"[B]reast reduction and implant-removal procedures have surpassed enlargements for the first time. This is amid a cultural shift away from 'exaggerated curves'..."

"... to a smaller, lighter, more 'delicate' shape, aka 'ballerina boobs,' also known as 'yoga tits.' Well, this is all great to know. I look forward to hearing this kind of talk applied to male appendages.... But may I also say that I suspect much of this might be a load of balls? Could the well-endowed women who are having reductions simply be sick of having back pain and two grooves on their shoulders like a workman’s ditch? Could the women having their implants removed simply have realised it’s hard to get clothes to fit and they don’t want to hoik two silicone jellyfish everywhere with them that may at some point leak?"

Writes Carol Midgley, in "Now is no time to have a voluminous bosom (and M&S won’t measure you)/It turns out that big ones are over and the ‘ballerina boob’ is in" (London Times).

I like that word "hoik." It has an interesting array of meanings. According to Wiktionary:

"... haunting... audacious... ingenious... brilliant... intricate... masterly... restless... fascinating new... magnificently funny, sucker-punch-tragic... assured... sinister and charming... stunning... fierce and unsettling... powerful..."

Modifiers that appear before the word "novel" in the NYT "100 Notable Books of 2017."

I've only read one of the novels — the "magnificently funny, sucker-punch-tragic" one.

There's a headache-inducing flashing illustration at the link, so if your brain function is anything like mine, be prepared to scroll immediately downward if you click through. Or here's an Amazon link to the book. (Please think of doing your shopping through The Althouse Amazon Portal.)

I haven't read any of the non-fiction, though I do have Hillary Clinton's "What Happened" in my Kindle and I've done some searches and blogged some snippets. If I had to pick one to read, it would be "KRAZY/George Herriman, a Life in Black and White" (only $4.99 in Kindle).

Chip Ahoy animates blogging cockroach.

Commenter Chip Ahoy responds to this post about the commenter known as blogging cockroach. He's adapted and animinated the beautiful "archy and mehitabel" drawing by George Herriman.

Now, of course, our blogging cockroach has the relative comfort of a computer and is not stuck with an old-fashioned typewriter like the archy in Herriman's illustration. It's already in the original post, but let me repeat the adaptation of the drawing by our commenter Palladian:



Krazy! What commenters!

ADDED: A reader notes a misspelling. I should have written: Krazy! What kommenters!

Sir Archy, archy, and blogging cockroach.

In the early morning hours yesterday, this blog received a visit from our ghost commenter Sir Archy -- dead these 260 Years and more.

As a ghost, he had something to say about Barack Obama's first press conference, in which the prez-elect claimed to have spoken to all the living Presidents and quipped "I didn’t want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about doing any séances." (That quip -- for which Obama's had to apologize -- would surely have inspired warm chuckles in a law faculty room.) 

In the comments, Amba said about Sir Archy: "I get him mixed up with the cockroach." By "the cockroach, she means our delightful insect commenter blogging cockroach. (Click the "blogging cockroach" tag below to see old posts with writings by the industrious arthropod.)

Amba adds: "I wonder if they aren't the same person, though, and 'Archy' is a clue." She's thinking -- I happen to know -- of archy of archy and mehitabel, the literary creations of Don Marquis:

Archy is a cockroach with the soul of a poet, and Mehitabel is an alley cat with a celebrated past -- she claims she was Cleopatra in a previous life.... "expression is the need of my soul," declares Archy, who labored as a free-verse poet in an earlier incarnation. At night, alone, he dives furiously on the keys of Don Marquis' typewriter to describe a cockroach's view of the world, rich with cynicism and humor. It's difficult enough to operate the typewriter's return bar to get a fresh line of paper; all of Archy's dispatches are written lowercase, and without punctuation, because he is unable to hit both shift and letter keys to produce a capital letter. "boss i am disappointed in some of your readers," he writes, weary of having to explain the mechanics of his literary output. " ... they are always interested in technical details when the main question is whether the stuff is literature or not."

Marquis' George Herriman's ink drawings are sublime. See, here is archy putting in the immense athletic effort needed to type a short column: 

Now, blogging cockroach is surely a tribute to Marquis' archy, and we appreciate his explanation of the the mechanics of his literary output by computer even as we contemplate whether the stuff is literature or not. (Perhaps someone can make a drawing in the Marquis style of blogging cockroach at the computer or photoshop this drawing somehow.)

