First of all.. that Sadie Summers breakdown will go down in history as one of, if not THE, greatest introductory series of posts by a new host ever. Narshe…we stand in line!
Been so out of the loop the last couple months I didn’t even clock that the Ohioana Book Festival had been cancelled for 2026. Anyone else hear about this? Any one else comment about this already and I was so gassed out on rotten silage fumes I blocked the memory?
So I guess Batiuk can scratch 40% of his hard cover book sales for the year. What he’ll do with the surplus three volumes of The Complete Funky Winkerbean that he manages to pity sell to footsore festival goers, I have no idea. But I’m sure some door in his home will need propped open sooner or later.
But the strips were already written and pasted together a year in advance, so Ohioana Book Festival 2026 exists only in Crankshaft form.
Channeling my inner Iansdrunkenbeard…
On the family and farm front, my dad is recovering well. To the point I literally had to throw him out of a cattle sorting pen by pointing at the gate and barking ‘GO ON! GIT!’ at him like a misbehaving dog. Weather has been too cold and wet for planting, but the cows and calves are mostly out to pasture.
Son of Stuck Funky 
5/4: This is leading up to something banal.
Also, without new people to immediately take offense to, Batiuk will probably add another Batton Death March thing next year.
RE: Monday 5/4’s ‘Shaft:
Wait a minute…wasn’t septuagenarian Pmm just having hot flashes yesterday? So, I guess “the playground” closes at midnight?
I cannot imagine a week of Pmm and Jff being “frisky” with one another, so I’m hopeful tomorrow might actually feature Ed Crankshaft appearing and uttering some sort of muddled aphorism. You know, for a change.
On another note: obviously the tradition of authors going by two initials and a surname stretches from e.e. cummings and H.P. Lovecraft up to J.K. Rowling and E.L. James, but I’m not familiar with many who initialize their first name only a la “L. McKenzie.” Is that some sort of cutesy eccentricity on Lizard Lil’s part, or is Davis too lazy to try to fit her full name on a book cover?