Sunday, December 12, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
ENOUGH OF ALL THAT...
Here is a quote – my very favorite quote of all quotes – written by Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw, 1818-1885).
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."
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."
Saturday, December 4, 2010
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
–– 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.
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.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
REST CURE
For those eagle-eyed enough to notice, the Chickweed daily I drew for October 2nd contained a formal error. The whole rest in the cartoon depended from the third line rather than the fourth (from the bottom) line of the staff. This was, as I say, a formal error, because the placement of the rest does not change its meaning. No musician would have stopped upon seeing it, unable to proceed, flummoxed, paralyzed. ("The whole rest is hanging from the third line! Mein Gott! I can't move! It's...it's like the worst moment in "Alien"!)
Whole and half rests can, in fact, move at will all over the staff, depending upon spacing of other notes, sometimes appearing in the void above or below the staves (usually in choral reductions). However, a whole rest also has that remarkable ability to represent silence throughout a bar, irrespective of the bar's meter (it can be 4/4, 2/4, 3/8, 6/8 - it doesn't matter). In the bar I drew, that was the rest's function. I might have drawn four rests, arranged vertically, to account for four voice parts in the piece Edda and Amos were playing. To be absolutely accurate, I should have drawn two pairs of staves, consistent with a piano, four hand, piece, along with four fermatas.
The point of the gag, when all is said and done, was the fermata. The consternation, light though it was, over the placement of the whole rest, was a distraction from the whole point of the little romantic entertainment (in fact, the original drawing featured no staff at all - just the big fermata - then I got all fancy pants).
And here is the thing about my complete cartooning oeuvre. It fairly bristles with errors. It is a briar patch of mistakes, inaccuracies, misplaced thumbs, extra nostrils, misspellings...you name it. It is a cross I must bear.
Possibly I need a rest. But only on the fourth line from the bottom. Or half a rest. But that's on the third line, which is a whole nuther circle of hell.
Whole and half rests can, in fact, move at will all over the staff, depending upon spacing of other notes, sometimes appearing in the void above or below the staves (usually in choral reductions). However, a whole rest also has that remarkable ability to represent silence throughout a bar, irrespective of the bar's meter (it can be 4/4, 2/4, 3/8, 6/8 - it doesn't matter). In the bar I drew, that was the rest's function. I might have drawn four rests, arranged vertically, to account for four voice parts in the piece Edda and Amos were playing. To be absolutely accurate, I should have drawn two pairs of staves, consistent with a piano, four hand, piece, along with four fermatas.
The point of the gag, when all is said and done, was the fermata. The consternation, light though it was, over the placement of the whole rest, was a distraction from the whole point of the little romantic entertainment (in fact, the original drawing featured no staff at all - just the big fermata - then I got all fancy pants).
And here is the thing about my complete cartooning oeuvre. It fairly bristles with errors. It is a briar patch of mistakes, inaccuracies, misplaced thumbs, extra nostrils, misspellings...you name it. It is a cross I must bear.
Possibly I need a rest. But only on the fourth line from the bottom. Or half a rest. But that's on the third line, which is a whole nuther circle of hell.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
"LAYING DOWN" MY PEN? ...FIRST OF ALL, ISN'T THE COMMENT RATHER, UM, PERSONAL?
For some reason, Gran's departure to Austria has hatched the canard that my strip must be singing its swan song. That is the word that circulates back to me, and I am always the last one to hear. One commenter insisted that he can't see how I can continue (revealing a fascinating insight as to what he can't see – but otherwise conveying nothing to do with the strip or my plans).
As a matter of record, allow me to quell the whispers and state that "9 Chickweed Lane" marches on, with nary a thought contrariwise.
How do these rumors get going anyway? Perhaps they are milled at Thorax's "Bureau of They."
As a matter of record, allow me to quell the whispers and state that "9 Chickweed Lane" marches on, with nary a thought contrariwise.
How do these rumors get going anyway? Perhaps they are milled at Thorax's "Bureau of They."
Thursday, September 9, 2010
THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT (WEEKLY)
Entertainment Weekly posted a blog today that really oughtn't to be missed.
http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/09/09/9-chickweed-lane-is-all-kinds-of-awesome/
Thanks to Mr. Adam Vary for his kind and articulate words.
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