Frazz by Jef Mallett for February 25, 2021

I suspect I’m gonna be sorry for asking, but I don’t get her grade.

That’s either nuanced or just long.

What I’ve never been able to understand is how theatre critics have so much power over what they critique. If most of the critics give a play bad reviews-even a Broadway play-it can close quickly.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people – H. L. Mencken

And suddenly I’m thinking of Genesis’s song, ‘Abacab’.

That’s still just one-dimensional. Mr. Spätzle could’ve graded her on accuracy, and additional on grammar, verbosity, diversity, spelling, and maybe humor.

Even in sports the grades are more nuanced by not only grading the actual performance, but various aspects. And the spectators quibble further on their favorite aspects like costume and hairdo, grimaces and sexyness.

Grades when studying Shakespeare are even less nuanced; they are either 2B or not 2B.

Could’a’ been worse: she could’a’ gotten DEAD. That would definitely have been something to BEEF about.

For about 35 years I did movie-review panels for several local science-fiction conventions. I used a numeric scale of 1 to 9, which translated into other scales like this:

Everyone should see these:

9 = ★★★★★ = A = superlative

8 = ★★★★½ = A–/B+ = dandy

7 = ★★★★ = B = good

Up to you:

6 = ★★★½ = B–/C+ = fair

5 = ★★★ = C = average

4 = ★★½ = C–/D+ = poor

Avoid these with increasing degrees of revulsion

3 = ★★ = D = bad

2 = ★½ = D– = awful

1 = ★ = F = execrable

Thanks to all of you who cleared up that mystery!

My friend’s son is currently in fourth grade, and devouring quite a chunk of independent study as he can in his spare time. This is a timely reminder that after work, I simply must ask him how his thesis is progressing.

(Although since he’s nine, he’ll likely just look at me and ask me what a thesis is, before talking about the latest video game or comic book he wants. Because while very intelligent and gifted, he’s also – y’know – NINE.)

The thesis makes no sense. If critics thought that readers only understand the stars, why would they bother writing those long articles?

Might I say I’m annoyed at Netflix for exchanging its 5-star streaming ratings for Like vs. Dislike. Much of the time, I end up leaving the programs unrated.

Jef Mallett’s Blog Posts

Frazz14 hrs · Every time I look at this strip, I think of Talking Heads and The Ramones, two of the bigger acts to have gotten their start and the sadly now-gone CBGB and OMFUG.

How’s that for complicating something simple?