Reprint Heaven: Unspeakable

Packaging The Crazy
 (From July, 2010)

Yes, Virginia; there are sandwiches in a can -- joining the noble canned ham, the Schlitz and Rolling Rock and Budweiser; the deviled ham, and even the little Sardine as items sealed with a shelf life for future generations to wonder at, and bring to Antiques Roadshow.

EXPERT: Well, what you've got here is, obviously, an item known as a 'Candwich', manufactured at the beginning of the century and is -- well, it's a sandwich, in a can. What can you tell me about it?

WOMAN: My father received this in exchange for some work he did during, you know -- 'The Unpleasantness' -- right before the aliens and all that. I don't remember it very well, but when the government came through during the mutant roundups, my father was taken away and we kept his belongings but never looked through them.

EXPERT: So you've had it all this time?

WOMAN: Yes. And we don't do anything with it except sniff it a little.

EXPERT: Okay. Well, this is really quite an item -- I was showing this to some of my Roadshow colleagues, and we were all quite excited. Most material manufactured prior to the alien incursion and the mutant wars either didn't survive, or was heavily contaminated and had to be destroyed. But this one stayed in your family's possession, and we have to presume you were in a Federal shelter? And it was scanned, of course.

WOMAN: Oh, yes.

EXPERT: So this one is quite safe to bring to the Roadshow. And in almost pristine condition -- a little oxidation there around the top, but that's normal; it doesn't affect the value, and we wouldn't recommend cleaning it. The colors are bright and clear; a few, small dents on the rear near the bottom -- but, again, for something this unusual, that's not an issue. We were shaking it carefully a little while ago, weren't we, and --

WOMAN: We could hear the sandwich inside!

EXPERT: Yes, we could! (Laughs) I wouldn't want to eat it, though. So, do you have any idea of its value? Have you ever had it appraised?

WOMAN: No, not really. My sister thought we should have it placed in one of the memorial ships that are fired into the Sun, but we never did.

EXPERT: Probably a good idea that you didn't. Now, I know of only three Candwich cans in existence -- and only one of them still has the sandwich inside! Another thing is that this appears to be the only Peanut-Butter-And-Strawberry Jelly Candwich anyone has ever seen.

WOMAN: My Beck! For fun, now; no; really?

EXPERT: Really really. Two of the three sandwiches in a can are in museums in Paris and Jerusalem, and the third was sold at auction just after the 25th of Cunegonda this breeding period -- for six point eight Trillion Quatloos!

WOMAN: Oh! Oh! Oh!

EXPERT: Yes; and I would estimate this, in a retail setting, if it were sold, to be worth at least that much, probably closer to nine or even ten Trillion. I would use that figure for insurance purposes, and it easily qualifies for Class Two security coverage as a cultural relic.

WOMAN: I'm just so thrilled. I had no idea.

EXPERT: Yes. Not every day you find out you could buy yourself whaling rights in the Sea Of Japan, eh? Well, we're just so happy you brought this to the Roadshow. We'll provide you with an armored car to take this back to your breeding compound.

WOMAN: Thank you; now I can buy my sister back. All praise to the Leader!

EXPERT: All praise to the Leader.

---

System Response

____________________________________________________________________________

Annual Reprint: Long, Strange Trip

(Originally posted September 11, 2010)

Nine-Eleven

On November 22, 1963, I was on the playground for 10:00AM recess at my elementary school when teachers called classes back inside prematurely. After a few minutes, the school's public address system was broadcasting the carrier for CBS' radio network, announcing the shooting of JFK in Dallas and, ultimately, the audio portion of Walter Cronkite on CBS television announcing the President's death.

Where were you when John F. Kennedy was shot? was a fixture in the cultural landscape for a large number of people (now referred to by the younger set as 'Bloodsucking Useless Boomers') for a long time, due to the magnitude of the event and because it was shared in real-time by the cutting-edge media of the early 1960's.

So, September 11th, 2001: Where were you on 9-11? I had gotten up to go to work around 5:30AM PDST, and as usual turned on KQED-FM's NPR news. After stepping out of the shower, I heard a report that a plane appeared to have crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York -- I've been in Manhattan and had seen how huge those buildings were. To me, "A plane" meant a Cessna, or similar light aircraft.

I remembered seeing a 1945 film newsreel about a B-25, flying through dense fog, directly into the Empire State Building. A similar incident at the WTC would be tragic, I thought; but it was an accident, for crying out loud, on the other side of the continent, distant. No one in their right mind would deliberately kill themselves, I sighed, and I shaved.

