Swingin’ Annie Nichols
The final panel of today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse shows a shocked Elly Patterson in a situation where I think she genuinely should be shocked. Anne Nichols essentially says the only thing keeping her from being a swinger is 20 pounds of weight. Thank goodness Annie's fat.
For me, the shock of the strip comes, not from Anne Nichol’s unusual confession, but a sudden realization. In 1980, when this strip originally appeared, Lynn Johnston was living in Lynn Lake, Manitoba. Reading Anne’s statement, I was immediately reminded of Lynn Johnston’s interview in Maclean’s where she described the recreational sex in 1980s Lynn Lake. Lynn often included real things in her life in the strip, and today’s strip made me wonder if this conversation with Anne was based on a real conversation Lynn Johnston had with someone in Lynn Lake at the time. Considering the possibility that Lynn’s sexual references to 1980s Lynn Lake might be swinging couples puts a different spin on the interview. What we may have had then, was Lynn Johnston’s contact with one woman who did this activity and the knowledge that there were others in Lynn Lake who did it. I will quote the important part:
Q: So that was a dream that you had during your own marriage?
A: Well, [my former husband] worked with beautiful women ever since I met him. He's a dentist. He has hygienists and front-desk girls, and there are usually eight girls around him all the time, and he used to travel to the Native villages taking his staff with him, and people in the town would look at me as if to say, "Well, girl, join the club," because in a small northern mining town there's a lot of horsing around, and the joke was you can steal a man's wife, but you don't touch his woodpile, you know? It was rampant up here.
Q: Adultery is a form of entertainment where you live?
A: It was recreation. It was like a high school, all these different personalities thrown into this one inescapable place where you had to be there together all the time, whether you wanted to or not, and someone you hated might turn out to be the guy in the bar that you're hitting the sack with next year, you know? I didn't have time for that, nor did I want it, but it was there in the town. But I thought there was safety in numbers if he was with a bunch of girls. And they were all really nice people. But I thought to myself, "If I'm going to be a jealous wife, I'll drive myself crazy."
The interview works in that context. What it boils down to is Lynn was aware of adultery going on in Lynn Lake, and that she did not participate. However, Lynn gives the impression that it is rampant.
In the strip we have Connie Poirier, who had her evening with Phil Richards, which neither Phil nor Connie will talk about. The implication from that is clear. Now we have Anne Nichols, only restrained from swinging by being overweight. Those are the two majour families in the early strip. Maybe Lynn Johnston really did believe Lynn Lake was rampant with people horsing around back in 1980.
For me, the shock of the strip comes, not from Anne Nichol’s unusual confession, but a sudden realization. In 1980, when this strip originally appeared, Lynn Johnston was living in Lynn Lake, Manitoba. Reading Anne’s statement, I was immediately reminded of Lynn Johnston’s interview in Maclean’s where she described the recreational sex in 1980s Lynn Lake. Lynn often included real things in her life in the strip, and today’s strip made me wonder if this conversation with Anne was based on a real conversation Lynn Johnston had with someone in Lynn Lake at the time. Considering the possibility that Lynn’s sexual references to 1980s Lynn Lake might be swinging couples puts a different spin on the interview. What we may have had then, was Lynn Johnston’s contact with one woman who did this activity and the knowledge that there were others in Lynn Lake who did it. I will quote the important part:
Q: So that was a dream that you had during your own marriage?
A: Well, [my former husband] worked with beautiful women ever since I met him. He's a dentist. He has hygienists and front-desk girls, and there are usually eight girls around him all the time, and he used to travel to the Native villages taking his staff with him, and people in the town would look at me as if to say, "Well, girl, join the club," because in a small northern mining town there's a lot of horsing around, and the joke was you can steal a man's wife, but you don't touch his woodpile, you know? It was rampant up here.
Q: Adultery is a form of entertainment where you live?
A: It was recreation. It was like a high school, all these different personalities thrown into this one inescapable place where you had to be there together all the time, whether you wanted to or not, and someone you hated might turn out to be the guy in the bar that you're hitting the sack with next year, you know? I didn't have time for that, nor did I want it, but it was there in the town. But I thought there was safety in numbers if he was with a bunch of girls. And they were all really nice people. But I thought to myself, "If I'm going to be a jealous wife, I'll drive myself crazy."
The interview works in that context. What it boils down to is Lynn was aware of adultery going on in Lynn Lake, and that she did not participate. However, Lynn gives the impression that it is rampant.
