We all knew this cartoon was coming, and Ed Hall is first out of the gate.
Guys who work by inspiration rather than by deadline, and who post their own cartoons rather than turning them over to some IT person, will always have an advantage in speed and responsiveness, and it's particularly important when you're drawing a good idea but one that others will surely think of.
I'm not wasting a lot of tears on Ringling Brothers, though I used to take my kids to the circus, nor do I blame animal rights activists entirely -- or even a whole lot -- for its demise.
A lot of animals enjoy having a job and I'm sure many of the animals in the circus were content with the performance part while others were not, though the "being jerked around from one city to another" may well have been a burden for all.
But what killed the circus was television.
"Going to see the elephant" was 19th century slang for getting out of your home town and seeing something of the world, and you run across the phrase regularly in the memoirs of Civil War veterans who enlisted as much for the opportunity to experience new things as for any hi-faluting ideas about abolition or preserving the union or standing up for the right to own human beings.
The expression comes from the fact that, in those days, a good juggler or trapeze artist, or an elephant or lion trainer, was a wonder not to be missed.
Those days are over and you can see those things -- closer and from a better angle -- any night on your TV.
However, Hall is right in that the new circus will indeed continue to astonish and amaze for years to come.
Four, if we're lucky. Otherwise, eight.
The Whole World Is Watching
It's kind of embarrassing to be starring in the Greatest Horror Show on Earth, but I'm afraid we are, as this cartoon by Australian David Pope, and the column he links to by another Aussie, suggest.
It must be nice to be one of those little countries that can do all sorts of asinine things and nobody notices.
We sort of gave up the privilege when we abandoned isolationism and having elected a president who embodies the old maxim "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt" is not helping our international reputation.
Maybe you have to have been around a little to get a clear view of things. Arctic Circle is syndicated in this country but drawn by Alex Hallatt, who has certainly been to see the elephant, having been born in the UK and then lived here, in New Zealand and in Australia.
Though it's not entirely necessary: John Hambrock is a good ol' American fella, and he's been having grim fun with Edison Lee and a through-the-looking-glass fantasy arc that began back here, and happens to hit a circus-y theme today.
And now, the sports:
Timing is everything in comedy, and today's F Minus hits at a propitious moment, since I just met a guy who is 7'2" at the grocery store a few days ago.
I know he's 7'2" because someone had stopped him and asked him how tall he was. I've never heard anyone stop a woman with unusually large breasts and ask her for her bra size, but there are different rules for height, though open-mouth staring seems to cover either situation.
I'm particularly aware of this because I have a son who is 6'4" and who has been asked his height several times.
Though, even if he has better manners because of it, it hasn't killed his sense of wonder. He was rehabbing a smashed ankle in San Diego and found himself working out with Bill Walton, who is only seven inches taller but tall enough that it filled him with wonder.
"Now I know why people always feel they have to comment on it," he admitted. "I could have put on one of his shoes without taking mine off!"
It wasn't his first experience with height, mind you.
When he was two years old, I took him to his first basketball game, which featured a college buddy who, though 6'7" himself, chuckled about his teammate, Artis Gilmore, who was not only 7'2" but had an enormous afro and, it being 1974, wore thick-soled clogs, which likely added up to at least eight feet in total.
Not that I'd ask.
Anyway, as we waited for my friend outside the lockerroom, Gilmore came out first with one of those knit hats that were worn over afros and which, spotting my son -- who was at the time a little under three feet tall -- he playfully dropped over him.
It went down below his knees.
At which point you're likely wondering what any of this has to do with today's F Minus, but, besides inquiries about their height, there's another question tall people get asked, and to which, once he was in that range, my son came up with a pretty good reply:
"Do you play basketball?"
"No. Do you play miniature golf?"
Elsewhere in Sports
Tank McNamara is gearing up for Sports Jerk of the Year, and, like a lot in sports and elsewhere, performances that would have landed you in the record books a few decades ago won't even merit a short mention on the sports page these days.
More sports
Off the Mark offers a theory that has occurred to me.
My dog not only twitches in his sleep but erfs and it has made me wonder which end of the experience he's fantasizing.
One of his best friends is a greyhound and they do run together from time to time, though she -- how shall I say it? -- dogs it a bit in order to let him stay in the hunt.
In her honor, and his ...
Here's your moment of sporting zen
(Though that bit at the end is all flute and fiddle, it gets a head-tilt from my boy.)
"Do you play basketball?"
"No. Do you play miniature golf?"
Love that answer. I get that question, along with
"How's the weather up there?"
My dad's response was always,
"There's a phone in my ass, give me a call."
Posted by: Bud Simpson | 01/16/2017 at 10:47 AM
Cat Downyflake had a nightmare once, at about age 9 or 10 months. The cry of terror he gave in his sleep was gut-wrenching, nothing smile-worthy even at a decade+ distance. Whatever that was in his dream, he was on the bad side of it.
Posted by: Nickelshrink | 01/16/2017 at 01:20 PM
Thanks, Mike
I'm a huge fan of David Pope's work, so nice to see it pop up here.
All the best for 2017, fingers crossed....
Alex (currently living in the Basque Country in Spain)
Posted by: Alex Hallatt | 01/17/2017 at 02:38 AM
James McMurtry sums it all up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcuyzd4G9PE
Posted by: parnellnelson | 01/17/2017 at 01:57 PM