And then other times, she just gets sullen and won’t talk.

When I looked again, I knew who they were:  Emily, the spider, and me.

Eugene Linden, The Octopus and the Orangutan, More True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence and Ingenuity.

I was newly arrived in Columbus for my first “real job” as a mathematician.  I immediately made up an Ohio State University riddle: Point to the nearest nuclear reactor.  It was in the building across the street from the Math Department.

I went to the Ohio State Fair.

The Ohio State Fair’s claim to shame was that they had blacklisted The Weavers back in the McCarthy days.  They had booked The Weavers as a headline act, but when they arrived the Fair wouldn’t let them go on.

Nonetheless, I went to the Fair.  I saw this and saw that.  I ate popcorn.  I had an ear of corn.  There was a Black dame walking around with the a bullwhip.  I smiled at her and held the ear of corn up. “Can you hit this?”

“Hey, you’re alright.”  She eyed the corn, took aim.  And lowered her arm. “I don’t trust myself.”  We smiled and parted.

There was a stand taking computer photos and printing them on things.  It was a bit new-fangled.  Buttons, mugs, I don’t know what all. They’d print your face in the oval of a giant cloth million dollar bill, and it could say something under your face.  I committed art.

Portrait of the Artist as a Sad Dog

Greetings, pilgrim, and welcome to my Blog of Toons, a home for toons.  My toons, my friends’ toons, toons I love and perhaps even toons I hate. Toons can go anywhere.  You want quantum mechanics? daily life? coming of age? political fury? cute little furry animals pursuing their sexual delight?  history? civilization?  Toons can do it all.  Toons reach deep into our psyches and our culture.  You’ve heard of John Q. Public?  A toon.  Maybe you’ve heard of an infamous stain on American history, McCarthyism?  The term was coined in a cartoon by the great Herbert Block.  “We have met the enemy and he is us.”  A toon again, by the great Walt Kelly.  Maybe your district was gerrymandered?  The word itself comes from a cartoon.  Or consider, for example, Paul Revere, he of the famous midnight ride.   One if by land, two if by sea.  “The British are coming!  The British are coming!”  If you know a little more about him, you know he was a silversmith.  But did you know he was also a political cartoonist?  And speaking of political cartoonists, did you know that Dr. Seuss was a political cartoonist?

We will meet some of this rogues’ gallery, for rogues we are.  We are cartoonists!

And so, I open this blog with my homage to Second Fig by Edna St Vincent Millay.