The Joys of Crawling
I have personally moved into a used house on 2 occasions. The first time was my old bachelor home and I found in an attic an umbrella stroller. On the second occasion, the prior house owner had apparently been a compulsive cleaner as we did not even find any dust in the house anywhere (even in the out-of-the way obscure places).
Obviously, with Sunday’s strip and the slide show ordering and then today’s For Better or For Worse strip with the big bunch of stuff in there, Lynn Johnston is massing the troops for the September “almost all reprints” run. Even if that isn’t the intent, she has still managed to set up Mike and Deanna for the daily reminisces and John, Elly, and April for the Sunday colour reminisces until September.
The more interesting part about this is the view of Deanna in the crawl space. What level of home cleanliness do you have to reach, before you are bored enough to start looking at crawl spaces with the idea of exploring them? When I was little, I probably would have gone into a crawl space; but what would motivate Deanna?
The truth be told, I have always enjoyed exploring obscure parts of a house. My late grandmother's home had a hall closet by her front door which was also the same closet as the one in her bedroom; so if you went far enough into one or the other, you would find yourself facing a door to the way out. I lived in one old house, when I was little, that had put a paneling over the real wall, so you could go into a set of built-in cabinets open on one side and crawl through to other built-in cabinets in the same room. It was like magic. And if the house was new to us, anything found I could claim as my own, since the prior owners had left. That was the best part.
So, in today's For Better or For Worse, when Deanna pulls all of these boxes out of the crawl space and tells Michael it is not "junk" but "ours", my initial thought was not that Deanna was lecturing Mike on the definition of junk, but that Deanna had laid a claim to her booty, her bounty of having explored the deeper recesses of the house. She had found treasure. I am pretty sure that this was not the interpretation for which Lynn Johnston was headed; but my inner child enjoyed it all the same.
Obviously, with Sunday’s strip and the slide show ordering and then today’s For Better or For Worse strip with the big bunch of stuff in there, Lynn Johnston is massing the troops for the September “almost all reprints” run. Even if that isn’t the intent, she has still managed to set up Mike and Deanna for the daily reminisces and John, Elly, and April for the Sunday colour reminisces until September.
The more interesting part about this is the view of Deanna in the crawl space. What level of home cleanliness do you have to reach, before you are bored enough to start looking at crawl spaces with the idea of exploring them? When I was little, I probably would have gone into a crawl space; but what would motivate Deanna?
The truth be told, I have always enjoyed exploring obscure parts of a house. My late grandmother's home had a hall closet by her front door which was also the same closet as the one in her bedroom; so if you went far enough into one or the other, you would find yourself facing a door to the way out. I lived in one old house, when I was little, that had put a paneling over the real wall, so you could go into a set of built-in cabinets open on one side and crawl through to other built-in cabinets in the same room. It was like magic. And if the house was new to us, anything found I could claim as my own, since the prior owners had left. That was the best part.
So, in today's For Better or For Worse, when Deanna pulls all of these boxes out of the crawl space and tells Michael it is not "junk" but "ours", my initial thought was not that Deanna was lecturing Mike on the definition of junk, but that Deanna had laid a claim to her booty, her bounty of having explored the deeper recesses of the house. She had found treasure. I am pretty sure that this was not the interpretation for which Lynn Johnston was headed; but my inner child enjoyed it all the same.
posted by howard at 10:29 PM
29 Comments:
This strip has a thinly-veiled message for readers. Lynn is saying, "Yes, I will use any excuse to avoid talking about Lizthony. I will even do a week talking about Deanna exploring the crawlspaces, and finding old Christmas cards. Then they will read the Christmas cards aloud together. This will set the stage for the next week, which will be flashback strips that feature the senders of the Christmas cards. Then there will be a week or two of Mike and Dee finding other exciting things in the various corners of their house: dust, spiders, and an occasional mouse or scrap of old newsprint. But, I swear on my beloved new wardrobe of cabanawear, Liz and Anthony will not appear, at least not before the summer solstice."