But Amba's question is whether Sir Archy is named to connect him to the cockroach. (Bonus points if you you do that drawing/photoshop and replace mehitabel with Sir Archy.) Are these writers one and the same (and, if so, are they also anybody else that we see around here)?

Well, the cockroach saw Amba's musings and dropped by the comments thread. Here is what he wrote:

well all i can say is that there are some advantages to being a cockroach one of them is i don t have to worry about my hair or clothes anymore having the transmigrated soul of a composer i can look back at all the troubles i had when i was a music professor to buy the right suits and keep my shirts ironed etc in those days they paid us a pittance and so i drove a 56 studebaker but had to wear a suit on campus every day which cost me as much as the damn studebaker i hated clothes not to mention haircuts i was actually kinda glad to go bald except maybe for the combover which frightened away my female students damn but now i don t worry about any of that and other than molting now and then life is simple and i sure don t want to mess it up with a powdered wig but having spent a little time on the astral plane myself i can tell you archy s right about seances etc you just settle in and some idiot comes and bothers you about something really stupid reminded me of office hours anyway one day my ex wife showed up wondering where the key to the safe deposit box was now some exes hire private detectives but mine hired a medium tells you a lot anyway i screamed let me out of here let me slouch somewhere to be born and presto the next ticket said cockroach cambridge mass so here i am maybe i ll tell you about the safe deposit box next time

So here's another clue for you all:

Plus, cambridge mass... Harvard/MIT? Some bald professor with a penchant for nudism?

ADDED: And at last night's Crossroads Café, Chip Ahoy said:

What I know about the Kennedy administration was learned by reading. Smithsonian used to be so interesting. My favorite part was letters from the readers remarking on articles. What an erudite bunch. It ran a couple of pages. Then they got another new editor who cut that section back to just a few letters and to about half a page. That told me all I needed to know about the new editors attitude toward his readers. Then they ran an article in relation to the John Kennedy assassination anniversary. Readers were asked where they were when the event occurred. That series of letters then ran for several pages. All the remarks were about how glorious the age of Camelot was, how idealistic, youthful, energetic, positive, and optimistic everyone was. How amazing incredibly beautiful the time was. Every single one glowed with praise and rued a lost past. Except for one. A response from Tom Clancy. He had a wee on their little party. He remarked the administration wasn't all that remarkable. He reminded readers of several notable failures and obvious shortcomings. He suggested had the administration lasted, it would not be remembered so fondly. This caused me adore Tom Clancy, even though he's a schmuck. I was so put off by the whole thing, the rebuff to the readers, the hard leftist turn, the ceaseless pontificating, the whole desktop publishing look, I ended the subscription I held since junior high school. It occurred to me though, reading through all those responses, those writers, were recalling an idealized, sanitized youthful optimism -- their own youths. Their optimism was entirely of their own making and had little to do with facts on the ground. As is their present pessimism. And now, I'm seeing that phenomenon occurring again right before my eyes. I'm going to enjoy this. As an observer. But this will not affect my own naturally occurring cheerful optimism nor my own self-indulgent satanic pessimism. I'm just going to watch my wonderful country, the less wonderful world, willfully create their own optimism. Myth making. That's what is happening. Observe a new myth. This is how it's created. Begin by overlooking faults, dismissing them, excusing them. Next exaggerate any gain, whatever actual good there is, suddenly is really REALLY, REALLY everlastingly good. Yay! Dance! Glee! Canonize! Deify. Mythologize. Expect comparisons to Camelot, and know then you're in the arena of myth. But know also, this is all occurring within the minds of the mythologists. But know also, optimism is very real. Just as real an uplifter as pessimism interprets into very real and actual drag. Therefore, I choose to enjoy the optimism in my fellow Americans, no matter how ridiculous it is. I could go for another Camelot myself, even though I know it's all occurring entirely within the minds of all you silly dumkopfs, present company excepted, of course. I vastly prefer my fellow citizens as silly little shits, than as obnoxious unbearable cnuts. <--- a="" about="" and="" before="" company="" completes="" delusional="" did="" different.="" disguises="" entirely="" even="" for="" href="http://bour3pages.blogspot.com/2008/11/hummus-on-romaine.html" i="" in="" it.="" letter="" mixed="" my="" mythos.="" now="" one="" optimistic="" polite="" remarks="" ridiculously="" s="" see="" self-constructed="" something="" than="" the="" there="" this="" transposition.="" unacceptable="" what="" word="" worse="">Here's what I made for lunch.

