What is real? A short disquisition.

August 25th, 2006

I should be writing episodes 494 and 495 right now, but to procrastinate, I started reading the comments people were making about 493. The very aptly named Sir Real brought up an excellent question which I’d like to address, “What ‘actually’ happened in the DTWOF world” in this episode? Did Lois trash Ginger’s car? Did Sydney really make an assignation with Madeleine right in front of Mo?

I get confused myself with episodes like this. In fact, I just came up with a conceptual category for them—I’ve started thinking of them as “speculative” episodes. Just as speculative fiction imagines worlds that are different from this one while illuminating some aspect of our reality, a speculative DTWOF episode imagines a course of action that does not actually occur in the world of the strip but which attempts to shed some light on current events.

Being very fond of the first formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative–”Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it would become a universal law”—I like to take it out for a test drive occasionally.

For example, what if we all behaved in our domestic lives the way the Bush Administration conducts foreign policy? Or the way Enron conducted business? (Here are some examples of “speculative” episodes: Foreign Policy, Snug as a Bug, Everyday Enron.)

Obviously, I try not to do strips like this too often because then the whole cartoon universe would dissolve into meaninglessness.

Even so, things remain a little blurry because the behavior of the characters in speculative episodes isn’t entirely inconsistent with their personalities. That’s why they’re funny. (If they’re funny, which sometimes they’re not. Doublethink, for example, I consider a humor failure.)

Like, I wouldn’t put it past Sydney to make a date with Madeleine while Mo was sitting right there. (And I’m sorry, but I must congratulate myself here. Don’t you think “our mutual friend” is the best name for an English professor’s dildo ever?)

Sir Real goes on to ask, “So, Alison, are the events of this strip part of the `canon’, so to speak? Or more of a play-within-a-play sort of aside? (Or a lapse like Watson’s wandering war wound?)” The answer is no, they’re not part of the ‘canon.’ Nor are they lapses. They’re asides.

Aren’t you glad you asked?

Some non-lawn related items

August 24th, 2006

1. Fun Home has been nominated for a Quill Book Award in the graphic novel category. I’m sorry to say that I had never heard of the Quill Book Awards before this, but apparently they’re some kind consumer’s choice deal, and everyone can cast a vote. So my publicist said I should put it on my blog.

2. If you live in Seattle, come hear me read at the Bumbershoot Festival. I’m doing a reading Monday, September 4th at 6:30, in some place called the Alki Room, with Sean Wilsey. He’s the author of a wild memoir called Oh, the Glory of it All, and he’s also the guy who reviewed Fun Home for the New York Times Book Review–as you may recall he actually drove to my home town to fact-check me. It should be an interesting evening.

We normally don’t delight in the misfortune of others, but Sean Wilsey and Alison Bechdel have written such hilarious memoirs, that they’ve redeemed a good many of their readers’ horrible childhoods. John Douglas Marshall, Seattle P-I book critic and himself an award-winning memoirist, moderates the session of family therapy guaranteed to make you laugh.

3. Sorry about all the trouble people are having reading the strip and tweaking their browsers. Eventually I’ll get this sorted out. I promise.

4. If you get tired of voting for Fun Home to get a Quill award, you can vote for my high school boyfriend to win the HGTV Design Star contest. It’s one of them crazy Survivor-derivative shows, you know, where people compete to be the last person standing? Or in this case, the last interior designer standing. Normally I find those things excruciating to watch, but knowing someone–even if I only really knew him thirty years ago–makes it much more interesting.

Anyhow, you can go to the Design Star site, scroll down to “You Be The Judge” and vote through Friday for Tym. He used to be Tim. I guess Tym is his designer name.

the march of progress

August 24th, 2006

I got a lawnmower. A guy down the road said he could refurbish one for me for fifty bucks. He didn’t think the scythe was such a good idea. And I didn’t think the goat was such a good idea.

So I terrorized a beautiful snake and countless frogs, I cut down the stand of Queen Anne’s lace, the peppermint that had run amok, the bright jewelweed. And now my lush, verdant lawn is a brownish field of stubble strewn with unseemly clods of chewed up grass.

But despite the tingling in my hands and the lingering aroma of gasoline, I feel strangely virtuous. Maybe next I’ll tackle my email backlog.