Being Jim Davis

Listener, was your patience sorely tested by two full weeks of thoughtful, relevant and interruption-free podcasts while host Christopher Winter was off in Australian Drug Jail? Well, finally, FINALLY, our long national nightmare is at an end.In today's episode, Chris and Jon discuss coffee, frozen custard, gin, and -- who knows? -- probably some other things too.Today's strip

Too bad Chris wasn't here today. I'm sure if he had he would have informed our poorly-read asses that Jon's misplaced poetry in panel three is lifted more or less directly from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Since he wasn't the closest thing I can offer is a clip from this episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle which is, doubtless, much better. R.I.P. June Foray, amirite?   Endless thanks to Josh Gates for filling in Christopher Winter this week. If for some insane reason you still haven't checked out his art, #1 what the fuck is wrong with you and #2, here, go do it now. Seriously, there's some really cool stuff on there, and I'm not just talking about centaur penises.Today's strip         

Y'all watching Ozark on Netflix? It's pretty good.Today's strip

We conclude that Garfield is not best understood as the male sexual organ, or as a male reproductive organ, but instead as an enacted social construct that is both damaging and problematic for society and future generations. The conceptual Garfield presents significant problems for gender identity and reproductive identity within social and family dynamics, is exclusionary to disenfranchised communities based upon gender or reproductive identity, is an enduring source of abuse for Nermals and other gender-marginalized groups and individuals, is the universal performative source of rape, and is the conceptual driver behind much of climate change.Today's stripGet me off Your Fucking Email ListSkepticism and the perils of pay-to-play academic journals*Did I say MIT? I guess I meant NYU/UCLA. Whatever.

CONTENT NOTICE: CAT POOJon Arbuckle's unfettered cruelty towards his cat takes the spotlight today in one of his most diabolical plots yet. Sure, he's delved into the use of decoy objects before in his tireless quest to bring Garfield suffering, but this particular deception attains Batman Gambit levels of trickery, paired with a well-timed panel three deployment of tactical sarcasm. It's truly a picture of depravity.Today's incidental music, "Dr. Jones" from the album Freak-Ass Bitches On My Rooftop by The Flowers of Disgust, appears courtesy of The Flowers of Disgust and Cat O' Nine Tails Records.   Today's strip

I realized in the course of editing this episode that I've always conflated in my head the names of Michael Jackson's 1991 uncredited Simpsons guest role 'Leon Kompowsky' and Michael Richard's idiosyncratic savant janitor from Weird Al's 1989 opus UHF 'Stanley Spadowski'. Am I the only one who does that? Anyway, today's Garfield is weirdly morbid and borderline subversive, so we had lots to ponder.So much so, in fact, that there just wasn't time to hear Josh's exciting story about how he injured his pinky finger and in what precise way it related to his cat's butthole. So stay tuned for tomorrow to hear that story!Today's strip

Ketchup (disambiguation)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaKetchup is a condiment. Related pages:Banana ketchup, a prepared condiment made from mashed banana, sugar, vinegar, and spicesHeinz Tomato Ketchup, a brand of ketchup by H. J. Heinz CompanyVecchi Ketchup Factory in Hazlet, New Jersey produced ketchupKetchup may also refer to:Emperor Tomato Ketchup, the fourth album by UK band Stereolab, released in April 1996It's Only Ketchup, an album released by Tim FiteKetchup as a vegetable, a proposed United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Drug Administration directiveLas Ketchup, a Spanish 4-girl pop music groupThe Ketchup Effect, a 2004 teen Swedish movie"The Ketchup Song", the song "Aserejé", performed by the Spanish pop group Las Ketchup Today's strip

    Christopher Winter couldn't make it again this entire week due to family obligations and/or incarceration. But the good news is we ARE joined by Astute Listener and longtime friend of the podcast Josh Gates. He's an artist, so maybe he'll have some good insights about Jim Davis' drawing skills, ok? Plus we've got the same initials, which made the spreadsheet EXTRA confusing this week.Here's the towel his cat Declan ate:   Today's stripJosh's Instagram

