Licorice

There isn't necessarily an inverse correlation between the number of cartoons I post in a day and how much I have to say...

but sometimes that's true. Like today.

Vaction Well Spent

So, I spent the week prior to Christmas listening to funky jazz and playing with my cartoons.

And reading Rilke:

I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough

to make every minute holy.

I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough

just to lie before you like a thing,

shrewd and secretive.

I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will,

as it goes towards action,

and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times

when something is coming near,

I want to be with those who know secret things,

or else alone.

(from the Book of Hours, trans Robert Bly)

Christmas is coming...

I suppose I'll feel better once it's here, but right now I'm still just waiting around. And it's raining. Have I mentioned before that I mostly view Christmas with a sort of dread?

In any case, the first cartoon was inspired by my favorite not-quite-plain Quaker poet; the second, by Plain-man and friends. I guess that means I'm missing the mid-west.

Who'da thunk it.

Sunday should be better, and who knows? Monday--Christmas--might not be so bad.

Bummed

I'm here in southwest Virginia for the week, and I won't get to see my two favorite people until Sunday, for reasons I don't really understand.

And the Indian grocery store closed; I guess I wasn't buying enough pappadums.

And I'm reading Reasons for Hope, which isn't really giving me what the title promises (the problems start in the subtitle, and go from there).

At least the weather is still nice.

Wed Nes Day

The cartoon refers to a story in the zen tradition, where the students ask, what is the nature of the moon?
The master points to the moon; the students think, oh, the moon is a finger!
The story sounds a little odd, but the underlying point is valid.
On a related note, John Punshon's discussion of the difference between Evangelical Friends and the Wesleyan Holiness movement reminds me of the difference between Rinzai and Soto zen...

I'll tell you the answer: Wait

So here I am in beautiful southwestern Virginia, wishing I'd packed a pair of shorts (or at least some different socks)--but I don't have the technology to post any cartoons. (And besides some non-thermal socks, I wish I had someone to check the lids of my drinks: coffee is a better beverage than it is outerwear.)

The title of this post comes from a Spanish riddle of sorts; it doesn't make as much sense in English (it's along the lines of "Pete and Re-Pete were sitting on a fence; Pete fell off, who was left?") but I liked the sentiment in English.
Of course, I'm a 5, so waiting is what I do best: "Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." (Measuring out my life in coffee-spoons is also a favorite pastime).

But I think it's a good idea most of the time anyway, waiting.

And that's what I'm doing here in beautiful southwestern Virginia. Maybe I'll figure out how to post cartoons tomorrow.

Cookies!

Another cartoon-a-thon, since I'm too busy to write anything thoughtful.

Click on the image to enlarge if you can't read the fortune: they don't make much sense otherwise.

(Well, they might not make much sense anyway...)

Quote of the day: "I am the statue, watching her around the elephant."

Mai Day

I hate to say it, but I may have had too much coffee already today.

Get back to work!

I like this CD review: "If funk were a disease, this album would be fatal." I realize that some of you suspect that funk may in fact be fatal.
I like it, but it certainly doesn't increase my productivity.

Universalist Christology?

Like many people around here these days, I have a lot of work to do. So why am I blogging? Like many people around here, I don't really want to do it.
Oh well.

Dreaming

You might hope I have something funny to say about coffee, or the MBTI--or the enneagram for that matter--or Rocky and Bullwinkle, anabaptists, the cold, Dr. Jekyll and whatshisname, derivative music (e.g., Def Leppard, the Scorpions, although certainly not Paul Simon), pandora.com--and maybe the Mother Funk Conspiracy--or even Bridget Jones' brain.

But not today.

Theory of something

Here come the holidays!

I don't think I can add anything today.
Not even a pithy, explanatory joke.

Yes, I have work to do...

But it's cold here, and I don't really want to do it.

Caffeinated Bullwinkle Universe, part 2

I wonder who might come out of the hat--perhaps Brother Blüz.

Then again, maybe not: Bullwinkle's magic tricks never quite worked out, and it's not clear that mine will end up any better.

Every day I get a little bit closer to that light at the end of the tunnel, but I have this fear that there's just another tunnel ahead.

But I've got Rhymin' Simon in my head this morning--still crazy after all these years. So I guess it could be worse.

Caffeinated Bullwinkle Universe

This isn't the worst Monday morning I've encountered, not even for this semester, but knowing that I have one more to go really makes this one drag. Being busy, trying to take care of all the lose ends, that I can handle: it's the waiting for it all to be over that's unpleasant. Can't we just skip this part and move on to the brighter tomorrow? (I know the answer to that one, but I still don't like waiting.)
The second cartoon is "Classic Miro"--I was looking for the cartoon where it's an anabaptist that's coming out of the hat, rather than light, but couldn't find it this morning. (Rocky, of course, objects. Darn flying squirrels and their practicality.)
I need another cup of coffee, and I'd much rather be talking about Boris and Natasha than the Five Pillars of Islam this afternoon. That shouldn't be too surprising, coming from a guy who has modeled his life on Mr. Know-it-all.

Blustery Day

I was walking across the main bridge in our little town, looking down and noting that the river looks like a real river today--which is a little scary in itself--and then noticed that the wind was blowing so hard that I had stopped moving forward.



Little known fact: the original title of one of Robert Louis Stevenson's more famous works was, The Strange Case of Dr. Dore and Mr. Miro. Aside from the obvious typo, the publisher made two suggestions: first, change the names because those are too odd (I'm not sure that "Jekyll" and "Hyde" are any better, but it's not my book).
Second, there needed to be a more dramatic way of showing the duality of human nature, the evil that lies within, than simply drawing cartoons. But the basics of the plot were there.