Mystery. Bucket.
Sometimes, life hands you a gift; sometimes, that gift involves watching a friend go through something disappointing, perhaps even painful, that was entirely self-inflicted. And sometimes, because we are very good and he loves us, we get to watch Ryan North open a Mystery Bucket.
For those not in the know, there are a few things you’ll want to check out:
- Today’s Dinosaur Comics, wherein T-Rex gets all excited about a Mystery Bucket
- A Twitterthread, wherein Ryan North also gets all excited about a Mystery Bucket
- A Periscope video session, wherein Ryan North opens the Mystery Bucket, discovers that some mysteries are perhaps left alone, and also he gets two wooden letters Q.
Personally, I’m going to interpret the whole thing — the bucket, the mystery, the realization that the mysteries and buckets were inside us all along — as Ryan’s Christmas present to all of us. Thanks for that, Ryan! You spread cheer far and wide, and you got a bucket out of it. It’s a Bucketmas¹ miracle!
I presume everybody’s seen this by now? I’ll confess that I’m not enough of a The Far Side scholar to be able to tell which strips are old and which are the promised interspersed new ones². I mean, I recognize Cow Tools and Ace Moving Company, and I for sure would recognize most strips with cavemen (Thagomizer for instance, or Primitive Chemists Describe The First Dirt Molecule), but there could be new strips and I doubt I’d recognize them as new unless they dropped particularly modern references. Without those, The Far Side is timeless and could have been written yesterday.
Welcome back to the game, Gary Larson. The internet is a weirder place than when you stepped back from it some years ago, but that’s okay — there are cartoon dinosaurs that have grown in your absence and also tall men that get stuck in holes³. We’re glad to have you back.
Spam of the day:
Garytyrrell, Delayed e-mails from Twitter
Oh no, what will I do? I guess I’ll just have to go over to Twitter myself to be yelled at by nazis, bots, and nazi bots.
_______________
¹ I decree that 9 December will henceforth be Bucketmas, commemorating the day Ryan North opened the bucket and plumbed the mysteries inside. Bucketmas Season will start on 7 December, when we go and identify our own Mystery Buckets, to be opened on Bucketmas like comically large Advent calendars.
On Bucketmas Eve, 8 December, we obtain the Mystery Buckets and also prepare ahead of time whatever treats are necessary to deal with the disappointment contained within. The remainder of Bucketmas Season will be determined by the number of wooden letters Q found in your bucket — each Q representing one day that you must bring your bucket with you wherever you go.
I am serious about this and have already written a post to be published on 9 December of next year. Just you wait and see.
² It appears that so far, we’re only getting a curated selection of old strips. They’re still hilarious.
³ Philosophical observation: a bucket is nothing more than an extremely bounded hole. You thought you had the upper hand, but who’s in charge now, hole? It’s Ryan North, that’s who!
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