Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Cidu Bill on Dec 8th 2009
Adding to my confusion, MrKenneth subsequently sent this to me for the Arlo Page. while I’m very familiar with the two movies mentioned, I have no idea how this applies unless the point of the comic is that Mr. Juliette is attempting to diffuse the situation by sending his wife and step-daughter into orgasmic daydreams.
Filed in 9 Chickweed Lane, Bill Bickel, Brooke McEldowney, CIDU, comic strips, comics, humor | 37 responses so far
Elyrest Dec 7th 2009 at 11:06 pm 1
I have no idea why it would be an Arlo, but I love your Next Generation reference.
Heather D Dec 7th 2009 at 11:17 pm 2
Shaka, when the walls fell!
furrykef Dec 8th 2009 at 12:02 am 3
Timba, his arms open?
Kamino Neko Dec 8th 2009 at 12:03 am 4
I don’t think it’s an Arlo, but remove the ‘orgasmic’ part and that’s exactly what he’s doing - he’s sending them into their Happy Place by reminding them of handsome men in movies that they’re particularly fond of them in.
Kit Dec 8th 2009 at 03:31 am 5
I found Edda and Juliette’s posture in the final frame . . . unnecessarily akimbo . . .
Nicole Dec 8th 2009 at 07:40 am 6
I think the last panel is all about body language. In the second panel they are both sitting with arms and legs crossed, indicating they are closed to each other. In the final panel their bodies are totally open … the question is for what ???
What I find disturbing about this comic is that Mr. Juliette would know what man would send Edda into a state of orgasmic daydreams. I could understand him knowing his wife’s sexual fantasies, but his step-daughter ….um ewwww
Ron Dec 8th 2009 at 08:31 am 7
In my opinion, it’s more likely he was trying
to defuse the situation than to diffuse it.
Carl Dec 8th 2009 at 09:39 am 8
@Nicole,
I’m assuming that he simply knows Edda’s favorite romantic movie because she watches it a lot. No evil thoughts required.
Nicole Dec 8th 2009 at 09:52 am 9
Carl … I alwasy have evil thoughts …everybody knows that ..LOL
Matthew Dec 8th 2009 at 10:26 am 10
I agree with both Carl’s & Nicole’s last remarks. Mr. Juliette could certainly know his step-daughter’s romantic movie fantasies, but who wouldn’t want the evil thoughts, too? This ain’t very Arlo, though, and I suspect that Edda would not have a thing for Gable in IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT. Even Juliette probably has more recent hots than Grant in CHARADE.
Robert Warden Dec 8th 2009 at 12:38 pm 11
There still sitting in silence, but it’s no longer a “stony” silence.
Elyrest Dec 8th 2009 at 01:05 pm 12
Akimbo, her legs open.
Winter Wallaby Dec 8th 2009 at 05:29 pm 13
OT: That episode always bothered the hell out of me. How does the universal translator know how to translate any words, let alone proper names, from a language it doesn’t understand? Grrr….
MrKenneth Dec 8th 2009 at 07:16 pm 14
Orgasmic daydreams…much better terminology than first crossed my mind…it is still an Arlo IMHO.
furrykef Dec 8th 2009 at 07:32 pm 15
Winter Wallaby — more than that, the whole idea of a language built entirely upon metaphor strikes me as absurd. Such a language would either lack complex constructs such as subordinate clauses, or their speech would be ridiculously long-winded in trying to accommodate such structures.
Also, I think any mind capable of understanding the metaphors would also be capable of understanding more conventional grammar (since such a grammar would have to provide the base that the metaphor language is built upon), so even if such a farfetched language came to be, their difficulties in communicating probably would never have occurred.
The whole thing is easier to accept if you follow the MST3K mantra: “It’s just a show, I should really just relax.”
- Kef
Elyrest Dec 8th 2009 at 07:38 pm 16
“It’s just a show, I should really just relax.”
Kef - Thanks you for repeating this. It should be re-iterated more often.
furrykef Dec 9th 2009 at 01:59 am 17
Ahem. Yes, I like to sign my posts. I also like it when people don’t impersonate me.
furrykef Dec 9th 2009 at 09:06 am 18
(Just in case anybody gets confused by the above post, somebody had posted under my name with a snarky comment about how I like to sign my posts. That post has been deleted now since said impostor got the banhammer. Thanks, Bill! :))
squeepy Dec 9th 2009 at 01:04 pm 19
I totally want to name a band Unnecessarily Akimbo now.
Elyrest Dec 9th 2009 at 01:14 pm 20
furrykef/Kef (#18) - thank you for explaining that. I saw the comment last night and was confused as it didn’t really make sense. I thought there was also a comment on one of the other comics too that made even less sense, but I can’t find it now so Bill might have zapped it.
Fnord Dec 9th 2009 at 01:14 pm 21
The best explanation I ever read for that episode is that those aliens could speak “normally” if they wanted to, only their culture had very strong social taboos against it. As children they used a complete grammar, but they were expected to start learning and using the metaphors as they grew up, and to use them exclusively after coming of age.
For their most highly respected ship captain and diplomat to use full sentences would be humiliating, and insulting to the other party (because it would be talking down to them). It would be like Picard using goo-goo baby talk with the Klingon high council. In falsetto. With a flower in his hair. Wearing a pink tutu.
Elyrest Dec 9th 2009 at 01:16 pm 22
Fnord - very nice visual of Picard. I think Patrick Stewart could pull it off nicely.
