Knowledge of the Ages

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We skip all the way to 1993 today, while sticking with the “young Gene” theme. Already he is maturing. He is old enough to ponder the sweet mysteries of life with his friends and to be a wildcat of a wrestling opponent for his old man. And he has yet another haircut. I was never fond of this haircut. For some reason, more than the others, it made his head look like some kind of elongated gourd.

75 thoughts on “Knowledge of the Ages”

  2. We said goodbye to black rectangles and hello to voice activated devices. Life now is like talking to cats or children, no certainty they are listening, nor how they may respond.

  3. What a great analogy Sand! Like!

    In cooking eggplant burst tomato pasta sauce. Grew the eggplants and cherry tomatoes. Better be good. It has onion, garlic, olive oil, white wine. You add fresh parsley, basil and parmesan cheese at the end.

    I cook a lot like Arlo, a growing sauce. Ghost gets to adjust seasonings.

  4. Re 10-22-20 real-time cartoon: Yeah, I just wasted 3 minutes of my life searching for the black iPhone that was laying on my black portfolio in a dimly lighted room.

    • Ron, this is a truly beautiful article. It’s just so rich and well-thought-out, attributes that are increasingly rare in today’s “2 minute rea” world. Thank you so much for sharing it!

    • TruckerRon: Now you watch: this is going to post two or three times. 🙂 BUT I still want to thank you for posting that link to the article about Fred Rogers and the letters he wrote. It was extremely well-written and rich, and that’s increasingly rare in our “1-minute read” world. An insightful and sometimes moving read.

  8. Gene looking like “an elongated gourd”–that’s the Harry Haenigsen look! He drew, among other things, a popular strip called “Penny.” Messrs. Haenigsen and Johnson are the only two I know who have employed that consistently–though with Jimmy here it has really faded quite a lot. Haenigsen by no means always used it, either; but he used it quite a lot. With little Gene here, it looks like it is to fit in both shadow behind the ears and fluff at the back.

  9. Arlo and Janis was and is always about the relationships. I didn’t care how they were drawn, but boy did they ever hit home. Like yesterday’s black rectangles. We took to putting stickers on the otterboxes so that we knew who’s phone was which. And who could ever forget the phone ringing one. Arlo and Janis are not sure if it’s the TV, the microwave, the dishwasher and end the strip with “Hi we’re Arlo and Janis and we’re too dumb to come to the phone right now”!

  10. I’m with you, Steve. Relationship is the sweet spot for Arlo & Janis: relationships to each other first and foremost, and then to coworkers (well, in the past), people at parties (where Arlo almost always seems to get into heated exchanges about politics), and even with their house, furniture, and plants. And I always, always feel like “yep, that’s exactly how that goes!” And I am also loving that we’re getting so many “oldies” in a row right now! Thanks, Mr. Johnson!! 🙂

  11. In today’s cartoon, I am surprised no one at all picked up on Arlo’s statement as being a take off of the title of a Jack London novel, “The Call of the Wild” which came out in 1903. Most seemed to see a reference to Julia Child instead, but I never heard of her name used thus.
    .
    New refrigerator arrived about 8:45 this morning. The old one had a faulty thermostat, so we were told, with no new ones/parts available any longer. Of course, once we paid for a new fridge, the old one merrily cooled away, making REALLY solid ice cubes at between -5F and -12F. The regular cooling went well, too. But, “alea iacta est”, as is said, and we went through with the purchase.
    .
    Agreed, the shape of Gene’s noggin in these early examples leaves something to be desired. In the same tone, some cartoonists will, in a face-on view or a from-the-back view, show the hair atop a head with a broad V-shape. That is, with a low place at the top of the skull and hair piled up higher on both sides. I find that unrealistic hair shape exceptionally ugly and quit reading one strip because of its prevalence therein. Thankfully, JJ has done this only rarely.

  12. Cooking red beans and rice. Cajun cool weather food. I love it. In 1967 we moved from Lafayette to New Orleans i learned to make red beans from our porter at Hibernia Bank on St. Charles Avenue. He must have been at least 80!

    We’d give him money and he’d get his ingredients on his banking trips, cook all morning for lunch

  13. COVID has demolished another cherished tradition in my county. From my orchestra’s president:
    .
    “I am sad to inform you that our Christmas Concert has been canceled by Salem City due to increased COVID restrictions. So enjoy your holidays and hopefully we can start again in January.”
    .
    Normally that occurs as part of the Salem Pond Lighting Ceremony each year on Black Friday. Various singing and dancing groups normally perform while the crowd sips hot chocolate and eats donuts provided by the city. Santa arrives on a city fire truck to turn on the lights, then everyone comes up to the Civic Center for our little concert.