At some point the report was updated; I heard the words "jet airliner", which moved the entire event in my mind from 'Cessna-going-off-course' to the category of Did-You-Call-The-Coast-Guard-About-This?-It-Was-No-Boating-Accident.

Turning on CNN, I sat on the edge of an armchair, watching an image of the WTC towers from CNN's Manhattan headquarters, and other shots from a helicopter hovering over the Hudson. A few minutes after I sat down, I watched as the second airliner slammed into the second WTC tower.

Images Like This, and Worse, Were Broadcast And Published

In Europe, But Not In America (Photo: UK Guardian, 2001)

No joke: Aside from Holy Fuck, the only thing I recall thinking was, This is what standing at the curb in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, watching the Archduke Franz Ferdinand being shot, must have been like. I knew immediately that what I was seeing was another line in the sand being crossed, an event with consequences that would be immense. The dice were in motion in the Crapshoot that is our Universe, and what I was watching was the proof.

It also seemed unreal, a Hollywood special effect -- as if CNN would break for a commercial at any moment;  it would turn out to be this generation's War Of The Worlds broadcast.

I sat watching as the South and North towers collapsed (Wikipedia's timeline of the events puts that at 6:59 and 7:28 AM PDST, respectively), flipping back and forth between networks for coverage of the airliner plowing into a wing of the Pentagon. Finally I left to make my way to work on mass transit.

On a BART train, I was amazed at the languid attitudes of the crowd of commuters -- reading books and newspapers, a few tapping on laptops -- as if it were just another Tuesday morning. No one appeared stunned; there was no conversation about what had just occurred.

Finally, I turned to a woman sitting opposite me, reading a folded copy of the (pre-Little Rupert) Wall Street Journal, and asked if she was aware of what had happened that morning. "Yes," she replied, adding in a please-pass-the-salt voice, "There are supposed to be more of them [i.e., airliners] in the air to hit other targets."

Had anyone estimated how many? "No," the woman shrugged, and went back to her WSJ. I don't know what surprised me more, her matter-of-fact attitude, or her piece of news.

---

That was September 11th -- a red line on the American calendar in so many ways, the culmination of a large number of threads in our history, and the pacts and choices successive administrations have made since America decided to follow an Imperial course.

The attack on the Trade Center towers could have been another kind of defining moment for America. Our government and institutions could have taken it as an opportunity to press for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian tragedy; we could have opened a dialog with others, rather than dictate to them.

Lil' Boots, 2004 Republican Convention:

Feared And Bigger Than His Daddy, At Last

I'm not suggesting it coulda been a Kumbyah moment; I am saying that it was a crossroads moment, and that our choices mattered. But, the government was run by men who had no interest in anything except power (personal, partisan, and financial) and policies that meant the use of force in furthering that power. What else could we have expected from the likes of Lil' Boots, President Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld? From the PNAC crowd, Fat Karl Rove, Little Tommy DeLay, and Lard Boy?

(And remember, these geniuses had been discussing how to invade Iraq just days after Lil' Boots first inauguration. September 11th was simply an excuse.

And, they believed it would be simple, 'Roses All The Way', 'Greeted As Liberators' ... so no one planned for occupation, or fighting an insurgency for seven years; or for the effect on the U.S. military of multiple redeployments and 'stop-loss' denials of separation. They never conceived of failure; therefore, it wouldn't happen.)

So what followed from 9/11 shouldn't have been a surprise: An utterly unnecessary, even illegal invasion of Iraq, supported by intelligence about WMD's invented by right-wing operatives to create a causis beli, and pushed in the national media by sociopathic egos 'journalists' like Little Judy Miller, and pundits like David Brooks and William Kristol, and Little Tommy Friedman, to name but a few.

Palettes Of $100 Bills, Baghdad, 2003 (Photo: UK Guardian)

And let's not forget the $12 Billion in cash (at least; no one really knows), piles of U.S. currency shrink-wrapped and paletted and airlifted to Iraq. Some $9 Billion in cash cannot be accounted for. And all the cool new powers used by that dry-drunk, Frat-Boy younger son of an American ruling-class family; or all the power available to President Cheney.

There was plenty of money to put in C530's and airlift it: 363 Tons of it. There was plenty of money being made from the war, and tax breaks to the wealthy, which reduced tax income to the government; but there was no money  and Lil' Boots wanted to cut health care, cut social programs that continue the ideas of the New Deal, and privatize Social Security... because there's just no money to pay for it.

And there's Guantanamo, 'black airlines' flying suspected terrorists to secret CIA prisons, and the extra-legal, secret program of 'renditions'. Let's not forget Abu Ghirab. Let's not forget people like John Woo, whose written suggestions created what he still claims is a "legal" basis for torture as national policy.

