Sunday Funnies: LOL-April 4
Cidu Bill on Apr 4th 2010
Morris Keesan: Extra LOL points for inserting the word “axolotl” for old-time MAD magazine readers.)
Filed in Arlo and Janis, Bill Bickel, Easter, Francesco Marciuliano, Jimmy Johnson, Joe Biden, Medium Large, Mike Peters, New Yorker, Sally Forth, comic strips, comics, comics that made us laugh out loud, humor, lol, xkcd | 29 responses so far
Dave Van Domelen Apr 4th 2010 at 01:58 am 1
Heh. I had to explain the lesbian orgy to a few friends too.
Winter Wallaby Apr 4th 2010 at 02:16 am 2
I almost sent the dream-xkcd in as a partial CIDU: are these really common elements in dreams? I’ve never experienced any of them?
Marshal Apr 4th 2010 at 02:34 am 3
Since the same cartoonist does both Sally Forth and Medium Large does this
mean the second cartoon is canon.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/canon
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This guy I know Apr 4th 2010 at 04:47 am 4
OK, so the alt-text for the 2D/3D/4D xkcd is probably going to be a CIDU for a lot of people (it was to me, because it’s been a while since I read “Flatland”), so I’d like to preemptively give the explanation.
“Flatland” is about a 3-Dimensional figure who visits a 2-Dimensional world. In that world of 2D shapes, an individual’s status is determined by the number of line segments the individual is composed of. The males of lowest status are triangles, with squares, pentagons, hexagons, etc., having increasingly higher status, with the “priests” being circles (or polygons having so many sides as to be indistinguishable from circles). The women in Flatland are single line segments (and therefore have very little status in that world).
Thus, the apology described in the alt-text (which I won’t repeat, because there are probably filters in place which would result in a delay of this comment), is a description of the xkcd stick figure (i.e. a bunch of line segments [women] with a circle [priest] on top [overlooking them all]).
chuckers Apr 4th 2010 at 05:00 am 5
Small quibble:
“Flatland” is about a 2-Dimensional figure (A. Square Esquire) who visits a 1-Dimensional world and is visited by a sphere from the 3-Dimensional world.
Each higher dimensional creature tries to explain their dimensional world to the dimensional creature below it but the lower dimensional creature is unable to completely grasp the concept at all.
Fairly good book. A bit sexist but still.
Charlene Apr 4th 2010 at 08:29 am 6
I suspect the sexism was deliberate, as Flatland is a satire of the Victorian social order.
John in Tronna Apr 4th 2010 at 08:59 am 7
It’s crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide. — Melvin Potrzebie
David A. Rooney Apr 4th 2010 at 10:21 am 8
The Sally Forth one reminds me of the works of Gahan Wilson.
The Arlo reminds me of the time I tried to answer an online survey by putting in Beelzebub in the name line.
Sili Apr 4th 2010 at 12:34 pm 9
I’ve had those driving dreams.
Which is odd, since I don’t drive and have absolutely no clue how to.
Have you ever had that dream where your teeth fall out?
Elyrest Apr 4th 2010 at 12:41 pm 10
Sili - I have had more than one dream about my teeth, but they weren’t falling out they were crumbling into pieces. I was rather horrified at the time, but also surprised when I discovered that quite a few people had teeth dreams.
NoAlias Apr 4th 2010 at 02:03 pm 11
I hate the teeth falling out/crumbling dream. I do not like the dentist (but I go on schedule) and my teeth are pretty lousy so the dream/nightmare is just too close to reality.
The going to school naked dream, the running in sticky stuff while trying to escape dream, the forgetting the locker combination dream, the driving car dreams; those don’t bother me at all. But the teeth…..
mitch4 Apr 4th 2010 at 03:54 pm 12
The guy who writes your “It’s crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide” comments should write the rest of the blog!
Mark in Boston Apr 4th 2010 at 04:47 pm 13
Musicians in the bedroom: Arthur Rubinstein, in his autobiography, tells of a man who hired Arthur to play the piano in the bedroom while the man and his girlfriend made love. The piano was placed so that the pianist had his back to the couple, but the keyboard cover was highly polished and a lot could be seen in the reflection.
mkilby Apr 5th 2010 at 02:51 am 14
@ mitch4 - I didn’t understand either of those posts (7 & 12), all I can recall is that “potrzebie” was a word invented and used ad nauseam by Mad Magazine in the 50’s. It was supposed to be funny, but I never understood why.
mitch4 Apr 5th 2010 at 09:29 am 15
@ mkilby - Yes, this would be getting too much onto a tangent I guess.
