CSotD: Is there a subversive in the house?
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There aren't many days when Cul de Sac couldn't be in this spot. It's one of the strips I have to consciously hold back from including too often. But today's strip, set in the audience of the school's winter concert, put me on the floor.
Notice that, when they have their heads thrown back in laughter, Alice's schnozz is longer than Sofie's. That's not why I think today's Cul de Sac is the funniest thing in the paper, but it's why I often do. Richard Thompson's attention to detail is extraordinary and adds to the subconscious underpinnings of his strip.
And here's something else: Look at Alice's hair, and at Sofie's. Look at Alice's clothing, and at Sofie's. Sofie would have behaved perfectly at this concert if they hadn't sat her down next to Alice. In most strips, the hellraiser child is, if not shunned by the other students, at least more or less operating in a separate world. Alice is not only part of the pack, but something of a leader in it, and twice as disruptive for it. Alice does not simply question authority; she subverts it, and effectively so.
My eldest granddaughter came over for dinner last night, and was telling me that her class in high school has a tendency to ask challenging questions in class rather than sit passively taking notes, and that, while some teachers find that bracing, others really dislike it. I had to laugh, because my own class was the same way, and we followed one that had been full of well-behaved, quiet little takers of notes.
Some of our teachers enjoyed the give-and-take, but others found us disruptive and insubordinate and were doubly frustrated because we generally got pretty good grades and they really couldn't bust us for anything substantive. One of my classmates got expelled from physics class and, last I heard, was working for the National Science Foundation. I got permanently kicked out of English class in 10th grade and became a professional writer.
I think that Alice's class will be this way when they get to high school.
As for this particular strip, it reminds me of one Pentecost in my junior or senior year when we were having a Catholic Youth Organization Communion Sunday, which meant we all sat up front together instead of with our families. In our very small, rural, predominantly Catholic town, the cast of characters at a CYO gathering was basically your class in school minus a few Protestants, and there wasn't much difference between school and church.
I was sitting next to the president of the CYO, who was also valedictorian of our class, president of the Student Council, captain of the soccer and basketball teams and went on to become an accountant, which I tell you in order to point out that this was the archetypal Good, Well-Behaved Young Man.
But he was still a member of our class. The priest was reading the Gospel and misspoke, so that, when he meant to say that it was "the time of the coming of the Paraclete," he left out the "L."
I might have survived that, if well-behaved honor student Steve hadn't leaned slightly over and whispered, "I thought it was a dove."
Heenk heenk urngk urngk, indeed.
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