Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson for September 22, 2011

Such drama! Perhaps he can take an acting class some day.

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer?

Um, err… comment? Worms probably wouldn’t taste all that bad if prepared and canned, Alice…. Whew!

Didn’t you already have worms for breakfast, Alice?

No, we don’t want you spoiling your supper.

The correct answer is ‘fine’. ‘Ok’ is acceptable as a variant but the judges will scrutinize whether the ‘Ok’ is delivered with any emotion, which would lower your score.

No, I have a son about this age and disposition. This is the correct answer.

Based on my sons, I thought the universal answer was, “Mmmph.”

Funny, when asked how I was doing at school, that was my answer, after my first few weeks at College!

LOL! i love this strip!The Petey in the middle is the best!

Superb! and HILARIOUS too! :D

so cute! that’s like my 7 yr old daughter – she LOVES worms.

Petey’s school of method acting.

He’s having a meltdown already?

So going by the middle panel, I’m thinking Petey’s schedule is: Homeroom, History, Math, English, then Gym. His day ends with the biggest freakout of them all.

I like some classical music, but I know very little about it. (And to be honest, I once looked up the English translation of the chorale of the Glorious Ninth because I liked how it sounds but it bugged me that I didn’t understand what it means.)

I’ve been to one opera in my life, “Carmen.” The music is catchy and familiar, and although they weren’t singing in English there were supertitles provided in translation, so I could follow the plot. I could probably sit through another uncomplainingly (with the same aids), but what struck me is that opera is a really inefficient way to tell a story. I’ve never been to the ballet, but I’d probably have a similar reaction.

uh-Oh! I hope Petey isn’t turning into that bratty punk from “Zits”…

What I mean by “inefficient” is that not a lot happens in an opera, but it takes a long time for it to happen.

Princess: Here comes my father, we are surely undone!Stableboy: Yes, here comes your father, we are surely undone!Chorus: Oh, here comes her father, they are surely undone!Princess: If he finds us alone together, he will kill you!Stableboy: Yes, if he finds us alone together, he will kill me!Chorus: Oh, if he finds them alone together, he (the King) will kill him (the Stableboy)!

Then the soprano delivers a ten-minute aria telling the tenor that there’s not a second to lose, and to get on his donkey and flee, and he doesn’t actually leave until she finishes. It’s like lengthy descriptive passages in old novels; I’m tempted to skip over them, just to advance the plot.

I do like the sets and costumes, though…

Petey and school don’t mix.

Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a larger can.

Efficiency isn’t everything, of course, it’s often entirely beside the point. If I can dip into Shakespeare again (King Lear, this time):O, reason not the need: our basest beggarsAre in the poorest thing superfluous:Allow not nature more than nature needs,Man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s: thou art a lady;If only to go warm were gorgeous,Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st,Which scarcely keeps thee warm.

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful, as Mae West said.

But was talking specifically about opera as a story-telling medium. It’s a hybrid art-form, combining dramatic theater with music, and surely some people value one aspect over the other. Some may love the music and not give two hoots about the story; my main concern is the story, and the music is kind of beside the point. I had been curious about opera, and it was suggested that I begin with “Carmen”; as I mentioned, the music is both catchy and familiar. I knew OF the work before going, but I didn’t really know how the story went, and that too made me curious (for the same reason I sought out the translation of “Ode to Joy”). By the same token, having read the Beaumarchais plays upon which “Barber of Seville” and “Marriage of Figaro” were based, I need not go to see the operas in order to know what they’re about (if someone were to mount productions of the Figaro plays, I’d probably go to see them; again, it’s not the dramatic/theatrical aspect of opera that is a stumbling block for me, it’s the music).

Like opera, comic strips are a hybrid art form, and like opera they’re often not “efficient” in their story-telling (some of my favorites, like “Pogo”, are EXTRAORDINARILY inefficient at moving things along). But comics are a hybrid of two things that I enjoy separately, and I enjoy them even more put together.

My standard answer was always “fairly nondescript”. Most adults knew that it was code for “I’m flunking”.

So are they all in their socks, or are they wearing white shoes?

Alice, gummi worms don’t come in cans.