CSotD: A Few Laughs Between International Disasters
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If anybody any older than Thandi has any doubts about this, we’ll deal with it tomorrow. Naivete is charming, but not knowing this is well beyond either naivete or charm. However, let’s be gracious, if not out of decency then for practical reasons: You don’t convert people by insulting them, so I haven’t put a T on the end of MAGA for some time now.
I think those of us who can be reasoned with have arrived at the point where we’d agree with this fellow. And those who can’t be reasoned with are why, but news is developing and we’ll deal with it maybe tomorrow.
Onward, laughing all the way.
I can either feel very old or very wise over this one: Neither Hilary Price nor Rina Piccolo are old enough to remember that there was once a fellow named Dilly Dally, though you’ll note that he spelled the family name differently than his more flamboyant brother.
Dilly Dally starred on the Howdy Doody Show, along with Mr. Bluster, Clarabelle and Princess Summerfall Winterspring, who left the show and did Jailhouse Rock with Elvis. She was more photogenic than Dilly Dally or even Flubadub.
I suppose if he’d spelled his name Dili Dali, he might have gone farther, but there’s no point in vanity, in regret or in vain regret.
Interesting timing on today’s Frazz, because yesterday’s Science Fridays on NPR had a segment on Einstein, Heisenberg and Schrodinger hanging out together and discussing quantummy stuff, though it wasn’t clear if all three were actually in the same room at the same time and doesn’t that seem appropriately uncertain?
My argument is that you don’t have to go to one of Those Schools to wind up with a Nobel, though if you’re that fixated you probably would, because of the 90% perspiration factor Edison mentioned. But I was at a mid-range school, and I certainly didn’t have genius grades to get in because genius and grades aren’t necessarily related. But I had a friend in college who I thought was pretty smart and interesting, but I didn’t know he was a genius until several years later when he discovered one-cell fossils.
Point being that I never had a class with him. I just knew him from the campus snack bar and hanging out at his house, which is why it makes me sad to see people just go to college for the classes when the real learning is happening between classes. Or even instead of classes: Jef Mallett doesn’t have a degree but he is full of ‘satiable curtiosity, and if you don’t know where that comes from, that’s my point.
If you can only do one, skip the classes and hang out at the campus snack bar. And if you hear three guys talking about quantum physics, go sit at their table.
And be particularly careful not to hang out with unimaginative people who think there are hard and fast grammar rules. There’s nothing superior about “12 Items or Fewer” nor is there anything wrong with “12 Items or Less.” One describes the size of the purchase, the other describes the number of items in the purchase.
In fact, if you’re buying a six-pack of soda, “12 Items or Less” is preferable, because it counts the soda as one item rather than six, and wouldn’t you be surprised if the clerk considered a bag of navel oranges to be 12 items?
There are grammar rules that matter because they change the meaning of a sentence. My own bête noire is people who can’t distinguish “may have” from “might have.” But such things are rare and you would do best not to make yourself look foolish, for instance, by correcting Jane Austen’s use of the language.
Though I’m quite sure she wouldn’t mind.
I prefer to ponder imponderables, and appreciate Harry Bliss clearing up this matter. If the Rainbow Bridge people are right, I am destined to have at least a dozen dogs following me around heaven and I’ve worried about scooping.
I’m even more concerned about what happens to them if they all make it — as I’m sure they would — but I don’t?
And I might not. After all, I had to do a quick search of Rubens to see that he did, indeed, paint zaftig ladies with their clothing on, and discovered he did, but I’m not sure poking around on Google Images is the best way to ensure your salvation.
I don’t disagree with this one, but I had the opposite problem when I was coaching young journalists. You’d think they were shooting film, the way they’d take three or four pictures and assume that part of the assignment was complete, despite the way I begged them to shoot a billion or so.
Of course, film or electronic, if you take 1000 shots, the best one will be among the first three, but if you shoot three dozen, none of them will be any good. Wayne Gretzky used to say you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take, but I know people who miss 100% of the shots they do take.
Like the time I was shooting Yoko and John at an opening of one of her art shows and thought “I must be getting to the end of the reel,” only I wasn’t because the film had torn when I loaded it.
But that was only 54 years ago. I’m sure I’ll eventually get over it.
Special award for this one. I still see cartoonists do the “Whoops! Upside down!” modern art gags that I think began a century ago. Good to see someone find a new, original, genuinely funny punchline.
But a particularly magical special award for Paul Noth, who discovered one of his most often reproduced cartoons in a test that he admits he probably couldn’t pass himself.
And he uses it not to say academics are fools — which would be a reasonable takeaway — but to discuss the mysteries of humor and to admit he doesn’t always know why his stuff is funny. It’s a conversation not to be missed, on a Substack you ought to be reading anyway.
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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