“Where’s th’ punchline?”

[“Panel Discussion.” Zippy , June 11, 2026. Click for a larger view.]

In today’s strip, Zippy reads the comics he appeared in in the 1970s: “Okay — so where’s th’ punchline?”

In 1994, Bill Griffith and Bil Keane joined forces in Zippy and The Family Circus mashups.

Venn reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts : Hi and Lois and Zippy posts : Zippy posts (Pinboard)

[If you’re wondering about “Tip o’ th’ hat to Brian and Greg”: Brian and Greg Walker, sons of Mort Walker, are now responsible for Hi and Lois. The Family Circus is credited to Bil Keane (d. 2011) and his son Jeff Keane. That strip’s “weird zombie existence” is chronicled in a short documentary.]

Domestic comedy

[While watching a bit of The Blue Dahlia (dir. George Marshall, 1946).]

“How did they stand wearing ties and having their collars buttoned up like that all the time?”

“They were getting paid.”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy (Pinboard)

Knicks (!)

I’m not a sports-minded guy. We were watching The Strange Woman (dir. Edgar G. Ulmer, 1946) last night when I remembered that there was a Knicks game happening — that is to say, an NBA Finals game. We paused the movie and got to watch the last five minutes. The curse that had fallen upon the Knicks in Monday’s game (part of which I watched) was broken.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

THANK YOU TO THE PEOPLE WHO BLESSED MSG TODAY TO GET THE STANK VIBES OUT YOUR SERVICE IS APPRECIATED.

Context: fans burned copal and sage outside Madison Square Garden.

My time as a dedicated Knicks fan was back in the Reed-Bradley-DeBusschere-Frazier-Barnett days. Watching last night made me remember how a game can turn in seconds.

HCR on Blanche

In the most recent installment of Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson looks at Todd Blanche and the ongoing criminality of the current regime.

One detail of Blanche’s career not mentioned (and which I’d forgotten): in May 2025, after Blanche had been confirmed as deputy attorney general, the current occupant named him librarian of Congress. That gives an idea of how much respect the occupant has for librarianship. But the title didn’t stick.

There’s a name for it

It’s auditory pareidolia (it’s normal). What I’ve been hearing: Hank Williams-like songs and funk, thought not at the same time.

Related reading
All OCA pareidolia posts (Pinboard)

A tone ball

I heard something shifting around inside my guitar. After nearly thirty-two years, the maker’s label had detached from the back of the instrument. I turned the guitar upside down, shifted it around a bit, and Elaine pulled the label out of a f-hole with tweezers. And I shook out the two little pieces of Fun-Tak that had held the label in place.

And then I discovered this tone ball. My first.

[In real life, ¾" tall.]

The term tone ball comes from an unnamed employee at Elderly Instruments. We saw their impressive display of tone balls in 2011. Thank goodness Elaine snagged a screenshot of a page from Fretboard Journal (no longer available online) about Elderly’s display.

“A muddled Elizabethan play”

In a police state, all reading is revisionary.

Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister (1947).

Related reading
All OCA Nabokov posts (Pinboard)

James Blood Ulmer (1940–2026)

“The late music critic Greg Tate once described James as ‘the missing link between Jimi Hendrix and [his favorite guitarist] Wes Montgomery on one hand, and P-Funk and Mississippi Fred McDowell on the other’ ”: from an obituary for the guitarist and singer James Blood Ulmer (Clash ).

Here, from 1980, is how I first heard Ulmer, asking a question that remains timely: “Are You Glad to Be in America?”

From Keillorville

My recent exploration of the poetry of M.A. Jenene made me recall that in 2016 I made four poems from a week’s worth of poems from Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac : “Poem,” “Last Words,” “Upside Down,” and “Forecast.”

That radio show did feature some fine poems — you might recognize a line from William Wordsworth in “Poem.” But as I wrote in 2016,

an anecdotal sameness sets in rather quickly. Keillor’s reading voice adds an extra element of sameness, covering everything in dreary piety. Everyone sounds alike, or at least like cousins.

That dreary piety makes Keillor’s comment about the difference between the radio audience and the audience at a poetry reading even more baffling.

Ex-Lax in the news

““It’s my understanding they do have a non-detect level of Ex-Lax in them, but I figured since we’re OK with a non-detect level of PFAS, it would probably be OK”: “Laxative-laced brownies rattle Nantucket School Committee meeting” (The Boston Globe ).