Civilian Casualty Of Baghdad Suicide Car Bomb, 2007

And what followed wasn't just prisons and a lack of due process for terrorist suspects, but developing a matrix of information [Note: This was posted before Edward Snowden's revelations about the extent of surveillance performed by America domestic and foreign intelligence agencies] -- based on the unprecedented data-mining of domestic email and cellular and telephone traffic, of banking records and public record databases; the rise of a government/corporate State surveillance and intelligence apparatus that outstrips the wildest dreams of the Gestapo and the KGB.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Being Interrogated At

Undisclosed Location By CIA In Middle Of Blog Rant

And, very little seemed to be about defeating Al-Qaeda, capturing or killing Bin Laden and Al-Zwahiri -- otherwise, we would have finished the job in the mountains of Tora Bora in October of 2002, and Iraq would never have mattered. We would have kept Lil' Boots' promises to the Afghans about rebuilding their country, instead of ignoring it -- at least half the reason the Afghan Taliban were able to come roaring back, and are now as strong as they were in 2001, if not stronger.

The 'Go-Go', Lil' Boots Bush years were about a larger Rightist agenda; it was about deregulation, defense contractors, and higher profits; and it was about Fat Karl's dream of rigging elections for permanent Republican rule of the United States.

Victory, to these assclowns, had a very different meaning -- and little of it was military.

But let's not forget, too, how dissent or criticism of what would become that unnecessary war; of even more power given to people with poor impulse control, was looked upon in the immediate aftermath of September 11th.

• Andrew Sullivan (9/16/01) -- The middle part of the country--the great red zone that voted for Bush--is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead--and may well mount a fifth column.
• Robert Stacy McCain (9/27/01), columnist for the All Perfect Great Father Moon Washington Times -- Why are we sending aircraft carriers halfway around the world to look for enemies, when our nation's worst enemies--communists proclaiming an anti-American jihad--will be right there in front of the Washington Monument on Saturday?
• Robert Horowitz (9/28/01), Los Angeles Times -- The blood of hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese and tens of thousands of Americans is on the hands of the antiwar activists who prolonged [the Vietnam War] and gave victory to the communists... this country was too tolerant toward the treason of its enemies within.

Those who dissented, who believed the country was manifestly on a wrong track, were smeared as 'helping the enemy', a 'fifth column' for Islamic fundamentalism. "You are either with us, or with the terraists", as Lil' Boots so bravely told other governments of the world after the World Trade Center attack.

The chittering hatred all sounds like standard Tea Party rhetoric, now. From their point of view, to dissent and criticize is only permissible when you're attacking the Left -- and that socialist, illegitimate ruler in the White House; the dirty hippies; all those "in rebellion against god".

Our economy continues to implode, and it has never been clearer who is benefiting from the policies of the Right; but, then, it's been a long, strange trip from September 11th, 2001. Few things should surprise us any longer.

Another Lil' Boots quote:

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: In history's unmarked grave of discarded lies. (Applause)

-- George W. Bush, Address To Joint Session Of Congress

Is that appropriate as an epitaph for those who wish to do America harm?

Or, does it speak to how we have allowed ourselves to be lied to, and led; will it end up being our epitaph, a closing quote for the United States Of America?

There is no ‘populist’ version of a world where some few are born booted and spurred, and the many are born saddled, and ready to ride, and that's precisely the world which conservatism is trying to preserve.

Reprint Heaven: Miss The Lobster

And Fafnir And Giblets Too

Miss them all.

Medium Lobster! There is no Lobster but He - the Living, The Self-subsisting, the Eternal. No slumber can seize Him Nor Sleep. His are all things In the heavens and on earth and under the oceans. Who is there that can intercede In His presence except as He permitteth? He knoweth What (appeareth to All as) Before or After or Behind them.  Nor shall they compass Aught of His knowledge Except as He willeth. His throne doth extend Over the heavens and the earth, and He feeleth No fatigue in guarding and preserving them, For He is the Most High, The Supreme (in glory). He is Medium Lobster, the One and Only.

-- by Anonymous, at April 02, 2008 10:03 AM

I dreamed he was iridescent red an green an he had frickin' laser beams comin' outta his head. And he smelled like a fish tank.

-- by Laptop Battery, at August 08, 2011 4:12 AM 

 

You better get with the program.

 -- My Father, While Pointing At A Picture Of The Medium Lobster

 ________________________________________________________________________

Reprint Heaven: Banking Reform, Now With 50% More Jowls

Chairman Larry

It's being reported that Larry Summers is on President Obama's Very Short List of candidates to succeed Ben Bernanke as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve banking system.