In the strip we have Connie Poirier, who had her evening with Phil Richards, which neither Phil nor Connie will talk about. The implication from that is clear. Now we have Anne Nichols, only restrained from swinging by being overweight. Those are the two majour families in the early strip. Maybe Lynn Johnston really did believe Lynn Lake was rampant with people horsing around back in 1980.
posted by howard at 10:15 PM
17 Comments:
OK, so now the "newspaper" in Lynn Lake was just a meat market for cheaters. Got it.
This statement by Anne doesn't match up with the biography of her that painted her as an ultra-Catholic who wouldn't consider divorce from a cheater, let alone inviting a stranger into her marriage bed.
So maybe Anne in fact was originally mirroring some person Lynn knew from Lynn Lake, who seemed uptight but was actually participating--or wanting to participate!--in the constant adultery that we all know went on in that town.
I once saw an ad placed by a married couple for a third person. They wanted a woman with a big butt. I told my sister to answer it (we are both genetically endowed with the requisite anatomy), and she punched me. Threesomes are dangerous, I tell you.
howard,
The interview works in that context. What it boils down to is Lynn was aware of adultery going on in Lynn Lake, and that she did not participate. However, Lynn gives the impression that it is rampant.
She does seem the ideal candidate to have the delusion that the world outside her weird-but-safe fantasy bubble is a non-stop orgy to which she wasn't invited. She's self-righteous, ignorant, stubborn, shallow and judgmental so it seems to her that people are having fun she isn't 'allowed' to have (when she really means she's too timid to join in the non-existent fun) and they need to be exposed.
DreadedCandiru2 beat me to it- I strongly suspect that Lynn Johnston is the kind of uptight self-righteous puritan who has gone through her life convinced that the world outside her windows is dirty and evil and that all these allegedly "happy" people who have fulfilling sexual relationships with people they are not married to, especially the women who have boyfriends instead of husbands into their forties and careers instead of families, are actually desperate and sad on the inside. Because that makes people like her feel superior and more comfortable with the decisions she's made.
John_F_Jamele,
Feeling superior to people who don't particularly care what her opinion of them is is not her only meantal defect. Not only does she assign to them a misery they don't feel for a life the don't lead, she condescendingly assumes that they, the disinterested, burn with envy because they aren't her.
I've been to some small towns in my life, and I just can't believe there are these roving harems of hottie hygenists around, just waiting for a dentist to come into town and hire them.
Also, I have been to several dentists, and the hygenists were mostly middle-aged married women. Then again, what do I know about Swingin' Lynn Lake!
I grew up in a small town. It wasn't as tiny as Lynn Lake, but there was no more or less adultery there than anywhere else as far as I could tell. I also spent summers in a little bitty community of people who knew everything about each other, from baby pictures to every boyfriend or girlfriend they'd ever had to what their doctors told them to eat for their colons. If people wanted to cheat, they did it outside that community, because there was no way it could have been kept hidden -- and cheating was not rampant.
I wonder if Lynn assumed everyone over the age of 18 in Lynn Lake was married, and therefore that all the dating was "swinging". Or perhaps that the couples who got together for euchre night were playing strip euchre. Her mind does seem to tend to pornographic setups.
clio-1
If people wanted to cheat, they did it outside that community, because there was no way it could have been kept hidden -- and cheating was not rampant.
I grew up in a small town too, and it was huge scandal if someone was caught cheating. In fact, the children of some neighbours of ours broke in our house and stole things while we were on vacation once, and the shame of it was so bad the neighbours moved to a completely different town.
Or perhaps that the couples who got together for euchre night were playing strip euchre.
This is possible. I have gotten the impression that in Lynn Lake, Lynn was known as the dentist’s crazy wife, and she did not get invited to many social occasions. The brain of Lynn could make the leap that this lack of invitation was because they knew she wouldn’t participate in strip euchre.
Nav
I've been to some small towns in my life, and I just can't believe there are these roving harems of hottie hygenists around, just waiting for a dentist to come into town and hire them.
