A little diversion

Some of Terry Border's Bent Objects

What to write about today? As many of you know, I have given myself a writing schedule for this blog: every Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday. I don't like to let one of those days of the weeks go by without posting something. Although during the week many ideas occur to me, I sometimes don't know what I want to say when the time comes. It doesn't always have to be good, ya know. Just regular.

I kept this couple of Terry Border's creations on my desktop as a possible fallback. For one reason or another, both of these images are a little risqué: the first because of the demented banana, and the second because of the shameful Yale lock. They both not only make me laugh, but also snicker as well. I hope they do the same for you. Terry Border continues to create his Bent Objects, and his page should give you many delightful moments.
:-)

Daisy Mae and Li'l Abner

1995 US postage stamp

I was really showing my age the other day, when the cute barista at the coffee shop wore a polka-dotted shirt with tight jeans, and I remarked that she looked just like Daisy Mae. She looked at me, puzzled, because she had never even HEARD of Daisy Mae and Li'l Abner. I was really amazed, because I grew up with the cartoon strip and read it for years. I looked around the coffee shop to see who was in there (almost all 30- and 40-somethings) and discovered, after asking, that nobody knew who they were. Al Capp created them and ran a strip for 43 years, starting in 1934 and running until 1977. If you also don't remember them, you can read all about them here.

When I was a little girl, I read Li'l Abner comics regularly. I remembered that there was a creature in the strip called a shmoo, and as a child it fascinated me. Still does, and it occurred to me that the current generation has never even heard of a shmoo, since they didn't know about Li'l Abner, either. The shmoo, which you can read all about at the link I've provided, was a satirical creature in the comic strip that Al Capp created.

Shmoos are delicious to eat, and are eager to be eaten. If a human looks at one hungrily, it will happily immolate itself — either by jumping into a frying pan, after which they taste like chicken, or into a broiling pan, after which they taste like steak. When roasted they taste like pork, and when baked they taste like catfish. (Raw, they taste like oysters on the half-shell.) They also produce eggs (neatly packaged), milk (bottled, grade-A), and butter—no churning required. Their pelts make perfect boot leather or house timber, depending on how thick you slice it.

What I didn't remember, and was fascinated to learn at that link, is that they were considered a menace to society, because since they were everywhere and free, nobody bought any goods any more and the economy collapsed, so they were exterminated. I must have stopped reading somewhere during the shmoo wars and never learned their ultimate fate. Al Capp must have had quite a field day with his shmoon (plural for shmoo). I think you'll enjoy it, if you are not already aware of them.

I guess if I live long enough, there will be some other mythical creature that captures my imagination as much as the shmoo did when I was a kid.
:-)