Krazy, man, krazy

 

The details of George Herriman's life―his Creole background, his connection to New Orleans―have become better known than they once were, which is as it should be. But they don't fully explain Krazy Kat. It's simply its own thing.

Born in 1870, Herriman was of the generation that basically invented daily comic strips. And if you look at samples from Baron Bean, a strip he actually created after Krazy Kat, you see accomplished art, but in the style of turn-of-the-century comics like Mutt and Jeff.

Krazy Kat had some basis in that old style as well, but it also incorporated methods from outside the mediums established rules. It was strange then and it's strange now. Funny and poignant as well, if that need be pointed out.

Misterioso

I was at the laundromat and sitting on the side of the place where the TV is set to a Spanish language station. Not paying all that much attention to it, since I was both washing my clothes and reading a book. But I did look up at just the right time. There was a story about a luchador who'd had an accident in the ring. One of the reporters talked to him in his hospital bed. Yes Virginia, he still had his mask on.

Hispanophone media in America is different. Is it better? I don't know. But it certainly adds some variety.

Dreams and cups

In My Dreams
by Stevie Smith

In my dreams I am always saying goodbye and riding away,
Whither and why I know not, nor do I care.
And the parting is sweet and the parting over is sweeter,
And the sweetest of all is the night and the rushing air.

In my dreams they are always waving their hands and saying goodbye,
And they give me the stirrup cup and I smile as I drink,
I am glad the journey is set, I am glad that I am going,
I am glad, I am glad, that my friends don't know what I think.

.----

Thanks to Outis for the shift + enter tip.

Very brief poem by Stevie Smith, from England's North Country. The relative length of the lines, though, adds to the feeling of always riding on. I think Smith understands that there's something in us that doesn't really want to be understood.

We don't often hear about stirrup cups and that's a shame, because a lot of them are wild and beautiful.

Salute to the spooky

Now that Halloween season is just past, I have to reflect that it's been fun to walk around and see the decorations. I've seen tableaux with simple yet effective witch figures. There was a house with a couple of skeletons propped up in chairs on the lawn. At least one porch was decorated with giant spiders, which I wouldn't have been happy about if they were real, but they weren't. And of course there have been some nicely made and creative jack-o-lanterns.

How many trick-or-treaters have there actually been? Got me. I live in an apartment building which is logistically not suited for it. But the nearby neighborhoods have looked nice.

Somewhere in there

 

Aside from Salvador Dali, the best known Surrealist artist is probably René Magritte. Magritte was born a few years before Dali, and he died much earlier, but his images―coolly off―have never been forgotten. The world has further changed since he last painted, but he still speaks to many.

In some ways, "The Reckless Sleeper" (above) is a pretty straightforward depiction of sleep and dreams. A man lies sleeping in some kind of bunk. Below him is the subconscious. The objects therein are randomly selected, but he will assemble them into the story of his dream tonight.

Well, sort of randomly selected. There's an apple and a bowler hat, both famous components of Magritte's other works. So there's an author's signature here.

...than to speak and remove all doubt

Something changed in the world of comics in the late eighties and early nineties, and it was not for the better (surprise, surprise). This was the explosion of first person narration.

Up until this point, superhero comics had mostly simple narration. If the characters were searching for someone on the docks at night, there would be a caption reading, "Later, on the docks..." and that would be it. But from this period onward, everyone had to share their point of view, such as it was.

It's not that this can never work. Frank Miller and Alan Moore had experimented with this format, and their successes were what fueled this change. But if you're depicting a guy, say, who can fire energy blasts from his hand, having him say in his mind, "I massage my knuckles, I do some deep breathing exercises," really doesn't add mcuh. 

In their shoes

Ox shoes are kind of fun to look at. The difference between them and horseshoes is easy to explain. Horses have a single middle toe on each foot, which is the hoof. Cattle, being artiodactyls rather than perissodactyls, have hooves that are cloven between two toes. Thus they require two shoes on each foot. Little commas rather than big U's. 

They aren't used as much now because cattle aren't used for hard labor or taken on long drives as much anymore. And we've never gotten into the habit of racing them. 

The fact that we don't shoe cows or bulls is a relief to animal professionals, even if these shoes do look cool. Unlike horses, they can't stand on three legs. Putting shoes on them is a pretty big task.