The Wheezer Society

Murnin Joins Forty-Niners

Mind, Meet Body

Bizarre spectator events are becoming more than just a fleeting trend. We recently told you about staring contests in bars (StareMaster TC) and rock, paper, scissors competitions at parties. Now, chess-boxing is the latest in novelty entertainment. A chess-boxing match consists of 11 rounds, each round consisting of four minutes of chess and two minutes of boxing. The combination of physical and mental challenge is the driving philosophy behind the “sport”. Chess-boxing has received so much attention in Berlin that a club devoted entirely to it is opening there this June.

Although we may not see any actual chess-boxing clubs open here in the States, we can imgaine similar tournaments being staged in bars and clubs. Multi-dimensional personalities continue to be a growing trend, as it’s no longer enough to be just a jock or just a brain, so it makes sense that young people may want to bear witness to such. The concept of fusing mind and body in this way could also become a more widely used training method for other competitive sports.
from TrendCentral

Time Passages

Happy birthday to Matt Groening (“Life in Hell” and “The Simpsons”) fellow Portlander and cartoonist. Matt was going to Lincoln High when I was going to Grant High across town, back in the early 70's. A couple of friends knew Matt while at Lincoln. Somewhere in my library I have a "Life In Hell" book that he signed when he visited a local Portland radio station back in the late 80's. Welcome to the big 5-0, Matt!

A Real Superhero

Scoop, on the Diamond Galleries website writes "It's difficult to measure the impact that Julie Schwartz had on the comic book world. In fact, they'd probably need to invent a new unit of measurement just to begin to cover it."

He was Ray Bradbury's first agent. He could have stopped there and been a success, but he went on. An early, loud voice in the world of science fiction, he joined All-American Comics in 1944. There he set about changing comics for the better.
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