Then Along Came a Spider
Cidu Bill on May 31st 2010
Mischa: I sort of get that she’s scared by the spider, but why walk off stage in a haze of pink elephants (or whatever)?
Filed in Bill Bickel, CIDU, Jules Feiffer, comic strips, comics, humor | 31 responses so far
Sili May 31st 2010 at 12:07 am 1
It’s snow. The weather turned.
Elyrest May 31st 2010 at 12:15 am 2
Yep - That’s first a snowflake and then a snowstorm. Cause that’s what happens when you are waiting for spring. I always loved Jules Feiffer’s cartoons they are so fluid and expressive. I read his autobiography, Backing into Forward: A Memoir, recently and liked it quite a bit.
Charlene May 31st 2010 at 12:50 am 3
That’s not what happens when you’re waiting for spring: that’s spring!
mkilby May 31st 2010 at 03:08 am 4
Today’s the last day of May, but it seems like the weather is stuck perpetually at “early Spring”. In English one says that “March comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb”. In German there’s a phrase that states “April does whatever it wants to” (and “April weather” is a random mixture of sunshine, showers, and even snow or hail). Don’t like this weather? No problem, just wait ten minutes, and it will be something else.
Suzii May 31st 2010 at 04:05 am 5
Yeah, but how long will I have to wait until it’s 70 degrees and sunny?
Fandango May 31st 2010 at 07:07 am 6
I thought it was a variation on the classic “rain dance” joke. But now I’m not sure.
plainwater May 31st 2010 at 08:05 am 7
Gawd I love Jules Feiffer. When people think of that cool, jazzy moment in comedy during the sixties, they may think of Nichols and May or Woody Allen’s standup, but I think Feiffer outcooled and outjazzed them all.
Dan May 31st 2010 at 09:52 am 8
It’s not early spring here - it’s early summer. It’s 10 am, and we’re at 80 deg F already, and it’s been in the upper eighties for several days now.
Sal May 31st 2010 at 11:07 am 9
Suzii, I will trade you whatever you got for the 90+ it is in South Florida. And this is just the begining. Hurricanes and hot weather every day from now till the end of November.
Morris Keesan May 31st 2010 at 11:20 am 10
People have such a narrow interpretation of what “spring” weather is, and what “summer” weather is. I remember years ago, some Japanese students who were in Boston for a semester asking us when it was going to be “spring” (it was probably mid-April). I looked around, surprised, and thought, “What do they mean? This is spring. It’s consistently above freezing almost all the time, and when it snows it melts within a day.” Their interpretation of Spring was Spring in Tokyo, with warmer temperatures and cherry blossoms, what I think of as late spring.
Meanwhile, in the Boston area, we’ve been having an unseasonably warm May this year, with already a few days of high temperatures above 80° F. I finally got around to putting away my last snow shovel a week or two ago.
Dan May 31st 2010 at 11:32 am 11
People have different interpretations, Morris Keesan, because they live in different areas. Springtime here (east coast, USA) does not include snow, period, let alone snow that melts within a day.
Cherry blossoms here pretty much kick off spring - they bloom in early April.
Morris Keesan May 31st 2010 at 11:54 am 12
Dan, even people who’ve lived in New England all of their lives tend to have very narrow interpretations of what “spring” is. From March 21 to June 21 (or from March 1 to May 31, depending on whether you use the astronomical or meteorological definition of spring) we routinely get everything from spring thaw and mud season through too-hot-for-comfort, and yet people who’ve lived here for thirty years and more still complain about it not being “spring”when it’s in the 40s and windy, because their mental image of spring doesn’t really include March and April.
Elyrest May 31st 2010 at 11:55 am 13
People do interpret Spring differently depending on where they live. Living in the east/midwest spring did include snow. It has snowed in May on more than one occasion and the planting guides say wait till after the last frost which is almost always in May. But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be 80 degree days in April and crocuses and daffodils appear in March. When I lived in the San Francisco Bay area Spring just sort of crept in as it was hard to tell the difference between Winter and Spring. In way northern California, on the coast, the perennials and the flowering trees appeared in February. We didn’t have freezes and frost there, but we never really had what most people would consider a Summer either. Most days in June/July/August were in the 60’s and nights were in the 50’s.
Right now I’m in northern Ohio and it is in the upper 80″s and it’s been in the 80’s for more than a week straight. It was 85 at 10am and it is muggy and sticky. Summer.
Dan May 31st 2010 at 12:13 pm 14
My point is that even if there’s snow, that’s not considered springtime weather. There have been years in which the final snowfall occurred pretty late - even during spring, yes - but it’s not considered spring weather. It’s winter weather. Those snowfalls are anomalies.
It’s not as if, after a snowfall in May, people shrug and say, “Well, that’s typical spring weather for you!”
At any rate, our perceptions may have narrowed because climate change has indeed decreased the length of the spring-weather season. Often here in the NE US (or central-east), we seem to zip right from cold-cold-cold to hot-hot-hot without a temperate climate in between, i.e., Spring.
Bob in Nashville May 31st 2010 at 02:52 pm 15
Looked symbolic to me. The sight of the spider caused her effervescence to dissolve.
Yeah, I know. Overthinking it.
Lola May 31st 2010 at 04:02 pm 16
I’m pretty sure that’s not a spider but a snowflake
.. the harbinger of the snowstorm that soon followed, much to the spring celebrant’s dismay.
