A day late but rarely a dollar short with this Sunday’s best comic strip. Yesterday’s standout was a classic Peanuts strip by Charles Schulz that challenges our assumptions on what’s going on when a dog is barking.
And here’s today’s classic Peanuts strip, which sees Charlie Brown and Linus leaning on the wall and asking the question of what to do when life seems to beat you.
This is why corn-on-the-cob is better than creamed corn, all year long.
It’s also a great one-liner from Calvin.
The folks over at The Ringer recently gave us “The 25 Most Important Stunt Scenes of the 21st Century” (which video clips and anecdotes included). It’s such a great list for me in three ways: it reminds me of movies that I’ve not scene while also reminding me of movies that I’ve seen and loved and filed away while also putting them in chronological order (which is a cool context to revisit the movies in).
I’m glad to say that I’ve seen about 15 of the 25 entries. I remember the awe viewers had at the scenes from The Matrix Reloaded and Kill Bill Vol. 1. I was able to see Spider-Man 2 again in the theater a while ago and still found the train scene excruciatingly moving. It was nice seeing Baby Driver on the list along with Inception. And I get more convinced each year that Captain America: The Winter Soldier really is the best non-Avengers movie that Marvel has made. The elevator scene is the one that everyone remembers, but the highway scene mentioned in the article was way more ominous and effecting.
A final thought: I’m glad the list ended with the Mission: Impossible submarine scene. It’s an amazing moment in the film. I mean, you pretty much know Cruise’s character will make it out of there, but you just don’t know how. Definitely one of the best action scenes of the year (and more believable than the airplane chase near the movie’s end).
Today was a solid day in the funny pages. Calvin compared bedtime fantasy with reality (and found reality wanting, of course), while Snoopy took Chuck’s newspaper request all-too-seriously.
But it’s the sunscreen joke in FoxTrot that takes the top spot this week. Don’t get me wrong: sunscreen is no laughing matter. I use it all the time these days. The highest SPF I’ve found is 90, so I haven’t quite gotten Mrs. Fox beat.
I usually wait until Sunday to post links to some great comics, but I think yesterday’s comics call for an exception.
First: it’s not every day that you get the word “ontological” in a comic strip. But Calvin does, and it’s pretty great. (Plus I can use this for class in a week.)
Then there’s yesterday’s always-tragic back-and-forth between Lucy and Schroeder. How often are we like Lucy, misremembering everything?
Finally: there’s something about yesterday’s WuMo strip that just feels really true even if it isn’t totally accurate. It’s another version of the “clean car = orderly mind” concept.
Today’s post by Seth Godin is short and really sweet. I like the comparison/contrast he pulls off with both ends of a book: the table of contents and the index (and I’m kind of surprised I’ve not seen it before). I do have to admit that a book without one or both can be frustrating, even with short works of fiction without a table of contents.
Many years ago,during the short window of time between college and seminary, I served as an interim at an area mission church. At the end of every service, which would often number three a week, we would make a circle at the edge of the sanctuary, hold hands, and sing “Love Lifted Me” (always being sure to raise our hands when we sang “lifted”). It was a sign of their community and a tradition that I still think about two decades later.
I recently came across a “new” version of the song, verses and chorus intact but with a more modern bridge. It’s an example of the current trend in worship to stand around and sing together, too. I shared the video yesterday morning with everyone at school as a way to mark the beginning of the new year while also nodding to our theme, Rescued. Here’s the video. Play it loud and in the background if needed. It’s a nice reminder of many things, including the way God lifts us up in Jesus.
First day of the new school year here. A couple of recent comics capture some real contrasts between vacation/school and students/adults well.
Here’s a today’s classic Calvin and Hobbes. Such a great single-panel strip that moves wonderfully well from left to right.
And then here’s a recent WuMo that feels the opposite in almost every way.
There’s some good summer humor in the funny pages today. FoxTrot has an interesting take on real pools and the heat index, while Frazz sees Caulfield and Dr. Spaetzle having a philosophical talk about July turning into August.
But today’s classic Calvin and Hobbes showcases one of Watterson’s great “red wagon” conversations between Calvin and Hobbes that poses a great question about meaning in life.
Tuesday was a bit of an odd one for people in Hawaii. It started out normal enough for me: the final morning of our “spiritual emphasis” time before heading into more meetings and classroom prep for the new school year. The work day was mostly winding down, I was getting ready for a quick drive to Manoa to take care of a couple of quick errands when the first tsunami alert went off telling us about a probably 7:00 arrival of major waves to the island. I assumed I had enough time to make the quick trip, which I did. I probably could have headed back home a little earlier, as the backroads I took were pretty slow (but not as slow as the interstate). Still, I got home with over a couple of hours to wait. I responded to texts from family and friends, checked on my neighbors, and called some friends who live in various parts of the island. And, like most everyone else, I watched news on the television for most of the rest of the night.
Some random observations:
+ I had forgotten how necessary the television can be for making sense of an event like this. By the time the “false missile crisis” was over, there wasn’t much time for tv coverage. But storms and tsunamis are a different story. Lots of news reports with images of various beaches across the island chain. Lots of press conferences. A few live shots of people in Waikiki leaving their hotels to walk on the beach when they really shouldn’t have.
+ The leadership from the front (on the television) seemed pretty solid. They spoke confidently and consistently. They were able to relay a sense of calm, even as they reminded everyone that waves would likely wrap around each island and not just hit one or two places. It was impressive seeing the whole system roll out.
+ Not to sound flippant, but the whole experience felt like waiting for Godzilla to show up. Waves were tracked station by station, with the station on Midway Island being particularly vital. There was as much talk of energy moving as there was of waves, which was interesting. That something could travel so far (and all the way to the coast of California, where it still caused property damage) is sobering.
+ It was weird waking up Wednesday morning to very little on the television about the events of the night before (comparatively, at least). It was all back to normal. There was still a bit of caution until the final call was made Wednesday morning. The Starbucks where I’m writing this opened up an hour late (and they are close to water). And there wasn’t much talk about it at work today, as I suppose we had all moved on to other things.
There has been one interesting article about the event worth a read. This article talks about why such a strong earthquake didn’t produce what many thought it would. It’s good that such a reflection can happen; I’m grateful that things didn’t get anywhere near as bad as they could have.
(image from Spectrum News)
Space Enough, and Time 