Reasons in favor, presented by his supporters, are the 'intellectual energy and creativity' which Summers would bring to the role; an ability to "think outside the box".  Plus, Larry has personal connections made after after a life in finance and economics, and at the fringes of politics (Translation:  He's a Player, a BSD).

Other people, not so supportive of Larry, note that he's been at the center of minor scandals, faux pas and 'errors in judgement' during his career; describe his personal demeanor as arrogant and insulting; they remember Summers was a major figure in creating the financial crisis that led to the 2008 Crash.  They don't believe he should be considered as Bernanke's replacement.

But, Larry doesn't really care about any of that, and Obama may not, either.

Summers had been one of the  2008 Obama transition team's principal economic advisors -- Obama was going to shape a comprehensive economic stimulus package that Congress would accept... and which treated the Wall Street BSD's with proper respect.

Bringing Summers in to play fixer between his connections on Wall Street and in Congress to get the stimulus passed was a pragmatic move. When this post was written in April of 2010, Summers was being tapped by Obama to help draft reform of the U.S. banking and investment sector, for much the same reasons.

For more detail on Summers' role in the financial crisis, and why he should not be considered for employment at a Dairy Queen, let alone Fed Chairman, see the 2010 documentary, Inside Job.

________________________________________________________________________

Larry Summers, 2010 Gore Vidal-Look-alike Contest Runner-Up

Every time I see Larry Summers, he looks fatter. It's almost a parody of what being a BSD will get you, or a reverse 'Portrait Of Dorian Grey': Public evidence of a corrupt life worn in his face.

Summers has been over and under and up and down, as the Sinatra song says, but has generally been a King, not a Pawn. He's been one of Harvard's youngest tenured professors; was on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan from 1982-1983; and was hired as Chief Economist for the World Bank until 1993. 

It was in a 1991 interview that Larry said, 

"There are no... limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future. There isn't a risk of an apocalypse due to global warming or anything else. The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit, is a profound error and one that, were it ever to prove influential, would have staggering social costs."

It was at the World Bank that Larry later wrote a 1993 memo, later leaked to the press, in which he said, "the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that . . . I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted".

Larry claimed the remark was 'sarcasm' and was taken out of context (tough to imagine anyone outside the Koch Brothers, Rick Perry or Lard Boy making such a remark).  But with the World Bank memo, as in so many other reported events in his public life, I don't think Summers cared what anyone thought; Fuck 'em.  Summers has always generated more than a reasonable share of controversy, rooted in what appears an abrasive and arrogant personality. 

Larry served as Deputy Secretary, and later Secretary of the Treasury, during the Clinton administration's second term. Summers was successful in pushing for capital gains tax cuts. During the California energy crisis of 2000 (when the state was struggling to find enough electricity, while companies like SoCal Edison and PG&E claimed California's strict environmental laws around energy production hampered their ability to produce  power), then-Treasury Secretary Summers teamed with Alan Greenspan and Enron executive Kenneth Lay to lecture California Governor Gray Davis on the causes of the crisis. 

They agreed with the power companies, and saw the problem lay in excessive government regulation. Under the advice of Kenneth Lay, Summers urged Davis to reassure 'the markets' by relaxing California's environmental standards around energy production, specifically regarding coal or oil-fired power plants.  

Davis took the advice; California deregulated it's electricity markets.  This directly benefited large-scale power producers -- and directly benefited Lay's company, Enron, by removing any cap on the price of electricity, which is bought and sold in the U.S. like any other commodity.

Remember Enron? A company led, as Federal prosecutions and civil suits later documented, by leeches and criminals? Remember the recorded conversations  between Enron's energy traders, laughing -- because the deregulation Summers and Lay convinced Davis to back allowed Enron to buy California's own electricity, and sell it back to California -- at inflated prices? 

Summers supported the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services by repealing key provisions in the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. Summers also pushed heavily for deregulation of the derivatives contracts market.

All of that led directly to the current economic disaster we're experiencing, by the way. Without a firewall to keep banks out of other financial businesses, and investment houses out of the banking business; without regulation of that fundamental change, and without regulation of the derivatives market ...  you end up with a Finance and Investment center that can do almost whatever it wants, followed by a Crash that damages hundreds of millions of lives.

But, they're just Little People, after all; no one Larry has to answer to, so he doesn't have to give it a moment's thought.  But in my opinion, his responsibility in all that happened and for the consequent damage done to the lives of others seems documented and clear.

