CSotD: Saturday leftovers
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This Pearls Before Swine (AMS) starts us off with something silly.
But silly isn’t stupid. After all, Isaac Asimov wrote silly limericks, and nobody would call him stupid. And speaking of limericks, Oliver St. John Gogarty, James Joyce’s roommate in that Martello Tower, wrote very clever, dirty limericks — including the one ending “they argued all night over who had the right to do what and with which and to whom” — and his serious poetry was highly thought of, as was his practice of medicine.
I prefer the Sunday puns in Pearls because of the more elaborate set up, and I have to say that I did not see this one coming, which is the hallmark of a good pun, regardless of Rat’s traditional last-panel annoyance.
That ability to see word patterns and alternatives can, as Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereals points out, be something of a hindrance, particularly if it makes you giggle at the wrong time.
I’ve got a related problem with NPR, where guests consistently say “Thanks for having me,” because I reflexively respond “That’s what she said,” which means I’m referencing a character written as an idiot telling an idiotic joke and thank god there’s nobody there but the dog.
Who thinks I’m funny no matter what I say.
But let’s go to the other end of the scale, because I often feature Existential Comics here, usually with some kind of disclaimer about how much philosophy you need to have studied to get the joke.
In this case, you’d better have majored in it, because, in addition to Thales and Plato, the gag references Avicenna, Decartes, Leibniz, Hume, Marx, Wittgenstein and Camus, and I laughed because metaphysics was the part of philosophy that I hated.
I think you’d also laugh if you liked that stuff — metaphysics, not chicken enchiladas — but only if you didn’t take yourself too seriously, which was kind of the hallmark of people who liked that stuff.
The best part of the Internet being that you can have cartoons that crack this kind of obscure joke and, if they’re good, they’ll find an audience.
Mike Lynch has an article in the current Jester about cartoonist Peter Arno, who was, in real life, who James Bond was supposed to be: Suave, handsome and relentlessly sexist.
A large proportion of his cartoons are horrifyingly off-key today, but he also produced some non-sexist classics, including this, which invented a classic phrase.
And this, one of my favorites but one which nobody under 60 seems to get, which makes me wonder if they’ve ever seen American Graffiti.
Arno was a brilliant artist and Lynch offers a solid look at him. Worth the click.
As a bridge to less exalted fare, Macanudo (KFS) combines philosophy and foolishness and why not?
I have problems with superhero stuff because it requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief, and I’m too often in the position of this fellow, questioning things as if they were supposed to make sense.
And trying to forget that I know that Superman can’t fly. He just leaps. Over tall buildings with a single bound, yes, which is pretty cool, but he doesn’t have the power of flight.
Or didn’t used to.
Not sure I agree with Fido’s translation in Rubes (Creators), which I would give as “Faithful,” but the gag brings to mind that we don’t often give dogs classic names anymore, though there is temptation to name your dog “Fido” just to be ironic or something.
But here’s a hint: If you adopt a dog, ask if the name they give you is the dog’s real, established name, or just something they made up. If it’s a surrender, you may be stuck with the name, but, if it came in as a stray or in a truck from the South, where they apparently don’t know how to spay, neuter or chaperone their animals, you can name it anything you like.
Half the female dogs in our region are named Lucy. It is not a coincidence.
And this Bliss (Tribune) redirects me to yet another rant about language.
I have no problem with casual poker players, and I’d point out that some decks of cards have an extra one that tells you what beats what. I think throwing it away is arrogant, though you should throw out the jokers because the odds in a 52 card deck are just fine, thank you, and all that low-hole and one-eyed jack stuff makes the game far too frilly and foolish.
Which is to say that the last time I played for money, I had four natural tens, but lost to what should have been a full house, jacks over threes, because one of his threes was a hole card, so I had five tens and he had five jacks and to hell with it.
But — getting to the language part — what is even worse is “poker talk,” a second language that people adopt when they play the game. Poker seems to compel people to talk like cowboys and thank god chess doesn’t require them to talk like knights and queens and such.
“Prithee, wouldst thou make thy move?”
“Zounds! Thou hath taken my bishop!”
Though I think tennis could be played entirely in French and nobody’d be the wiser.
Finally, I think the real gag in this Pardon My Planet (KFS) is that, even if you add hot water and a cup, it still doesn’t answer the question of how anyone can stand the stuff.
You don’t need a fancy brewing system. Someone on-line said the other day that he’d reverted to a percolator, but I’m not quite that old school. I use a Mr. Coffee that, I think, cost $20 six or seven years ago and is still going strong and making good coffee.
I’m kind of surprised they still sell instant coffee at all, but it’s like canned vegetables: You can buy it, but it isn’t being granted a whole lot of shelf space anymore.
You need canned beans once a year for that casserole, granted, but offered instant coffee or no coffee, I’d choose the latter.
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