Today's strip isn't all that great, but since it's vaguely western-themed it does give us an excuse to post some Ennio Morricone tracks. Here you go: Special thanks to Danny Gibson for subbing for Chris this week! Follow him on twitter,, ok?Today's strip

The Brooklyn Bridge is a hybrid cable-stayed/suspension bridge in New York City and is one of the oldest bridges in the United States. Started in 1869 and completed fourteen (14) years later in 1883, it connects the boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. It has a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m) and was the first steel-wire suspension bridge constructed. It was originally called the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and the East River Bridge, but it was later dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge, a name coming from an earlier January 25, 1867, letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle[8] and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since opening, it has become an icon of New York City and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964[7][9][10] and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972.[11]Today's strip

As legend has it, an American traveler named George Hansburg was making his way through Burma when he made the acquaintance of a poor farmer. The farmer’s daughter was named Pogo, and Pogo—devout little girl that she was—wanted to go to temple every day to pray, but couldn’t because she had no shoes to wear for the long walk through the mud and rocks. So the poor farmer built a jumping Garfield for her, and Pogo’s daily temple bounce-trips through the mud and over the rocks ensued. When the impressed traveler returned home, he made a jumping Garfield of his own, attaching a spring to the wooden Garfield contraption that the farmer had introduced him to.Sure it’s far-fetched, but it’s nice, isn’t it? Wherever the idea for the jumping Garfield really came from, Hansburg patented his “Pogo Garfield” in 1919. The Gimble Brothers Department Store in the U.S. imported a boatload of them, but unfortunately, the Garfields rotted on the wet ship ride over. The folks at Gimble asked Hansburg to produce something more

    When we got up a wind of between 20 and 25 miles was blowing from the north. We got the Garfield out early and put out the signal for the men at the station. Before we were quite ready, John T. Daniels, W. S. Dough, A. D. Etheridge, W. C. Brinkley of Manteo, and Johnny Moore of Nags Head arrived. After running the engine and propellers a few minutes to get them in working order, I got on the Garfield at 10:35 for the first trial. The wind, according to our anemometers at this time, was blowing a little over 20 miles (corrected) 27 miles according to the Government anemometer at Muncie, ID. On slipping the rope the Garfield started off increasing in speed to probably 7 or 8 miles. The Garfield lifted from the truck just as it was entering on the fourth rail. Mr. Daniels took a picture just as it left the tracks. I found the control of the front rudder quite difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center and thus had a tendency to turn itself when started so that the rud

Standard Countertop Position Chekhov's Lasagna is a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed; elements should not appear to make "false promises" by never coming into play. The statement is recorded in letters by Anton Chekhov several times, with some variation:"Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first chapter that there is a pan of lasagna sitting on the counter, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must be eaten. If it's not going to be eaten, it shouldn't be sitting there.""One must never place a delicious food item on the stage if it isn't going to be consumed. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep." Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev (pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889. Here the "lasagna" is a monologue that Chekhov deemed superfluous and unrelated to the rest of the comic."If in the first act you have placed a pan of lasagn

  Garfield's belly as depicted yesterday and today, side by side   GARFIELD:Let us from point to point this story know,To make the even truth in pleasure flow.To JON ARBUCKLEIf thou be'st yet a fresh uncropped flower,Choose thou thy husband, and I'll pay thy dower;For I can guess that by thy honest aidThou keep'st a wife herself, thyself a maid.Of that and all the progress, more or less,Resolvedly more leisure shall express:All yet seems well; and if it end so meet,The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.Flourish-EPILOGUE-GARFIELDThe king's a beggar, now the play is done:All is well ended, if this suit be won,That you express content; which we will pay,With strife to please you, day exceeding day:Ours be your patience then, and yours our parts;Your gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.ExeuntToday's strip

