On Pinterest this morning, the first two panels of Edward Gorey’s The Disrespectful Summons (1971) (also in the collection Amphigorey Too):
(#1)
(#2)
Pleased by contemplating this reign of evil, I’ve assembled postings on Gorey into a Page on this blog.
The One Big Happy in my feed today (dated 7/25):
It’s a question of the relative scoping of a quantifier ∃, of existence, and ¬, negation, with respect to the propositional-attitude verb (I) believe. In a crude informal symbolism:
¬ (∃ (X: one-word-you-said, I-believe X)) ‘there’s not one word you said that I believe’ (equivalent to ‘every word you said, I didn’t believe it’) — what Ruthie’s mother intends
∃ (X: one-word-you-said, ¬ (I-believe X)) ‘there’s one word you said that I don’t believe’ — what Ruthie understands
The Dilbert from a couple days ago, the pointy-haired boss exhibiting leadership:
I have often defended some uses of what outsiders think of as mere jargon as useful, even necessary, for insiders’ purposes. But there are fashions in everything, vocabulary included, and there are occasions when people paper over a lack of thought with verbiage.
When necessary, the pointy-haired boss can roll out a veritable jargonaut. And then pass the baton of leadership on to his nonplussed staff.
Today’s Zippy takes us into the land of pink motels, pink fairies, and pink Cadillacs, which then takes us of course into the Forest of Pudendiana and sexual symbolism. There will be innocent drinks, plants, and animals, but mostly this is a world drenched in sex, gender, and sexuality.
(#1)
We are in scenic Cherokee NC, home of a Pink Motel, with a fairy as its mascot — blue-winged in the cartoon, but pink-winged in older versions of the actual neon sign.
Symbolism I. Both fairies and the color pink have come to be symbols of femininity, and by extension, faggotry. But also, both of them, are symbols of kitsch: fairies and pink stuff are “cute”. Presumably the Pink Motel in Cherokee was designed not to bring in women or gay men, but to project a strong general senses of cuteness, like Tinkerbell and Hello Kitty run amok.
Today’s Zippy, with a burlesque of a 1963 calypso-style song performed by gospel singer Jimmy Soul (hence the playful title “Saul Music”):
(#1)
Today’s Calvin and Hobbes re-play:
In panel 2, Calvin produces a progressive clause in the PRS (I’m watching television), conveying a “now present”: ‘I’m watching television now’ (and so can’t come to the table). But his PRS progressive clause could also be a “futurate present”, announcing an intention or plan to watch television: ‘I’m going to watch television tonight’. And that’s the interpretation his mother gets, and disputes loudly.
Today’s Zippy takes us to Nowata OK, a tiny, flat, and dusty place at the northeastern edge of the state (not far from Kansas and Missouri, not far from Tulsa):
(#1)
This is Zippy, so of course Nowata is a real place, with Chris Barbee’s Bowling Ball Yard in it.
… as Baron Rees-Mogg of Hinton Blewitt was to be properly addressed (from 1988 until his death in 2012). Before that, he was just William Rees-Mogg, of The Times:
(#1)
Unearthed in today’s clearing out of material piled up in a cabinet, two New Yorker cartoons: a Sam Gross (published in the 9/4/95 issue) in which a penguin achieves flight, a Charles Barsotti (published in the 8/12/96 issue) in which squirrels question whether they are in fact flying squirrels (there are tree squirrels, ground squirrels, flying squirrels, and questioning squirrels — TGFQ):
(#1)
(#2)
If you try harder, you might succeed; and if you give it a try, you might discover your identity.
Every so often, things coincide. In the last couple of days, Jeff Shaumeyer relayed on Facebook an 8/9 posting on Jason Kottke’s blog with a delightful video about the Collatz Conjecture, and then a day later I got a phone call from Greg Huber at UC Santa Barbara about this very same conjecture in number theory and its possible connection to a paper Steve Isard and I wrote 46 years ago (in previous lives) on “one-symbol Smullyan systems”. And there’s an xkcd:
(#710 from 3/5/10)