  15. My wife & I follow the strip. We are of a certain age where there is a certain life experiences that flow in the same direction as well as everybody else. Arlo whipping out the pot for stew , braising, roast or whatever & giving up(not really) on the charcoal grill for season my direction. Chicken braised in wine & viniger

  17. Curmudgeonly ex-professor the “Call of the Child” is just that, a blending of “Call of the Wild” novel title and Julia Child the cooking guru.

    See Arlo’s hypnotized glazed eyes being pulled to the kitchen? I thought it clever of Jimmy and easily understood. But it would require BOTH pieces of knowledge.

    Maybe more than the Dark Side has?

  18. What do you cook for cool/cold weather? I love beans, soups, stews, gumbos, pot pies.

    Ghost keeps saying cook things with five ingredients in a crock pot. He does most of kitchen cleaning although I clean as I cook.

    My late MIL simply left everything exactly where it ended up while cooking. Her dirty kitchen looked like a riot had just occurred with empty cans, vegetable peelings, spoons, pots, measuring cups, bowls strewn over every surface.

    • I went to the India Palace here in Tulsa for the lunch buffet yesterday. Great stuff for cold weather. Sort of a vegetable stew with curry, spinach with a sort of farmer’s cheese cooked in, baked chicken with a tomato-butter sauce. Very tasty and not too spicy.

  21. Yesterday, I was looking at Lodge cast iron cookware on Instagram (like I need more of it) and ran across some IG pages featuring cooking in same. Specifically making sage browned butter, and using it on roasted sweet potatoes, which I’ve never had. Also, it’s been a while since I made browned butter, which is a Maillard reaction (a cooking process which I recall Jimmy discussed here some years ago).
    Yes, there does seem to something about fall (possibly the onset of cooler weather) that activates the cooking gene in those of us that have one.

  23. A somewhat zaftig young lady came into the boutique earlier, asking after fishnet stockings. We (sadly) do not carry them, but that did remind me of an A&J cartoon from years ago. Actually, a lot of things in real life seem to remind me of A&J cartoons. Imagine that. 🙂

  24. OK, I’m takin’ it personal this time, Mr. Software! ::rolling up my sleeves:: No doubt you’ll now post something like 14 replies out the two I’ve actually tried to send so far, both of which you are sitting on and acting all innocent about. But I’m still going to have my say. So: YO, TruckerRon! LOVE that piece in the link you posted about Fred Rogers. Thank you for sharing it! Rather than say more, I will sit here and glare with my best ex-professor giving a test scowl at the “post comment” button as I hit it . . . and try again.

  26. Every October, Wikipedia has a contest for the best picture of a national monument or historic building. I’ve meant to enter for several years, but finally did. There are a number of appropriate buildings in and around Trinidad, and the one I selected was the Carnegie Public Library. Instead of taking a picture of the front of the building from across the street, either straight on or at an angle, I decided to go outside the box: there’s a statue in front of the building of a girl reading a book to her dog, so I made that the focus of the shot, using the library itself the background. If you’re interested, you can see my submission at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carnegie_Library_and_Statue.jpg.

    • Very nice indeed, Sideburns. I’ve happily visited Carnegie libraries all around the country (most of them now re-purposed, and many, unfortunately, torn down.)

    • Oops. I just left a comment about Carnegie libraries and forgot. I just had to get a new computer and don’t have my name on it tonight. I am reading the Village to soothe my mind a little over the fact that I spent the afternoon with GeekSquad trying to get one small piece of this set up, thought it was, it’s not, and I think they may have lost a TON of my data including pictures in the transfer. I am not happy tonight.

    • Good work, sir. I’m impressed. For what that’s worth coming from someone who just can make snap-shot quality photos. 🙂
      Taking a photography class is still on my bucket list. What I really wish is that I could make great point-and-shoot photos, like Jackie. She credits her college newspaper background for that.

  27. Sadly my beans were AWFUL! Ghost and I figured out but still sad. Because of COVID-19 there are shortages of shelf stable products, beans being one.

    Ghost had been unable to find Cajun red beans (red kidney beans) and finally found some for me. I noticed they were smaller and a darker red when I soaked them and they didn’t swell much when soaked. I cooked at simmer for over eight hours and they never lost shape nor thickened.