The Nation's Financial Future Bores Larry: Nothing In It For Him

After "Lil' Boots" Bush was appointed Leader, Larry became President of Harvard -- until forced to resign in 2006, after a series of issues and grievances exploded into a no-confidence vote from a majority of the Harvard faculty.

It seems Summers had made dismissive comments about the value of women in the faculty, had tried to fire an African-American professor for spending time working on a particular Democrat's presidential candidacy (which Summers didn't support); and, Summers showed favoritism to a visiting instructor because, at least in my opinion, there was an economic benefit for him to do so.

In short, he continued to behave as he had earlier in life; no surprise there. Finally, Larry had to resign.

Now, Larry is the principal member of the Obama Administration's Economic Advisory Council. President Obama is expecting him to work on... reforming the investment and banking industry.

Right.

Summers has recently come under fire for accepting perks from Citigroup, including free rides on its corporate jet in 2008. After the economic stimulus legislation was passed in early 2009, Larry called Senator Chris Dodd and asked him to remove caps on executive pay at firms that received stimulus money, including Citigroup.

Later that year, it was disclosed that Summers has been paid approximately $7.7 million in fees from various Wall Street companies which received government bailout money -- and which, arguably, are affected by government policy he helps to shape as a public servant -- sort of a classic Conflict Of Interest.

What a guy. Thanks for everything, Larry; millions of people are barely treading water -- but you got yours, huh? So I guess it's okay. The interesting thing is, you're two years younger than I am, and man; I look in way better shape.

Hee hee hee hee hee hee. But, then, I'm a Dog, and this means I'm only eight years old in a human timeframe. However, Larry can't bark very well, and possibly spends less time licking potentially embarrasing areas of his body in public.

Mongo In The Early Years

___________________________________________________________________________

(There's also this observation about Summers, from October, 2011, during the #Occupy events -- seems like so long ago, now, doesn't it?)

At Media Matters, Ari Rabin-Havt recently posted an article entitled , "We Need A New System", which began with recounting a friend's arrival in Washington, D.C. in 2000 -- eleven years ago, at the height of protests in front of a scheduled meeting of the World Bank.

From the back seat of a taxi, Rabin-Havt's friend saw one of the protestors, a woman, wearing a T-Shirt with the slogan We Need A New System! -- and the friend just happened to attend a dinner party that night, with " 'ambassadors, politicians, esteemed professors and what seemed like the entire combined senior economist staff of the IMF, World Bank and Treasury' ", including Larry Summers.

The friend recounted seeing the woman protesting the World Bank meeting; it turned out Summers had seen her, too -- he'd even spoken with her.

And so I asked the girl [Summers recounted to the other guests]: 'What is this new system that you want? Tell me about it!' And the girl had nothing. Nothing! She had no fucking clue what this magical new system was supposed to be. No one is saying that there aren't problems with the world economy the way it is today. But these kids out there -- they don't know what they want!

Rabin-Havt's friend then said to Summers [emphasis added],

"You've got 50 economics PhDs in this room who pretty much run the world economy. And you're asking that girl for a better system? Aren't the solutions your job? You admit billions are living in hell, but it's up to that girl to fix it?"

Summers chuckled and walked away.

---

On Radar

I've been one extremely sick Dog for the past several months (serious, but fortunately not that kind of serious serious).  After being pulled through the medical bureaucracy, and one procedure later I'm convalescing, sleeping like Great-Uncle Yehudi, and expect to be better in a few weeks.

To the friends who helped with practical assistance, I can't say enough. For those who offered other kinds of support, there's no such thing as too many good thoughts for those who need them.  And, it takes a particular kind of person to willingly step up to provide physical and medical care for those who need it.  Thanks to all of you.

And, the world keeps moving forward.

__________________________________________________________________________

Reprint Heaven: Notes From The Wasteland

(From August, 2009. BTW -- I still work in a cubicle farm, penned like a Veal.)

Cartoon about Corporate Life By Hugh McLeod

(Note "Being Poor Sucks", in the upper-right corner)

(Image: via The Big Picture)

There are segments of the cartoon and art markets which relate to the corporate experience as a drone, and as an 'executive'.

The Drone Zone is defined by Dilbert, and any comics or Daily Calendars like it. Ironically, Scott Adams (who carefully describes himself as a 'Humorist') once cheerfully admitted he did the strip -- not as an artist or to stretch the medium (as Bill Watterson did, with Calvin & Hobbes) -- but because he saw it as a product he could market. For him, the business of Dilbert was its raison d'etre, and it's popularity could become a brand.

Yeah. Ironic. Eeeeww.

Drone Zone material is "cubicle art", a way of expressing frrustration with the bureaucracy, the Doublespeak and tribal politics and lies which corporate America cultivates -- and as a Drone in A Very Big American Corporation, I too live and labor in a cubicle, like a Veal. But -- while I see 'cubicle art' all around me, I don't have a single piece of it posted that I didn't draw myself. I can't stand it.

Okay. I have one exception. But putting up cartoons which lampoon Your Life As A Slave... It's like those posters from the go-go Reagan 80's, with kittens dangling from the bottom end of a rope, and the legend Hang In There! Or, the image of a little guy in a straitjacket, with the caption You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Work Here, But It Sure Helps!. If I was required to put anything like them in my workspace, thirty seconds later I would be tearing my own face off with a fork.

There Are, Of Course, The Anti-Cubicle Art Posters,

Which Hang In Our Cubicles To Show What Rebels We Are.

On the other hand, 'Executive' art is all about struggle and building consensus and the competition with your peers for... something. It's just the thing to decorate a private office, or to be used in a corporate 'gifting' program. They include such things as sculptures of men or women in suits, climbing ladders, going Sisyphus-like up a steep grade, pushing a heavy burden; or having a tug-of-war. Then, there are Executive cartoons -- with the same sort of humor as Cubicle Art, just a bit more tastefully expressed. Because the Bosses deal with the same Bullshit -- and feel, unbelievably, like they're Workin' For Da Man too.

Hugh McLeod is one of those people whose cartooning -- not quite a kid's work; not quite Jules Feiffer -- could stand as Cubicle or Executive art, and I offer it without comment as a sign of our times, and of how much Corporate Commerce is part of the fabric of the culture -- everywhere.

His site is here.

UPDATE: Let's Do The Cultural Taste Test
(All Images: © Bill Watterson / Universal Press Syndicate)

"There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do."

--Bill Watterson

Bill Watterson's prolific and colorful imagination made Calvin and Hobbes an instant classic in the history of Comic strip art. It seemed to appear out of nowhere -- as if Winsor McKay had been reincarnated, and given the opportunity to tell a story: About a tow-haired little Kid (shades of Dennis The Menace and Bart Simpson) and his friend, a Tiger only he could see.

Watterson's story wasn't about the irony of the workplace

-- it was about imagination, and the real reasons we get

up and put on our slave badges every morning.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Watterson was more concerned with the quality and content of his work than in making a buck. When his distributors, Universal Press Syndicate ('The Business That Doonesbury Made') pressured him to do a full-court merchandizing press to, uh, "capitalize" on C & H's almost overnight popularity, Watterson said no.

And, while Watterson understood that space in a newspaper meant money, he had always argued that they should give more of it to comics -- that they were an art form worth the investment. In his view, Editors say they don't have room for strips with detail and design; that the strips they receive are simply drawn and don't need space. But they're drawn that way because strips aren't given the space to be anything else!

Universal's pressure on Watterson was constant, and intense enough that he took two 'sabbatical' breaks from the strip of eight months each in 1991 and 1994 (which may have amounted to sit-down strikes). Universal marketed previously-published, older daily strips to its clients as filler, yet continued to charge newspaper editors full price as though they were new content.

The editors weren't happy -- but C and H was so popular, they had little choice and accepted Universal's explanation that the break was temporary, and Watterson had stopped for "health reasons" (Business. What a world).

They also forced newspapers to run the Sunday Calvin and Hobbes strips in a format that would take up an "unbreakable" half of a page -- forcing editors to design their traditional color Sunday funnies around Watterson's work. Watterson had been sold on the move by Universal -- but editors only saw him as a prima donna, unwilling to compromise his 'art' for the realities of publishing.

Eventually, Watterson was forced to compromise -- and one wonders if Universal didn't set him up for failure, so that a 'difficult content creator' would finally 'see reason' over the lucrative merchandizing of his characters. There's no way to know, but Watterson announced not long after that C and H would be coming to an end.

Current strips in the remaining print newspapers compete for space, and generally (with few exceptions) are poorly drawn, with predictable uses of humor. There is -- literally -- no room for the Far Sides, the Bloom Countys, or Little Nemo In Slumberland; no room for unpredictability and imagination. And Watterson understood that in comic strips, like the rest of human affairs, without respect for Imagination and its power, our lives are drab, spiritless... a little like a Corporate Cartoon.

In a classic strip, Calvin is given Ritalin to control his active

imagination -- without which, Hobbes is only a stuffed toy.

