Amid all this talk about same-sex marriage, there's still a lot of regular-old-marriage out there to be mined for humor, or maybe for contemplation, and two of the better storytelling strips out there are doing wedding arcs at the moment.
Or maybe not.
Arlo and Janis is more of a "you got that right" strip than a "hardy-har-har" laff fest. Last we heard, Gene was in a solid, positive, thoughtful relationship, but this week, he showed up on his parents' doorstep with a case of cold feet.
I can't imagine Jimmy Johnson taking a U-turn on the greater continuity of keeping Gene and Mary Lou together, not only because A&J is essentially a tribute to solid, intense marital bliss with occasional thunderstorms, but because it also offers so many interesting plotlines that his main characters' marriage doesn't.
Still, he's one of the better storytellers working the strips these days and not afraid to create chaos if that's the right direction.
He also offered me a very nice segue into the second part of this posting last October, when he ran this one:
... because, speaking of master storytellers, this arc has been going on for quite awhile over at Doonesbury and I hope you have been watching, because they have already dealt with her mother. Though I doubt we've heard the last from that corner.
But, with or without JJ's creative input, the prospect of a "Preposterous Ordeal" looms:
I don't know where Trudeau is going to take this one, either, though, once again, I'm reasonably sure he won't ditch the relationship for the sake of a single story arc, and (working in the metaverse) I'm also pretty sure his commitment to veterans is such that he's going to keep Alex and Toggle together, simply because there is enough negativity out there. Let Ray and BD carry the burden of negative outcomes.
It's been awhile since I've attended a Preposterous Ordeal, though I suppose I wouldn't admit it publicly if I thought I had. The last "traditional" wedding I went to had all the preposterosity trimmed out and was quite enjoyable.
I've also been to several that had very little of the traditional about them. I think a lot of young couples are, like Alex and Toggle, taking more responsibility for their weddings and, for all the popularity of Bridezilla humor, I don't even know how much of that is the norm anymore.
Of course, I'm into the second-wedding demographic at this stage, and that's a different ballgame.
I went to a second-marriage wedding a few years ago where the bride was given away by her nearly-teenaged son and I ended up at a table with the groom's ex and their son who were charming company.
And some of those elements extend into first weddings as well. A college friend sent me a picture from his son's wedding of three women laughing and doing the "see-no-evil" schtick for the camera -- his first wife (mother of the groom), his second wife and his current-and-third wife. I couldn't believe he'd pulled it off, until I remembered that he met his third wife at a magicians' conference.
And she wasn't there to be sawn in half.
When I got married, it was the 60s and, while we were barely 21, it never occurred to us to have our parents do more than show up as guests. We didn't ask for their advice and I think by then we'd pretty much trained them not to offer a whole lot.
But fair is fair: It also never occurred to us to ask them to pick up the tab.
Hmm. Room rates appear to have gone up a bit. Wonder if a bottle of champagne is still $9?
And speaking of not wanting to pay the piper ...
For all the unbridaled joy over Obama's well-groomed evolution, Tony Auth wasn't above pointing out a bothersome detail.
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