So with life at the Cruse-Sedarbaum household returning to normal now, what’s on my plate today?

Well, as is all too typical in the freelancer’s life, I’ve got an overflowing platter at the moment after months of slim pickings.

(1) In an hour or so I’ll be on the phone with an editor in my hometown of Birmingham about a one-shot educational comic strip I’ll be doing for a public health magazine down there. I’ll share details once the project congeals.

(2) Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be meeting with marketing folks from a prominent corporation for whom it looks like I’ll be doing a series of webcomics showcasing the excellent attributes of the company’s products. Strictly commercial, this endeavor, but it could be fun and it should pay better than my usual fare. Once again, it’s too early in the process to talk specifics, but my fingers are crossed that this will permit Eddie and me to finally get the crumbling cement steps in front of our house repaired.

(3) Then there’s the two-page comic strip I’m working on for the first issue of the North County Perp. It will not be pleasing to George W. Bush (as if he cares what some two-bit fringe cartoonist in the Berkshire hills thinks about his presidency).

And of course, the lawn needs mowing again.

I say this with Elizabeth Whitney in mind. Elizabeth is a performance artist who resided for a short while in North Adams. Eddie and I got to know her well enough while she was a neighbor to enjoy several evenings together and help celebrate her wedding at Mass MoCA when she married her longtime partner Lea Robinson, a writer and women’s basketball coach.

The likelihood of Eddie and me actually seeing one of Elizabeth’s shows seemed remote for a while, though, North Adams being short on natural venues for quirky performance artists. They appeared still remoter once she got lured to Emerson College in Boston, where she is now a Scholar in Residence teaching courses in Performance Studies.

But fortune turned in our favor a couple of Sundays ago when the Queer Student Union at nearby Williams College chose to bring Wonder Woman: The Musical to town.

To put it simply: Elizabeth blew us away. What a knockout presentation. And I would say the same thing even if Eddie and I had never once scarfed down sushi with her and Lea at Jae’s on Route 8. I’m tellin’ ya: if she ever brings this or any of her other shows to your berg and you stay home, you’ll be the big loser.

Elizabeth is a charismatic charmer with a great voice and deft comedic chops. I am enjoying knowing-her-when currently and fully expect to bathe in her reflected glory by bragging about having known-her-when once the larger world fully discovers what she has to offer.

Explore the wacky and fabulous world of cartooning. Each student will develop a series of cartoons, exploring image-making methods, captioning, publishing methods, and individualized cartoon styles using pen, ink and marker.

Prerequisite: None

That’s because all of the characters and jokes in my present-day squirrel humor series are blatant steals from cartoons that ran in the (recently folded, I’m sad to say) Birmingham Post-Herald between 1970 and 1972.

Because I was the cartoonist who drew the original Tops & Button series from which the these cartoons and usually renamed characters are lifted, I’m allowed to refer to my spree of thievery by the more polite term: remakes. I explained all of this back in February when I was just getting this blog underway; I’m only mentioning it here for the benefit of those aging Birminghamians and Birmingham refugees (you know who you are) who have come in late.

I needed to spend a few moments addressing an unrelated Squirly & Earl housekeeping matter anyway. This weekend I noticed to my embarrassment that I had accidentally run the same S&E installment on two different Sundays, separated by a month of so. I’m sure this caused much consternation abong my legions of Sunday squirrel humor fans, all of whom were too sensitive to my feelings to share their distress with me personally. Never wanting to short-change my loyal readers, however, I want you to know that I have belatedly corrected my error: the Squirly & Earl cartoon now archived as my April 2 offering is different from the one first posted on that date originally.

As I uploaded the aforementioned replacement, of course, I was siezed with uncertainty about whether today’s children grow up hearing the nursery rhyme about Little Miss Muffet, which couldn’t be avoided when I was a kid and on which the presumed humor of that particular cartoon rests. Maybe the spider-spooked lass in the nursery rhyme has faded into obscurity in the intervening years. Conversely, if today’s youngers do know the verse and have been inquisitive enough (as I never was in the first six decades of my life) to look up the actual dictionary definition of a "tuffet," then the panel will draw a total blank. Everything depends, after all, on the slightly provocative sound that a child’s tuffet can take on when one has no idea what a tuffet is. Such is the fragility of comedy that assumes that readers are as ignorant as the cartoonists entertaining them!

Adobe Photoshop vs. Apple’s Photo Booth: which best captures my ineffable grandeur?

I leave you to ponder that question while I adjust to life with my new iMac. (Anyone want to suggest the best book for learning the GarageBand ropes?)

Under the editorship of an enterprising editor named Eugene Breckenridge, our student newspaper, the Hilltop News, had begun breaking BSC tradition by practicing more serious journalism than the fraternity/sorority-oriented student body was accustomed to. But for my quasi-bohemian crowd something a little more edgy was called for to make campus discourse even less predictable.

"Arf arf!"

"Yerp!"

"Bow wow! Grrr!"

These reactions summararize the results of a recent informal poll by Granny investigating the incidence of underground dog-kicking on the Birmingham-Southern campus.

It is estimated that 25% of the students at BSC have kicked or are planning to kick a dog in the near future, though only 18% have actually admitted or have been seen in the process of kicking and only 13% of the campus dogs have been kicked on an ascertainable 3% of their available anatomy.

Most students make a point of kicking dogs off-campus. although. a significant minority have been seen lurking on the boundaries kicking them back on again.

All students agree that dogs are readily available if you just know the drummer at the Smokey Bar & Grill. Or, if you prefer, you can follow the ‘Southern students’ example and order a fresh puppy from Miles Kimbell of Oshkosh. If that doesn’t work, you can follow other ‘Southern students’ examples and trot back down to the Smokey Bar & Grill and kick drunks. "Man, like the fuzz can be a real hang-up," comments a jivey practioner, irritated at the stubborn dog hairs lodged in his cuffs. But all save a vocal canine minority agree that the lack of’ a hangover make it preferable to drinking and more edifying than drowning cats or the communal roachsquashes that were the rage at this time last year.

Granny feels that dog-kicking contributes to a disunified and fragmented campus — particularly when the practice escalates to actual dismemberment. Granny plans to publish a series of articles on other illegal activities on campus such as miscegenation among Dr. Bailey’s lukemic mice, child molestation, euthenasia, banana highs in the snack-bar, plus a shocking, first-person report on the incidence of statutory rape in the sculpture lab. In the meantime, Granny appreciates the invaluable help given her by her many informants among the dog-kicking set. And now. . .

"I do not consider this example of so-called "satire" to be ONE BIT FUNNY!!!"