On the heels of my 3/14 posting “Seeking a penguin caption” (in which the birds are ubiquitous), there come two penguin cartoons in the April 2026 issue of Funny Times: one by Bill DeMain in which the birds are iconic, one by Vaughan Tomlinson in which they are (memically) indistinguishable.
Penguins, iconic and indistinguishable
March 17, 2026El Palo Alto
March 17, 2026In yesterday’s posting “The breakfast walk”, one notable feature of that walk was what is now the elegant Nobu Hotel Epiphany, which preserves (from the earlier Casa Olga hotel) the 6-story-tall mosaic mural of El Palo Alto, the coast redwood tree for which the city of Palo Alto is named:
(#1) The Casa Olga mural
(#2) The mural on the much-expanded Nobu Hotel Epihany
I remind you that this is a short distance from my house, but has just become part of the urban landscape, taken for granted — as indeed we take for granted the many actual coast redwoods growing companionably on our streets (reaching straight into the sky, towering over a hundred feet, easily hundreds of years old). (There’s one such tree only about 50 feet from my front door.)
And I remind you that the tree in #1 and #2 is not an abstract or imagined coast redwood, but a specific Sequoia sempervirens — El Palo Alto — that grows in a little urban forest park, alongside the railroad tracks (originally Southern Pacific, now Caltrain) at the border between Palo Alto (in Santa Clara County) and Menlo Park (in San Mateo County), only abut 7 blocks from my house.
The breakfast walk
March 16, 2026From 722 Ramona St., between Forest and Homer (my house) to 566 Emerson St., at the northwest corner at Hamilton (the Palo Alto Creamery, a standard place for Saturday breakfast with my daughter Elizabeth in the old days, along a route fixed in its details (there will be a map, with commentary). Now notable in that the Creamery is the only business or office on that route that has been there all the time since Jacques and I came to Ramona St. in 1986. This is urban life, with everything in flux.
March 15th
March 15, 2026Today: a significant day in my personal life for many years, and also a significant day in world history.
— March 15th was spring Removal Day — Higashi (East) removal — when (for about 10 years) Jacques and I left Palo Alto (after winter quarter at Stanford) to drive the 2650 miles east to Columbus OH (for spring quarter at Ohio State); the winter Removal Day — Nishi (West) removal — in the opposite direction was December 15th
— March 15th is also the Ides of March, the day of Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 B.C.E.
Seeking a penguin caption
March 14, 2026The New Yorker cartoon caption contest in the 3/6/25 issue features one of my totem animals, the penguin. Well, quite a lot of penguins:
The three finalists for the caption will be announced in the 3/30 issue
The caption — what the woman is saying to the man — could be about that pigeon (maybe the whole thing is stage-managed by the pigeon; or maybe it’s about a pigeon among the penguins, like a cat among the pigeons). Meanwhile, note the prevalence of penguins — driving a car, in the windows of a building, on top of the food truck; they’re everywhere.
Presenting yourself
March 13, 2026Following up on yesterday’s (3/12) posting “Masculine flamboyance” about the political commentator Jon Favreau’s presentation of himself in an advertisement for Crooked Media’s Pod Save America show: as an impish hunk: impish via a half-smile; hunk via a display of his muscular forearms, signs of a ripped body. (I could also have noted his neck muscles and the solid torso beneath his t-shirt):
(#1) JF on display
This is a pose for the camera, so what we see is some mixture of (a) what we might think of as a picture of one of his “natural” personas (unconsciously composed), just being who he is (as if that were a simple thing) and (b) a calculated presentation, with some conscious thought devoted to choosing elements of his presentation for the photo. I would guess that some part of the image was calculated — perhaps, the light dusting of facial scruff, conveying masculinity (in case you might have doubts, given the flamboyance of JF in action, as described in yesterday’s posting).
The Vishnu of philosophy
March 12, 2026The philosopher Bill Lycan (an old friend, once my colleague at Ohio State, a prolific writer, and an enormously entertaining person) came to my mind when a friend was amazed that I managed to write at least one essay a day — every day of the year — as a posting on this blog (this posting is the second for today, and it’s not yet 9 am; I’m on a roll). At least once at Ohio State, a student asked Bill how he managed to publish so much (perhaps, like Vishnu, he could write with four arms at once). Bill’s wonderful reply:
I have a very high tolerance for error.
This was, in fact, a deeply serious reply, worth some reflection.
Masculine flamboyance
March 12, 2026adj. flamboyant: (of a person or their behavior) tending to attract attention because of their exuberance, confidence, and stylishness … [from NOAD]
Last Saturday I made the acquaintance (in the first Crooked Media show on MS NOW) of this exemplar of masculine flamboyance, presenting himself in this IMDb photo as an impish hunk:
Jon Favreau (advertising Crooked Media’s Pod Save America show)
Inexplicably, I seem not to have noticed JF before, though he’s someone of great substance. Meanwhile, his performance on the show was hugely entertaining — cutting criticism of our overlord Grabpussy and his administration, flamboyantly delivered. The deep moral commitment of Stephen Colbert performed in a wildly expressive style.
Name sharing
March 11, 2026The Zippy strip for today, 3/11, all about sharing a personal name (with some intrusions of the name Melvin):
The large generalization is that mentioning two people together implicates some special relationship, even more so if they share a name (personal name or family name)
In the first panel we start with two authors, from widely separated times, in different genres (plays vs. fiction), and with hugely different styles — but both with the personal name William.
The personal-name sharing goes on with wildly different characters, oddly yoked to one another: Oscar Wilde the writer and Oscar the Grouch the Muppet; Jackson Pollock the painter and Jackson Browne the rock musician (whose career started with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band); Mona Freeman the actress (and painter) and the Mona Lisa (the subject of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting).
Notes on Fijian
March 10, 2026My main helper these days has lived and worked in the US for many years, but he’s a native of Fiji. I call him Isaac in my postings, but his actual personal name is the Fijian version of the name, Aisake, and the syntax of his native language Fijian turns out to have lots of characteristics that are a surprise to, say, speakers of English. So I offer you some notes on the language, building on the material in the Wikipedia article on the language.