Despite the obvious thrill I get from new things, I also love discovering things late. It guarantees non-currency—all the copycat hype has subsided, and there's just you and the thing, meeting in the shadows like the Lady and the Tramp, sharing a solitary spaghetti after the world has moved on. This is happening to me with Eugene Mirman, who's hardly old news, but is new news to me, and I'm drunk on the comedy, the voice, the Emo Phillips admiration ("I was playing tennis, and this girl said to me, she said Emo, wanna double up?"), the Christian anti-gay-marriage phone-company calls ("I'm just more worried that a sandwich would marry a bear").

From a 2001 (see what I mean?) interview with Chunklet; link mine:

Besides Eugene Mirman, what’s the best thing to come out of Russia?

I’ll tell you what it’s not: communism. That’s a bullshit system of government. I don’t know. Probably caviar, smoked fish. Depressing literature? Pushkin? Daniel Kharms. He’s an absurdist author from the ‘20s and ‘30s. Mostly it’s a kind of attitude. I find that there are three kinds of Russian people. Some who will be like, “The world is cold, wet misery.” And others who are more like, “The world is cold, wet misery, who wants to go see a movie?” And there are those who are simply somewhat upbeat, “Let’s have some chicken and wine!” I’m somewhere between the last two. The best exported thing was an optimistic outlook on dreary things. I’m slowly recovering from this election, while my American counterparts are still throwing up in the streets.

My tardiness aside, Mirman is, of course, more famous than ever. Check the site for his tour schedule and his regular Wednesday-night gig at Cinema Classics (11th between 1st and 2nd). I wonder where he's from in Russia? I didn't see any mention of a town.