But there seem to be three Mad Magazine tropes in play here, otherwise unrelated as far as I know.
Potrzebie — I thought of this as a word (probably common noun) rather than a name, but John #7 may know better. If a name, I never knew him as the attribution for the “crackers” quotation.
The “crackers” quotation — I was tickled to see this right now, since I’ve been using it in my email signature quotations rotation for the past several weeks. And I wrote it our from memory for that, and had the wording exactly the way John does; I don’t know if he was looking it up somewhere or remembering it, but there’s something in the cadence of it that evidently makes it memorable.
It has origins in one of those “Your guide to lingos and argots of various trades and the underworld” booklets. The elements of this sentence are (attestably!) from underworld argot, but the example is odd in putting together a bunch of illustrative terms in a way unlikely to arise in actual speech — I have to wonder whether the original took that approach or the Mad writer put it together.
Anyway, a translation would be “It’s crazy to hand over to a policeman the bribery/payoff in counterfeit money”. (Sound advice I would think!)
The embedded quotations in the letters column — I think CIDU explored this in detail not so long ago, so not worth trying to restart so soon. As I say, I was just tickled at seeing the “crackers” quotation, and was trying to invoke this third trope as a way of extending play a bit.
Matthew Apr 5th 2010 at 11:15 am 16
This guy (comment #4): Thanks for the explanation. FLATLAND is on my “to read” list, but I haven’t yet.
Chuck Apr 6th 2010 at 12:03 am 17
I had driving dreams all my life until I started driving, but none of the ones in the comic. Teeth dreams, I have them a lot. They don’t bother me anymore, since it’s not so difficult to replace teeth nowadays. (One of my friends has 3 tooth implants and they don’t bother her at all.) When I was a kid, it just seemed so embarrassing and permanent.
Andreas Apr 6th 2010 at 02:11 pm 18
#1 is a CIDU for me.
Marshal Apr 6th 2010 at 02:32 pm 19
Andreas,
It is a tongue twister that could become slightly obscene if
spoken wrong. And the Vice-President is known for verbal gaffes.
.
Naomi Apr 6th 2010 at 02:37 pm 20
Andreas - I don’t know why Biden is involved, but try saying “fuzzy ducky’s fun day plucking flowers” fast out loud, and I think you’ll see the potential problem with reading it to young children (unless you are much better with tongue-twisters than I am.) Hint: variations on spoonerisms.
Cidu Bill Apr 6th 2010 at 02:41 pm 21
When the health care bill was signed a couple of weeks ago, Biden — not noticing the open mike — said to Obama “Mr. President, this is a big f****** deal.”
Matthew Apr 6th 2010 at 03:19 pm 22
Well, Bill, we’re not sure that Vice-President Biden didn’t notice the open mic or just didn’t care. He is his own man, so to speak.
Harise Apr 6th 2010 at 03:41 pm 23
I totally missed the point of that first one, re plucky freaking ducks, and thought it was about what happened when Bush decided to read a book to school kids.
Marshal Apr 6th 2010 at 03:46 pm 24
Top 10 Joe Biden Gaffes
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1895156_1894977,00.html
First one is the one Cidu Bill is referring to.
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mkilby Apr 7th 2010 at 04:32 am 25
As for Mike Peters’s “Biden” comic, didn’t the Smothers Brothers have a routine about a “cotten picking finger licking chicken plucker”?
Elyrest Apr 7th 2010 at 11:30 am 26
mkilby (25) You’re right about the Smother’s Brothers and “cotten picking finger licking chicken plucker”. That was from a song “My Old Man” where they discuss the attributes of their purported fathers. Thanks for the memory.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFVrtjUmz7c
bob carlson Apr 8th 2010 at 03:40 pm 27
Re: “Crackers to slip…”
The explanation I recall, seen sometime in the early 50s when MAD was still new, was that crackers meant crazy, a rozzer was a police detective, dropsy was a knock-out drug, and in snide meant in secret.
That makes sense to me.
–30–
Mitch4 Apr 8th 2010 at 03:54 pm 28
Bob Carlson — You may have missed my #15 with an explication of the “crackers” line. In there, “snide” was supposed to mean “counterfeit money”. It would indeed be crazy to give the payoff in counterfeit, but it would be quite sensible to give it in secret, don’t you agree?
Dan Apr 9th 2010 at 03:43 pm 29
Kaputnik!