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Wednesday, December 24
Although it's been said, many times many ways... TFRL...
posted by: Torn From Real Life @ 10:54 PM
Tuesday, December 23
Faithful friends who are dear to us...
There's so much debate about appropriate seasonal greetings, the ostensible reason of the season... but I sit here, surrounded by mounds of gifts in various stages of wrapping, and a to-do list of stuff to pack and things to get done before departing to travel to Massachusetts to be with the family for the weekend, and it seems painfully obvious.
The people we love. No matter what we seem to be celebrating, how we go about it, whether it involves a pile of presents or just a quiet night with a burning log and some mulled cider, at the base of things it all boils down to a time in which we seek some way to recognize and celebrate the bridges of the heart.
Some of you I've known for nearly a decade; some of you I've known for a year at most, if even I've met you at all. But 'tis the season, and Bliss is inherently jolly, so from me to all of you - Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.
posted by: Bliss @ 11:57 PM
Thursday, December 18
#41: The Otter gets Odder
Anyone have any other more descriptive titles for the strip?
Odder than Artifice and all of its characters are © 2008 by Deena Salzman.Labels: Odder than Artifice, Otto the Otter
posted by: Veryne @ 7:30 AM
Wednesday, December 17
TFRL finds their special purpose.
posted by: Torn From Real Life @ 10:57 PM
Thursday, December 11
#40: Professor Wifty Gives a Lecture
Terry is clearly too flabbergasted to see if Izzy might need help getting out of the skirble door. Maybe that's where Clyde wandered off to...
Sorry about the two weeks with no comic...not that anyone actually said anything. I think I may start updating with sketches and whatnot on the weeks that I don't have time for a full fledged comic. I was going to do that for this week...but I got inspired and I'm pretty happy with the script.
Odder than Artifice and all of its characters are © 2008 by Deena Salzman.Labels: Clyde, Odder than Artifice, Terry, Wifty
posted by: Veryne @ 7:30 AM
Wednesday, December 10
Torn from real life explores the web...
posted by: Torn From Real Life @ 10:31 PM
Tuesday, December 9
This Day in History
* 536 - Byzantine General Belisarius enters Rome while the Ostrogothic garrison peacefully leaves the city, returning the old capital to its empire.
* 1425 - The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.
* 1531 - The Virgin of Guadalupe said to have first appeared to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico.
* 1793 - New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
* 1824 - Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.
* 1835 - The Republic of Texas captures San Antonio, Texas.
* 1851 - The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.
* 1856 - The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.
* 1861 - American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by the U.S. Congress.
* 1872 - In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state.
* 1875 - Massachusetts Rifle Association "America's Oldest Active Gun Club" is founded.
* 1888 - Statistician Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department.
* 1897 - Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris.
* 1905 - In France, the law separating church and state is passed.
* 1917 - In Palestine, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby captures Jerusalem.
* 1922 - Gabriel Narutowicz is announced the first president of Poland.
* 1931 - The Constituent Cortes approves the constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.
* 1935 - Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in gangland murder.
* 1937 - Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanjing - Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing.
* 1940 - World War II: Operation Compass - British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.
* 1941 - World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
* 1941 - World War II: The 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.
* 1946 - The "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" began with the "Doctors' Trial", prosecuting doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation.
* 1950 - Harry Gold is sentenced to thirty years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
* 1953 - Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
* 1958 - Red Scare: The John Birch Society was founded in the United States.
* 1960 - The first episode of Britain's longest running television soap opera Coronation Street is broadcast.
* 1961 - The trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Israel ends with verdicts of guilty on 15 criminal charges, including charges of crimes against humanity, crimes against the Jewish people and membership of an outlawed organization.
* 1961 - Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.
* 1962 - The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.
* 1965 - The Kecksburg UFO incident: a fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh. In 2005 NASA admits that it examined an object.
* 1968 - NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco.
* 1979 - The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
* 1987 - Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
* 1988 - The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland is officially opened.