Even with Watterson's two 'sabbatical' breaks, Calvin and Hobbes appeared in newspapers for ten years -- November, 1985, through December, 1995. Given the Long Goodbye of newspapers since then, C and H was probably the last American Comic Strip in the classic tradition to appear in that medium, and I miss it.

You Know How To Whistle, Don't Ya?

Gotta Share

( © Mr Fish, 2013)

____________________________________________________________________

Reprint Heaven: Just Because, That's Why

(From 2010)

14th Dalai Lama (Photo: Reuters / UK Telegraph, 2009)

I once had the opportunity to see and hear the 14th Dalai Lama at Davies Symphony Hall in the Summer of 2003 at a talk he gave to support the restoration and understanding of sacred Buddhist architecture.

The woman I was dating at the time had hired a Tibetan woman to provide child care while the mom worked as a Therapist -- the husband of the Tibetan woman had been a Buddhist monk in Nepal, and had worked directly with the Lama, and was able to wrangle seats for us at his appearance.

The Lama spoke primarily in Tibetan, using an interpreter, but when the mood struck him would break into English. In one of those moments, discussing the reactions of humans to life in These Times, the Lama said (I paraphrase from memory):

Modern life -- everywhere, people moving, running; always running. And everything is so fast. Always fast, fast fast. And so we experience this, every day; and finally it becomes so much that you just have to say -- 'Fuck it!'

There was a moment of utter silence. You could have heard angels farting. And suddenly the entire audience, over 2,700 people (myself included), erupted in applause. It was incredible.

People were cheering, not just because one of the great spiritual leaders of this or any other century 'said a bad word', but because for an instant, by juxtaposing the idea of The Holy Man with A Profane Exclamation, the Lama brought his listeners to a state of attention (Hey! Dude! The Lama just said 'fuck', man!).

A true Human Being. I'm glad I was there.

_____________________________________________________________________

More Than Meets The Eye

Jean Giraud / Moebius (1938 - 2012)

Le Bal (Limited Edition Serigraph print, 2002)

Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (known by his nom de plume, Moebius) passed away one year ago today in Paris.  He was one of the last Franco-Belgian illustrators of the bandes dessinées tradition -- literally, "drawn strips" -- whose most famous member was Belgian artist Hérge, the creator of 'TinTin'.

Giraud began his career in the 1950's, where he created, together with writer Jean-Michele Charlier, a daily strip and eventually full-fledged comics about Lieutenant Blueberry, a U.S. cavalry officer; Alan Delon meets the Old West.  Occasionally, he would illustrate  other Western tales Charlier developed outside the Blueberry story line -- which Giraud would sign "Gir".

 Original first page of "Missip[p]i River", 1967; 

Giraud's artistic style echoed pen and brushwork of American and

British comics in the mid-1960's (Click on image to enlarge. Easy! Fun!)

In America, the artistic style of mainstream comic illustration was bounded by DC Comics (Superman, Batman, Justice League) or the more recent Marvel Superheroes, and alternative-but-still-mainstream publications like MAD Magazine  -- specifically the pen-and-ink artist Mort Drucker.  Comics in the UK likewise had developed a distinctive style that borrowed from DC or Marvel, but also rooted in British-only comics like Bingo.

Comparison of styles between American Mort Drucker (left)

and Giraud's work in the mid-1980's on Blueberry (right).

Drucker used a nib pen, and was more inclined to caricature;

Giraud was a realist who favored brushes and Rapidograph technical pens.

In the Counterculture of the middle Sixties to the mid-70's, America's 'Underground' comics developed their own artistic styles far removed from those of DC or Marvel. They were a Fuck You delivered to America's Puritan cultural traditions around sexuality and materialism, first, and only secondarily an attempt to push the boundaries of illustration. It would take the development of graphic novels, and the work of American artists like Chris Ware, Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, the Brothers Hernandez and Art Spiegelman to change that.

Meanwhile, in Europe, artists like Giraud saw their medium as dominated by America's "Superhero" format, and hidebound with traditions established before the First World War.  More than in America's underground comics, European illustrators were producing images influenced by the 'psychedelic revolution' -- expanding personal consciousness to touch the Universal; having experiences which provided glimpses of 'other', alternate realities.

 Jimmy Hendrix's Psychedelic Lunch (Virtual Meltdown, 1976)

The most accessible, commercial version of these visions was exemplified by Peter Max -- his colorful deconstructions of reality were simple, beautiful; but not too complex or ambiguous for the viewer.  It didn't really challenge their preconceptions of reality, just enhanced them in a non-threatening, cartoon manner -- as in Yellow Submarine.