Wait till you see the amazing treasure they find in the crawlspaces!
Anon NYC
qnjones:
Yes, I will use any excuse to avoid talking about Lizthony.
As I've said before, Lynn seems to think that the Lizthony arc is a done deal. All the print-outs Stephanie hands her from fans who want closure continue to confound her because to her "Let's go home" was their ride into the sunset. We might get a couple of weeks of flashbacks but that's what minor characters deserve. Only Mike's family and Elly matter now.
Aargh, I'm afraid you're right, qnjones. Oh, and Dee is going to be 32 this year! It's time for her to start fretting about "looking old!" After all, in the first year of the strip, there is one where Elly sits with Connie and frets about being "over thirty." Blargh.
qnjones
But, I swear on my beloved new wardrobe of cabanawear, Liz and Anthony will not appear, at least not before the summer solstice."
It does seem to be headed that way. The storyline of uncovering crawl space items will take the week and that will get us to March, making both January and February entirely Liz and Anthony-free. Considering that even the pets (except Shiimsa, for obvious reasons) and Grandpa Jim were touched on in January and February; I think the evidence is there for your point.
Anon NYC,
Wait till you see the amazing treasure they find in the crawlspaces!
If they found anything like what is referenced in that article, then I would say that Lynn Johnston had redeemed herself as a storyteller. Think Nancy Drew, Lynn; not old Elly junk.
DreadedCandiru2
As I've said before, Lynn seems to think that the Lizthony arc is a done deal. We might get a couple of weeks of flashbacks but that's what minor characters deserve.
Assuming you are right, there is still the wedding. How many weeks did you think Lynn will devote to it? 1 or 1 ½?
aprilp_katje,
After all, in the first year of the strip, there is one where Elly sits with Connie and frets about being "over thirty."
If done right, using that reprint strip as a comparison strip as Elly and Connie hear Deanna and Carleen (or Karina’s mom, since Deanna has not talked to Carleen in years now) say the same things to each other, while Elly and Connie laugh at how stupid they were back in 1979, that could be pretty funny.
howard,
If done right
OK, you can stop right there.
howtheduck:
How many weeks did you think Lynn will devote to it? 1 or 1 ½?
I'd say we'd get about of week-and-a-half of incoherent snippets of their wedding. That's just enough of the story to satisfy the duller minds in Lynn's fan base and not enough to tell it properly.
dlauthor,
If done right
OK, you can stop right there.
Now dlauthor, is there no glimmer of hope for you left?
DreadedCandiru2
OK. I have you down for 1½ non-Mike, Liz and Anthony wedding weeks. Anyone else care to make a guess at how long Lynn Johnston will pull away from Mike and Deanna and the kids for Liz and Anthony’s wedding?
I can't muster any kind of indignation for this strip anymore. It's gone from infuratingly inconsistent to just plain dull.
I would KILL to see the following story:
Mike and Dee find an old painting in the crawlspace. Elly bought it at a yard sale for $1. It is a painting on black velvet of Bobby Curtola. Mike hangs it up in his house to taunt his mother. Weed comes over to help Mike make the gay love scenes in Breaking the Windjammer seem more realistic, when he sees the painting. Weed tells Mike that this is a very rare painting by Peter van Meter and that it is worth several million dollars. Mike celebrates recklessly, including going over to the TTTH and shouting "In your face!" at Elly several times, complete with finger jabbing in face. Incensed, Elly sues Mike for possession of the painting. After many years in the courts, the painting is sold to milionaire Connie "The Black Widow" Poirier Landry Thomas Richards MacCaulay Weeder Plett, and the proceeds go to pay the lawyer's bills. In a touching final week of strips, Mike reveals that his secret dream was to take the money from the painting, leave Dee and the kids, and run away with his true love, Weed. Weed and Mike kiss. In the last panel, we see Liz pop in and yell, "Hey! Over here! I got married, ya know!" The end.
