Missy Donatuti and the gang have moved their home base from eastern Long Island to Rhode Island in an attempt to live everywhere with the word “Island” in the name. This issue is a winner, with more devilishly abstract humor (“Analogies You Probably Won’t Find in Great Literature” was an instant fave), quasi-philosophical musings and drawings I can only describe as “interesting.” It also features page after page of heaping praise for Long Island’s own local popsters Moxie, whom these kids have seemed to seriously connect with. If Golf Shirt continues to deliver mind-twisting chuckles with such expert ease, I may someday find it within myself to forgive them for departing. Consider the essay “On the Existence of Eric Stoltz”:
For thousands of years, mankind has attempted to come up with ways to explain his own existence and all that which he does not understand. Interestingly, almost every culture in history has come to accept some idea of a Supreme Being (or beings), at least a creative force from which life sprang. While there is little physical evidence proving the existence of Eric Stoltz, millions of individuals and groups have independently experienced phenomena which have lead them to have faith in his existence. While a myriad of arguments, both rational and emotional, come to mind when contemplating Eric Stoltz’s existence, Descartes’ classic philosophical justification rises above the rest.
On the side of faith, Descartes argues that rationally we must believe in Eric Stoltz as follows: “I clearly understand that there is more reality in an infinite substance than in a finite one, and hence my perception of the infinite, that is Eric Stoltz, is in some way prior to my perception of the finite, that is myself. For how could I understand that I doubted or desired—that is lacked something—and that I was not wholly perfect, unless there were in me some idea of a more perfect being which enabled me to recognize my own defects by comparison?”