Sorry you couldn't be here, I'm sure you'd have been wonderful lunch dates.Go to Chip's lunch link for all the steps, but here's his last pic:

That brought the cockroach over:

yes chip ahoy that was a beautiful lunch i adore hummus if you don t eat those lettuce leaves completely and leave the remains on the plate or better yet drop one on the floor well i ll have a beautiful lunch too now about the beautiful kennedy administration i was a young grad student when camelot happened the main thing i remember is seeing kennedy getting off an airplane looking really snappy or hot as they say today and thinking man that guy must get some action then i thought naw he s the president of the u s that s really sick to think those thoughts hoo boy was i wrong

And here's what Tom Clancy wrote:

I never voted for the guy. I was only 13 when he got elected. I was a junior in high school when Kennedy got whacked. I was in the Waverly Theater on Green Mount Avenue in Baltimore watching Shirley MacLame and Jack Lemmon. I had a half-day of school. It was a Friday. I heard it on the way coming out of the movie. The ticket-taker said the president got shot. Then followed four days of nothing but a dead president. They didn't even show the Colts play. He was the president of the United States, so I didn't want him murdered. I wanted him to lose the next election. I mean, what did he accomplish? He has been canonized by the media, which I think is a bit unseemly. He was a handsome guy. He had great style. He meant well. It was Lyndon Johnson who got the civil rights movement rolling. He was a patriot and he put his life at risk in World War II, and that's something to be admired, but I don't see anything historically significant that he did other than the space program. For the space program, I'd buy him a beer.

ADDED: Thanks to Jeff with one "f" for correcting me about the ink drawings. I love George Herriman -- and even blogged about him back here. Mehitabel's resemblance to Krazy Kat is clear... clearer than Sir Archy's resemblance to blogging cockroach.

AND: Dear, sweet Palladian has sent me the illustration I wanted!

   

"We're emenies on account of we both loves Olive Oyl."

Said Popeye, wondering why Curly wanted him to come over, in an old E.C. Segar comic I was reading today at the Milwaukee Art Museum, which has a big, cool exhibition called "Masters of American Comics."

I'd been looking at comics art for about half an hour, working my way through the Winsor McKay and Lyonel Feininger comics, and got to the Segar stuff, and that line of Popeye's made me laugh out loud. And then I was doubly amused to realize that was the first laughter I'd heard at this huge exhibition of comics. I stayed for another hour, and I think I laughed one or two other times, but I never heard anyone else laugh. It was like a church in there. Is this the effect of museums or did the curators choose the very comics that were least likely to make you laugh? Fantasy and surrealism loomed large. So did serious comics like "Maus." And a lot of the humor was the sort of thing that you appreciate intellectually and don't giggle over. Like:

And with insipid porcine vapidness he lapses into somniverous oblivion.

That's a caption in a "Krazy Kat" comic, as a pig goes to sleep.

"S'turbil" = It's terrible, in Krazy Kat dialect. She also says "Jee-Wizzil." I find all of that amusing, but you'd only laugh out loud at that sort of thing in a social situation, where you were interested in elevating the mood of the people you're with. In the museum setting, everyone's floating along in his own little reverie.



Hmmm.... I see there were no women artists in this exhibition, and there were 15 male artists. I'm surprised, not because I think there is a woman who deserved to be in this group. (Winsor McCay, George Herriman, Lyonel Feininger, E.C. Segar, Frank King, Chester Gould, Milton Caniff, Charles M. Schulz, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, Harvey Kurtzman, R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, and Chris Ware.) I'm surprised because I would have thought curators would feel uneasy about a show with that many artists that lacked even one woman. Thanks for not patronizing me.



Anyway, it's an excellent show, well worth the trip to Milwaukee if you're roughly in the area. It will be there until August 13th.

And, in case you don't know, the museum itself is quite the architectural marvel: