Save up some halibut bones in a jar

[sovay]

And then the end of the week veered off into an exciting and hitherto unexplored direction of things my body can do that I'd rather it not, which took far too much time and what we condescend to refer to in this house as my stamina. I went out and acquired an apple crumb pie from Petsi specifically for purposes of making up for the afternoon. My father e-mailed me about the record number of sea lions basking and barking on the floats of Pier 39 in San Francisco. a_reasonable_man alerted me to the contest to name one of Earth's quasi-moons. Of course I saw just about everywhere last night the news of all 34 felony counts, but I am truly charmed by the continuing proliferation of Mark Slackmeyer.

Comments

[sholio]

I am also charmed by the sudden proliferation of Mark Slackmeyer! It brings back a dose of pleasant nostalgia for my college days, when I found an entire stack of the 1970s mass-market-paperback collections at a local bookstore, not really knowing Doonesbury at all beyond seeing it in the paper occasionally, and devoured them. For a while after that, I read it in the paper every day, this having been the mid-90s through early 2000s. (I wonder if the early strips aren't better known now than when I was a young adult, since it has the extra traction of memes, social media posts, and retro chic.)

[sovay]

It brings back a dose of pleasant nostalgia for my college days, when I found an entire stack of the 1970s mass-market-paperback collections at a local bookstore, not really knowing Doonesbury at all beyond seeing it in the paper occasionally, and devoured them.

Nice! I grew up with my parents' copy of The Doonesbury Chronicles (1975) and an assortment of later collections, the only title of which I can remember off the top of my head is That's Doctor Sinatra, You Little Bimbo! (1986), but also remember starting to read the strip daily around the same time, lasting in my case through the 2000's, I think. I have my childhood experience of Doonesbury filed alongside reading and re-reading Berkeley Breathed's Bloom County Babylon (1986), whose political and pop-cultural references I am still identifying to this day.

(I wonder if the early strips aren't better known now than when I was a young adult, since it has the extra traction of memes, social media posts, and retro chic.)

I would not be surprised. Some of them really keep coming around on the guitar.

Given where we live

[jesse_the_k]

Mark Slackmeyer's definitive denunciation will no doubt be echoing around our heads for the remaining Usonian* centuries.

I have fond memories of opening the paper daily during Watergate, to see how Doonesbury had captured the latest outrage.

And of course there's a blog! Paul Hébert has been Reading Doonesbury since 2014. See his 2017 commentary on those three words' reappearance in print, where Hébert is too optimistic about a previous opportunity for justice. In 2019 he explores “Even Richard Nixon Has Got Soul”: Comparing Watergate and the Trump Impeachment in Doonesbury.

* Before Frank Lloyd Wright's homes, the 19th century author James Duff Law invented Usonian as a more respectful term that acknowledges that the "Americas" are much larger than the USA. Unlike "USian," Usonian is readily pronounceable.

Re: Given where we live

[sovay]

And of course there's a blog! Paul Hébert has been Reading Doonesbury since 2014.

I'd seen that blog! Then I lost track of it. Thanks for putting it back on my radar.

Before Frank Lloyd Wright's homes, the 19th century author James Duff Law invented Usonian as a more respectful term that acknowledges that the "Americas" are much larger than the USA. Unlike "USian," Usonian is readily pronounceable.

That, I am not sure I had ever heard. It sounds slightly extraterrestrial and I am sorry it did not catch on.