Throwing Harvey Pekar Into a Valley
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Dan Friedman October 30, 2009
Smith — the online magazine that brought you the six word story — now brings you the 90-headed Harvey Pekar beast.
To celebrate Harvey Pekar’s 70th birthday, their “Pekar Project” was to ask a number of artists to draw his head at 70 as a surprise present. Originally there were 70, natch, but so many artists presented their interpretations that there’s nearly 100 and the “heads still keep rollin” they say. One of the heads (pictured here ) was by the Forward’s own Eli Valley.
If you want to see Eli Valley’s own elegant head in motion and his art work explained, he’s playing Joe’s Pub on Monday in a Forward-sponsored event with The Sway Machinery and Girls in Trouble. Also there to accept her prize and read will be Irina Reyn, the newly-announced winner of the Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction by Emerging Writers (for which I was a judge, full disclosure).
For more info about the Forward and the Foundation for Jewish Culture presenting “Eli Valley vs the Sway Machinery in the Temple of Self Hatred” With special guests Girls In Trouble click here.
To buy tickets click here.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
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