Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 07, 2012

 Alex: “Good talk, Dad. Could you turn up the radio?” C’mon, Mr. Dad Mike Sir, she’s your darling dollbaby. You’ve been treating her at great emotional distance all evening. Of course, she’s going to exhibit coping mechanisms, even as her trusty MIT diploma dangles (figuratively) from the end of her inherited Doonesbury nose! Now you’re telling her to “dial it back a little”. Whatta Greek marble statue you are! Almost hate to say it for fear Dad will order me, straight from panel 3, to butt out of the ’toon. (Fuzzy bears, note the set of the Doonesbury jaw, in both parent and child in same panel.) But since you’re only a frozen Rorschach inkblot test who can’t speak out at me, I will: Daddio, if you had been SHOWING her more familial love toward her from long ago and right up to the present, she’d be in your lap (figuratively speaking) and all over you like a wet puppy Westy. (Fuzzy bears, you know how emotional she can get. Hark back to her Deaniac days.) And you’d have to park the car and deal with her with tears and hugs and a drippy nose. She’s not, and you don’t know why, do you?  Not sayin’ you don’t love her. Course you love her. And you’d gladly demo your love by giving her “up to half of your kingdom”. At the appropriate time and place, of course, of course. Like, say, on her wedding dance floor or, better, on your hi-tech death bed. Just sayin’ . . . .

 To see a puppy Westy . . . . http://gouloupe.fr/knitting/images/westy.jpg 

 To see fuzzy bears . . . . http://gouloupe.fr/knitting/images/pyrabear.jpg

It suddenly occurred to me . . . reading these posts and comments is kind of like being a guest silhouette in MST3K.

Dylan: Let me see if I understand you correctly. You’re saying that Alex does not, in fact, harbor any unrealistic expectations of Leo or their future, and that this whole thing is just a bid for attention from her father?

 MST3K = Mystery Science Theater 3000

 If I got another life, what would I do with the one I already have? Give it to you? Get your own life. Don’t try to finagle one from somebody else.

Hey! I LIKE the comments. Pro or con or all those other angles. I thought it was a good running commentary, sort of the proof that a picture is worth a thousand words? Dylan is using the strip as a sounding board and opportunity to get clear about what he thinks and his opinion of Doonesbury, the experience of which he shares by describing and filling in the blanks and perceived backstory.

He’s LEARNING technique, among other things, by doing this process. William James said that our not responding to art makes us weaker…Confuscious said the same thing…and that conversely, if you respond strongly you become a stronger person yourself from confronting a superior personality. Tip of the hat, Dylan.Totally Pi pierean.

Miles Davis said the same thing…when he said the difference between a good musician and a GREAT musician is they hear(“process”) better stuff…

Alex’s frontal lobes simply have not connected yet. That doesn’t happen until sometime in the mid-twenties for most people. I’ve only met a very few who evidenced this in their teens.

Our early-twenty-something daughter once embarked on a three-month trip to Guatemala—by herself— to “immerse” herself in Spanish. She booked a hotel for three days in Zona Una of Guatemela City, an old, historical zone that the U.S. Embassy warns not to even visit, especially at night. Her passport expired the day after she arrived there, and she was out of money in three weeks. Meanwhile, her life and all of our futures were in limbo.

They can think, all right, but they’re not yet anatomically equipped to think with good judgment.

I recognize that in one ear, out the other look in panel two, yesterday and today, comin’ and goin’. It’s got to be that frontal lobe issue nimbleswitch was talking about.