Alan Rubin Called Them Punjabs

Alan Rubin Called Them Punjabs

Brooklyn-born artist Alan Rubin, a long-time Delaplane resident, always had a delicious sense of humor, evidenced by once telling an interviewer that, “An artist is one of the few occupations where death is a good career move.”

Alan sadly passed away on Nov. 6, 2022 at the age of 85, leaving behind a treasure trove of his work—oil on canvas, water colors, pen and ink and a collection of cartoons he loved sharing with one and all, including collections in several paperback books. He called them “Punjabs” and said he started young by listening to what people said and drawing pictures of alternative meanings to what they intended.

We’ve printed several Punjabs in ZEST over the years, and Alan always wanted us to do more. And so we will.

His unique form of cartooning actually had its origins at age six when he had the flu. His mother called a doctor who had recently arrived in the U.S. from Austria, had a thick German accent and made house calls.

“After he arrived, he took out his tongue depressor and said ‘open your mouse and breeze,’” Alan wrote in one of his Punjab books. “I laughed a long while. After he left, my embarrassed mom asked me what was so funny. After I told her, she said it was rude, and not to do it again. But when the doc came back again later that week, the moment he took out his tongue depressor, I caught my mother’s eye and we both burst into uncontrollable laughter.”

Whether verbally, on canvas or in his Punjabs, Alan Rubin always made you laugh, even when he was talking about the Parkinson’s Disease he dealt with late in his life. I once asked him how he’d be able to paint if his hand tremors got much worse.

“Easy,” he said. “I’ll become an abstract expressionist.”

Stop laughing. Just open your mouse and breeze.

—Leonard Shapiro