9 Chickweed Lane

2-17-2023

And once again...



Fernanda was an EXTREMELY skilled professional ballet dancer whose career was cut short by a severe knee injury. I mean, she was in her prime. Famous. It’s a huge tragedy, an abrupt derailment of her entire life.

It was mentioned in passing then never brought up again.

Her knee will NEVER have the strength, flexibility, or range of motion it once did no matter how much physical therapy, exercise, stretching, etc. that she does, and it’s prone to re-injury.

Tango is a dance that involves the kind of twists likely to re-injure her knee.

Perhaps that’s why instead of dancing Seth is waving her around in the air. Flapping her around. Just whipping her around. Sweaty dancers slipping closer to feel the breeze of her passing.

I just... she's a collection of body parts loosely wired together, flopping around. This isn't how bodies work.

McEldowney has spent all this time rubbing his characters' sexy One True Love relationships into the Single Sad Lonely character's face but he made that character to so what's the point? What, sincerely, is the point of all of this?

Especially as he could be spending this time telling a story exploring, say, what it's like to have your career end over a decade before it should have because you fucked your knee up. What's it like to have the one thing that defines you taken away from you? To have what you love destroy you? To fall in love with, and marry, someone who's doing your dream job every single day. She's married to her former dance partner. He, older than her, is still dancing. She can't dance. What is that like? Her dancing is what initially attracted Seth to her. Now she can't dance. How does she feel?

And, God help me, I just realized that McEldowney ended her dance career so that Seth would have to admit he loves her womanly self not just her ~~artistry~~. He can't be in love with the way she dances if she can't dance.

2-14-2023

"I'm a gay man, but I'm meeting my female wife here later."

"I'm not sure that's how "gay" typically works, my guy."

"Ah yes but I love her and by "love" I mean "worship." As one does. Describe what I love about her? Sorry, hard pass."

"Damn, you ALSO like to swing your wife around wildly making fuck eyes at each other in public?"

I didn't notice yesterday but she was so shocked that he's gay that her neckline changed. Or else she was wearing a choker that she removed?

Anyway, McEldowney has a really weird idea of what "love" is, as it's almost entirely both physical and worshipful.

What does Amos love about Edda? Other than her legs and her toe cleavage? January 29th, 2023 has a sweet strip that shows a non-physical way that Edda makes Amos feel: when he's down she brightens his mood, his life. He doesn't feel alone when he's with her (while that may sound weird, it's very possible to feel lonely or alone even when you're around a lot of people). But other than that we don't know that much about their relationship other than that they like to hump on table tops and atop musical instruments on stage, and they enjoy humping while tangoing. They share some common interests, but what do they like about each other? What do they talk about? How do they describe each other to other people? Let me tell you, there's a LOT that I could ramble on about that I like, that I love, about my husband. And I could talk your ear off about various friends and family members of mine that I love, too. It should be easy to say what you love about someone.

But McEldowney's lovers rarely say what they love about their paramours. Instead they recite words from a damp-paged thesaurus.

There's absolutely ways to say "Yes, I primarily am attracted to and fall in love with men but I love Fernanda because of X, Y, and Z reasons" that don't involve vague "weakness" phrasing.

The ONE WORD he uses to describe his feelings toward her isn't "love," it's "worship."

When folks talk about "worshiping" their loved ones it generally means they don't see the person as an actual person. They're projections. It's easy to love a projection. A statue teetering up on a pedestal doesn't leave dirty socks on the floor or chew too loudly or leave clean dishes in the dish washer instead of just putting them away. That statue doesn't leave hairs in the sink or run late every morning. That statue is at constant risk of crashing down.

Seth was initially attracted to Fernanda because of her dancing. That's what he claimed, at any rate: it wasn't HER, it was the way she expressed her art. He is also a dancer, they were fellow professionals at the top of their game. They shared something in common not just in general but every single day when they practiced and when they performed. They shared a pool of friends. Seth and Edda showed Fernanda around the city and spent time with her as a very passive aggressive way of getting back at her for being a homophobic asshole to Seth previously. (This paid off by her continuing to be a homophobic asshole to people, especially Mark.)

Fernanda injured her knee and can no longer dance, at least professionally. Her ballet career is ended, although we haven't heard that Seth has retired. If he was attracted to her ART then what attracts her to him now that she's no longer capable of expressing that art? And frankly, how does she feel that her dance career was cut short while his is still apparently going strong?

Now, I'm 100% sure that "my ballet career is over, I'm hobbled for life, I will never dance or walk the same ever again" for Fernanda is a hundred thousand times more athletic and graceful than I've ever been ever in my entire life including when I was dancing competitively. Of course Fernanda can dance the tango in ways I can only ever dream of... hell, in ways so far beyond me that I can't even dream of them.

But she's not the pure distillation of art any more.

What does Seth do with her other than worship her and engage in sexual behavior in public?

Anyway, I don't know if Mary's "Wow!" is a reaction to Seth stating that he worships his wife or if it's a reaction to how hot she finds Fernanda but I'm sure we'll find out as this drags on and ever on. It's only Tuesday. What other man can still wander in and reject her?

2-11-2023

I don't know how something that was already mortifying hours ago can go on to turn into a "a first-rate embarrassment."

It's very polite of Seth to announce his full name so that the audience can recognize him as opposed to all the other beef headed hulks who aren't Amos that McEldowney populates the strip with.

That said, just cannot wait for more humiliations for Mary.

Is she based on a real person, and did that person do something to McEldowney recently?

9-30-2007

I thought I'd share some of the music McEldowney references in his strip.

Borodin's Nocturne String Quartet No. 2:


I'm not that familiar with Alexander Borodin's work and I need to rectify that. This is lovely.

Brahm's Intermezzo Opus 117 Measure 1:


Debussy's Clair de Lune:


Lehar's Komm, in den kleinen Pavillon:


Tchaikovsky's Adagio cantabile from Souvenir de Florence:


Mahler's Ruhevoll from symphony No.4:


If you're not familiar with this piece, note that it starts extremely quietly.

Rachmaninoff's 18th variation rhapsody on a theme of Pagannini:


I'm so used to seeing classical musicians in suits/tuxedos and evening gowns that seeing them in t-shirts kind of threw me. Felt like I was back in high school. I could smell the chalk and wet brass.

Anyway, this is from a period of time before their marriage when Edda and Amos weren't having sex and it was a sad horny desperate time for them. Don't worry, people were still humping in public places/in front of people. (Although that story line does have this very touching scene.)