EVIL IMPUTED IS EVIL BETRAYED

When accusations fly, keep your peace, focus on the accuser, fasten on his words.  What he charges will be a guess as to the contents of your mind, a dead certainty as the contents of his own.

THAT'S RIGHT, OLLIE.

We all have learned that the world and its oceans were navigated and conquered by Hardy Seafaring Men.  It was the evident absence of Laurel Seafaring Men that depresses me.

BLAME

If you are experienced and qualified, if you have tried and fought and triumphed, if your life is distinguished with achievement – you are to blame for something.

9/11 AND SHORTLY THEREAFTER

I was thinking not long ago about the oddness of, well, just everything – everything in life being indisputably odd at the very least, and capable of escalating to horrific at the very most.  I was thinking this because of two 9 Chickweed Lane cartoons that appeared in the week following the massacre of 9/11.

These are the two cartoons, the first published September 15th, 2001, the second September 17th.

(click these to see larger versions.)

Both of these drew strong commentary when they appeared.  You can probably remember the mood at the time, particularly if you lived in the U.S.  The first one prompted an eruption of letters from people who either took it to be a tasteless joke at the expense of all those who died in the attacks four days earlier (which was understandable) or a tearful memorial (which I couldn't understand at all).  The ire the first one roused was ferocious.  The second was taken to be a mini-sermon with a questionable gag line.

I spent quite a while sending out letters to explain that daily cartoons for my syndicate were composed and submitted four weeks prior to publication (that's the odd part – a silly little gag, by dint of coincidence, turns into a big, tasteless jape).  A lot of readers did not want to believe me, and called me a liar.  As I say, a horror had taken place; and even my explanation of the lead time for publishing cartoons did not mollify everybody.  They just needed to be angry.

When I look at these cartoons now, I'm amazed.  I remember hastily reviewing all my other submissions, as yet to appear over the next four weeks before my lead time caught up with 9/11.  I hoped I wouldn't be stepping heavily into the tragedy anymore.  I've never asked around, but I wonder how many other cartoonists found themselves in the same boat.

IF THIS IS LILLIPUT, IT MUST BE FRIDAY

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

                                                         --Jonathan Swift

I SIT IN THE SMALLEST ROOM IN MY HOUSE. I HAVE YOUR CRITICISM BEFORE ME. IN A MOMENT IT WILL BE BEHIND ME. --Max Reger

Criticism tends to be self-portraiture.  And the harsher and more pitiless the criticism, the more monochrome the self-portrait.

JENNY KISSED ME

Jenny kissed me when we met,
   Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
   Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
   Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
   Jenny kissed me.

                                      --Leigh Hunt

ANTIGONISH and LATER ANTIGONISHES - ALIBI

As I was going up the stair,
   I met a man who wasn't there!
He wasn't there again to-day!
   I wish, I wish he'd stay away!

As I was falling down the stair
I met a bump that wasn't there;
It might have put me on the shelf
Except I wasn't there myself.

                                 --Hughes Mearns

APOCRYPHA WITH A CUP OF JOE

I recently read the assertion that my work has benefited from a moderating guidance by fans.

I blew a portion of just-imbibed coffee out my nose – fortunately it was tepid – and thought to myself, upon recovering, that the statement, if nugatory in all other respects, did contribute toward a good nasal wash.

There is one reason why I would as lief submit, lashed to a telephone pole, to hernia surgery with a crochet hook, than subject my work to husbandry by any group:  Those who gravitate to my comic art, day after day, do so impelled by a desire to see what my mind has produced for entertainment.  It is an issue of trust that I must provide my own ideas, executed my own damn way, for good or bad, undiluted, uncorrupted by any other voice.  Art by democracy – other than being a disastrously jejune and fatuous idea – would amount to a dereliction of duty to my reader.

When you seek out my work, you will receive my efforts – mine always and only.

If you want something produced by a herd, expect manure.

"Après moi le déluge." --Louis XV

Until then just jiggle the handle.

NEUROSIS IS ALWAYS A SUBSTITUTE FOR LEGITIMATE SUFFERING. ––Carl Jung

Subjective view:

"Liar" – A word most frequently served hot, seasoned with exclamation marks - best uttered unencumbered by evidence or a sense of shame.


Objective view:
Oh, for the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad. (--adapted from Raphael Sabbatini, Scaramouche)


Never turn your back on a person who would not have you laugh:
Stanch a laugh if you would avoid releasing gas from the pompous. An elevator is a good place to observe this rule.

MAN IS THE ONLY ANIMAL THAT BLUSHES. OR NEEDS TO. --Samuel Langhorne Clemens

So far, I have heard that one is entitled to one's rights, one's convictions, one's privacy, one's happiness –– except when it inconveniences you.  The other thing I have heard is that this can be said imperially, without the slightest blush of shame.  Something must be wrong with your circulation.

