Rocks, unnoticed

Some Plymouth Rocks

Cole Porter, 1934, in the song “Anything Goes”:

Times have changed,
And we’ve often rewound the clock
Since the Puritans got a shock
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today
Any shock they should try to stem,
’Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock
Plymouth Rock would land on them.

Malcolm X, March 29, 1964:

“We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.”

The resemblance popped into my head when I was putting water on to boil this morning. Coincidence, or no? The Internets now tell me that other people have wondered about it, though without thinking of the phrase “some Plymouth Rocks.”

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“Triptych! Trilogy! Troika!”

[Click for a larger view.]

Today’s Zippy, “Inside Baseball,” is all about some rocks.

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More than some rocks

[Nancy, September 16, 1950. Click for larger rocks.]

It’s not always some.

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[Yesterday’s Nancy is also today’s Nancy.]

“Some rocks,” some boid

[Nancy, June 21, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy, Sluggo has proposed that he and Nancy wade in th’ lake. Nancy thinks the water may be too deep. “Don’t be silly,” says Sluggo. “Look at dat li’l boid.” Indeed there is a boid standing in the water. Or there was.

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[“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.]

Some grades

[Nancy, May 22, 1950. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s yesterday’s Nancy, Nancy has offered cheerful news: she got an A in history. But Aunt Fritzi wants to know about “the general result.”

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Some rocks in our heads

From The New York Times (gift link): “Virginia Fifth Grader Is Celebrated for Spotting Textbook’s Error.” Liam Squires noticed that igneous rock and sedimentary rock were out of place in a diagram of the rock cycle. The publisher acknowledged the mistake. The Times quotes Serena Porter, Liam’s teacher:

“We’re all human, and whether it’s an adult or a child, we all make mistakes,” Ms. Porter said. “You don’t want to roll around pointing out everyone’s little mistakes, but you should be proud that you caught something like this.”

Liam received buttons, sticker, and a handwritten letter from the publisher.

Here, from the the University of California Museum of Paleontology, is an explanation of the rock cycle. This post is for my children, who knew, and, I trust, still know their igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.

“Fritzi Ritz is my co-pilot!”

Zippy loves Nancy.

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[Still awaiting Griffith’s Some Rocks: The Ernie Bushmiller Story.]

Rocks and debris

[Beetle Bailey, July 31, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

Ernie Bushmiller would know how to tidy up this landscape. Just “some rocks,” please.

[Strange to see “debris” in the news and in today’s Beetle Bailey.]

Today’s Saturday Stumper

Today’s Newsday  Saturday Stumper is a rerun (with updates) from 2012 while Stan Newman, the puzzle’s editor, is on vacation. The puzzle is by Anna Stiga (“Stan Again”) the pseudonym that signals an easier Stumper, but I found this one tough. Just two clues feel dated: 42-A, three letters, “GM news of 2010” and 60-A, five letters, “Dockers’ cousins.” The clue that broke open the puzzle for me: 45-A, seven letters, “Prime time for oysters.”

Some other clue-and-answer pairs of note:

6-A, nine letters, “Conclusive procedures.” SYLLOGISMS won’t fit.

6-D, seven letters, “Carrying mail.” Nicely misleading.

8-D, seven letters, “Of volcanic origin.” My daughter learned the three kinds of rocks in grade school. This one I remember. Some rocks!

13-D, six letters, “Greek bread spread.” But I think the Middle East might have something to say about it.

18-A, nine letters, “Longfellow lover.” Now there’s an out-of-the-way name.

34-A, six letters, “Pulitzer winner for The Good War.” It’s good to find his name in a puzzle.

46-D, six letters, “Refusal of assistance.” I like the terseness.

58-A, five letters, “‘Bow down, archangels, in your dim _____’: Yeats.” Good to see his name too.

My favorite from this puzzle: 19-A, nine letters, “It may be underfoot.”

No spoilers; the answers are in the comments.

Spelling fail

[Beetle Bailey, June 11, 2022. Click for a larger view.]

In the words of another comic strip, “Good grief!”

[Beetle Bailey, June 11, 2022. My correction. Click for a larger view.]

I can think of two possible explanations other than a plain old mistake on the assembly line. Perhaps the strip’s makers feared that the correct spelling would look wrong to their readers. Or perhaps the mistake belongs to Sarge. “O solo mee-o”?

A few other troubling Beetle Bailey posts
Bathrooms : Fingers : Ketchup : Pillow : Razors : “Some rocks” : Squirrels : Toilet bowls

Mutts rocks

[Mutts, April 24, 2022.]

In today’s Mutts, words from the Dalai Lama. And “some rocks.”

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Some unusual “some rocks”

[Nancy, June 20, 1949. Click for a larger view.]

Today’s yesterday’s Nancy has some unusual “some rocks.”

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“Some rocks”

[Click for bigger rocks.]

There they were, where two roads meet, or diverge, depending on which way your feet are going. They are large rocks, aspiring to grow still bigger.

Imagine if Robert Frost had been out walking: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / When all at once I saw some rocks.” Then we would have “The Roads Not Taken,” the poet (already with Wordsworth on his mind) having been stopped in his tracks by the sudden stony sight.

Frost’s “For Once, Then, Something” refers to “a pebble of quartz” at the bottom of a well. I think “For Once, Then, Some Rocks” would be a much more satisfying poem.

“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

See also today’s Zippy.

[I’m not touching “Mending Wall” — too many rocks.]

One of some

[Nancy, January 10, 1955. Click for larger rocks.]

In “today’s” Nancy, Herman owes Sluggo a dollar, so Sluggo is being solicitous about his friend’s well-being. I like it that even “that big rock” is one of some.

“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

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Domestic comedy

“Do you want tomatoes?”

“Yes, please.”

“How many?”

“Some?”

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[“Some,” as in rocks. They were grape tomatoes.]

Clip art and rocks

[“Ee-Yew!” Zippy, June 29, 2021. Click for a larger view.]

“Some rocks” is an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

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Some Family Circus rocks

As Billy runs with a mazy motion to bring Jeffy and PJ the news that lunch is ready, he touches upon “some rocks.”

[The Family Circus, June 13, 2021. Click for a larger view.]

Coincidence, or homage? I vote for homage.

“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

A Family Circus note: did you know that Bil Keane and Bill Griffith collaborated on a number of strips in which Zippy enters the world of The Family Circus ?

Four panels, “some rocks”

[A first panel. Bliss, October 23, 2020.]

Thanks to George Bodmer, who draws Oscar’s Portrait, for passing on yesterday’s Bliss.

“Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages.

“Just one rock”

[“Rock of Ages.” Zippy, September 28, 2020.]

In today’s Zippy, a rock has been teetering to get Zippy’s attention: “When it comes to rocks, all you think about is three!” Yes.

I just looked up “upon this rock I will build my church” and found that I had typed “upon some rocks.” Honest. “Some rocks” are an abiding preoccupation of these pages. “This rock,” by the way, is Matthew 16:18.

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