I don't get it. — The Ask Eli Wallach Thread

[pholby]

I like what I do with Ask Eli Wallach. I like the limitations on just how much I can explain something, and I like making what Wallach says look like it's not related, or look like it's related in one way when there's one or more other ways it could be related. I like that I don't spell everything out; what's there is there. That said, I'm aware that a lot of people probably pass it over or just glance at it because of it being vauge and not a laughing kind of comic. Comments in the feedback thread like "whatever story was behind Eli." and "usually I miss the point of at least Eli" have got me thinking, even if that last one was from Randy.

I'm a firm believer that once art is out in the world, you aren't allowed to tell people they've interpreted it wrong. If you don't want the meaning to be ambiguous, don't be ambiguous about it. But if you're not perfectly clear about what your intention or meaning is, you can't get bent out of shape when something takes something other than you did away from your work. I'd like to stress that that isn't the point of this thread. You're all still welcome to just read Ask Eli Wallach, ignore this, and take it for what it's worth. I'd be more than happy to have you doing that. But if you're interested, I'm going to use this thread to give detailed explanations as to how three sentances and a non-sequiter are slightly more than that.

Once again - if you don't want to know my explanations behind Ask Eli Wallach, leave now. I won't hold it against you, it's totally cool. But if you keep reading, you're getting major spoilers, or something like that anyway. As a Bonus, you'll also get the 'titles' for the strips, which do not appear anywhere else.

Wallach #41 - "One thing after another."

I got a letter from my friend Rebecca about two weeks ago, dated December 27th 2005. She discusses her job, which is selling home subscriptions to a newspaper: "I have to sell a lot in my line of work — and 'not tell the whole truth': I think I rip off everyone I talk to." She goes on to talk about the various prices she can give people ($1.30/week being the lowest), and how she works around those and how Sunday packages get added in on the sly and how "You will eventually pay $5.00/week for everyday service, no matter what." She adds "Essentially, I have become somewhat of a tool. I am pushed to do all these things — and because it is over the phone — it is easy to seperate actual people from my job." (Yes, she uses that many emdashes. I love it. Emdashes are great.) So that's where I got the idea from the story. I changed it to generic telemarketing and more blatant lying because it makes for a better story.

More than the lying or anything else, what this week's Wallach is about is the "Whatever." The 'whatever' is acceptance, it's rationalization, and it's what I really find interesting. There are things in life you cannot change - your hair might fall out, a loved one will die, and so you accept them because you have no choice. There are other things in life that you will have a choice about. How much of a choice you'll have varies, but there will be many things you do not like but you accept anyways, because it's easier or smarter or safer. Most people are taught from a young age that it is bad to lie. It should be avoided. It is wrong. And given the choice, most people would prefer a job where they didn't have to lie over one where they did. But you learn to take what you can get, and it's just a job, and so you find youself lying over and over and over again all day. Rebecca will eventually quit her job, because she cannot stand it anymore. In her letter she talks about thinking of quitting, and how she might leave soon. But for the time being she's getting up and doing it every morning because hey, that's what you do. And that's what the valuable skill Wallach is talking about is. He's not talking about lying (which is not to say that's not a valuable skill), but specific skill he's talking about is acceptance. Where the fuck would you be if you couldn't accept things? Everyone cuts deals, everyone gives up on things sometimes, because you have to. It's a fact. Is there anything wrong with that? I don't think so. It seems foolish to think that we could get our way all the time, and even worse to think that we should. There are two facts though: She (she being the woman in the comic, not Rebecca) lies all day, and she has accepted this. I can't help but think there's something wrong there.

I'll be explaining ones from the archive every so often, so if you've got a specific one you'd like me to ramble about, speak up.
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"You're a pussy, Strong!"

"Woah woah woah."

[DGMacphee]

One thing you missed in your explanation is your choice of quote in the Eli Wallach panel, because a lot of the Eli Wallach's panels really clinch the comic for me. Especially moments where he just sighs and says nothing more. Any chance you could talk about about the background for that particular choice of quote?

I agree with what you say about choices. It makes me wonder to what end your friend has chosen and accepted to lie. For example, is she doing it purely for the money? If so, has she accepted her decision because she is working towards a greater goal (perhaps one that requires capital)? Or is she working because it's "just a job"? I'm interested is why she has accepted what she does. Do you know why/have an opinion why?
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A suitable ending, I think!

[dlomyhero]

Your comic is my most favorite of the bunch, p. holby. I get it (or at least some of it) about 90% of the time. My favorite last-cell guy is this:



And my favorite comic so far was #38: sometimes I feel like I've got to DUN DUN get away I've got to DUN DUN run away
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Asked yesterday whether it would eventually release a revised edition of "Opal Mehta," a little brown spokesman declined to comment.

[mreow]

I get a kick out of Ask Eli Wallach. It isn't the sort of thing that will make me laugh but it is so subtle and somewhat surreal and poetic all at once. It's not like anything I've seen in any realm of art. It would surely be interesting to see the inspiration behind this.

[endlessmike]

why is the 22 year old girl found dead at fairfax high school?

[pholby]

I'm not sure where you're getting Fairfax High School from. The toe tag says Melrose & N. Fairfax, an intersection in North Hollywood. Unless you're talking about a different comic about a dead 22 year old. If that's the case let me know. Hell, let me know anyway. I really don't know where you got Fairfax High School from.

[pholby]

Wallach #42 - Crisitunity

Wallach #42 is pretty much straight jokes, which I hadn't done in a while. The concept of a 2 year old having a life crisis is funny to me, for reasons I shouldn't have to explain. Also, I would like a t-shirt with fishes on it.

