... that which you can put off entirely.

Transposition of the day: On my Facebook newsfeed, Rico Schacheral had linked these words of wisdom to aspiring writers, to which I commented that writers should quit reading about writing and actually write something. 

Not that I want to upset the lucrative trade in catering to dreamers, mind you. Not when I have an exercise bike that I bought a month ago, and that I fully intend to work out on several times a week.

I also intend to take it out of the box and assemble it.

So then, right under it, Jonathan Rosenberg posted the most recent Scenes from a Multiverse, which I would have enjoyed anyway but much moreso at that moment.

I really like the quickness with which he dispatches the obvious gag -- simply lay it out in the first panel and get it over with -- and then the leisurely pace at which he goofs with it until, finally, he drops the punchline into a depthless well of pure bathos in the fourth panel.

The talent isn't in coming up with a brand-new, never-before premise. There aren't any. The talent comes in taking a premise and teasing new life into it and new laughs out of it.

Well done.

Meanwhile, Kieran Meehan goes all Scottish on us. 

Dammit, it was one thing when Lynn Johnston insisted on making her mailboxes -- sorry, postboxes -- red instead of blue, and having her characters celebrate Thanksgiving five weeks early. And now this.

I thought "Cullen Skink" was that guy in college with the always-freshly-cut flat top, who would place two pencils on the seminar table at the start of class, perfectly sharpened, lined up precisely crosswise above his notebook, and then never use either of them.

Turns out to be soup, and it's not even made out of lizards. In fact, it sounds pretty good.

I'll have to try the recipe sometime. No, really. Probably later this week. Or possibly next.

Mind you, I still think the most interesting revelation of Scots culture I've experienced yet was looking for the DVD of "Gregory's Girl" on-line and discovering that the version I'd seen was re-dubbed for export, with the burrs toned down in the interests of making the film intelligible to an overseas audience.

The original sound track is available on the disk as an option.

Judging from this side-by-side comparison of the two tracks, somebody had a pretty low opinion of our ability to parse an accent. Most likely, it was somebody on this side of the deal.

 

The film is available several places on-line and is well worth watching. 

But, as for finding a source of smoked haddock for the soup, you're on your own.

Comments

[Mary in Ohio]

Haggis, on the other hand, probably isn't as tasty as it sounds.

[Mike Peterson]

I'd like to talk to someone who has had both haggis and scrapple and could provide some comparisons. A lot of these byproduct dishes turn out to be more innocuous than expected, but also very much intertwined with childhood memories.

The difference between tourtiere and poutine being that every Quebecer grows up with the former and it's part of New Year's. And it's good, but it's not terribly spectacular. On the other hand, the stranger who gets a decent bowl of poutine will be instantly in love.

I suspect haggis is nothing at all like poutine in that respect or any other.

Sort of like the Thanksgiving casserole that a new bride tries to improve -- it isn't supposed to taste GOOD. It's supposed to taste like HOME.

[vppeterson]

Flora's tourtiere was wonderful. McDonald's poutine was not.