Today’s Bizarro, with a terrible pun (and a large number of Dan Piraro’s symbols):
(#1)
goober
July 10, 2016chimichurri
July 9, 2016Yesterday’s breakfast was salmon chimichurri — something of a blind venture, but I do like salmon. The chimichurri turned out to be a nice green sauce, which I then looked up (yes, I know, most people would look it up first, but I’m an adventurous eater).
A profusion of fireflies
July 9, 2016A delightful piece in Tuesday’s NYT Science Times, “How to Talk to Fireflies” by Joanna Klein, which is about animal communication — between fireflies, by flashing lights — though I was startled by a fact that came up in passing. The first paragraph:
As Earth rotates in the summer, fireflies whisper sweet nothings to each other in the most beautiful language never heard. For millions of years the insects have called to one another secretly, using flashes of light like a romantic morse code. With some rather simple technology — a light and a battery — scientists have been decoding their love notes for years. But recently I learned that you don’t have to be an entomologist to try to talk to fireflies.
Male common Eastern fireflies, flashing
Two cat cartoons
July 9, 2016Not quite what you think. Two cartoons: a Mother Goose and Grimm from yesterday, today’s Bizarro:
(#1)
(#2)
To appreciate #1, you need to know about the custom of putting out a cat for the night (V + Prt put out ‘put sth. outside (a house)’), and you need to recognize the piece of heavy earth-moving equipment in the room, with brand names Caterpilllar and (clipped) Cat.
To appreciate #2, you need to know that Zeus / Jupiter is the mythological hurler of thunderbolts, and you need to recognize Dr. Seuss’s Cat in the Hat (with one of his accompanying Things) and to see that the figure in the cartoon is a hybrid of Zeus and Dr. Seuss’s Cat, a combination conveyed by the portmanteau name Dr. Zeuss.
Someone old, someone new
July 8, 2016Two cartoons from the latest (July 11/18) New Yorker, by veteran artist Danny Shanahan (in the magazine since 1988) and newcomer Edward Steed (first appeared there in 2013):
(#1)
(#2)
The Shanahan (which is, in a sense, “about” animal communication) exemplifies the cartoon meme of the animal in a bar (most often a dog, but many other animals have engaged in bar conversations); in this case, the animal in a bar is combined with a comic trope in which a bartender covers for a patron by telling a caller to the bar (clasically, the patron’s wife) that the patron isn’t there. The Steed is a bizarre bulletin in the news for penises.
Annoying instruments
July 7, 2016Today’s Bizarro:
(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbol in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there’s just one in this strip — see this Page.)
In lists of instruments people find most annoying, the bagpipes and the accordion (with its close relatives the concertina and bandoneon) are reliably at the top or close to it, so a hybrid would be monstrous.
Celebrations
July 7, 2016The Daily Jocks ad for the 4th, featuring their very own patriotic underwear, worn by a decidely worried-looking model (with my caption):
Hank was always
Up for the
Hot-dog eating
Contest, but he was
Anxious about exploding
Fireworks in his pants
Name that succulent
July 7, 2016On the way home from getting my hair shorn professionally (by the excellent Gerardo, of the Cardinal Barbershop just up the street from me — in a shop with most of the original furnishings from 43 years ago, including Gerardo) — past some drought-conscious plantings alongside Palo Alto City Hall: a plantation of gray-green succulents that looked remarkably like artichokes. At home, searching on “succulents that look like artichokes”, I got a huge pile of references to various Agave species, especially Agave parryi (common name “artichoke agave”!), and two of its varieties, var. truncata:
(#1)
and var. huachucensis (with somewhat tighter “heads” than truncata):
(#2)
ID
July 6, 2016A recent One Big Happy, in which Ruthie and Joe’s mother is puzzled by a new development in her kids’ speech:
To get to yeller ID ‘identifying number of the person yelling’, you need some basis to go on: certainly caller ID from the phone world (a phone number identifying a caller), maybe also user ID (a login name identifying the sender) from the computer world.
Last call: gay music, mix CDs, X-rated collages
July 6, 2016Three offers still out that have had no takers and will go away on Monday the 11th (the first to a local donation site, the other two to the trash heap):
#8 gay music (here)
#4 mix CDs (here, described in detail below), now in a special offer
#1 X-rated gay collages, mounted for hanging (here), also in a special offer described below
I’m giving special offers on the last two because they’re the work of my own hand and I hate to just throw them away.
You pay only shipping expenses. To request an offer, SEND E-MAIL to me (arnold.zwicky@gmail.com), with your mailing address, and Kim Darnell (drdcrunk@gmail.com) will get in touch with you about mailing and payment.