Comics That Made Us Laugh Out Loud the Last Week in June
Cidu Bill on Jun 30th 2008
Filed in Bill Bickel, Canterbury Tales, Chaucer, Days of Thunder, Hilary B. Price, James Joyce, John Cage, John Deering, Lewis Carroll, Pardon My Planet, Rhymes With Orange, Robert Lovely, Strange Brew, Upton Sinclair, Vic Lee, aliens, bras, comic strips, comics, comics that made us laugh out loud, fishing, flying saucers, karaoke, lol, pigs | 14 responses so far
John DiFool Jun 30th 2008 at 01:32 pm 1
I can’t tell if the woman in strip #1 has had a masectomy, is otherwise deformed in some awful way, or is as dumb as a box of rocks.
I don’t get the one with aliens watching the monk as he mows the grass.
PeterW Jun 30th 2008 at 01:39 pm 2
The “separation” has swung her left breast all the way around to her right shoulderblade.
I think the monk is combing the sand in his zen garden. I didn’t really get it either, but they think he’s trying to send a message.
heather Jun 30th 2008 at 01:53 pm 3
Yeah, the monk is doing his zen garden thing, the aliens think it’s an attempt at communication, so they “write back” — notice the field they’re looking at in the other monitor? This explains crop circles!
I just have a quibble with the karaoke one… the piece is just titled 4′33″ and it’s not about silence, it’s about ambient noise of the audience, the building, etc. I’ve actually been to a performance of it and it’s intriguing to be ‘alone with your thoughts’ listening to that not-quite-silence along with a hundred other people. Anyway, maybe the cartoonist thought people wouldn’t recognize the reference just from the title without the more explicit explanation… It’s still a LOL for me too, the idea of doing 4′33″ as karoake is brills…
Kit Jun 30th 2008 at 02:15 pm 4
Thanks, heather! I was going to make a similar comment about “4′33″”
Mark in Boston Jun 30th 2008 at 05:39 pm 5
I’m a pianist and I actually performed 4′33″ once (back in college) but the audience didn’t really “get” it the way heather did, probably because I’m not the best performer for the piece. You know the old joke where the prisoners know all the jokes by number? Someone says “356″ and everyone laughs. The new guy memorizes the joke book and then says “741″ and nobody laughs. “Some people can tell a joke, some can’t” explains the old-timer. 4′33″ is like that: some people can play or sing it, some can’t.
The notation is graphical. It’s in three movements and for each movement there’s a line marking the beginning and a line marking the end. The distance between the lines corresponds to the length of the movement, in addition to the exact timing being written after the end line. There is a page turn in the third movement. I turned the page at the proper time. Maybe I should have memorized the piece.
Ladybird Jun 30th 2008 at 11:43 pm 6
Yup, the monk is tanding his Zen Garden, and the aliens are responding via crop circle. And I definitely LOL’d at the flying pigs and the aliens baiting the fishermen with beer.
Ladybird Jun 30th 2008 at 11:44 pm 7
That should be “…tending…”, of course.
Morris Keesan Jul 1st 2008 at 09:12 am 8
John DiFool, the bra cartoon is a reference to an old ad campaign for a bra which “lifts and separates”.
I was thinking similar things as other posters about 4′33″. It’s too bad the cartoonist felt the need to over-explain this; I think it would have been much funnier with the correct title, making the reader think a little bit.
eeyore19 Jul 1st 2008 at 09:05 pm 9
John Lennon had a song called “Two Minutes of Silence” which was later “covered” as “One Minute of Silence” by Soundgarden.
Kevin Andresen Jul 1st 2008 at 09:28 pm 10
I think the woman with the bra has unwittingly put it on wrong (John DiFool, option #3) because she has never experienced one with the single strap around the neck (to match certain dresses). There’s a similar bra on the mannequin in back.
Lola Jul 1st 2008 at 10:51 pm 11
Kevin, I’m female and NEVER heard of this. I’m not saying they don’t exist and heck they probably do, but, WOW, I’m really impressed with your knowledge of the arcane fashion paraphernalia and curious of it’s source too.
Sari Everna Jul 3rd 2008 at 03:33 am 12
I’ve never heard of one strap bras, either, although it would make sense for them to exist. You’d probably have to try a lingere store or something.
And the manequin’s bra has two straps. The second is visible, although not necessarily as obvious as you might expect.
I really liked the zen garden one.
Julie Jul 3rd 2008 at 02:06 pm 13
Does Kevin mean a bra for a halter top, where the one strap would go behind the neck? I’ve had a couple of bras that can do that.
Kevin Andresen Jul 3rd 2008 at 04:29 pm 14
Julie, yes.
Bikini tops have been like this for decades. I know that some women that I tango with have them on because I see the straps going up the front and their open shoulder dress only has material around the neck; I feel the rest of it going under the fabric that starts down from the lower part of her shoulder blades.
The cartoonist doesn’t show an adjustment; this has me curious about whether the whole thing could be comfortable with an elastic over-the-neck strap.