Noah Tavlin

Writer, comedian, artist, employee. So funny you forgot to laugh. Email: noahtavlin [at] gmail dot com

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What makes something "Kafkaesque"? - Noah Tavlin

View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-makes-something-kafkaesque-noah-tavlin The term Kafkaesque has entered the vernacular to describe unnecessar...

So pleased to announce that this animated short I collaborated on as a writer will be an official selection in the 2017 Annecy International Animated Film Festival. I was just honored to have the opportunity to share my love of Kafka’s writing.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA0sj4JHN94)

Make sure you clean your plumbing. Or else...

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This is an animated GIF I created as part of a series of projections at REDx Banff, an intertribal Native American speaking event held to commemorate the Buffalo Treaty.

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An elderly Jeddah man recalls the first time he saw snow.

Recording made by Adam Cutts, December 2015.

Illustrations by Noah Tavlin, 2016.

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Heavy Metal, Lying on the Couch

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Transitioning

For anyone reading, this blog will transition from being a writing-centric site to an art and animation-centric site.

This summer I’ve been practicing and studying art more intensely, to the extent that it has become the forefront activity of my life.

I will likely try my hand at writing humor again in the future. It may or may not be in the form of animation.

Exciting projects to come!

Noah

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The Big Race

Animation test

By Noah Tavlin

[dayprotraders]

What Should One Know About The 314 Per Cent Fibonacci Extensions

http://www.dayprotraders.com

Revealing practical trading secrets of the #314% #Fibonacci #extensions level.  This tutorial demonstrates and explains to day or swing #traders and investors how to trade this particular Fibonacci extensions and avoid pitfalls in the #financial markets.

The 314% Fibonacci extensions level highlights overbought or oversold price levels.  Those are high probability market reversal zones. Trade Fibonacci extensions without fear and know the correct steps one should take.  Do not guess it but know how to get it right.

Watch, rate and share this video tutorial today. https://youtu.be/qGMthEA5E9w For more free trading education about Fibonacci extensions, check this essential webpage: http://www.dayprotraders.com/fibonacciextensions.htm

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This makes sense because Fibonacci is everywhere.

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Latest animation test. A penguin wearing a human costume.

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My first animation test.

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Interview for AnimationForAdults with Paloma Dawkins

I am pleased to announce that am now the Animation Nights New York (ANNY) correspondant to AFA (Animation For Adults). I will be interviewing independent animators on a regular basis about their work. My first interview is with Paloma Dawkins, a Montreal-based animator, who co-designed the indie game ALEA. You can read my interview here.

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New York's finest demonstrating the values of community-based policing. With a 20ft mobile tinted surveillance watchtower. The police erect this tower in my neighborhood in Queens, Jackson Heights. I don't know how frequently it's set up. It's on an intersection I don't normally pass. However, I have seen it there before. My roommate and I politely asked a nearby police officer why the tower was there. He gave us attitude for asking; he practically rolled his eyes at us. "It's for surveillance." He wouldn't tell us more than that. I get that maybe you can't tell us the details of police operations. But it's not unreasonable to ask why there's a goddamn NYPD Deceptacon guarding the street on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I check up on the Jackson Heights crime blotter every few weeks. It's a safe neighborhood. The petty crime is concentrated on Roosevelt ave, under the elevated 7 train, where all the bars are located. This watchtower doesn't make me feel more safe. If the NYPD aren't willing to explain its presence to local residents when we ask why it's there, the obvious conclusion is that the NYPD is not protecting and serving. This watchtower is literally Foucault's panopticon. If you still don't believe New York City is a police state, I don't know what else to say.

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WTF Podcast Episode 1000: Jesus Christ

Marc Maron: Okay what-the-fuckers, what-the-fuck-buddies, what-the-fuckadelics, what-the-fuckbyterians. Today is a big day. We wanted to keep it under wraps until we were certain it would happen. But today on the show, we have none other than Jesus Christ. This is maybe the biggest interview I’ve ever done on the show. I was nervous. I ate a pint of ice cream. But I have to say, I think I handled it well. We had a good talk. POW! I just shit my pants, go to justcoffee.coop and type in “Maron” for a special discount on my premium blend. So now let’s go to my talk--with Jesus.

