One of the things a person quickly learns as a beginning cartoonist is that he or she must master onamonapia, a word that replicates a sound, as in the “clink” of glasses. Of course, in the case of cartoonists, we most often are called upon to invent our own words using onamonapia. Using the above cartoon from last November as an example, how does one replicate the extremely arresting—and grating—sound of that horrible horn, the klaxon, which blares repeatedly when the heavy metal doors are about to close and you have 30 seconds to get to the last shelter on earth before the nuclear bombs start raining down, or the sound a game-show contestant hears when giving a disqualifying answer. Well, this was my stab at it. Onamonapia can be fun! Splut. Blop. Plap. Try it at home.
237 responses to “The Sound of Mayhem”
A great miracle happened there, Happy Hanukkah!
Yes, the older miracle, the one of long lasting lamp oil. Confusing to me as a child, because my protestant Bible does not include the Maccabees books. Later in study I found the words recording the events of the revolt and reconstruction for myself. Wow, that Judith lady didn’t wait for suffragettes to assert herself.
Up having that English muffins, some cheese and crackers finally.. Ghost kitty and Dickens were being incredibly cute. Ghost was busy playing with Dickens fluffy tail. Like the kitten in Garfield, he is impossibly adorable with tiny ears, round face, round eyes and white whiskers and ear hair.
In my reading yesterday I read an interesting thesis that involved Marilyn Monroe and her hourglass shape of the 1950s, and hoe America’s women have changed in shape and clothing sizes, not for the good.
Remember how I said I didn’t know any fat women when I was young? Statistics support this, I didn’t. In most of my young life into my 40s I not only weighed in Marilyn’s range but in her measurements. So did the typical woman by the recorded measurements with a couple inches variation. Not true now.
Today’s women have typical measurements about 10 inches bigger than those of the 50s and 60s with waists over 30 inches.
So dress sizes have been up scaled along with menu’s serving sizes.
According to the article, Marilyn and I would wear a size 2 by today’s sizes, not the 11 or so we did then. I know I wore an 8 when I moved to Oklahoma and I blamed chicken fried steak.
For dog servants among us, http://www.gocomics.com/dogsofckennel/2016/12/24, additional cuteness is found if you know Will is a pit-bull terrier.
Jackie, one of the things about my classic movie hobby is an awareness of that change. I know the actresses chosen by the Hollywood machine are idealized fiction. But there are also examples in documentaries and other more faithful renderings of life in the first half of the 20th century. We didn’t know cholesterol, enjoyed fatty foods as a luxury, and salt was life. There may be some empirical evidence in there. My grandmother made it to a few days short of 102 years. Almost as much as she weighed for most of her life.
Dainty portions, and lady-like demurring in appetite probably account for it. As you’ve said, portion control.
Demure would not have applied away from the table.
HAL would not accept demuring. I took his word for it and went to investigate.
Merriam-Webster says I verbed an adjective. Wiktionary says I’m correct.
Think I’ll stick with Webster. …demurely limiting her appetite.
Morphy you are right of course. No woman nor girl would admit to having an appetite nor have eaten with gusts in my day. We were cheap dates because you just didn’t eat around men at all. You pretended to have no appetite and if you did probably your clothing would have discouraged it.
Remember the corset scene in Gone With the Wind? Kim Kardashians waist trainer was our waist clincher to pull us in even smaller.
Just discussing with one of my workmen who stopped in to check on me and the critters. Like Ghost, he didn’t marry. He said he used to love summer, sundresses, long hair. He couldn’t remember last one he saw. I met his last girl friend, they are still friends, like me she is Southern, pretty, we’ll dressed and looks young. That is a rarity in Oklahoma.
This has to go along with lack of care in personal appearance. I can remember going to have my hair done before going into hospital, having hospital wardrobe of beautiful gowns, penjouirs, bed jackets and slippers. And corsages for the bed jackets.
I am not kidding. Now I am sick wearing boy shorts and a tee shirt at home but not to shop at Walmart.
Comfort clothing is a blessing in itself. But you are right, and remind me of days of white gloves. Yes my mother wore them when driving or out for the evening. And back in those days, if a young tyke grew tired, out running errands on a sunny afternoon (no A/C) he could lay down on the bench seat of an Oldsmobile with his head on Mom’s lap; instead of breaking his neck in a child seat alone in the back. I think we’ve missed the point of bonding all day, not just when convenient.
