CSotD: Bonus Holiday Humpday
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This is as political as I’m going to get today, and I often have to decide whether Venables belongs in humor or politics. Here’s some of both. Maybe I’ll do a whole page of Pam Bondi cartoons later, but I’m not in the mood this morning.
If nothing else, I remember endless Good Friday services as a lad, and humor has a lot of catching up to do.
Toro points out a change in our culture since Moses’ day, in that we sure think we ought to have our opinions heard and acknowledged. Though I guess if you think people were more respectful of authority back then, you should go read the book again, because commenting on the 10 Commandments would have been a lot more respectful than what Moses encountered when he came down the mountain.
That hasn’t changed, which is why it’s so irrelevant whether you read the Scripture as history or as folklore, because, either way, we’re still prone to worshipping golden calves as soon as the boss’s back is turned, and often when it isn’t.
And speaking of going up the mountain in search of wisdom, as Moses did, here’s an odd
Juxtaposition of the Day
I had pulled the Reality Check when it ran because it amused me, but it was still in the folder when Harry Bliss offered the follow-up. I like the idea of the contemplative hermit who can’t get any privacy for contemplating, but I like it even more if it turns out that the people who interrupt him are not profound seekers but just curious dabblers.
In Lives of a Bengal Lancer and its sequel, Lancer at Large, Francis Yeats Brown tells of going through India in the early 1900s, seeking a guru, but he never comes up with the ashram to which he wanted to devote himself, and, in the end, his journey is more enlightening than anything specific that he finds.
The answer to which was provided by a Navajo elder one of my professors brought to campus, who acknowledged the popularity of native religion in the 60s, but said you had to live in the culture to understand it, and encouraged us, instead, to seek wisdom within our own culture, most of which we had not explored.
Which returns us to those interminable Good Friday services, which a contemplative would find mystic but would want to experience more than once a year.
Here’s a lighter version:
There’s an old familiar bit of parental advice that says if you want to be a ditch-digger, that’s fine, as long as you’re the best ditch-digger ever. It’s related to the idea that if you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.
I’ve known people who worked with their hands and loved it, and people with Big Important Positions who hated themselves and their lives. And being paid for something you hate is, indeed, like receiving a meaningless Participation Trophy.
And this is where you end up: Patting yourself on the back and impressing nobody of any importance. But this is getting dangerously close to politics, so let’s veer away into something indisputably silly.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Okay, I slipped in another political cartoon, but mostly to show how something of grim horror can be transformed into something utterly ridiculous.
There was a point when then-wife had access to Colorado College hockey tickets, and between periods, they’d have somebody try to put the puck through a ridiculously small hole in a board over the goal. I never saw it happen, but we had to watch each time, just in case.
Coverly does a good twist by turning something horrifying and grotesque into something absolutely foolish, and it wouldn’t work half as well if he didn’t have the executioner explaining it to the condemned prisoner.
This is not only a silly set-up, but a silly pun. I’d assume Walsh started with the pun and formed the Egyptian gag around it, but he’d have had several lesser ways to exploit it. This is really well done.
A different approach: Kempa takes a familiar old story and adds a contemporary issue. The story of Cinderella is ripe for such foolery, since it already has a number of plot holes and exists in cultures around the world. And it’s not all that silly, because we’ve all had that moment of indecision over shoe-etiquette, without which the gag doesn’t work.
This one cracked me up in particular because younger son is one of those used-to-be-a-teacher subs, who makes a decent living without having to draw up lesson plans and curriculum maps and so forth and so on. He just teaches, which he likes. And I’ve observed his teaching, in which he has some of the best classroom management I’ve ever seen.
And I remember the distinction this kid is drawing, because we sure had some fun with the other kind of sub, who was basically doing well to make it through the day, though in a small town, we had to feel things out carefully, because that sub could be somebody’s relative. The sub couldn’t punch you out, but her nephew might.
I kinda did this once, and it’s one of my regrets. My assistant and I were in Chicago for a conference that got out about an hour and a half before our train, so we dropped in at the Art Institute.
They’ve got a mighty fine collection and we went from mind-blower to mind-blower and only took in a sampling. And, of course, that’s the last time I was ever in Chicago, which I’m aware of because I promised myself that, if I ever got back there, I’d block out a full day for the Art Institute.
You could spend half a day just looking at this one, which, BTW, is about 7 feet tall and 9 feet wide. You could spend an hour just looking at the water glistening between the cobblestones. It’s on all sorts of calendars and posters and coffeemugs, but there ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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