Pinocchio holds his own control bars aloft and finally earns his therapist's approval despite the obvious fact that the physics of the whole situation -- just like the original 'lifting oneself by one's bootstraps' -- are quite impossible. He is no Aristotelian unmoved mover. Pinocchio knows this; he has grimly resigned himself to a performative dance of supposed self-determination to avoid the smug nagging of those around him.
Family Circus, 9/17/04
OK, so, there’s the harmonica, see …
And, um, it’ll be on the cell phone … cell phones are annoying…
And Jeffy can’t really play the harmonica (I guess that’s why the “try” bit is in there) …
And that’s funny because …
Aw, hell, I admit. I don’t get it. You win this time Bil Keane. This time.
I do hope that no one who reads this blog (except for that bastard Bil Keane) takes my misanthropic rantings seriously. The reader who I named and shamed as the “Pervert from Edmonton” yesterday has revealed herself to be a very nice person named Sarah, who, as she put it, “was bored at work and tried to come up the most bizarre searches possible containing only words found in your blog. It amused me greatly and managed to kill almost 20 minutes.”
Now, obviously I would never criticize anyone who is using my blog to avoid working, since that is more or less what I use it for. (In fact, I’m avoiding work right now!) Sarah suggests such time-wasting activity as good fodder for a contest, which I heartily agree with, so go nuts, everybody. We’ll see if I can distinguish between the zany searches from my loyal readers and filthy searches from actual perverts.
Oh, and a linkback goes to Things I hate about…, which is a blog that, believe it or not, is much more misanthropic than mine.
The Middletons, 9/16/04
I think one of the cardinal laws of visual comedy is that often what the human mind can visualize is funnier than anything you could draw. This law is well illustrated in today’s Middletons. We’re free to imagine the steroid-enhanced middle-school behemoths who play for our heroes’ opponents at whatever gargantuan scale we find most amusing.
Of course, it would be funnier if our overmatched tykes had recognizable facial expressions that emphasized their plight. Admittedly, it’s hard to depict them as being wide-eyed with terror when the average Middletons character has eyes that already cover three-quarters of his or her face. At first, I thought there was sweat blob coming off the player on the left in the third panel a là Cathy, but it just turned out to be the date.