Really, I must be one of the few people who feels like the Lizthony is wrapped up, and I couldn't care less if we ever see them again. To me, they are simply two boring middle-aged people. Liz no longer has any personality (get better at singing? Be as good a teacher as Ms. Edwards? Interest in Native Culture?--No, just marry someone like daddy!)and Anthony never had any personality.
By the way, have you read the quotes from Lynn in "Schulz"? I see now why Lynn can't depict a normal friendship. She is seriously wacky, even with an editor cutting back her remarks.
Ooh, please share! I wanna hear some wacky Lynn!
debjyn,
Really, I must be one of the few people who feels like the Lizthony is wrapped up, and I couldn't care less if we ever see them again.
cookie77 over at the FOOBiverse's Journal shares your opinion, as you probably know.
By the way, have you read the quotes from Lynn in "Schulz"?
I have not read it. Like qnjones, I would be happy to hear anything you would care to share.
qnjones,
Mike celebrates recklessly, including going over to the TTTH and shouting "In your face!" at Elly several times, complete with finger jabbing in face.
Your story has some similarity to the story when Elly took over Lilliput’s and found all the antique toys in the basement(?), except without the finger-jabbing. I have made the presumption that since Deanna has said that the boxes in the crawl space haven’t been opened in over 20 years, that they must be Elly boxes, since she was in the house since 1979. However, the possibility exists that the boxes contain some unknown valuables left by an owner even prior to Elly and John.
James,
It's gone from infuriatingly inconsistent to just plain dull.
I must presume that since the strip is still inconsistent, as in the “never looks the same two times in a row” aspect of Meredith and Robin’s room; you are saying that its inconsistency no longer gets you excited.
Interesting. I don't remember that storyline, but then again, I read sporadically in those years.
qnjones,
And there was another similar one when Gordon bought the garage and found antique machinery in there. I guess we will have to wait and see if this junk = valuable stuff or if this junk = Elly stuff for flashback reprints.
howard,
My hope that Lynn could do anything right died when Mike ran back into the burning house and didn't get screamed at by everyone around him, was embalmed when Shannon made her proclamation in the cafeteria without the other teenagers heckling her, was buried by the whole wedding/lovepocalypse fiasco last year, and then got whacked a few extra times with a shovel by the unbelievably swift, easy, and lucrative publication of Mike's damn book.
Why should I let it come staggering back to life now?
howard and qnjones, if you look up Schulz at Amazon, you can plug "Johnston" into the "search inside this book" feature and read all the quotes. :)
aprilp_katje,
Wow! I didn’t realize we could search inside a book. Thanks for sharing!
Anon NYC
Looks to me like "Search inside this book" is not available for Schulz. If someone would be kind enough to just give the gist of why they think Lynn sounded wacky in the book, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
ah, qnjones..where to begin. First Lynn goes on about how they are soul mates, both had been bullied, both wanted to "show everybody" how important they had become, and they have "matching smiles" (wherein Lynn puts in that her husband--ah-hem--is a dentist). She also sees in Sparky the "father she never had". And then we get to read example after example of their flirting, holding hands on strolls, etc. Aparently, all with the blessing of his second wife (whom you might remember Sparky cheated on his first wife with). Then Lynn goes on about how jealous Sparky becomes later of her success.
Really, you just need to read it. It is a lot like Lynn's interview, where she starts elaborating on the Aaron/Mike car crash report and some of the other off-the-wall comments.
That makes Lynn sound flat-out batshit insane. I think the woman has a personality disorder. Thanks for sharing, Debjyn.
qnjones
This is what I found when I did a "Search inside this book" for Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography
Anon NYC
Thanks for sharing, Anon NYC. Amazon was not allowing me to "search this book" for some reason.
Post a Comment
<< Home