this podcast. My favorite music label offering a weekly sneak peak into their latest releases? Yes… It’s true. (Updates weekly)

3. R.C. Sproul: “Renewing Your Mind” (http://www.ligonier.org/rym.php); Dr. Sproul provides insightful commentary on theological questions that range from the doctrinally essential to the border-line trivial (yet interesting). (Updates six days a week).

4. The News from Lake Wobegon (http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/about/podcast/); I’ve listened to Garrison Keillor’s News from Lake Wobegon as long as I can remember. Along with Bill Waterson and Groucho Marx, I credit Keillor with the development of my own sense of humor, so I was excited to find out that I could download his stories on regular basis. (Updates weekly)

5. The Dave Ramsey Show (http://www.daveramsey.com/tdrs/); Solid financial management advice… If I had money to manage, I’d enjoy this show even more! (Updates Mon-Fri).

6. Ravi Zacharias “Let My People Think” (http://www.rzim.org/radio/archives.php?v=current); Dr. Zacharias eloquently focuses on a wide variety of apologetic issues. Each podcast seems to solidly pin-point the most relevant philosophical issues present in the world today. (Updates weekly)

My house didn’t burn down, by the way. My photo albums and all of my truly priceless items are safe. I guess I’ll have to seriously reevaluate my priorities. Man cannot live by ipod alone. Man also must have his earbuds.

I’ve recently done some serious re-evaluating of my little ‘web universe’.  I’ve accumulated an impressive collection of domain names and websites over the years (benlansing.com, lansingcartoons.com, tttblog.com, etc.).  Unfortunately, I think all of these sites did more to confuse than they did to help.  So, after much thought, it seemed best to consolidate all of my websites and domain names into a single site: benlansing.com. 

I’m now happy to announce that benlansing.com and lansingcartoons.com have been merged and redesigned.  Take a look at the new benlansing.com.  Hope you enjoy exploring the new features.   

This blog serves as an accompaniment to the newly designed benlansing.com website.  Here, you can take a look behind-the-scenes of my cartoons and subject yourself to my random, weird thoughts and observations about life, art, philosophy, theology, technology or whatever else might come to mind.  In other words, this blog is basically the same thing as my old tttblog, with the added benefit of serving to occasionally comment on my work in the wild world of editorial cartoons.  Hope you enjoy!

Note: All articles dated before February 2008 are imported posts from my previous blog, ‘tttblog’.