I did find out from a search* that there is a (supposedly) common idiom “money for old rope” meaning something like “easy money”. That doesn’t explain what it’s doing here, really.
Also, is the setting at Sartre’s more meaningful or decorative?
(*And that professional etymologists don’t much like the folk etymology about shipboard use of rope to caulk gaps in wood planks.)
“Hell is other people” Department
(This one below not a CIDU; more of a LOL.)
When I was saving and then posting the Lard above, I thought the Sartre’s store was one of their fairly frequent locales; but I didn’t find one, on a quick backwards scroll thru the recent archive. Fine, so I treated it as unusual and made it part of this post’s title. And then a couple days later they give us this:
And still from Le Vieux Lapin, and for that matter still about bees:
Le Vieux Lapin still on a roll!
This linked (not copied nor link-embedded) Far Side provides an explanation for one of the great Netherlands floods. Link probably not valid after 2021/12/08.
No, we’re not going to call this a synchronicity — there’s nothing surprising about seeing two Thanksgiving cartoons on Thanksgiving. But seeing both taking on the idea of special diets and restrictions is a nice pairing.
(I’m tagging The New Yorker though not sure that’s where the Roz Chast appeared.)
Syndicated cartoon comic panel called off the mark cartoons created by Mark Parisi Atlantic Feature Syndicate dba Mark Parisi, 16 Slayton Road, Melrose, MA 02176-4222+1 (781) 665-4442, markparisi@aol.com
And another Bliss. This maybe should have counted as a CIDU, if there’s much doubt what his special message would be …
Yet Another Ewww-LOL from Kliban:
Nice twist, maybe LOL-worthy? It takes the over-familiar observational-humor point “fitted sheets are hard to handle” but adds a factor which is gonna interfere with anything at all he tries to do.
This Sheldon was sent in by Andréa, who asks “Remember the [long ago] discussion of these?”. Maybe not in specifics, but the CIDU crew should be able to make short work of a simple issue like the role of uniqueness and originality in the arts!
A Far Side on the theme of “Could it get any worse?”:
Sent in by J-L, who says “It involves Jon trying to trick Garfield into taking a pill, and how Garfield tries to frustrate Jon’s plans. My family laughed at this because recently we have been trying to feed a pill to our dog, Honey Bun. While the first few times were successful (it was easy to hide the pill in some delicious food of some sort), eventually Honey Bun got wise to our efforts and would spit out the pill, no matter how delicious the food was.” We agree, it is good to see Jon getting the better of Garfield now and then.
In another main segment of the domestic companion-animal kingdom, here is a dog who knows a lot but not everything:
This RWO was sent in by Le Vieux Lapin, who says “An LOL? An OTW? At the very least it’s a bit more off the wall than I expect from Hilary Price.”
I was a bit dithery over whether it could be considered a CIDU. But if there is somebody not familiar with Tetris it might briefly be a CIDU for them; but would not hold up for a day’s discussion.
Although I saw immediately that it was doing Tetris, I didn’t catch that the word PETRIS was reflecting that there are domestic pets in the scene. I thought for a second that the PETR- was the key part, and was using the Greek-derived stem for “rock” or “stone” — so that the falling tetris pieces would turn out made of stone, and were on their way to a destructive crash. Nice relief that they are pets and end up cozily tucked in.
The Arnold Zwicky blog has remarked on this cartoon twice, once yesterday when it was reprinted ( https://arnoldzwicky.org/2021/10/10/enduring-classics/ ) and once in 2010 when it first appeared ( https://arnoldzwicky.org/2010/04/11/another-playful-portmanteau/ ) Zwicky seems surprised that people today are still quite familiar with Tetris, and that is the main subject of yesterday’s column. [Oh wait, I should be saying “last Sunday’s blog” not “yesterday’s”; though I am writing this bit on Monday 2021-10-11.]
The first two panels are so familiar as a turnabout joke, with a variety of particular punch lines, its nice to see Horace coming up with something different.