                                                          ANON  (a great writer)

MOTTO, ORDER OF THE GARTER 1348

Honi soit qui mal y pense.

AND ANOTHER NICE LITTLE RHYME THAT'S AWFULLY BIG NONETHELESS

KNIGHT-IN-ARMOUR

Whenever I'm a shining Knight,

I buckle on my armour tight;

And then I look about for things,

Like Rushings-Out, and Rescuings,

And Savings from the Dragon's Lair,

And fighting all the Dragons there.

And sometimes when our fights begin,

I think I'll let the Dragons win . . .

And then I think perhaps I won't,

Because they're Dragons, and I don't.

                                     A. A. Milne

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU WHOSE MINDS CANNOT UNDERSTAND WORDS AS YOU OUGHT, "FANNY," IN THIS INSTANCE, IS A WOMAN'S NAME

                     

                             DEAR FANNY

"She has beauty, but still you must keep your heart cool;
  she has wit, but you must not be caught so";
Thus Reason advises, but Reason's a fool,
  And 'tis not the first time I have thought so,
    Dear Fanny.

"She is lovely!"  Then love her, nor let the bliss fly;
  'Tis the charm of youth's vanishing season:
Thus love has advised me, and who will deny
  That Love reasons much better than Reason,
    Dear Fanny?

                                                       Thomas Moore

ANOTHER FAVORITE QUOTE EXCEPT IN THIS CASE A POEM

 THE GROANING BOARD

A buttery, sugary, syrupy waffle –––

Gee, but I love it somep'n awful.

Ginger-cakes dripping with chocolate goo,

Oo!  How I love 'em!  Oo! Oo! OO!

                                                         Pink

A BIERCE MOMENT

POSITIVE, adj.  Mistaken at the top of one's voice.

ENOUGH OF ALL THAT...

Here is a quote  –  my very favorite quote of all quotes – written by Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818-1885).

Found

A malteese soprano kat, about 12 months old,

singing old hundred on a picket fence,

late last thursda nite, whichever person owns

sed kat will find him (or her, according

to circumstances) in a vakant lot,

just bak ov our hous, still butiful in death.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I love it and feel it belongs here.


Previously, in this spot I recorded a true and faithful account of my actions in eliminating the Pibgorn comments board at Gocomics, accompanied by the convictions that underpin them.  (Anybody who wants to know what I wrote can log on to http://officialpibgorn.livejournal.com/ for the transcript.)

 I was told that these words were met with a generous serving of invective and accusations of lying (people nearly always call it lying when they don't like the truth).  That was followed here at Pibgorn headquarters by an astonishing gush of e-mail from previously silent fans offering their support and encouragement (you remember that scene in "Miracle on 34th Street" when Edmund Gwenn's bacon was saved by the U.S. Post Office, and Gene Lockhart found for Santa Claus and William Frawley walked with relief from the courtroom and little Natalie Wood got her wish?).  I am convinced I never should have heard from these generous individuals but for all the lively contumely accreting on the Gocomics blog.  For that alone I am most grateful.

I also tip my hat to those at the blog who spoke in my defense.  You spoke in fairness to me, and in recognition of my rights, even despite your personal wishes.

It is daunting, the calisthenic agility with which so many of my erstwhile comments board fans bounded from indulgent patronage to, by all accounts, foaming-at-the-mouth hatred or attitudes of violated virtue worthy of Delsarte (a leap that, I contend, should get extra points for execution, except that the figure skating scoring system is too complicated, and that the level of artistry rather negated the leap).  I never read the posts, but my informants tell me that the feeding frenzy achieved the febrile pitch that can only be likened to a kindergarten lynch mob (too short actually to throw the noose over a tree limb) augmented by trolls (bringing dignity to proceedings, as is their wont, by wetting their pants).

When I die, I want to die laughing.  I won't forget this.  Thank you.

To quote Dorothy Parker, who also, by the wildest of coincidences, did not write with a comments board or a public forum attached to her:  "...But I shall stay the way I am, because I do not give a damn."

POST SCRIPT

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right."

–– Laurens Van Der Post,  The Lost World of The Kalahari

NOT MY FORTE

"Interesting stories are never about people who make the right decisions." Edda said that not a very long time ago.

I write about people who employ the weaker part of the blade – the part known as the foible. In my own conduct, it is the area I wield almost exclusively. I shouldn't mind being a better fencer; but at least this allows me to view my characters with pity and affection. I wouldn't call myself generous, but I avoid the temptation to write with a hard heart – an activity that leads to morality plays and straw men, and is best suited to the critic.

Pitilessness, anyway, is the manure from which sanctimony blooms. One wants to step in it not all that often.