(not a CIDU) Today we’ll try something different. In the comments, describe a particularly memorable fortune you received, and a bit of any backstory
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A fortune that would be particularly appropriate for a particular person / group. Give both the person and the fortune. BUT – NO PRESIDENTS OR EX-PRESIDENTS!
I’ll start: I was at my birthday dinner with my wife and two teenaged daughters. The fortune: “All is not yet lost”, which teenagers found hilarious when applied to their aging father. The phrase still turns up: “Remember, Dad, All is not YET lost”.
From Ooten Aboot, with an illuminating commentary:
In 1874, a similar culture clash happened in real life when Montreal’s McGill University challenged Harvard to a two game “football” match. To McGill, “football” meant Rugby, while Harvard followed “Boston Rules”, a version of Soccer with limited catching and carrying of a spherical ball. The solution was to play one game under each set of rules. Harvard won the “Boston” game, while the Rugby result was a 0-0 tie. Nevertheless, Harvard apparently liked the McGill style and adopted similar rules, so that encounter with McGill may have been the origin of American Football as it known today.
Once again we were very happy to receive a note from Robin Bickel the other day, with some family news and a renewed Hanukkah card invitation, which we would like to share with you.
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Quoting:
Hi! Hope all is well over at CIDU land! Hard to believe a year has sped by.
We are all doing well here. Aaron is now officially a married person. For readers of the NY Times, Zak is now in charge of all long range visual planning for both the online and print business sections while his boss is on maternity leave. That means that all feature pieces are designed by him including hiring and art directing the illustrators.
Please let people know that Hanukah cards, designed by Zak, are once more getting ready to be addressed! So if you’ve moved or would like to be added, just let me know.
Happy Holidays!
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If you are already on the list, there is nothing you need to do, if your address has not changed. You should email to Robin if your address has changed, or if you would like to newly join. The instructions to get in on this tradition appear below, but by now it would be a big scroll, so here they are:
Email me at robinbickel at gmail. Put CIDU in the subject line so it will be easy for me to quickly find you. And if you’d like you can send me a card at 43 Peace Rd, Randolph NJ 07869 but you are under no obligation to do so. I like sending cards and it would make me happy to be able to send a very small thank you to all of you who have been such good friends over the years. (Please don’t delay only because I have to give Zachary a count of how many cards to print)
[2021 post]
We were very happy to receive a note from Robin Bickel the other day, with some family news and a renewed Hanukkah card invitation, which we would like to share with you.
Cheers,
Mitch and Winter Wallaby
Quoting:
On a personal note, Aaron, our oldest, is finally engaged after being with his girlfriend for 11 years. I am assuming the wedding will take place before another 11 years pass.
Please let everyone at CIDU know that I am so glad that the site is thriving. Bill would be so proud!
And finally, Hanukkah card time again. Let people know if the got a card last year, they are good. If they got one last year and moved since then, let me know the new address. And if you didn’t get a card and now deeply regret it (which obviously you would!), send me your address and join in the fun. As always, cards are designed by the mega talented Zak. (as an aside, if you get the print edition of the NY Times, turn to the front page of the business section on Saturday or Monday. That’s his work. He does other days also and other pages too, but those are more random.)
If you are a new CIDU reader who is missing some context here, you are invited to look at our page about “Bill Bickel and the history of CIDU“, also linked in the left menu.
As Robin says above, if you received a card last year, and your address has not changed, there is nothing you need to do to remain on the list and to receive a card this year.. If you would like to join their list, the instructions are for convenience reprinted below, though you can find them, along with additional background and the original invitation message, at the end of last year’s “Hanukah Cards (from Robin Bickel)” post.
Excerpted:
Email me at robinbickel at gmail. Put CIDU in the subject line so it will be easy for me to quickly find you. And if you’d like you can send me a card at 43 Peace Rd, Randolph NJ 07869 but you are under no obligation to do so. I like sending cards and it would make me happy to be able to send a very small thank you to all of you who have been such good friends over the years. (Please don’t delay only because I have to give Zachary a count of how many cards to print)
You get to vote here: is the cat giving money to Big Ornament to pay for replacements, or is Big Ornament paying the cat for breaking ornaments, so they need replacement?
This is fine! But tickles the memory cells – haven’t we recently seen a cartoon with just about the same joke?
And it does match! But … but … just when did she think that?
This is a semi-cidu: you just have to know the title this is a sequel to.
And nobody had to spell “sommelier”!
We thank Andréa for sending this in. She says “I think it was the surprise ending that got to me.”
Aaron shared this Tom Falco (via the Suggest-a-CIDU form) , noting that it belongs with the coordinated event of over 100 cartoonists making some sort of Peanuts allusion as a tribute for Charles Schulz’s 100th birthday.
The CIDU editorial team noticed one or two of these on the day, and thought of posting a few in a bonus collection-type post; but frankly, didn’t get around to it. Aaron sending this one in reminded us, and it looked like a good idea to post this and one or two others that seemed appealing.
And we invite further of these from readers, in comments to this thread.
[For those who might prefer their Schulz-tributes wholesale, Kevin A in a comment last Thursday reminds us of the tribute event and notes “[…] the Charles M. Schulz Museum page, where all of them appear. ..or DO they? :~) . NOTE: the strips are linked; once you click into one, you can navigate forward and backward through all the strips. (6 x 17 = 102 tribute strips) https://schulzmuseum.org/tribute/ I REPEAT, the strips are linked; once you click into one, you can navigate forward and backward through all the strips. (6 x 17 = 102 tribute strips)”. ]
This excellent Bizarro by Wayno received special mention in several quarters. His comics partner, and founder of Bizarro, Dan Piraro, discussed it and added his own note on Schulz, at his weekly Bizarro blog. Retired linguistics professor and noted comics-explainer Arnold Zwicky made this panel the center of a blog post, where he calls it “A monumental puzzle in cartoon understanding” — but initially makes it a puzzle by omitting the tribute line along the bottom of the panel.
This Bliss appeared on 03 December, a week late for the Schulz anniversary, if that was the intention. So we are looking for a Gorey-related news prompt for this. Not that Gorey isn’t always worth thinking of!
Any others you found particularly interesting or funny or touching? Please drop into the comments thread!
Comics I Don't Understand 