Popeye Takes It Straight
A Thursday morning, and I have an appointment with my lawnmower. Fallen leaves wait to be harvested. The mulch will not be wasted. The dying and the life-to-come are intimately linked, – mulch to new life.
Just thinking about the infinite supply of shock material, so many videos from the political right and left 
contrived to jolt, to stampede the ego, to cause psychic trauma. I avoid that stuff. Indulge in that genre and you will be served a double-helping by tracking algorithms.
I read about Jeff Koons art this morning. His balloon figure art is new to me. However Koons Popeye series of work interests me. In the pre-teen years I was entranced by Disney Popeye and Olive 
cartoons. Were these figures, the retro sailor-man, zany story lines prescient to our future? Visible in the Reagan years, and then for a while as virulence festered underground, – political conservatism amalgamated with Christian apocalyptic mania, the end-times violence then manifested with the assault on the Capitol on January 6. Now we have full-blown Trumpism, unconditional allegiance to this rage-filled man who intends a dismemberment of our institutions.
So called ‘conservative’ Trump followers, as in the Disney cartoon, dig into the open can of spinach, then consume a handful-ball of the restorative stewed vegetable. Yeah, it strikes me as crazy.
But it’s real, all too real.
Here is an excerpt of a fascinating Popeye story that adapts to Homer’s tale of Odysseus . A road-ragged Odysseus/Popeye arrives at the Ithaca home and speaks with his spouse Penelope/Olive:
“Oh! Here’s my man,” she said, on my return to the kitchen. “Here’s the one I waited for and would gladly wait for again.”“Yes, Olive, my dearie. I’m home at last.”She rummaged behind a shelf of beef and soup cans, her arm sinking deep into its depths, until she drew out a musty old tin.“I’ve saved this for you,” she said, opening the can. “Do you want it on a plate or will you take it straight?”I downed the spinach in two swallows. And could feel me strength returning to me in a warm current.“Now, be my champion!” she said.
