The Holy Grail Press
Proudly Made On Earth By Earthlings
Word of the Every So Often
tellurian: (adj.) (pronounced: tel-lur-ree-an; from “tellis,” which is Latin for “earth”) of, or inhabiting the earth, or as a noun, an earthling. Why can’t tellurians just get along?
The Daily Lesson
Today is Pogo Possum Day, in honour of the cartoon character’s creator, Walt Kelly, who was born on August 25, 1913. The same folks who remember Pogo are probably the same folks who remember hearing the soft thump of the daily newspaper falling on their driveway in the early hours of the morning. Or, if I was the one throwing it, they heard the splash from their birdbath. Pogo was a gentle comic strip about the mostly peaceful animals living in Okefenokee Swamp. Children enjoyed it, and adults got the satire. And I loved it. Still do.
Pogo Possum, along with Albert Alligator, first appeared in comic books beginning in 1941. Then on October 4, 1948, Pogo debuted in the now defunct New York Star, becoming the first comic to make the transition from comic books to the newspaper. On May 16, 1949, Pogo was picked up for national distribution by Post-Hall Syndicate, and ran continuously until the early 1970s. At its peak, Pogo appeared daily in over 500 newspapers in 14 different countries. Pogo also found his way into books, TV specials, record albums, and even a full-length movie: I Go Pogo. Illness slowed Walt Kelly in 1972, and even though his family tried to continue the strip after his death on October 18, 1973, they finally called it quits on July 20, 1975. There were attempts by other artists to revive Pogo, but they were all short lived. Or, as Pogo once said, “Don’t ever take life too seriously, because it ain’t no how forever.”
By the way… National Possum Day, maybe not coincidentally, is on October 18, the same day Walt Kelly died.
Cartoon of the Week
Bear With Me
Stuff
Dog Days
The screen door slams
and bounces and bounces and bounces,
the loose mesh flapping flies,
suspended in the mirage vapours
of awningless sunshine
rising off the cement slab excuse
for a back porch,
flapping them in to dreamily weave the room,
filling shadowed corners with the rise and fall
of meaningless flight.
Eventually to land,
just out of reach of thee swatter.
It is not guessing.
They know.
And there they wait,
rubbing their hands,
waxing their wings,
screwing and unscrewing their heads,
but never quite taking them all the way off.
Until you lunge,
with a magazine
or a newspaper
or even your hand.
And then they’re gone,
to circle once
or twice
and then return,
passing just close enough
to your head
so you’ll hear
the soft snicker of wings.
And all the while,
the never ceasing insult
of the window unit drone
carries beyond the lawnmower line.
It carries from where that damned dog –
our damned dog –
lies beneath the air conditioner
that sticks from the neighbor’s window
like the chubby tongue of some obnoxious child
that you aren’t allowed to swat.
And there, folded into the two feet of shade,
is that damned dog,
lying there like he has nothing else better to do
than just to watch those tiny drops of frustration
let go one at a time,
and drop and drop and drop,
falling into a small puddle of nothing
just beyond his nose.
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