Frankie Darro May 31st 2010 at 06:20 pm 17
Well, Dan #11, you’re exactly right, different interpretations for different areas, so, alas, Dan #14, you got it wrong. “It’s not as if, after a snowfall in May, people shrug and say, “Well, that’s typical spring weather for you!” In Colorado it’s called “Springtime in the Rockies”. It is typical, and yeah, they do shrug;-) I lived in the Denver area for years, and Memorial Day weekend was the time to put in my garden. Anything planted earlier had to be cold hardy or elaborately protected from frost (http://www.planetnatural.com/site/wallo-water.html). I live in southern California now where it’s the same dang season all year long. boooorring.
Lola May 31st 2010 at 07:34 pm 18
Am I the only with an earworm from the Producers tunneling through my brain?
Dan May 31st 2010 at 08:14 pm 19
Woohoo! I’m batting .500!
Bob May 31st 2010 at 09:37 pm 20
Feiffer did one of the best tribute comics ever when Fred Astaire died. I don’t remember the year, or even the details of the comic, but I remember being awed by it.
turquoise cow May 31st 2010 at 10:05 pm 21
@Frankie my uncle in the Denver area has insanely odd weather all times of the year, which I think is caused by being so close to the mountains. He’s reported several days in which people would head out to mow their grass, get stopped by falling snowflakes, and then go out to finish in 80 plus in the late afternoon. It’s not at all unusual for them, apparently. As for me in New Jersey, we’ve been known to have snowstorms on Easter and seventies on Christmas. There is no normalcy to weather, I think.
turquoise cow May 31st 2010 at 10:07 pm 22
Lola - not anymore, though I didn’t think of it immediately.
Stan Jun 1st 2010 at 02:46 am 23
I find it amusing that this comic has received 22 comments, more than most (3nd runner up in the last 10 posts), and it’s is about the weather.
God, we’re pathetic. It’s hot and sunny here in Kuwait where I am, in case anyone is interested. And I know you are.
Elyrest Jun 1st 2010 at 11:39 am 24
Stan (23) In some people’s lives the weather can be the most interesting thing that happens. Or the most changeable. People often talk about the weather because it is the only thing they have in common. Kuwait? Never been there, but I understand hot and sunny.
Minor Annoyance Jun 1st 2010 at 02:31 pm 25
This is, of course, a fairly ancient cartoon from the 50s or 60s — The dancer was one if his recurring characters. Cold war and political references aside, Feiffer’s stuff holds up alarmingly well.
Feiffer recently turned up on Charlie Rose plugging his memoirs. He looked remarkably well himself, which he attributed to never being athletic — there was no level of fitness to fall from. He stopped drawing his weekly cartoon several years ago, but still does one-shots for New Yorker and writes/illustrates a lot of children’s books.
Stan Jun 2nd 2010 at 12:36 am 26
Elyrest (24) - Really, that’s the only thing I should assume you’d like to know about Kuwait? The weather? I have a bit more info that I’m certain you’d find far more interesting. I know this because what we have in common is that we’re ‘people’ and people have experiences.
As much I believe you can understand hot and sunny, I also believe you could conceive of camel herders, daily fatal traffic accidents, stinking amounts of wealth on display, people getting arrested for ‘witchcraft’ and blasphemy, and so on. I bet you have a lot of stories you could entertain me with. However, you’re right. If I met you on the bus, I’d discuss the weather with you. At length.
Sorry, I simply find the lengths at which we discuss this topic, and more so the genuine interest we show in it, a peculiar element of social interaction.
Morris Keesan Jun 2nd 2010 at 07:54 am 27
Stan, it may seem to you to be about the weather, but the conversation I’ve been participating in here is about human psychology, i.e. people’s perceptions of and reactions to the weather.
Elyrest Jun 2nd 2010 at 11:06 am 28
Stan (26) I didn’t say what I’d like to know about Kuwait. I’d like to know much more than I do about the country than I have gained from news stories. What I said though, and Morris Keenan reinforced, is that people most often talk about what they know and that is where their comfort level lies. Weather is what we are pondering here, but we share little bits of our lives as we ponder. We talk about comics, but we share the world. I’d love to hear more about your world as we go along.
Stan Jun 2nd 2010 at 02:57 pm 29
Elyrest and Morris, I’m with you. Believe me, I know where you’re coming from, I’m on your side…. but why weather, or other equally simple things? Why has human psychological development led us toward discussing the banal with strangers? The initial topic could be ANYTHING, but for some reason we have chosen the painfully ordinary and obvious as an acceptable comfort level. We joyfully go on and on about the trivial rather than something more interesting which we are all certainly capable of, and we all know it.
I suspect it is probably a throwback to when humans were developing as social beings and competition for resources was a lot more fierce. We didn’t want to give too much information away to a stranger and potential enemy/competitor for these resources, but wanted to avoid hostilities at the same time. A neutral topic kept everybody happy. However, we are beyond this point in our development, yet this method of interaction lingers. Not only lingers, but flourishes. I find this odd/amusing, and that’s the point I was trying to make with my little comment. Unsuccessfully, I realise.
Man, it got up to 45 degrees today. It was nuts.
meerkat Jun 3rd 2010 at 09:42 am 30
Her dance causes spring, so when she was interrupted by the spider, spring reverted back to winter.
Araxie Aug 11th 2010 at 02:50 am 31
This is random, but did the style of this strike anybody else as being Bloom County-esque?