Month: November 2022

Tripledemic!

Sunday I was at a great science museum. Don’t take my word for it. A world famous chemist recommends the Museum of Science, Boston.

I was at the MOS with my sister, who works there, and her family. Mingling among the crowds I wore a new Powcom KN95 from Bona Fide Masks. It came off during lunch at a nearby Cheesecake Factory, and when I drove a niece and her beau to the airport.

Tuesday at the library I also wore a mask. Later, I watched the CBS Evening News.

In the middle of the night I started coughing. By noon today, Wednesday, my throat was sore and one of my ears ached. Despite the precaution of wearing a protective mask, I caught something, but it isn’t Covid.

I had a flu shot, so if that’s what it is, I’m doing a lot better than the last time I caught flu ten years ago. It feels like nothing more than a mild cold.

That Old Potter Magic

I have read “The Purloined Letter,” and like Poe’s first detective Dupin story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” its three principal characters may as well be Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, and Inspector Lestrade. Which brings to mind Dennis Potter’s 80’s British TV series The Singing Detective, which is nothing like Sherlock Holmes.

Potter is perhaps better known for Pennies from Heaven, a BBC production from 1978 starring Bob Hoskins, that was later adapted into a Steve Martin movie. I can’t think of an American television series that rivaled Dennis Potter’s unique vision until David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

Crumb’s Better Half

Drawing of Aline by Robert Crumb

The death of Christine (Perfect) McVie will get plenty of attention elsewhere. This is a place where you will read that Robert Crumb’s wife Aline has passed away.

As cartoonists, Robert and Aline were as close as it got to a “John and Yoko marriage.”

Aline Kominsky and Robert Crumb

Aline’s passing comes not long after the death of Bill Griffith’s wife Diane Noomin. Friends with Aline, Diane was also an underground cartoonist.

Zippy, by Bill Griffith, Sunday, November 20, 2022

No Mystery

“The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” is quite a disappointment after reading the celebrated “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Marie is a tedious accounting of detective Dupin’s laborious thought process in breaking down the information that’s available about the murder. I attribute the story’s failure to Poe taking the events directly from an actual contemporary murder, rather than coming from his own imagination. I’ll move on to “The Purloined Letter,” which has a much better reputation.