In 1974, Giraud joined two other French artists -- Phillipe Drullet and Jean-Pierre Dionnet -- and a businessman, Bernard Farkas, forming Les Humanoïdes Associés (The United Humanoids), to publish a quarterly magazine of cutting-edge 'adult' illustration, Metal Hurlant (literally, "Screaming Metal").

Metal Hurlant, Issue No. 1, December 1974 (Wikipedia Commons). 

The first issue was released in December, 1974, and included work not just by Giraud and Drullet but included work by American Richard Corben. Later issues would feature another American cartoonist, Vaughn Bodé (creator of Cheech Wizard, and Junkwaffel), along with Brazilian Sergio Macedo, Swiss artist Daniel Ceppi, and the Dutch illustrator Joost Swarte,whose work carries on the traditions of the bandes dessinées and 20th-century Dutch design (Swarte's work appears heavily influenced by Herge's TinTin). 

Not in Mort Drucker's style: Before the first Star Wars,

Giraud was creating pen-and-ink aliens in France's Metal Hurlant.

This 1975 illustration, 'The Usual Suspects', shows some Moebius standards -- 

Arzach [center, back row], Major Grubert [second row left, in spiked helmet],

and Malvina [second row, far right, with rifle] of The Airtight Garage;

and Giraud [front row, right], with glasses (Click on image -- yes; for the Fun).

Metal Hurlant published stories with science fiction or fantasy themes -- the most natural channels for this new imagery.  But Giraud's work was so singular and unique that it took the reader / viewer into places where space, time, and scenery twined around each other: Part Oz, part Yaqui Way Of Knowledge, and part comic strip.

Giraud's major illustrated works include Arzach, the adventures of a humanoid with a tall hat, who rides the back of a creature like a prehistoric Pertodactyl through landscapes that resemble Bryce Canyon, or the mountains of Morocco. Like the rest of Giraud / Moebius' creations, there is spare dialog but no sound effects; Arzach's world is starkly beautiful, populated by strange beings and amazing beasts, but often silent.

First episode of Arzach; Metal Hurlant, 1975-76

(Click On Image to Bigger Buh Buh Buh Bleep.)

In the episodic "Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius", Giraud presents a world existing in different dimensions, like interlocking computer simulations, each of which can be accessed if you know the secret passages. Each lower level is unaware they are part of that chain, yet still affecting (and affected by) the others. 

 Major Grubert, guest of the Wascally Wabbits and their Big Crystal Skull.

(Clickety Click Click Click.)

Major Grubert, an agent for the first level, is trying to thwart a plot to unify all levels. A resident of a lower level, Jerry Cornelius, appears to be central to the plan; Grubert keeps looking for but never quite catches him, all the while threatened by conspiratorial forces, wacky rabbits, and The Bakelite.

Grubert survives an assassination attempt while meeting an agent

in a crowded 2nd level bar (The Airtight Garage, 1975)

The Incal was an episodic story written by Alejandro Jodorowsky, with a group of adventurers moving through an Oz-like universe, batted about over the fate of the Light Incal and Dark Incal, crystals of enormous power.

 The Incal, volume 4

(Clicky-Clicky)

(Note:  Moebius and Jodorowsky sued Luc Besson, director of The Fifth Element, claiming that the film used aspects of The Incal in the script without permission; they lost the suit.)

Giraud's last major works were Inside Moebius (titled in English for the French original), and 40 Days dans le desert B (Forty days in desert B).  Inside was several volumes of autobiographical writing and illustration.

Moebius' perception of Disney's effect upon culture:

The Wrath Of The Mouse (Click To See Larger Horrible Mouse)

"Forty Days" depicted a number of Giraud's themes about the effect of our consciousness on the world around us. The meditating traveler in 40 Days certainly does that.

I began looking at Giraud / Moebius' work in 1975, when the company which published 'National Lampoon' began reprinting Metal Hurlant in the United States, with English translations, as Heavy Metal. I was stunned at how good, how imaginative it was -- incredible, rich, detailed and sure; there wasn't a sense of hesitation in a single line.

The worlds he created were complete -- from its architecture and equipment, to strange little creatures or background flora, down to the rubbish in the street. It was like looking at sketches, made while on vacation in another dimension, which Giraud had brought back to show us.  And it wasn't a terrible or totally unfamiliar, nightmarish place. Even the incredible events he depicted seemed completely comprehensible, given where we were. They were places that vibrated with a sense of adventure and amazement.

And the best art does that -- surprise and amaze; show us something we only dimly and incompletely saw, like furniture in a dark room. That kind of art literally brings some new thing into the open, and changes how we perceive the world, and what's possible in it.  Moebius' work did all of that.

_____________________________________________________________________