One of those days… *sigh*<\/p>\n
So, let’s talk about all the positive things about today!<\/p>\n
Bloom County<\/i>! I got the first volume of IDW Publishing’s complete collection of the classic 80s comic strip, collecting from its debut in early December 1980 to the end of September 1982.<\/p>\n
I sat on the train home tonight flipping through the book. God, was Opus a one-note character when he debuted. God, was Milo a total jerk. Binkley’s nightmares, when they start to surface in 1984, are fabulous<\/i>.<\/p>\n
And the debut of Bill the Cat! He appears only twice in the book, both as Sunday strips, and he’s completely<\/i> useless.<\/p>\n
I didn’t remember that Charles and Diana were such prominent characters; there are several storylines that revolve around their marriage, her pregnancy, and the birth of Prince William.<\/p>\n
Mick Jagger’s appearance was side-splitting. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
It’s clear, just from flipping through the book, that Bloom County<\/i> was a work in progress, and it took about a year for Berkley Breathed to figure out exactly<\/i> what he was doing. Once it turns into something topical, once Breathed starts skewering the Reagan-era, Bloom County<\/i> finds its angry, satirical voice.<\/p>\n
And just in time. The Reagan-era needed its pretensions shattered.<\/p>\n
Also today…<\/p>\n
e.e. cummings’ birthday!<\/p>\n
I learned this on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac<\/a><\/i> today. Keillor gives an interesting biographical sketch of the American poet. I didn’t know, for instance, that cummings was a World War I ambulance driver and that he was friends with John Dos Passos.<\/p>\n Also!<\/p>\n I got the new Leisure Society<\/a> EP today, A Product of the Ego Drain<\/i>. I’ve heard two of the songs before — “A Passing Thought” and “Pancake Day.” The CD is pink, and it has a giant octopoid on it.<\/p>\n The odd track on the EP? A cover of the Gary Numan song, “Cars.” What makes it so odd? You don’t expect to hear an 80s New Wave classic done by a folk band with acoustic guitar, harps, flutes, and violins. It’s unique. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n That’s it. I’m out of stuff for today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of those days… *sigh* So, let’s talk about all the positive things about today! Bloom County! I got the first volume of IDW Publishing’s complete collection of the classic 80s comic strip, collecting from its debut in early December 1980 to the end of September 1982. I sat on the train home tonight flippingContinue reading “On Good Things on a Wednesday”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[697,681,715],"class_list":["post-2526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-bloom-county","tag-leisure-society","tag-poetry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}