POWER IN THE SCHOOLYARD

As we all have sadly heard, comedian George Carlin has passed away at age 71. An excellent profile in The Independent provides an interesting magical connection: Born in New York in May 1937, Carlin was brought up by his single mother, who managed the New York office of the Philadelphia Bulletin. He discovered in childhood the power of comedy – or so he claimed – because his Aunt Aggie used to show him the Sunday comics sections four weeks ahead of publication. "I guess you can realise the power this gave me in the schoolyard – to be able to predict weeks ahead of time precisely the way Mandrake the Magician would escape from the lost cave... in the days before television, and when you're eight years old, it was power beyond belief," he said.