* 1990 - Lech Wałęsa becomes the first directly elected president of Poland.
* 2003 - A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.
* 2006 - Moscow suffers its worst fire since 1977, killing 45 women in a drug rehabitation center.
posted by: Bliss @ 10:16 PM
Friday, December 5
Zero's Friday Five Classics
The following was originally posted on TKOP on 12.22.2004:
Greetings and salutations! For the glory of The Kingdom of Possiltum, your Crescent Fresh Game Master, Zero has traveled near and far across this great blue marble to bring you the next installment of ZERO's TOP FIVE, a guest blog of wit and fancy for the court's approval. This week: THE TOP FIVE MOST BIZARRE HOLIDAY TRADITIONS.
5. WEINFELDEN CHILDREN'S PARADE: On the last Thursday before Christmas, the children of Weinfelden parade through the streets with decorated fodder beets. These fodder beets have been hollowed out and lit from within with a beeswax candle. After singing carols in the town square, the children go to their schools where they dine on wurst and bread. At the same time, adults go the local tavern or coffeehouse, and the town council holds its annual budget meeting. I don't know how it all got started, but suffice to say when I think of Christmas, I first think of children with candle-lit beets eating wurst, adults drinking coffee and balancing the budget. God bless us, Everyone.
4. LAUPEN NEW YEAR: Originally held on Christmas Eve as part of their annual Christmas tradition, the Laupen New Year was switched to December 31st after town officials tried, unsuccessfully, to have it outlawed. It was then that a town priest stepped in and demanded the tradition be transformed into a New Years' Celebration because it was too "loud and rowdy" to be part of Christmas. After nightfall on December 31, participating schoolboys, comprising three boisterous groups, meet at the local castle and proceed down to the village. In the first group are the "bell ringers", who swing or rattle large bells which can be heard for miles around. Next, the "broom men" carry long poles with bunches of juniper branches tied to the top. The third group is probably the most bizarre - the "bladder men" carry pig bladders filled with air. Why? I have no idea. The procession stops at various locations along the route as the leader recites a rhymed farewell to the old year and wishes the crowd a happy new one (when it was still a Christmas tradition, they sung carols). During the recitation, the broom men wave their juniper brooms over the heads of the crowd. Now... here's the funny part: at the end of journey, the broom men and the bladder men, all armed with sticks and inflated pig bladders, proceed to "beat" the onlookers, especially young ladies, until their weapons are in shreds. Happy New Year!
3. LA MISA DEL GALLO: "La Misa Del Gallo" is equivalent to Midnight Mass. This solemn celebration begins the night of festivities called Nochebuena, or Good Night. Families gather in their homes after mass to eat Roast Pork. Also served are side dishes of "verdura", which consists of cooked green bananas, plantains, and assorted root vegetables. Pasteles are another traditional dish. This is a time consuming item usually prepared weeks before Christmas to be served this evening. It is made with mashed green bananas, plantains and other root vegetables, filled with cooked pork then wrapped with banana leaves or foil, then boiled. So, why is this on my list? Simple. According to three web sites that I visited, this is the tradition. Eating pork. That's it. In a country deeply rooted in the Catholic faith, whose other Christmas traditions are very religious, you have this one day where you apparently do nothing but eat. No glory to God, no gifts, no prayers... just pork. I'm sure there's more too it, but I'll be damned if I couldn't find anything. So, Merry Christmas. Now, shut up and eat your friggin' pork.
