A Calvin-Hobbesian Eulogy

Last night a friend and I were talking about comic strips. Those used-to-be mandatory humour inserts in newspapers that have now almost all but vanished or been relegated to awful tabloid style sunday supplements.

 I grew up on comic strips having spent many a lovely rainy afternoon curled up with Asterix and Obelix on voyage to Corsica, later I moved to Dilbert and the Weasels with a growing empathy for his cubicled existence, replacing Catbert with the many managerial attitudes I have known and disliked.

The most evergreen memory has been Calvin and Hobbes. I remember teaching English with Calvin and Hobbes and Political Philosophy too. This is hardly surprising considering that Calvin is easily the greatest political philosopher ever. There have been hundereds of comic strips in newspapers so far, several terrible or just about average,  and some so absolutely brilliant that I collected them and made scrapbooks for summer school projects.

Bill Watterson is one of my all-time heroes and I wish sometimes that there was a tad more (yes I know there are thousands of strips!), the world for sure is a much saner place with the tiger and the boy. There’s something about Calvinian hometruths and Hobbesian aphorisms…

The real beauty of the twosome is in that unique form of  impudence, the curious situations they get into and the enduring alliance between the brat-pack; terror-child, genius and his pretend tiger living in fantasies that both you and I share.

Mid-Week Memoir

A week is a convenient span of time, both sufficiently long enough to deliberate, learn, look-back and forget as I most often choose to do and short enough for you to be able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The latter is of enormous significance especially if you’ve suffered the odd combination of claustrophobia and acrophobia as I have; long thin upward winding tunnel = definitely unpleasant!

Anyhow a description of tunnels is not why I am writing this post, actually I’m not quite sure why I began writing this at all. Either way, since I am rambling and since you have decided to read (or maybe not, in which case– thank god for you!) top lessons this week include: Morality and money are a bad and powerful combo, undiluted apple juice and whisky are better than aspirin, under-wire in underclothing is a pain and  cheese cake can become an obsession. 

I am a denizen of the field, forest and the deep.

Chirrup!

Button up!

Radical Feminist, Jo Freeman’s writing is always like a breath of fresh air, this piece though is fantastic in a different way. She writes about buttons, that’s right, buttons. Political buttons. Like she says,

” One of the great appeals of button collecting — aesthetics and historical significance aside — is the opportunity it gives to pursue impulses one normally has to repress. It can do this for one simple reason: buttons are, after all, intrinsically worthless. They are made to be given away in order to be worn by the greatest number of people. Thus, if you talk someone into a good (for you) trade, or lift a few buttons from the opposition campaign headquarters under false pretenses, you’re not depriving anyone of something essential for their existence. Just as contact sports permit you to physically batter people you barely know, button collecting permits you to psychologically outwit your colleagues-with the assurance that it’s all in good fun.”

Happy Reading! And oh! After you’ve read don’t forget to look at the button collection here. I particularly like the button that says : “This is what a radical feminist looks like!”

Advice, as if you needed any!

Some of the best advice I ever heard was not from a person. Not too long ago, I took a walk in the dead of the night to sort out my brain. I tend to do that once in a while (a muggle version of the pensieve), and I was singing to myself. Of the many things I sang that night– one of them was the ‘Sunscreen Song’.

The sunscreen song, adapted from Chicago Tribune writer Mary Schmich’s famous sunscreen speech is all about life. It goes as such:

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97.

Wear Sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 pm on some idel Tuesday. Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself. Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how. Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year- olds I know still don’t. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone. Mayber you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody’s else’s.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Dont’ be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths. Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will Look 85. Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

My favourite bits are in bold.

Words

A little light twinkles in the distance

Bursts in flames

Now orange, now blue and now again a different hue

Ringing laughter, incense

Chants and gunshots all blend

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