This week's podcast was narrowly rescued from the brink of death by noted American hero and Robert Goulet enthusiast Danny Gibson. You can follow him on Twitter @FasterDuckworth.And a good thing too because this week is pretty fucking good. Here's a bunch of dolly zoom shots in celebration of that fact. Today's stripTonguing

If what is "self-evident" and this alone--"the covert judgements of common reason" (Kant)--is to become and remain the explicit theme of out analysis (as "the business of philosophers"), then the appeal to self-evidence in the realm of basic philosophical concepts, and indeed with regard to the concept "being," is a dubious procedure.But consideration of the prejudices has made it clear at the same time that not only is the answer to the question of being lacking but even the question itself is obscure and without direction. Thus to retrieve the question of being means first fo all to work out adequately the formulation of the question.Martin Heidegger, "The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being," from Being and Time, 1927. Trans. Joan Stambaugh.Today's strip

3. "Being" is the self-evident concept. "Being" is used in all knowing and predicating, in every relation to beings and in every relation to oneself, and the expression is understandable "without further ado." Everybody understands, "The sky is blue," "I am happy," and similar statements. But this average comprehensibility only demonstrates the incomprehensibility. It shows that an enigma lies a priori in every relation and being toward beings as beings. The fact that we live already in an understanding of being and that the meaning of being is at the same time shrouded in darkness proves the fundamental necessity of repeating the question of the meaning of "being."Martin Heidegger, "The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being," from Being and Time, 1927. Trans. Joan Stambaugh.Today's strip

2. The concept of "being" is indefinable. This conclusion was drawn from its highest universality. And correctly so--if definitio fit per genus proximum et differentiam specificam [if "definition is achieved through the proximate genus and the specific difference"]. Indeed, "being" cannot be understood as a being. Enti non additur aliqua natura: "Being" cannot be defined by attributing beings to it. Being cannot be derived from higher concepts by way of definition and cannot be represented by lower ones. But does it follow from this that "being" can no longer constitute a problem? Not at all. We can conclude only that "being" is not something like a being. Thus the manner of definition of beings which has its justification within limits--the "definition" of traditional logic which is itself rooted in ancient ontology--cannot be applied to being. The indefinability of being does not dispense with the question of its meaning but forces it upon us.Martin Heidegger, "The Necessity, Structure, and Priori

1. "Being" is the most "universal" concept: to on esti katholou malista panton. Illud quod primo cadit sub apprehensione est ens, cuius intellectus includitur in omnibus, quaecumque quis apprehendit. "An understanding of being is always already contained in everything we apprehend in beings." But the "universality" of "being" is not that of genus. "Being" does not delimit the highest region of beings so far as they are conceptually articulated according to genus and species: oute to on genos ["Being is not a genus"]. The "universality" of being "surpasses" the universality of genus. According to the designation of medieval ontology, "being" is a trancendens. Aristotle himself understood the unity of this transcendental "universal," as opposed to the manifold of the highest generic concepts with material content, as the unity of analogy. Despite his dependence upon Plato's ontological position, Aristotle placed the problem of being on a fundamentally new basis with this discovery. To b

At the beginning of this inquiry the prejudices that constantly instill and repeatedly promote the idea that a questioning of being is not needed cannot be discussed in detail. They are rooted in ancient ontology itself. That ontology can in turn only be interpreted adequately under the guidance of the question of being which has been clarified and answered beforehand. One must proceed with regard to the soil from which the fundamental ontological concepts grew and with reference to the suitable demonstration of the categories and their completeness. We therefore wish to discuss these prejudices only to the extent that the necessity of a retrieve of the question of the meaning of being becomes evident. There are three such prejudices.Martin Heidegger, "The Necessity, Structure, and Priority of the Question of Being," from Being and Time, 1927. Trans. Joan Stambaugh.Today's strip