We spend a fair time waiting, waiting for this, for that, for them and those to come and go, to start and end, to rise and fall, full and eclipse. And for Spring to spring, our world coiled like hair in plastic curlers held in place with bobby pins (see F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair”).
We don’t wait in Winter, when we freeze in place and live in the cold moment (waiting is Samuel Beckett’s dry theme), but as the great slow thaws finally come we start to wait for a stronger sun and almost believe again in Spring and Spring does come slowly over the horizon and up the sky climbing a ladder of weathered trellises where last year’s climbing vines still cling frozen in place.
We anticipate Spring with its cartoon-like colors unfolding:
Rumor has it the pandemic is over, and folks are getting back to the way they were. Sidewalk cafes are filling with hopeful bon vivants, wine bars are recreating the gypsy jazz trio, tea rooms have put out the herbal welcome mats, and down on the corner, a lone violinist is busking the blues away. Movies? Newspapers and magazines? Some things are likely not coming back. But we can’t blame the pandemic for all our ills and woes.
Brick sidewalk cafeBuskerUrban CafeNewspapers and MagazinesCoffee Noir
Pubs are open, and wine bars, bakeries and coffee shops. You’re lucky though if you can find a place to park in between the street seats impromptu platforms, or to find a warm tavern that serves both a hefty microbrew and a tasty pinot noir.
Wanted: A clean, well-lighted place, with polite waiters, a high ceiling and not too crowded or too noisy or too far away, with a live trio that doesn’t require ear muffs, a place that doesn’t mind singles sitting hour after hour over a book and the same cup of frequently topped off java.
Below: A friendly waiter.
And weddings are back in full motion, fashion, with updated attendance rules. Below, what to wear:
Wedding DressCocktail WearCome as you are
Soon Spring will spring, doing its thing, a spring dance fling, prom night, a concert at an old venue downtown.
Spring FlingProm NightAllegro con brio
But some folks might have the post pandemic blues, and don’t want to go out. In a way, the pandemic has set them free. No more shopping sprees. No more putting on the style. But what about a baseball game in the ballpark? There must be some way the afflicted can lose those post pandemic blues.
I see you I see you not both of us common daisies day eyes closed at night perennial herbs creeping under the covers while the whole wide world ties cords in knots we see one another we see our cans and our cannots.
At the mall I walk thru glass and almost fall trip boarding an escalator in the book store, my feet not quite aligned to alight gracefully.
I pass a lady who looks lost and a mannequin just found her head squeezed dahlia pops at the top of a pair of stylized skinny jeans.
I walk through sounds smelly perfumes, anonymous noise guy in uniform and money bag reading a mall directory two robots pass by glistening.
Old guy sitting in food court selling postcard size drawings on his face a weathered frown lady in front of me at coffee cafe dabbing red stained tissue on arm.
Janitor pushing cleaning cart picking up fallings the mall as clean as a movie screen playing Logan’s Run (1976) countryside bubble malls.
I study a few of the other people at the mall and try to see us as others might see us in the mall season reasons even Mr. Mall forgets.
I pause in a general sitting area and pull out my cell phone and work on a few comics then the cell rings and it’s time to meet back up.
Just what the on-line world needs, another Joe Linker site. But while The Coming of the Toads blogs onward, I continue to doodle, and the results often suggest cartoons. A perfect cartoon is one that needs no words. Thus my new site, titled “Cartoons at Joe’s,” promises: “The less said the better, but there will be captions.” Interested readers, anyone looking for a smile, can find “Cartoons at Joe’s” by clicking here. It’s over at Substack.
The set up for “Cartoons at Joe’s” is minimalist, the writing sparse. And the readers few – so far 3 subscribers. Subscriptions are free, but at the cost of yet another email in your inbox. But the reward of a smile hopefully defrays that cost. But you can also check out “Cartoons at Joe’s” anytime you want with a Google bar search, or by saving the link, or a thousand other ways well paid programmers have come up with. I’ll be sitting at the bar, where there’s no wait.
You might have seen a few of the cartoons before, elsewhere, here, in fact, maybe. That’s ok. Watching reruns of classics is a perfectly acceptable use of your time. And I’ll always be doodling for new cartoons.
Where Joyce tried writing everything in, Beckett tried leaving everything out. For Joyce, writing was a process of addition; for Beckett, one of subtraction. In Waiting for Godot, the phrase “Nothing to be done” becomes a kind of mantra. But it’s just an opinion, as Vlad says, even as he considers giving in to it:
Estragon (giving up on his boot)
- Nothing to be done.
Vladimir
- I'm beginning to come round to that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying, Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't yet tried everything.
“Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Beckett, 1953
Beckett’s characters often seem to have nothing to do. Most modern distractions are taken out, life’s experience parboiled to essentials. There are not many spices on Beckett’s kitchen shelf. Estragon and Vladimir don’t have cell phones. No books, no television, no newspaper. The game is not on. The team is not in town. The ballpark is empty. The surf is flat. While they consider what to do when there is nothing to be done, they can’t sit still. They talk. They have one another.
If they had pen and notebook, maybe they’d doodle:
The Coming of the Toads 