It may say something about the fragile state of my mental health that we’re already almost a week into 2019 and I still can’t bring myself to post anything other than New Yorker cartoons. I did send an email to a friend with a New Yorker cartoon showing Linus and Sally and Charlie Brown and Snoopy waiting outside at night – not for the Great Pumpkin, but for Robert Mueller. But then my friend wrote back saying that Mueller humor was “too scary” for her to stomach lately. So, I suppose I’m not alone in feeling like I’m walking on eggshells when it comes to topical humor these days.
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After my wife sent me a link to a story titled “Why Reading is Good For You” along with the comment “Well, duh!” I did (briefly) consider starting a new category on my blog called “Well, duh!” This would feature links to stories of the blindingly obvious, written in a tone somewhere between Dave Barry and Andy Borowitz. But then I decided, Nah, I’ve already got that tone down pat. Let’s let Dave and Andy have their fun, OK? Plus, you probably don’t need to hear about how someone has recently reinvented the wheel. Or how someone else has suddenly decided that smoking cigarettes or having lead in your drinking water is really not good for you after all…. Well duh! If you want those kind of stories, trust me, you can get them off the Internet without even breaking a sweat.
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As I drove today across the American West for 4th time in half as many months it also occurred to me (briefly, somewhere around Elko, Nevada) that I could do a post on My Favorite Books. But then it started to get complicated. Should there be different categories, like Fiction and Non-Fiction? Should Murder Mysteries be separate from Bodice Rippers? <I have to admit, I’ve never really read a Bodice Ripper, but they do have interesting covers.> What about Poetry? <Billy Collins!> Short Stories? <Flannery O’Connor!> Cookbooks? <Moosewood!> But in a family like ours, Cookbook Disputes can take on the importance that Systematic Theology holds in the families of certain clergy <You know who you are!>. Then there are genres like YA fiction <that’s Young Adult fiction for those of you not in the know> that I have never touched and couldn’t care less about. But please, please, PLEASE don’t mention this to either of my daughters since they both are big into YA fiction and they probably both already think I’m an unreconstructed Neanderthal… but I digress.
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Anyway, the New Yorker cartoon genre is tried and true so I’m sticking with it. It’s also a truism that I don’t listen to the news any more – either with or without a blindfold. Besides, there are many worse things than a New Yorker cartoon. And just in case you have any complaints, I’ve outlined a few of those worse things above.
Oh, BTW, if you have no idea what “Bird Box” refers to, get yourself a subscription to Netflix and have at it. You don’t actually have to watch the whole thing to get the gist of it. “Bird Box” is so heavily promoted on Netflix that you’ll understand the reference just from seeing the trailer every single time you log in. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. And thanks for that Netflix subscription, Ben. Without it, I’d be as clueless about “Bird Box” as I am about YA fiction.
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Please read disclaimer from Netflix here. O Good Lord!