Jesus Christ: So this where Obama sat?

MM: That’s actually his mug. That’s the mug that he drank out of. 

JC: That’s amazing. This is the mug that Obama drank from. Wow. It’s hard to fathom an object of that significance. You know, I’m a little offended that you invited him before you invited me.

MM: Yeah. So where’d you grow up?

JC: I grew up in a small town called Nazareth.

MM: Where’s that?

JC: It’s a couple hours north outside of Jerusalem.

MM: Okay, right. So you’re a Jewish kid, growing up in Nazareth. What’d your old man do?

JC: He’s God.

MM: Wow, heavy. So you grew up ‘in that world’? Surrounded by all those characters?

JC: If it sounds glamorous, it wasn’t. Believe me. Seriously. Believe in me. I’m real.

MM: It sounds like he wasn’t really present. Maybe preoccupied with the burden of that responsibility?

JC: Well, no, he was actually omnipresent. It was hard to get away with much of anything.

MM: Siblings? You got any siblings?

JC: No, just me. Only child.

MM: What was your mother like?

JC: Very sweet woman. We were very close. 

MM: Too close? Overbearing Jewish mother?

JC: In some ways yes, in some ways no. She was a virgin her entire life.

MM: Wow. A virgin. It must have been kind-of dark for you to have to confront that as a kid.

JC: Not really. In general, I find chastity preferable.

MM: Okay, okay. So who were your guys?

JC: My guys? As in, the disciples?

MM: No your guys. Pryor, Carlin, Howlin’ Wolf, Peter Bogdanovich, the French New Wave, the Stones, Muddy Waters, Calvin and Hobbes, Burroughs...

JC: Oh uh...I don’t know I mean this is the 20s, into the early 30s, we were all pretty much illiterate and there was no recording technology at that time. I guess Socrates? Recently I’ve gotten into The Velvet Underground.

MM: See this is the thing that kids today don’t understand. Back then, before all this social media, you had to wait to hear about things by word of mouth. It seems today, with the media landscape being as fragmented as it is today, I don’t know if a Jesus Christ-type figure could achieve the prominence that you did.

JC: Exactly. I hate to say it, but if Twitter had existed back then, I’d be screwed. Instead I got nailed.

MM: Hehehe. That’s funny. You’re a funny guy. So the whole Crucifixion thing. To me, this was the DEFINING moment in your life, wouldn’t you say?

JC: I think a lot of people would agree with that statement, but I don’t necessarily see the episode of my death as defining my life. If anything, my resurrection had a greater impact on the way people perceived me.

MM: Right so then really we’re talking about two Jesus’. There’s Jesus the man, and Jesus the character. And there seems to be a struggle between the two. 

JC: People choose to interpret the things that I said how they will. I don’t condone it, but I respect people’s right to have their own opinions.

MM: Do you think you were clear in your message?

JC: I think so. People should love each other. We are all one.

MM: So you’ve risen. Jesus Christ is back. Are you back--for good?

JC: I’m not making any promises.

MM: Can you talk about your future plans? 

JC: Primarily the final judgment of mankind. I’ve got some other things in the hopper. Do you mind if I plug some dates?

MM: Not at all.

JC: I’m going to be performing miracles at the Korean Church on Vermont and Hollywood Boulevard tomorrow at 7. Then I’m going to be delivering a week of sermons next week at The Chuckle Hut, that’s in the Valley. 

MM: So are we good?

JC: Peace be upon you.

MM: Thanks for talking to me.

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Vignettes From a Middle School Sex-Ed Class--Pt. 4

It wasn’t supposed to be a sex-ed lesson. No, that fateful middle school English class began like any other–with a movie and a napping teacher, me, hungover and withdrawn. I put on Romeo + Juliet (1996) starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, and put my head down into my arms.

