Who better to describe the gently satiric cartoons of Bruce Eric Kaplan than Mr. Kaplan himself, who once wrote, “These drawings are really my journals. I use them to explore whatever I find interesting, confusing, or upsetting on any given day. But here's the beauty part — these private thoughts are filtered through the prism of moody children and blasé pets, disillusioned middle-aged men and weary matrons, among others. And so I get to work through whatever I am thinking about in a coded way. No one but me will ever know what the real seed of each image and caption was. So I can be as free as I want to say whatever I want, and no one can catch me. It's great.” Though he's most frequently described as the “New Yorker cartoonist,” Kaplan's work also ran in this here paper, which nabbed his sloppy seconds for many years. Kaplan, whose latest book is titled I Love You, I Hate You, I'm Hungry, will be joined by Dan Savage for Hammer Conversations. Savage, best known as a syndicated sex columnist, is the author of several books , including the brilliant The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant, which will make you laugh and cry at the same time.

Wed., Feb. 10, 7 p.m., 2010

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