Side-tracked myself. I meant to recall for you, at the hospital in the town of my youth there were separate barber shop and beauty salon. When young, I thought doctors were like senators and other important people who required tending to at there institution. When my grandmother of lesser health started spending a lot of time there, I learned why the beauty salon nearly always had a velvet rope across it. The house beautician spent her entire day ‘on the floor’ keeping her ladies presentable, no matter how sick the were.
Different times, different approach to life. And often misinterpreted by today’s victim class. It was not, “I’m so vain, I must look my best.” It was “I respect myself and society enough to want to look good in public, and they won’t let me leave.” Resulting in the side benefit, “when I look good, I feel better.”
Some old lessons need to be returned.
… their institution… HAL spells but failed grammar.
Morphy, you are right about the barber shops and beauty shops in hospitals. They came to your rooms and “did your hair”. If you felt really good they might let you go yawn to shop but not likely.
Today I go to hospital I use and patients are out in hospital driveway wearing hospital gowns hooked up to an IV bag and holder so they can smoke a cigarette. Or walking down ward hallways wearing hospital gowns, a catheter, an IV bag and pushing the frame to hold them, flapping bare butted.
Some how I.liked mine and your mom’s day. I wore the white or black gloves, suits, hats and my hair and nails were done. It was about being proper and proper was being well dressed, so as not to offend ourselves or others.
Trucker, that is a wonderful video. Do you know if there is any more video of them in concert? Jackie, sorry to hear that you are sick. I rarely get sick for more than one day, but I remember being sick on two consecutive Christmas days. A properly spiced egg nog may help and certainly won’t hurt. I am busier these days than I have ever been and any one of the several things that I am doing would keep me occupied fulltime, which means I’m doing a poor job of everything. Oh well , we have time for what we want to have time for. Being behind here, I have to ask. Has Debbe changed jobs? If so, she will be much happier doing something else I’m sure. I drove by my parent’s home recently and it was very strange to see someone else living there. My grandparents bought the house in 1960 and my parents moved there after both grandparents had died so I spent a lot of Christmases there. We will have step-children but no children here tomorrow, but thinking of the millions who have no roof over their heads, I know how lucky I am. Merry Christmas to all and here’s hopeing that we won’t think of 2016 as the good old days.
Jerry, well met. But when cynical I fear these *are* tomorrows good ol’ days. :wince:
Oh well let’s enjoy them while they’re here!
Merry Christmas to You and Yours.
Sorry, missed the direct answer.
Debbe is briefly away caring for her father. She has an opportunity in retail environment that makes her happy I believe. Jackie is in contact with her.
Have not talked to Debbe today but she is caring for her dad at his home and trying to quit smoking. She has a job offer from Dollar General which I hope she will take. Her work ethics would be a good match for a good DG manager, as hard work is biggest problem for them.
Debbe was bringing her son Ian to stay with her. He is also out of work because of chicken house closing. Everyone lost jobs.
She apparently has no cell phone or Internet out at her dad’s
Place.
Am not seriously ill but feel bad enough to know better than take off on a ten hour trip. It is eight hours plus gas, bathroom, snack stops.
Need to go take that big chunk of ribeye roast out of freezer. I am cooking that and baked potatoes, mushrooms, spinach for dinner tomorrow. Or someone is. It may get cooked in spurts.
Merry Christmas, Hanakah or Happy Holidays.
Dear Jackie, I have worried about you, all alone there, sick — even your loving pets can’t bring you a nice breakfast. I’m glad someone did show up and you got some food. I wish I could be there, or Debbe, or some of your many friends in the Village and on Facebook, and in real life. When I read your post of this afternoon, I felt so surprised and saddened by your words. “No woman or girl would admit to having an appetite nor to have eaten with gusto … You just didn’t eat around men at all.” I never heard of this custom before and it made me feel so bad, I had to leave the iPad and do something else for a while. How strange, and how awful for your health, you and your friends were still growing and developing. And depending on men for your happiness? I won’t even go into this subject and hopefully you have all long outgrown this attitude — I can see that you certainly have, Jackie.
