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[Popegeorgeringo]

rabidambulance:

Here's your link for a special birthday cartoon:

http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=0PBF22048BC-Today_is_my_Birthday.gif#23

[Golfhaus]

I would just like to say that Onstad has lost me as a reader, starting in 2031. That's gonna be one hell of a depressing strip to read.

[isaacs_law]

This comic terrified me. It reminded me of David Schwartz' "How Much Is A Million," a picture book of my childhood - I think it's pretty famous, maybe you've read it too. It's designed to teach children to comprehend huge numbers using concrete examples, and there's a particular sequence where all the characters (there were a bunch of children and a wizard, for some reason) are shown in the process of trying to count to some enormous number and aging and dying in the process. They show their progress over a period of several labeled years, and in each year they are older and more die until at last only tombstones are left.

It was my introduction to the concept of futility. It seems the book has stayed with me all these years, because when I saw today's strip I blurted "How Much Is A Million!" and I also totally lost sleep over it.

Completely apart from that it was, on its own merits, the most scarringly and deliberately depressing thing I read this week, and trust me when I say I had to read a lot of literary theory so there is competition. I truly, truly don't know which is worse: Ray lingering on and on and ON, Phillipe eternally five, the Johnny Cash Beef business (yes, totally also thought that) or the living horror that is Teodor's abrupt wasting-away (it's probably meant to be read as "he gets in shape and then bites it" but knowing he's about to die, his skinniness looks sort of horrifying anyway. Besides, I prefer the theory that he just suddenly gets cancer, because it would mean his dad was right to worry, and that's the kind of continuity I appreciate).

Anyway, somehow SO MUCH WORSE than "Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus."



EDIT: "Ye Sleeping Knights of Jesus"

http://www.herkolson.com/names_r/robyn_hitchcock_songs/ye_sleeping_knights_of_jesus_lyrics.html

So I don't look all pompous with my music references that 100% of readers will not get instinctively. Plz check out the album this comes from, "I Often Dream of Trains;" it's due for a desperately overdue reissue soon on Yep Roc. I am not affiliated with Robyn Hitchcock or his vast publicity machine.

And yes, with the tune this is a quite upbeat little song. Only way to do something like that, isn't it?

[Ruta Bagas]

I try very hard to convince myself that the inevitability of death is nothing to be upset about; that without it life would be in some way meaningless and that it just means that I should make the most of the glorious period of sentience that the universe has so bizarrely granted me.

The trouble is that I live a life so ludicrously charmed that it is actually difficult to believe I could be plucked from it. This is not a state of affairs to complain about, I realise. It is one the world has a distinct right to be pissed off with.

I have to say, I've never found literary theory that depressing. Dull, certainly, and at times enragingly silly, but not depessing. But like I said, charmed life, next-to-impossible to depress. I'm sorry.

[isaacs_law]

I try very hard to convince myself that the inevitability of death is nothing to be upset about; that without it life would be in some way meaningless and that it just means that I should make the most of the glorious period of sentience that the universe has so bizarrely granted me.

The trouble is that I live a life so ludicrously charmed that it is actually difficult to believe I could be plucked from it. This is not a state of affairs to complain about, I realise. It is one the world has a distinct right to be pissed off with.

I have to say, I've never found literary theory that depressing. Dull, certainly, and at times enragingly silly, but not depessing. But like I said, charmed life, next-to-impossible to depress. I'm sorry.

Not at all, more power to you. 

See, I find it depressing precisely because all that vast brainpower's been turned to something so dull and silly. But it's the price I pay for becoming a grown-up academic, and as such prices go, I must admit it's absurdly low.

[theinevitable]

Yep Roc is from Chapel Hill! My friend Bryan works for them.

wait, dying? what are y'all talking about?

la di da *skips off into distance*

[isaacs_law]

Yep Roc is from Chapel Hill! My friend Bryan works for them.

wait, dying? what are y'all talking about?

la di da *skips off into distance*

Tell your friend he can do no wrong, and totally works for the only label which might positively influence me to buy a CD based solely on their logo. Their taste is that aligned with mine; we are like bam, bam, bam.

Or don't, because I am a stranger on the Internet.

[theinevitable]

yeah, um, I love the design of their albums so much.

Also, I don't know if he technically works for them anymore? he was an intern over the summer... but I think he might still work there?

[V-Adore]

Oh, my God, now I'm remembering "How Much Is a Million?"

That shit was bleak. All the terrible potential of the "Milo climbs the infinite staircase" scene from The Phantom Tollbooth, implemented right there. The gravestones! Oh, Christ!

Thanks, isaacs_law. You're getting canned for reminding me of a basic part of childhood nihilism.

[isaacs_law]

Aw thanks! Glad to be of service.

Man, I'm getting established here with can rights and everything. I should get myself a gender.

[Bobby Isosceles]

I try very hard to convince myself that the inevitability of death is nothing to be upset about; that without it life would be in some way meaningless and that it just means that I should make the most of the glorious period of sentience that the universe has so bizarrely granted me.

Add some incomprehensible flower-children metaphysics, floridly awful technobabble from 1973, Beethoven's 7th as a leitmotif, and Sean Connery in a loincloth and thigh high boots and you just explained Zardoz.