I agree. The hottie hygienists would have to be imported. Thanks to researching things for this strip (Yes, I know I am strange), I have looked at the medical care in Lynn Lake. As near as I can tell, there are no dentists there, and you have to travel 20-40 km to get to one. When Dr. Rod Johnston set up his shingle there, he was probably the only dentist in town. Most likely, any and all trained dental workers would have to have been hired and moved to Lynn Lake and paid pretty well to make it worth their while to work in such a remote location. The relocation aspect of this means we are probably talking young, single hygienists. In the 1980 CBC interview with Lynn at Lynn Lake, they show a picture of the woman Rod Johnston hired who was supposed to look like Cheryl Ladd. She does, in fact, look a little like Cheryl Ladd.
Also, I have been to several dentists, and the hygenists were mostly middle-aged married women. Then again, what do I know about Swingin' Lynn Lake!
I had dental work done today. My hygienist is mid-to-late 30s, single mother and she is quite pretty. Of course, this is Tucson, which is a little bigger town than Lynn Lake.
John F Jamele,
I strongly suspect that Lynn Johnston is the kind of uptight self-righteous puritan who has gone through her life convinced that the world outside her windows is dirty and evil and that all these allegedly "happy" people who have fulfilling sexual relationships with people they are not married to, especially the women who have boyfriends instead of husbands into their forties and careers instead of families, are actually desperate and sad on the inside.
Considering that her husband reputedly had an affair with a married woman in Lynn’s office and this woman was probably in her 40s, I wouldn’t be surprised if Lynn believes that exactly.
DreadedCandiru2,
She does seem the ideal candidate to have the delusion that the world outside her weird-but-safe fantasy bubble is a non-stop orgy to which she wasn't invited.
I’ve seen Lynn Johnston in a few live interviews and when she starts telling these fantasy stories, I can’t tell if she really believes them or if she is challenging the reporter to call her on her lies.
She's self-righteous, ignorant, stubborn, shallow and judgmental so it seems to her that people are having fun she isn't 'allowed' to have (when she really means she's too timid to join in the non-existent fun) and they need to be exposed.
I have always wondered what the reaction of the people in Lynn Lake is to the long series of negative things Lynn Johnston has said about living in the town after she left. I can’t imagine that the Mclean’s article went unnoticed by them.
qnjones,
This statement by Anne doesn't match up with the biography of her that painted her as an ultra-Catholic who wouldn't consider divorce from a cheater, let alone inviting a stranger into her marriage bed.
I suppose this is yet another case where Lynn’s desire to tell a particular joke or story kicks away any desire for a character to be consistent.
I once saw an ad placed by a married couple for a third person. They wanted a woman with a big butt. I told my sister to answer it (we are both genetically endowed with the requisite anatomy), and she punched me. Threesomes are dangerous, I tell you.
Hysterical. This story would have made for a funnier strip than today’s For Better or For Worse.
howard,
I have always wondered what the reaction of the people in Lynn Lake is to the long series of negative things Lynn Johnston has said about living in the town after she left. I can’t imagine that the (Maclean’s) article went unnoticed by them
I don't wonder that. Sure, I've never met anyone from Lynn Lake but I do know how people think; they totally hate Lynn Johnston for her acts of gratuitous defamation but realize that they can't get cleaned up by rolling in the dirt with her. It's best to think of them as a small town populated with Kelpfroths.
Swinging Kelpfroths -- now there's an image! Well, they didn't have kids, so that does make them "lifestyle" types. We have all the fun.
"I’ve seen Lynn Johnston in a few live interviews and when she starts telling these fantasy stories,"
Tell me about it. She has no less than six completely contradictory versions of "The real life inspiration for me making Lawrence gay."
Each one more tragic (and unlikely) than, um, the actual inspiration.
I've unfortunately known some deluded folks like Lynn. They really believe their own lies. It's the same mentality that professional writers who habitually plagiarize have. They just don't believe they will ever be caught.
Whoops, that was me.
qnjones,
It's the same mentality that professional writers who habitually plagiarize have. They just don't believe they will ever be caught.
Lynn Johnston might not ever be caught directly. I’ve read the interviews Lynn has done with the press, and none of the reporters seems to have done any kind of research. In the Maclean’s interview, you can tell the reporter is surprised by some of Lynn’s more obvious lies; but she does not challenge her on it. Lynn Johnston is a fluff piece, and certainly no reporter is going to motivated to say, “In so-and-so interview, you said this thing; but then in this other interview you said something completely different. Which one is right?” The press will not attack her. You don’t sell papers by calling Lynn Johnston a big liar. Their attitude seems to be to just let her tell these whoppers and she will expose herself to anyone who cares to read it. From Lynn’s perspective though, she can say anything and people will believe it.
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