What Wallach says isn't quite straight jokes. Lots of people struggle with different things in their lives, and on a personal level it's always filtered through perspective and experience. That's inevitable. And anyone who looks at someone struggling and says "blah blah blah inner city poverty blah blah blah you're in the middle class" is just a dick. It's belittling someone's struggle and it's both insensitive and stupid. That's my 97% of the time. Most of the time I totally understand that no matter who you are or what you were born into shit is hard sometimes, and hard is hard and just because it's all relative doesn't make it worthless. Most of the time. From time to time I think everyone (myself included) is really lame and weak and everything we have is nothing compared to the little girl in Rawanda who doesn't checks under her bed for the opposing tribal militia that killed her family because that shit, that shit is hard. I don't actually believe it when I feel that way, but it sneaks up on me and I find myself looking down on myself and others before I correct myself.

Also, toddlers are kind of hard to draw.
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"You're a pussy, Strong!"

"Woah woah woah."

[endlessmike]

oh, sorry, fairfax is on the intersection of melrose and n fairfax. but there is also a bank and some stores on the other corners. it sort of dominates, i was wondering if there was any significance but i guess it was just random. anyway, you were closer with west hollywood, north hollywood is the valley, fairfax has ended!

[pholby]

I see. Never having been to California, I didn't know what was at that intersection. I just looked at a map and picked something. Good to know, thanks.
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"You're a pussy, Strong!"

"Woah woah woah."

[pholby]

The comics are taking a week off this week, so I thought I'd bump this with one from the archives, specifically the one that appears at #1 on B's Top 5 list. It's one of my favorites too, probably in my top 3.

Wallach #8 — "A Bit Like Adam"

Hopefully the story of the first three panels is pretty clear; one of my hands is broken and I am out of Krazy Glue. I didn't make that metaphor up, I got it from a guy named Colin McEnroe. He's a radio host in Connecticut, and he writes a weekly column that appears in the Sunday newspaper. He wrote a column in the fall of 2002 about a couple of different things, but the theme was religion, god, Charles A. Moose (the sheriff who was in charge of finding the sniper who kept shooting people at gas stations) and The Lovely Bones (the novel by Alice Seabold.) He closed with this:

[mreow]

I love that.

[pholby]

Wallach #43 & Wallach #44 — Spare

I'd do another 6 comics about people begging for change if I thought I could get away with it. There are six separate people who ask me for change almost every day, on the stretch of Mass Ave I walk down after I go to the gym. It is a quandry on several levels, from the moral to the practical.

Wallach #43 is the most common occurance. For the purposes of discussion, I'm going to talk about it like a specific story, an actual occurance, and it is, although the details vary from day to day. He asks, I deny, and I keep walking, feeling vaugely guilty. The vast majority of the time, it's true. If I'm carrying spare change, I'll give it to the person. So if I'm either without change, or they aren't the first person to ask me that day, then I've got nothing. The catch, however, is that he didn't ask if I had two quarters in my pocket, he didn't ask about change at all. He asked if I could spare fifty cents. And I can. I absoutely have fifty cents that I can afford to give to this man. I don't have it in change though, and so I don't give it up. The litmus test for my generosity is convinience, and that's what I feel guilty about.

Part of me says that I should not feel too guilty over this. It seems silly, part of me says, to carry change specifically for beggars, and bordering on absurd to go and seek out change when they ask you for it. Another part of me thinks this is a lame excuse. It is a smaller part, but it insists that if I were truely Breakfast Serious about giving, I could part with paper money as easily as I do change. It isn't that much more, depending on the circumstances. But from there it inevitably leads into the merits of giving money away in the first place, and whether I have any obligation to these people, whether I should even consider obligation, whether I'm encouraging them, and a whole host of other questions I don't really have answers to. So I give these people no money and keep walking, and I feel guilty about it.

Wallach #44 is about judgement. Judgement is something I'm not entirely comfortable with, but seems inevitable. When I say I begrudge no man their hustle, I mean it, most of the time. I don't object to giving money away, even if the person is out there every day or may buy drink or drugs with the money I give them, or whatever. I'm okay with that. But all the same, I do try and figure out just how destitute they seem, or, alternately, how committed they are to what they're doing. This is another thing I feel guilty about but do anyway.

There are 4 different drawings of Wallach I use regularly, although I need to add more. The first is Calvera, from The Magnificent 7. He's the one with the big sombrero. I refer to him as 'somber Wallach', because he has a Breakfast Serious look on his face and is useful for pondering the gravity of things. 'Suave Wallach' is from a promo 8x10 of Wallach, and is playful, and useful for general humor. He also works for Breakfast Serious situations, if need be.'Crazy Wallach' is from some movie, I think Mystic River. He's useful for humor when suave Wallach doesn't fit, or absurd situations. And last, but far from least, is Dancer. From the 1958 movie "The Lineup", Dancer is the head of a drug ring. He murders people. I call him 'scornful Wallach'. Dancer is the angry one, the one I use when only disdain will do. I could be wrong (I will double check), but I think #43 and #44 are the first time I have turned scornful Wallach on myself.

In #43, Wallach is biting. What he says is true; we can't all be the people we want to be. But it feels mocking, like "Hey, no big loss, people fail to live up to their own standards every day. It's okay to be a failure." In #44, he is more agressive, reminding me that I am sitting in judgement when I probably shouldn't be. I like this. It's nice to have a sociopath from a black and white movie to keep you in line.
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"You're a pussy, Strong!"

"Woah woah woah."

[Dollo]

I've really come to like the comic. I enjoy the absurd social commentaries - and at times, disconnected thoughts in the final panel (which rarely are all that disconnected). Kudos young pholby...keep it up.
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