Students watched glassy-eyed as the future Wolf of Wall Street waxed romantic about his beloved 90s “It” girl. I had summoned the strength to grade homework assignments as I attempted massage the headache out of my scalp. My students were quiet and I had managed not to throw up on myself. The room smelled of budding, undeodorized armpit. Everything was going more or less according to plan. In a few minutes, the bell would ring, and the students would go off to Geometry.

Or at least it was, until Danes “accidentally” flashed her bosom to my 6th grade class.

The infamous boob scene. Danes was so young. So innocent. So very topless. Surely it had been the first boob sighting of countless teenagers in 1996, whose English teachers had taken them on a field trip to see the film in theaters.

The boob awoke my class like a pubescent alarm clock. They bolted up at their desks, mouths agape. Danes’ nipples had activated them, like a bunch of horny sleeper cells. I saw the dilated pupils of my titillated pupils and knew I had done something irrevocable.

While fumbling with the remote, trying to turn the TV off, I accidentally paused the video just as Gilbert Grape’s brother was about to give Carrie Mathison from Homeland’s breast an examination.

Now, I’m no astronomer. I’m just a high-functioning alcoholic middle school English teacher who has narrowly evaded several DUIs. But there must have been a full moon somewhere on this earth that day, because what happened next can only be described as… lycanthropy. My class of preteens literally transformed into wolves. Hair unfurled itself on legs, armpits, upper lips and groins. Fangs groaned out of their gums, snapping expensive orthodontic equipment like number 2 pencils. Yellow saliva dripped off of their massive new teeth like mouldering stalactite juice. The smell of decomposed eggs poached in molten rubber wafted from their unmolested pores. I had awoken in twenty preteens the delicate natural urges they weren’t supposed to learn existed until next year. Only, these urges weren’t delicate. They were cannibalistic!

I managed to stop fumbling with the remote and shut off the TV. By then, my students were snarling, creeping towards me. They looked hungry–and not for iambic pentameter. Some were humping chairs. Others were humping each other. The good news was, they had no idea what they were doing or how to do it. The bad news was, I was on the verge of getting fired for what the principal could accurately describe as “gross negligence.”

Sweating like an over-caffeinated bomb squad technician, I threw erasers and coffee mugs at the weretweens. They were unfazed by the impact of blunt objects on their snotty snouts and began creeping toward me, backing me toward the front wall of the classroom. It was as if they had somehow figured out that I, an individual adult, was terrified of their potential in numbers to completely undermine my authority at any given moment of the school year. But instead of refusing to do schoolwork or deciding to act out, they had elected to devour my flesh and use my corpse as a prop in their furious lust orgy.

They crept ever closer, snarling with anticipation. Any minute now, the bell would ring. Would the bell save me? If my next period class entered and called for help, maybe my life would be spared. But if it was discovered that these 6th grade monsters had seen a boob. I would be fired and, who knows, maybe even charged with a sex crime. Or be forced to attend rehab. Or kill myself. I had to reverse the curse before the bell rang.

I began hurling empty whisky bottles that had been accumulating behind my desk for the past three years at my dear students. To my dismay, all the shards of broken glass did was encourage them to be kinky with each other. It was pretty vile.

It was 1:29 pm with 30 seconds to the minute. I had one last chance. If I didn’t turn them back into human children, my life would be over in one manner of speaking or another. I thumbed through the stack of DVDs I kept behind my desk; my entire curriculum. Without a moment to spare, I ejected Romeo + Juliet and inserted a DVD of PBS documentary about the Dust Bowl.

Dirt swirled across the bleak midwestern landscape. There is neither season nor sun. A farming family sat huddled beneath their kitchen table, with clothes over their mouths and noses, waiting for the storm to settle; waiting for something to grow from the futile land. It was a real snoozefest.

As sure as Shakespeare’s head is bald, my students’ fangs and boners receded back into their bodies. The bell rang. They shuffled off to class, not one student making eye contact with another. Their sexuality had been successfully repressed and my job saved.

Crisis averted.