Maybe there were women and girls with this attitude while I was growing up in New Hampshire but I never heard a whisper of it, or since then either. The other kids at school were skinny mostly. Most parents couldn’t afford a lot of fattening food, and eating between meals was frowned on too. None of us declined food if it was available!
When I went away to college there may have been girls there who felt they shouldn’t eat when they went on dates, but I didn’t hear anything about it.
Hope you feel much better soon, Jackie. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the Villagers, and to all peoples on Earth, Peace.
Back in the 70s my sweetheart was ridiculed by other girls as too skinny. She weighed about 95 lbs and is 5’2″. After a big meal she’s top out at 98 and lose the extra weight without dieting, just walking all over the campus.
That all changed with our first pregnancy…
Charlotte: What Jackie described may have been more of a southern thing. Unfortunately it continued past her school days, as evidenced by this song referring to “Texas back in ’69”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHdEurHb6M4
Miss Charlotte, I’d say it was Southern except I first encountered bulimic and anorexic girls and learned all the tricks they used when I was in boarding schools in the north. Maybe it was the huge concentration of females but I had already gone through the “don’t eat, you’ll lose weight” routine before I got there while I lived in South America.
I think you were blessed Miss Charlotte with a loving and quite normal upbringing which I envy.
Yes, I can eat with enthusiasm unfortunately!
My beautiful and thin, elegant cousin still does the order food, move it around, don’t actually ear it routine. We of my generation were about all like that, we were so aware of how wed appear to others that we suffer from body image and low self esteem.
Interestingly I have been reading while not asleep, a lot on Marilyn Monroe, who seemed to represent the iconic sex symbol and beauty image of the 1950s and 60s. She had no self esteem at all. And thought she wasn’t beautiful.
I just had a big bowl of sugar free chocolate frozen yogurt.
Thank you for explaining the problem some more, Jackie. Yes, it’s still foreign to me, and I have read about this over the years also. I often reminisce, silently, about my childhood and teen years, and I always feel extremely fortunate to have had a small town to grow up in, with loving parents and grandparents, and their friends too. You are right, Jackie, I was blessed.
The chocolate yogurt sounds good! I just had some fruitcake.
Had Lasagna and exchanged gifts at our house. It is considerably smaller than our former home, but everyone was within earshot of each other and had a good time. The highlight of the day was my nearly 11 month old Grandson.
When our son, Dan was about 2 he started recognizing the names of different cars by the emblems and shape. A customer heard me tell the story and said that he had a plastic pedal car in his garage that he never put together for his kids and offered it to me. It was by far my son’s (for that matter mine) favorite toy. After getting his degree in Manufacturing Engineering, he now works at Ford Motor Company, so I decided to get his son a motorized F-150 truck. Dan is presently working on the 2020 MY F-150.
Our grandson’s reaction was greater than I could ever have imagined. He was SO excited and laughed and laughed! Later when everyone was unwrapping presents we set him on the floor so that he would play with the paper and he pulled himself up and stood up. Our cheers basically knocked him down but then he got back up and raised his hands in triumph for 10 seconds ala an official signalling a toughdown.
First time having a toddler or young child in about 20 years. What a great Christmas.
I pray that the joy of the Savior will fill all of my friends here at A&J.com I’ll be off to sing his praise at 10:00 Mass tomorrow!
We’ll be hitting the road in the morning, as usual on holidays it seems. Sure do miss the days when all the relatives lived nearby, even if it did mean I spent a lot of time in the kitchen! It’ll be too warm for a Christmas sweater, but I found some “ugly sweater” socks.
May your Christmas day be happy (or merry, if you wish) and filled with wonder and love.
I don’t have an ugly Christmas sweater, but I do have a tacky Christmas tee shirt. It is green with a cat in a Santa hat. Merry Christmas everyone.
A very blessed Christmas to all!
http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2016/12/xx_things_no_one_tells_you_abo.html#0
Just finished watching “Magoo’s Christmas Carol”. Found that same channel has the Alistair Sim “Christmas Carol” for on demand viewing. My favorite version, will watch tomorrow.
Merry Christmas and God’s blessings to all in the Village and their families!
Merry Christmas, one and all! And move on to JJ’s new post…