Tag: weirdness

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It’s a Mad, MAD Future

It’s a Mad, MAD Future

I remembered Al Jaffee the Fold-In Genius. I had forgotten Al Jaffee the futurist.

In case you think I’ve gone MAD, let me explain.

You may have seen the obituaries that went around recently proclaiming the death of MAD magazine cartoonist Al Jaffee at the age of 102. The impish Al was a key part of the magazine’s snark and satire, especially after creating the Fold-In … a back cover drawing that would set up a question, only to reveal a new drawing with a punchline answer when folded together. (“What favorite of both kids and parents is guaranteed to be around forever? … Discarded disposable diapers.”)

But as one CBC story reminded me, Jaffee also drew parody ads for the magazine, using a familiar Madison Avenue approach to promote completely outrageous things.

You know, like a phone that remembers what you just dialed even when you don’t.

Or a razor with multiple blades.

Or … well,  you get the idea.

I’m not saying that Jaffee had a pipeline to the future. Plenty of his ad gags turned out to be just that, products that were laughable then and now. But there were just enough hits to be a little scary. And that nails a basic truth: if you want to see what’s coming next, it helps if your glasses are a little cockeyed.

A lot of us live lives that assume tomorrow will be just like today, only with stranger music. From one angle, that doesn’t seem unreasonable. After all, we’re learning from experience and building reflexes, so we extrapolate from what we already know.

That works for a while … until it doesn’t. Even on a personal scale, we know this. A healthy life can change without warning. A job can go away or mutate beyond recognition. Yesterday’s friend can be tomorrow’s memory. Those kind of shocks hit hard.

And on a larger scale? Many science fiction authors have warned that they write great stories but poor prophecies. One ironic example: Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation,” a series of stories about experts in reading the future, had a galactic society with practically no computers. (He would eventually rectify that in the 1980s.)

Sure, sometimes something clicked. But the biggest successes have often come from writers who didn’t take the subject too seriously. Who were willing to be outright silly, in fact.

Take “A Logic Named Joe,” a hilariously screwball story from the 1940s that also happened to anticipate personal home computers, linked databases, natural-language queries and parental controls.

Or “The Jetsons,” where videoconferencing was so common that even doctor’s visits were done remotely.

Or of course, Al Jaffee, who thought he was kidding when he mock-advertised a stamp that would save you the trouble of licking it.

What can I say? Sometimes it pays to be weird.

In fact, it can be downright liberating.

It’s not natural for many of us. After all, it’s risky to break with what “everyone knows.” Most of us don’t like the idea of looking silly or taking a step into the unknown.

But the unknown comes whether we’re ready or not. And sometimes yesterday’s conventional thinking proves to be sillier than even the most satirical writer could have dreamed.

We don’t know everything. And when we admit that – when we leave ourselves open to new possibilities, however strange – that’s when we can start to build a future.

Maybe Al taught us well. Look at the picture in front of you, sure … but be willing to fold it up to see the answer you need.

It’s a MAD idea. But it just might work.

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Deck the Halls With Heads of Holly

At long last, Holly Hobbie smiles at us from the Christmas tree.

And from slightly lower down, so does her long-lasting head.

This may take a little explanation.

Long ago, like many a little girl, my wife Heather had a Holly Hobbie Christmas ornament, the big-bonneted pioneer girl of many a greeting card. This Holly was designed to hang from a tree branch with arms open wide, gazing benignly at passers-by.

It was much loved. And like many much-loved things, she got broken a bit too soon. One Christmas, the family unpacked its ornaments to find that 90% of Holly Hobbie was missing – everything except her well-known head.

With normal people, this would be the end.

My wife and her siblings are not normal people.

Holly Hobbie endured. In fact, Placing The Head of Holly Hobbie became a cherished Christmas tradition. With many giggles, The Head would come to rest on a suitably flat bit of pine, looking as though orcs had visited the American prairie and left behind a sign of their passage.

When Heather married me, The Head came with her. And from that day forward, our Christmas tree has been a Head above the rest.

Weird? Maybe. But in a time of year where we plant trees indoors and eat food out of our socks, I don’t think the rest of us are in any place to talk. That’s what traditions are: weird things you don’t do at any other time. I mean, ‘tis the season for a reindeer with an LED nose, for Pete’s sake.

But even so, Heather kept a watch. And with the rise of the internet – and just as importantly, the rise of 1980s nostalgia – her dream finally came true. She found a source, made the contact, cheered as the mail arrived.