2. MISTLETOE: The tradition of the mistletoe dates back to ancient history and across many cultures. In general, it is a sign of peace, goodwill and love. From England to Australia and New Zealand, all across Europe and over to Iran, and no less an important tradition in the U.S. and Canada. From as long ago as ancient druid tradition, the mistletoe was seen as a sign of peace and goodwill. Warring tribes chancing across it stopped their battles observed a temporary truce. It was displayed as a sign of truce and peace. Some cultures believed it to guard against witch craft. Other cultures used it in the practice of medicine for a variety of illnesses. And somewhere along the line, it became something you hang over your door for the sole purpose of stealing kisses. But, be careful. In some European countries, kissing a woman beneath the mistletoe is a proposal of marriage! In any case, for every kiss under the mistletoe, you're supposed to remove one berry, and when all the berries are gone, so are all the kisses. Now, again with the punchline: Mistletoe is a poisonous, parasitic plant. It lives on trees, sending its roots under the bark and feeding off the tree's nutrients, eventually killing its host. Do yourself a favor and get an artificial one, just to be safe. What I can't grasp is how a plant that kills what it lives off of, and anything that dares to eat it became this symbol of love and fertility. Go figure.
1. WASSAILING THE APPLE TREE: The Druids, who celebrated the solstice festival of Yule-tide, held all trees sacred. Among the vestiges of Druidism incorporated into Christmas (decking the halls being the most prevalent), the custom of wassailing the apple trees has been preserved in parts of Britain for many years. From the apple tree the Druids would cut their divining rods, snd to this tree at Christmas, in Devon, Cornwall and other counties, a curious ceremony is paid. The farmer and his laborers soak cakes in cider, and place them on the trenches of an apple tree, and sprinkling the tree repeat the following incantation:
Here's to thee, old apple tree!
Whence thou mayest bud,
and whence thou mayest blow.
Hats full! Caps full?
Bushel, bushel, sacks full!
And my pockets too! Huzza!
After which they dance round the tree and get drunk on the cider which remains. They believe that if they did not do this the tree would not bear. How this was incorporated into Christmas, I'm sure we'll never know, but what the hell? T'is the season to be jolly, drunk and looking forward to a large apple harvest... right?
...and there you have it. I'll be back again (or maybe not) with another top 5. Until then, have a safe and happy holiday full of your own bizarre traditions!
You are now free to move about the TKoP.
- Zero
PS. HUZZAH!
posted by: Zero @ 3:40 PM
Tuesday, December 2
The weather outside is frightful...
Once again we've come upon one of my favorite times of year: the Holiday Season.
For me, this was always Christmastime growing up, but as I've grown and my circle of experience has changed, I've got at least a comfortable awareness if not necessarily practice of Yule and Chaunukka (and a vague awareness of Kwanzaa, but I still am not sure I know anybody who practices it). The tendency of these holidays is to have a life cycle of meaning throughout our own lives; at first they're a time of warmth and wonder, magic and presents and family. Then we get a little older. Presents become the focus, along with family and time off school. Then we learn about Santa's existantial debatability, and a bit more of the magic slides away. Finally, in adulthood, while it's still touted as a season of togetherness, giving, and enjoyment of the gift of our lives, it's also often an excerise in reluctant consumerism, putting up with unloveable relatives, and dealing with crowds, impatience, and music that we've heard a thousand times and has gone hollow with repetition. Even moreso for those of us who work or have worked in retail.
Well, that's not true for me.
When I was getting ready to go to college, my mother told me that she didn't worry about me, except in that I trust people. I don't know if there's some disconnect in me, or if I've just never gotten the kind of harsh disillusionment that seems to hit most people, but I prefer to trust. I prefer to think the good of people first - and I believe in the spirit of Christmas.
I believe that peace on earth and goodwill toward men is the most precious gift we could ask for.
I believe that this is a season of hope.
I believe that jingling bells on a cold snowy night has a magic in it.
I believe that any hassle of travel and/or shopping is always worth it just to get to be with my family.
I believe that my family is more important than any gifts I could give or receive.
I believe in the message of the carols.*
I believe in miracles.
I believe in you.
Each day I'll be carrying a song in my heart; and each day I wish the best to all of you and your loved ones, wherever they may be.
*Except for Dominick the Donkey. The hell is that about?Labels: Holidays
posted by: Bliss @ 10:07 PM
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