CSotD: On the Eve
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Christmas Eve, that is. Not to be confused with the Turgenev novel, though his portrait of over-educated Russian intellectuals dithering around as the rest of Europe explodes in revolution seems sadly relevant at the moment.
But we’ll get back to that, and, if we don’t, it will get back to us. As Fiona Katauskas says, it’s inescapable no matter how much you might wish to put it out of mind for at least a day or two.
Besides, Anne Morse Hambrock reminds us, we’ve got plenty of ways to fret and worry and drive ourselves crazy without even considering the outside world:
And she’s right. Well, they’re both right, but Anne is right at the moment because at least there is some purpose in worrying about the things Fiona Katauskas lists and there’s none at all in driving yourself crazy trying to stage manage a family holiday.
Set it up, step aside, let it go.
Most cartoonists who try to modernize traditional materials for humorous effect fail, but Jonesy employs a quiet graphic that is nicely understated but still funny. It’s a good touch.
Darrin Bell comes at it from the other direction in today’s Candorville (KFS), letting Clyde play his frequent role as the Fool, echoing the kind of bogus wisdom that digs us all into deeper holes.
It’s not just that he’s wrong — it does sometimes snow in the Judean hills around Bethlehem — but he’s using rational reasoning to criticize obvious folklore. It’s like wondering how Little Red Ridinghood could mistake a wolf for her grandmother.
It’s not that he’s wrong, but he reasons his way to wrong conclusions. George Washington couldn’t have thrown a dollar across the Potomac River, but that doesn’t prove that Washington never existed. All it proves is that Parson Weems made stuff up. George and Jesus were still cool.
I laughed at this morning’s Deflocked (AMS), though it made me wonder at what stage of Jeff Bezos’s descent the strip was written. It must have been after he meddled with the Post’s editorial functions, but probably before he put himself on the donor list at Mar A Lago and certainly well before he sensitively interrupted news of a strike at his warehouses with the announcement of his upcoming extravagant wedding.
However it was timed, Mamet’s disappointment in the last panel tells me more about where our society has landed than I wanted to contemplate on Christmas Eve.
This weekend was around zero degrees, so the dog and I stayed in and watched a lot of football which means I got to see promos for network shows I wish I didn’t know my fellow citizens were watching and we’ll get back to that another time, because I don’t believe in Santa but I do believe in good taste.
Somebody posted this cartoon by the late Jean-Jacques Sempé, which reminded me of a recent comment here that included a link to a survey about who believes what about Christmas.
It seemed like a fairly accurate survey — though we can always file a lawsuit if we think it might be off a little — and it indicates that a total of 15% of people continued to believe in Santa when they were older than 10.
Which made me try to remember how old we all were when we discovered that our classmate Barbara still believed. The conversation was that none of us were going to burst her bubble and yet we were astonished at her gullibility.
I remember which recess playground it happened on, but that could have been fourth grade (9 years old) or fifth (10). Either way, we not only knew but understood that we ought to be cool about it.
So the flock of kids eagerly hearing that story about seeing Santa made me smile because Sempé did so well at making them tiny, while, meanwhile, although we were astonished at Barbara’s willingness to believe, you should have heard some of the tall tales we told, and swallowed.
And not just as kids, which reminds me of my very favorite Jules Feiffer piece, which I will repeat here:
The worst part of outgrowing being a jerk is realizing what a jerk you’ve been. Assuming you eventually outgrow it.
And speaking of Jules Feiffer and things I’ve posted before, here’s a little Christmas present for you.
You’re welcome.
Paolo Lombardi (Cartoon Movement) offers this reminder of peace on earth and all, and I suppose people will take it differently depending on where they live and what their experiences have been.
It’s a good example of how symbolism creeps into art, because his depiction of the pilot is completely realistic, but the fact that you can’t see his face is deeply important to the mood — the subjectivity — of the piece. I think that’s a good thing, because the enigmatic nature makes the illustration that much deeper.
He could be seen as a faceless enemy, but I spent so many years in Colorado Springs, and knew so many Air Force personnel there, that I don’t immediately have that response to it.
Not only did I live in the shadow of Cheyenne Mountain, but my next door neighbor worked there and my then-wife had a tech writing job that took her behind those gigantic bomb-proof doors a few times.
And then there was the fact that we knew, living where we were, that if it all hit the fan, we’d be jelly within the first 20 minutes, so the Zoomies weren’t the only people trying to maintain a realism/idealism balance.
It also meant that we all knew by heart the story of how the Gazette-Telegraph had messed up a Sears ad, getting the phone number wrong and inadvertently inviting kids to call the North American Aerospace Defense Command in the depths of the mountain and ask to speak to Santa.
I don’t like war and I never much liked the Gazette-Telegraph, but it remains a story, like the famous soccer game in No Man’s Land, that helps us remember that humanity matters and that maybe we should try to live like that all year long.
No worries. Jonesy had that soccer game covered as well.
Have yourself a merry little Christmas with Alan Cumming, Lenny Henry and Rowan Atkinson.
Click here for the full one-hour version.
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