Scary Comix

Cartoonists often hear, "I swear you're peeking in our windows!" when a gag hits home with a reader.

Today's Heart of the City would prompt me to take out a protective order against Mark Tatulli, except that I'd be about 40 years too late.

Monty Python was not yet on the air in the US when The Holy Grail opened in 1975, but a couple of Pythons went on "The Today Show" and did an interview, including a clip that mostly showed Arthur wandering around with Patsy trailing behind him dutifully clapping coconut shells.

So when the movie found its way to the local art theater a few months later, we went to see it, along with our son.

Who was three years old at the time, which I mention because, as you may have ascertained if you have seen the film, there are parts which do not involve silly people clapping coconut shells together, and my wife, his mother, spent much of the movie with her hand in front of his eyes.

We expected a few nightmares about the Black Knight and the Knights Who Say Ni, but he seemed to have gotten through all that and so we were off-guard by the following Easter when we told him the Easter Bunny was coming and he completely lost it.

He got better.

But someone will have to hold their hands in front of his eyes when he reads the comics today.

 

Speaking of scary things

I love today's Arctic Circle because everybody seems far more frightened over ridiculous things that don't exist and far-fetched dangers that couldn't possibly occur than they are over the threats that most certainly are happening right now.

Tying this together with the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, I wrote a 24-page curriculum on risk assessment for kids a decade or so ago, after my assistant told her kids they were having beef for dinner and the eight year old freaked out because they were all going to die of mad cow disease. 

The curriculum went through the various threats that are more likely than that, like food poisoning, automobile accidents and sports injuries and discussed sensible ways to protect yourself from them.

I'm sure it didn't make a bit of difference. People like to be afraid of Bigfoot and to tremble at the prophecies of Nostradamus but feel that seat belts are too binding and besides the kids behave better on long trips when they can move around.

Just don't let them go to the bathroom in the mall, because someone will cut off their hair and spirit them away to a torture chamber.

In fact, don't take them to the mall at all. It's too dangerous.

Leave them home with Uncle Ernie. He loves kids.

As for all that nonsense about permafrost, it's crazy to think that anything we do all the way down here could affect things happening all the way up there. 

Besides, if it were true and we did want to stop it, we'd have to change the way we do things.

It's easier to worry about Bigfoot and poltergeists.

 

Dumbing-down the bar exams

Today's Knight Life coincides with a video someone posted on Facebook yesterday which tells how to make a Manhattan, if you are a fastidious dork. 

Seriously. He specifies that his hands are clean so that he can crack some ice to get better dilution. Then he tells which finger to use to get what effect as you stir and I'm much too sophisticated to joke about which finger I'd use if I ordered a Manhattan and the bartender put me through all that foolishness.

I'll give him this: Rye was the original base liquor, and, yes, the original recipe called for bitters, and, yes, the default glass is one of those silly, top-heavy things, though they weren't always as silly and top-heavy as they are now that barware is made like windshields instead of from crystal.

I'm also aware that, if you don't specify "on the rocks," the silly glass is your own fault, and that the presence or absence of bitters won't kill you, and that if you want a "perfect Manhattan" you need to say that just as surely as if you want a Rob Roy.

Or a "perfect Rob Roy," which I happen to think is gilding the lily, but chacun a son gout.

But garnishing it with a lemon twist instead of a cherry is a particularly foolish mistake to make, given the candy-ass drinks that dominate modern mixology, where, among other things, the term "mixology" is no longer used jokingly.

Yes, I'm also aware that I am very old. 

But, mostly, I'm aware of the difference between having cocktails and having a goddam drink, and that I tend to come down on the goddam drink side.

For instance, I first encountered "Black and Tans" when I was playing in an Irish band for Irish ex-pat audiences and it wasn't until several years after we broke up that I learned that Yuppies layer the things. I have yet to learn why.

But these things do seem to matter to people who have cocktails instead of drinks, and if they were all as witty as Nick and as devastatingly devastating as Nora, I'd be all in favor but they're not and I'm not and, in any case, 007 is both witty and deadly and an irrefutable arbiter of cool, and he knows that, if you want a vodka martini instead of a martini, either you should have to specify it or you should seek a more sophisticated drinking establishment. 

At this time, I'd like to call Hilary Price. Not as a witness. Just to see if she'd like to go have a goddam drink.

However, she does make a good witness, doesn't she? She drew this cartoon in 2012 and she's a whole lot younger than I am, so there.

 

 

Here's your moment of well-dressed people getting blotto:

 

 

Comments

[Hildigunnur]

hey do you follow Gemma Correll? I first saw stuff from her today and I love it!

[Mike Peterson]

Well, there's this themed piece ...
http://www.gocomics.com/four-eyes/2015/03/13

[Brian Fies]

A few years ago we set out to introduce our kids to "The Thin Man" series of six films. I'd never seen them either. Rented them each in order of release. The first one was witty, suspenseful and charming, exactly what you'd want. The next couple (in our opinions) suffered from rapidly diminishing returns, to the point that the plots made no sense and the damn dog got more screen time than Myrna Loy. Worse, they were boring. So we gave up. But the first one is really good!

Karen and I went to a memorial service for a Great Man of Letters who'd been a mentor of mine when I was young. One of his passions was "the perfect martini," so when all the speechifying was done everybody was served a glass full of his blend. I don't know enough about martinis to know if they were original recipe or newfangled, but they tasted like lighter fluid. I'm sure the groundskeeper is still wondering why nothing will grow in the spots where we all quietly poured them out. Solemnly, in his memory, I'm sure.

[Jym Dyer]

≈ Nora Loy, my secret love. I keep wandering around San Francisco looking for her impossibly large mansion with the doghouses.

Nick Charles is fastidious in his own way about cocktails, shaking a Manhattan to a fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, and a martini (dry) to waltz time, but I find I can live with that, except that I stir my martinis.

[vppeterson]

A perfect Rob Roy by a bartender in Denver was an exquisite experience I treasure.

[Bob]

Jim - Is Nora Loy related to Myrna?

Mike - "devastatingly devastating" - a perfect description.

[Mike Peterson]

BTW, two other places to find Myrna Loy are "The Libeled Lady," in which she teams not only with Powell but Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow, and "The Best Years of Our Lives," in which, among other elements of a bravura performance, you get to see how she handles a husband who is righteously and gloriously drunk.

“There ought to be a law against any man who doesn't want to marry Myrna Loy.” -- Jimmy Stewart

[Mike Peterson]

On drinks generally, I believed the folderol about waving the vermouth over the gin to make a martini, until I went ahead and used the original one vermouth to two gin formula. It's a better drink.

And, Mom, when I think about you and me and Rob Roys, I remember the bartender in Plattsburgh who made them with dry vermouth entirely. We started to send them back in horror but then discovered that, while certainly not a Rob Roy, it wasn't unpalatable, so we gave the kid a break.

[Jym Dyer]

@Bob - Nora Loy is my fantasy woman, not yet married to Mr. Charles. Her doghouses would go for $2000/month in today's San Francisco, but I'm hoping I could charm my way into better but cheaper accommodations.

[Mary in Ohio]

In re: Rhymes With Orange - I don't know much about martinis (except from watching "Topper") but hopefully the thawing of relations with Cuba will mean the demise of apple, peach, and grape flavored cigars.