    Plus my kielbasa, which was a national brand, tasted like slices of hot dogs.

    Groceries are scrambling and still taking what they can get to fill shelves. They say there is shortage of canned corn and pumpkin for Thanksgiving.

  28. Computers…can’t live with them, can’t chop them up into small pieces and bury them in the backyard. As personally satisfying as that might be at times.
    Yes, food quality has definitely suffered this year, for whatever reasons.

  29. Very nice Sideburns.
    Ghost – about 50 YA I took a Photography course. Two things I took from it.
    .
    One — check the background and don’t have a power pole coming out of your subjects head.
    .
    Two — the most important — to get a reputation of getting good pix, sit in your car when you pick
    up your photos from the developer and throw away all the bad or marginal ones.
    Of course now it is just hit the delete button. 🙂

    • One of the reasons the pros get such great pictures is that they take a large number of shots and only keep the best. I took four shots, one portrait and three landscape and submitted the best. However, the portrait shot is now the wallpaper for my phone’s Home Screen.

  30. My post did not appear – so this may sound odd.
    Driving home from one Photo class I heard on the radio (when local radio stations announced
    births and deaths) that Mr & Mrs Oldbear just had a son. (He was a Resident DR at Mayo Clinic exact same name)
    Had to ask Mrs what se was not telling me. 😀 🙂

  34. Most cartoonist today just don’t draw animation because it is hard to draw. I question they are cartoonist if they cannot draw. Cartoon has always described art not dialogue.

    Time to get up, return from church or go back to bed (in my case) for a nap. Good afternoon!

  35. Comment heard during a scripture lesson:
     
    Our ancestors faced thistles, briars, and noxious weeds as they strove to provide for their families. Today we struggle with computers, cars, and plumbing.

  36. Hello, Zeta. You almost were a Halloween Hurricane, weren’t you?
    And many of you probably looked askance at my recent post wherein I mentioned a December 2020 hurricane, didn’t you?

  39. Even sadder, the death of Jerry Jeff Walker, Mr. Bojangles and creator of the Texas outlaw sound and the Austin City music scene who drove Jimmy Buffet to Key West creating Tropical Rock as well.

  40. And in some less sad news, we had about 7″ of snow last night and it’s still coming down. It’s about ten degrees right now, heading for a high of fourteen, and a low tonight of nine. Hope that makes the rest of you feel warmer.

  41. It’s raining steadily in eastern Oklahoma, worse in Tulsa where Mark is. Looked west of us where iy is jailing, sleeting, icing and possibly snowing? All in Oklahoma without leaving state.

    Think I will make creamy potato soup today, despite fact I am not supposed to eat potatoes due to high potassium content. I love soup of any kind. I could do brocolli cheese?

    • Jackie, we had thunder and lightning this morning too. My outdoor thermometer has not gone above 35 but it has stayed above freezing today. For the rest of the readers, the Weather Underground has rain forecast all the way through Thursday, but Halloween is supposed to be sunny with a high in the 60’s and a low in the upper 40’s. So if the kids are allowed to go by the parents, they should have a pretty good night for trick or treating.

  43. Sunny on a few ” of snow in Bemidji, MN. Highs nr frzg but don’t have an actual 1614 hrs rdg. Seen from 3 stories up in new apt. Moved here 4 wks ago. Peace,

    • emb: Have you completed your quarantine period, sir?

      One thing I learned from this ‘Rona Year is the origin of the word “quarantine”. It comes from “quarantena “, meaning “forty days” (in 14th – 15th-century Venetian), which was the period of time all ships’ passengers and crew had to be isolated before they could go ashore in Venice during the Black Death plague.

  44. Last Friday I was one of 8 folks with telescopes at a local junior high school for a “moon party.” The kids and their teachers had a blast, and we got to enjoy the clearest night in weeks. The hit of the evening for me came when I discovered that we were perfectly timed for them to get to see the Lunar X, which I’d not seen before myself. It’s visible for about 4 hours each lunar cycle. 🙂
     
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_X

  48. Ghost: Got out of 2-wks quarantine a fortnight ago yesterday. Was freed from my apt, got to eat [socially spaced] in the dining hall, but not much more than that, / COVID-19 precautions. No visitors except for emergencies & such. Food is generally good, but averages too fatty.
    Peace,

  49. What a great arc with Indy Arlo! Beautiful execution!

    Please, no ome say that drawing doesn’t matter in cartoons!! It is most important thing!

    Waiting to see if Janis gets a role?

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