The past week has been one synchronicity after another.
This Joy of Tech cartoon would be valid anytime, but we’re at the very start of autumn and, while the leaves have only just started turning, I am thinking about a run up the Champlain Valley and through the Adirondacks in about three weeks when the leaves will be at peak and my car will finally be out of the body shop.
That last part is a separate “timing” issue — crunched the bumper in July but supply-chain issues have meant it can’t be fixed until October 5. One last part should come in Monday.
The larger timing issue is that, with leaf-peeping season just around the corner, social media is flooded with ridiculously high-filtered shots of leaves put out by various tourism groups. When the sky and the water are also yellow, red and orange, you can bet the leaves have been retouched.
I remember when my in-laws came out from Colorado one spectacular fall and said they had always thought the calendars were an exaggeration. They were stunned that the landscape could really look like that. (I felt the same way the first time I saw the Rockies.)
Well, now people in other places truly are seeing phony pictures of autumn, thanks to the Nature Fakers who have no faith in authentic beauty.
Imagine if some NYC tourism board used a fish-eye lens to make the buildings look taller, or added psychedelic colors to the Statue of Liberty’s robes.
When I take that drive, I’ll bring a camera, but I’ll mostly keep it on the seat and just dig the leaves for what they are. There are occasions when you really ought to find life more interesting than anything on your phone.
BTW, if you’re thinking of coming to have a look, here’s an interactive predictor. The leaves will be in 3D and panoramic view.
As long as I’m raging against the present, this Rabbits Against Magic (AMS) came along just as the issue was raised of making a James Bond movie with a woman playing Bond.
I’ve long been fed up with a generation fixated on remakes. Now I see that Fred Savage is producing a new version of “The Wonder Years.” I might feel different if Ron Howard were re-doing the Andy Griffith Show, since Howard has so many later achievements that it wouldn’t seem like some middle-aged guy getting a perm and unbuttoning his shirt to try to relive his youth.
This all began when Hollywood discovered that people don’t like the unknown and began sprinkling spoilers throughout the coming attractions so people could laugh and applaud when those scenes showed up in the actual movie.
And then they just started remaking everything to avoid any surprises.
Gol durn it, when they list “The Magnificent Seven” or “Heartbreak Kid” on the TV grid, it ought to say “the real one” if it’s the real one.
Meanwhile, I don’t mind a new Bond film with a woman lead, though, of course, you can’t call her “James Bond,” so you’d have to come up with a new, female name for her.
How about “Modesty Blaise”?
Speaking of names, Jimmy Johnson skipped over the chance to reference a bit of Arlo & Janis (AMS) trivia this week.
Those were the Days, my friend.
Timing on this Frazz (AMS) isn’t all that astonishing, since it’s the start of the school year, but we had a conversation at the park just this week with a teacher about getting into the new year, since, over the summer, it’s easy to become used to being able to sit down once in awhile and go to the bathroom whenever you want.
I remember some years ago a teacher commenting to me that, after she had her baby, going back to the classroom was how she regained bladder control. She was laughing, but she wasn’t joking.
There’s probably a story to be written in what a year of Zoom classes did to all that physical discipline, but I’m retired.
Wiley Miller brings up the sort of story I’d be more likely to write, with this Non Sequitur (AMS).
At a well-run company, the actual compromise is that you can get the damn shot or you can leave, and this Twitter thread on the ramifications of refusal and unemployment insurance is just the sort of explainer I loved to sink my teeth into, once upon a time.
The writer specifically cites Utah law, but it’s pretty universal: If your employer makes a reasonable request and you refuse to do it, it’s the same as voluntarily quitting, no matter whether you actually walk out or wait around to get fired.
Vaccination is a reasonable request and you won’t collect UI if you aren’t willing to fulfill a reasonable request.
Juxtaposition of the Day
(Dark Side of the Horse – AMS)
This is one of those times when you stop and say, “Wait, didn’t I just …” and have to scroll back to check.
It also caused me to stop and wonder what autumn is like in Finland, the home of Dark Horse, and it turns out to be very much like it is here in New England, but with reindeer. And, similarly, with no need for filters.
It also left me wondering if Scott Hilburn went to his local mall to take reference shots of lamps, or just Googled them.
And it reminded me of senior year in college, when we had an art class that included a session of figure drawing. I ran into the model downtown a few days later and it was all I could do to avoid saying, “I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”
Figured she’d already heard that one.
I was fairly recently married, so I wasn’t trying to pick her up, but today’s Pros & Cons (KFS) reminds me of the days when I would have been.
As it happens, this Beau Brummels song came up on my playlist yesterday and reminded me that, while Cat Stevens was right that the first cut is the deepest, it’s the near misses that stick in your mind.
Wiley’s cartoon reminds me of the self-pitying “smoking area” cartoons and such from some years back, when the folks who’d had their way for the last hundred years suddenly had to start thinking of others, and it felt to them just like they were being unfairly subjugated under the iron lash of PC culture. (“Why, the next thing you know, they’ll want us to pick up our butts!”)
@Kip
Reminded me also.
Same arguments we see today.
What about MY freedom? I’m not hurting anyone but myself.
It’s MY choice. Everyone is responsible for themselves, nobody else.
Fires caused by smoking don’t happen when people take responsibility.
Science says that there are no health issues caused by smoking, and certainly no link to cancer.