Matthew Dec 9th 2009 at 01:20 pm 23
Since all language is metaphor, I wonder about the logic behind the STAR TREK episode to which you all refer. I read about it, but I have held little interest in any of the STAR TREK shows since they seemed mostly about outfits & make-up.
paperboy Dec 9th 2009 at 03:46 pm 24
I just saw Commander Riker wearing a glittery, silky dress, top open to the navel to have an audience with the leader of a women-ruled planet, in a re-run. He kinda pulled it off.
DPWally Dec 9th 2009 at 04:14 pm 25
I think this qualifies for a geezer award. The younger one should, at the absolute minimum, require a daydream that was filmed in color.
David A. Rooney Dec 10th 2009 at 06:43 pm 26
I would have told the younger one “Mel Gibson in “Lethal Weapon”. I watched it once with my then girlfriend and her mother (who knitted through the whole movie). When it ended she looked at her work and discovered she had dropped a stitch very early on - about the time Mel got out of bed flashing his nude butt. We all had a good laugh at the coincidence.
furrykef Dec 10th 2009 at 10:31 pm 27
Fnord — but that doesn’t quite make sense, because in that case the alien commander would have been able to understand Picard, just not the other way around. In the episode it was pretty clear that the incomprehension was mutual.
If an adult walked up to me and spoke only in baby-talk, I might be confused as to why he was speaking that way, but I wouldn’t be confused about what he was saying.
- Kef
Jenny Dec 10th 2009 at 10:40 pm 28
Speaking as someone only slightly older than Edda — at least more in her ballpark than Juliette’s — I prefer both Clark Gable and Cary Grant to Mel Gibson or, say, Brad Pitt. Smarter dialogue, for one, which makes them look a lot better.
CIDU Bill Dec 10th 2009 at 11:07 pm 29
Agreeing with Jenny, I’d add that decades after Mel Gibson and Brad Pitt’s deaths, I doubt anybody will write comic strips in which anybody fantasizes about tehm.
CIDU Bill Dec 10th 2009 at 11:16 pm 30
While I found the TNG episode interesting, the premise bugged the hell out of me because how could they speak in metaphor unless they had a “normal” language first. And how could they speak this way for everything? Do they go into a diner and order coffee by saying “El Exigente approves and the people rejoice”?
Years later I saw the episode again and came to the same conclusion Fnord did: that this was a matter of protocol and even if the alien commander could understand Picard, he could only acknowledge him if he expressed himself according to local tradition.
Seth Finkelstein Dec 11th 2009 at 08:04 am 31
> how could they speak in metaphor unless they had a “normal” language first
Maybe they “bootstrap” it in some way, by building bigger metaphors on smaller metaphors. Perhaps the alien commander should have tried their version of baby-talk, but I can believe he didn’t think of it.
It’s quite possible they talk a lot less in daily life than humans do - e.g. they order coffee by pointing at a picture of it. Think of a monastery where the monks have taken a vow of silence.
Paul Dec 11th 2009 at 09:35 am 32
How do we know they have diners and coffee? How terribly terran-centric to assume that an advanced alien civilization must have developed diners and coffee!
We learn only a little about the aliens in this episode, so there’s lots of room for speculation — that’s where the fun is! I always wondered how metaphor alone would express the complex scientific and technological concepts required to build starships. Most likely, metaphor is only one part of how they communicate. But you can see how they would consider it important in diplomacy.
The equation 2 + 2 = 4 might communicate to an alien that you possess a mind capable of understanding mathermatics and a certain kind of logic. If the alien responds with 3 + 3 = 6, you know that it has similar capabilities. But there’s a lot more to First Contact situations than basic math. The alien captain in the TNG episode wanted to know if humans understood the concepts of cooperation, loyalty and friendship represented by the story of Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. But perhaps there’s another component (telepathy?) to their communication that humans can’t pick up. This would explain their captain’s frustration at Picard’s failure to understand his verbal communication alone. It would also explain why the alien captain would expect humans to understand his metaphors, even when he knew that they had no experience with or knowledge of his culture. Clearly he was sending other information that the Picard and the rest of the crew weren’t picking up.
For more on the difficulties of communicating with aliens, see Stanley G. Weinbaum’s 1934 classic short story, ‘A Martian Odyssey’.
paperboy Dec 11th 2009 at 07:32 pm 33
…”We just couldn’t connect. I tried ‘rock’ , and I tried ’star’, and ‘tree’ and ‘fire’ and lord knows what else, and try as I would, I couldn’t get a single word! Nothing was the same for two successive minutes, and if that’s a language, I’m an alchemist! Finally I gave it up and called him Tweel, and that seemed to do.”….
bobpeters61 Dec 12th 2009 at 09:59 am 34
Clark Gable? I thought Edda was much, much younger than that.
Possibly even Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic.”
Matthew Dec 12th 2009 at 10:14 am 35
Edda is much younger, BobPete, but Brooke McEldowney isn’t, and Gable turns him on.
Bob Dec 12th 2009 at 11:08 am 36
DiCaprio? Edda has an appreciation of (preference for ?) the classics. It wouldn’t surprise me if she hasn’t seen Titanic; even if she has, I’m sure she prefers the superior A Night to Remember.
MrKenneth Dec 13th 2009 at 10:19 am 37
Orgasmic thoughts and body language suggesting a “cooling down” or Star Trek minuitae….we’ve gotten waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off topic here, but that is not uncommon on this site.