Holly Hobbie had come home!

Triumphantly, Heather placed the full-bodied Holly in the tree. Just a step or two away from The Head of the old one, gazing up at her new sister.

After a moment, we both laughed.

“Kind of looks like she’s been left there as a warning to the newcomer, doesn’t it?” I said, to more helpless giggles.

A Christmas tradition would continue. Stronger and weirder than ever.

And with it grew just a bit of joy.

Joy’s kind of weird itself. It hides in odd places, lurks around strange corners. You can try to cultivate it for weeks with ribbons and music and Hallmark movies without success, and then, bang! Up it pops without warning.

Sometimes it’s the sudden connection that a tradition makes between past and present, briefly restoring something thought lost.

Sometimes it’s the out-of-place detail that makes us stop, think and wonder at the world around us, a star burning where it has no reason to be.

Frequently there is no obvious explanation. It pounces like a tiger, ambushing us on a deeper level than simple happiness. It’s a sudden rightness, or an excitement that won’t be held back, or a warmth that colors everything nearby.

It’s an inspiration. And like many inspiring things, you can’t really force it – but you can leave yourself open to it so that you don’t miss it when it comes.

Eyes open. Heart open. Seeing and experiencing and reaching to those nearby.

It might mean changing the usual or daring to be thought strange. That’s a risk. But it’s one worth taking to break beyond the expected and really live.

So be alert. Keep your head up.

Hey … it works for Holly Hobbie.  

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Nonsense and Nonsense Ability

The weekly faceoff between me and my column had just begun. As usual, the battle was closely matched.

“So honey,” I called out to my wife Heather, “what should I write about this week?”

No hesitation.

“Turnips!” she called out.

I laughed, loud and long. After 16 years of marriage, I really should have known better.

The turnips are a running gag that began long before I met Heather. She started making that wisecrack in high school, though she’s no longer clear on why. It may have been due to a random episode of Blackadder or her love of medieval history, where turnips may appear on any random page. It may have even started with her love of  the “Little House on the Prairie” books, which include the deathless words “Carrie loved to eat a raw turnip.”

“I want that tattooed,” she joked. At least, I think she’s joking. With root vegetables, one can never be too sure.

Wherever it came from, it’s been here to stay. Turnips have sneaked onto grocery lists, into text messages and amidst quiet moments in otherwise ordinary conversations. One time, I even called her bluff and brought some home from the store after a grocery run. Heather was surprised, amused and a little perplexed.

In roughly 20 years of turnip jokes, you see, she had never actually used one in a meal.

“I should have had them laminated,” she said.

Weird? You haven’t known us long enough. While turnips may produce (har-har) our best punchlines, it’s far from our only bit of mild insanity. There’s the mandatory sound effect when someone says they’ll be “back like a flash” (psheewwww!), or the back-and-forth razzing about the romantic qualities of Bob Dylan, or singing the names of Heather’s medical conditions. (Yes, if you ever want to enliven the Mozart Requiem, just start singing along with “AN-ky-LOS-ing … SPON-dy-LIT-is!”)

It’s ridiculous. Even silly. And I think it’s why we’ve survived as long as we have.

A lot of things get promised when you enter a marriage: for better or worse, for richer or poorer, for Buffs or Rams, and so on. But I really think that somewhere in the wedding vows needs to be a promise to love each other “in sense and in nonsense.”

Yes, you want to take each other seriously. This is your partner, your love and your best friend, after all. But marriage throws a lot at you, from the life-and-death to the utterly mundane. It’s easy to drown and simply react to the next thing until you’re not one couple, you’re two people with Important Things that all need to be done Right Now.

Silliness is a way of taking the moment back.

It means stepping back and turning life cockeyed for a second, for no other purpose than a moment’s amusement.

It means calling on old memories of odd moments, because the best gags have deep roots.

And it means showing your partner that you still care. That you can reach outside yourself and spend an instant to make them smile, speaking in a language that only the two of you share.

The words may be ridiculous. But getting silly is serious business. “A laugh can be a very powerful thing,” Roger Rabbit once said – and really, if you can’t trust a cartoon rabbit, who can you trust?

OK, maybe that was a bit much even for me. Time to ground myself. To focus. To concentrate on weighty matters and serious things.

Things like … turnips.

Thanks, honey. That’s another one I owe you.