[noahtavlin]

Top 25 Forgotten Punk Bands, 1920 - 1929

Applesauce Youth

The Gams

Baloney X

Private Dick

The Broads

Suicidal Fellers

Operation Bimbo

The Talkies

The Electric Doodads

The Model T-nage Riots 

Infant Mortality

Dog Catcher of Today

Lindy Hop and the Three Stooges

World War I Reference

Calvin Coolidge Overdrive

Dead Gatsby

Ethel Distortion

Bad Penicillin

Babe Ruthless

Jalopybomb

C.L.A.M.

Sonic Dorothy

Toxic Polio Epidemic

Flappers With Nutsacks

Scram!

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Presidential Candidates Debate US Policy on Torture

Anderson Cooper: This next question is for all the candidates. Torture, motherfuckers. Torture. Where do you stand on torturing suspected terrorist detainees?

Donald Trump: Now look. I’m a winner okay? These other guys are losers. Here’s the thing. I’m really rich. Let me tell you. I’m not going to be politically correct about it.  I’ll buy a spiked bat. I’ll dip it in gold. I’ll fuckin--I will lay these liberals’ nuts out on the dresser--it’s true, believe me. I’ll hit these liberals in the nuts with a golden spiked bat. BLAOW--okay? I’m really rich.

Hillary Clinton: There’s been a lot of talk in this campaign. A lot of talk without much action. To my opponents, I say this. I will fucking pull your fucking tongue out your fucking mouth. And I will stab it with a rusty screwdriver. We need to keep America moving forward! BLAOW! I love black people!

Ted Cruz: Now hold on just a minute. I may sound folksy, but I am not going to lie down and watch as America’s Christian values are thrown out in favor of the Liberal agenda. I’m going to do what our Christian founding fathers would have done. I’m going to sew your asscheeks shut and just keep feeding you. And feeding you. And feeding you. Just like the liberals want. They don’t want to work. They don’t believe in Jesus.  The Conservative Movement--

Bernie Sanders: I’m going to interrupt you now. OKAY! Here we go. It’s ol’ Bernie’s turn. All these miyyonaires and biyyonaires--listen. I’ll tie you to a fuckin’ bedpost with your asscheeks spread out and shit--spread very thin like the middle class. Then I will put a wire hanger on the stove, and let it get nice and hot. I will stick it up Wall Street’s ass--until! We break. Up. The big. Banks. Thank you. Brooklyn zoo.

John Kasich: I'll fucking hang you by your fucking dick off a fucking twelve story building out this motherfucker.

Anderson Cooper: Okay, uh... the question was about torturing suspected terrorists, not... each other. But sure, why not. This next question is about cooking meth. Secretary Clinton, we'll start with you.

[noahtavlin]

Line by line breakdown of Marco Rubio's views on rape

The following is an excerpt from an interview with Marco Rubio (http://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/marco-rubio-i-would-tell-rape-victim-its-a-terrible-situation-but-have-the-rapists-baby-anyway/), where the candidate was questioned on he's view on the abortion issue. “I get it,” (SEN. RUBIO (R-FL)) added. >>>Opening with a lie, that's an old politicians and lawyers trick. “I really do. And that’s why this issue is so difficult. >>>How earnest. You know that the intergalactic alien invaders always try to convince everyone that they're human. He's talking about abortion in the case of rape and incest, by the way. But I believe a human being, an unborn child has a right to live, irrespective of the circumstances of which they were conceived. >>>What if it's like 100 cells big. Come on. What if it's like when you crack open an egg and it hasn't a little blood in it. That has a right to live? It would be literally scrambling an egg with a little blood in it. I'm just saying. Come on. And I know that the majority of Americans don’t agree with me on that.” >>>"I'm forthrightly admitting that I would pass laws according to my personal beliefs regardless of democratic consensus." “And that’s why any law that passed will almost certainly have exceptions. And I’ll sign it.” >>>But I'm a compromiser! Not like that stinkin' Obama not never was! Vote Rubio 2016!