This week in my humor blog: Jimmy Rabbit kind of gets one over on his Mom, Mary Worth gets in a freak hot air balloon accident and is rescued by superpowers, and we see some Beetle Bailey Squirrel Resolution, who put on a great show at the Common Ground Music Festival back in 2018. Here's what you missed:

• MiSTed: The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit, Part 15: Boy Lost!
• They Were Not Available in Flaming Pop-Tart Strawberry, of Course
• Statistics Saturday: Some Tedious Arguments
• Robert Benchley: Do You Make These Mistakes?
• Speaking as a Person Who Tried to Do ‘The Popeye’ Dance
• What’s Going On In Mary Worth? So is Mary Worth just a fantasy universe now? September – November 2025
• We Know How the Guy Who Created _Beetle Bailey_ Would Draw a Squirrel
• MiSTed: The Tale of Jimmy Rabbit, Part 16: Telling Fortunes

That done, let's please enjoy a bunch of Musée des Arts Forain pictures, and something you won't see anywhere else! Probably!

So here was an unexpected surprise: a fairground Popeye on a rocket! We can explain nothing more about that.

And here's the third carousel, something we never imagined we'd see and that I didn't know existed: a velocipede carousel.

Docent explaining the velocipede carousel. It's got no motor; it's powered by all the people on bicycles pedalling.

If you aren't up to pedalling you can ride on the chair instead.

So the bikes are fixed-gear (they're basically 1890s bicycles, on a track), and the pedals move even if you don't pump; you're directed to stop pedalling altogether if your feet slip off because they will be going fast.

The docent gives instructions about what we're to do.

Getting onto the ride. It made a tremendous racket. Unfortunately there was a small group and so everyone fit on a single ride cycle, so I don't have video of what it was like in motion.

You can see how big the room is, compared to the carousel, in this shot.

I did my best photographing the velocipede carousel's decoration but I didn't know how to get the good low-light pictures.

One last shot of this remarkable construction.

And then there's Popeye on his rocket, whatever that means.

Some more figures that are definitely licensed figures based on PLuto and a Three Little Pig. I love this look.

Trivia: The United States prohibited the import of lemons from Argentina between 2001 and 2018. Source: Seriously Curious: The Facts and Figures That Turn Our World Upside-Down, Tom Standage. (Argentinian fruit had been quarantined most of the 20th century for fear of spreading pests, and after a trade liberalization American fruit-growers sued on the grounds that this still wasn't protecting American crops enough. After a visit by Obama in 2015 regulators were satisfied that Argentina was keeping export crops pest-free enough.)

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 75: Grand Poobahr of Smoochistan, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.

With the trip to Bronner's and now the Nite Lites 5K kicking off the Christmas season, what did we have to look forward to but the next weekend but kicking off of the Christmas season? This one looks like it might stick, since it's been a tradition of ours since we stopped attending Midwest Fur Fest. I refer to the Silver Bells In The City winter market and electric light parade. Mostly the parade.

We did stop first in the City Hall, for a bathroom break and to get popcorn and hot chocolate. Also to have a look around City Hall for what might be the last time. They finally have not just a deal to replace City Hall with a new structure but have actually broken ground and have things rising from what used to be a dry cleaners. The existing building's supposed to be renovated into a hotel and I guess that'll be nice if it works, but it probably won't be a gathering point and cheap snacks stand for Silver Bells when that happens.

The parade seemed to start even later than usual, although it was not horribly cold or windy so the wait wasn't bad. It was short on the number of marching bands --- nine by my count --- although bunnyhugger had barely got done complaining about how they seem to have dropped the best-band contest when the announcer came on to tell us who won the best-band contest. The bands all looked pretty good, none marching badly enough that bunnyhugger said anything aloud about people being out of step. And there was apparently some coordination between the bands so that there wasn't any repeating of a particular song and I don't think even the medleys overlapped much. The piece I half-remember is the announcer said one of the bands would be playing [ some 60s tune that hasn't got anything to do with Christmas or Thanksgiving or parades or anything ] and then they went and played Margaret Cobb and Bruce Channel's ``Hey! Baby'' instead. (The one with the refrain ``I wanna know // if you'll be my girl'', if that helps narrow it down.) bunnyhugger will surely remember and tell me and I'll feel foolish I forgot. [ Edit: It was ``Twist and Shout''; thanks, love. ]

The tree lighting was done before the community sing, which was anyway two quick songs that nobody sang along to, possibly because I don't know what the second song was but it didn't sound anything like a Christmas song. After that came the drone show, which has been getting a bit more interesting every year but is still basically, y'know, a drone show. For some reason a bunch of the constellations put up were themed to Wicked: For Good. Last year had a bunch of The Wizard of Oz images, in honor of the event's ruby anniversary, so I'm looking forward to this new Wizard of Oz Universe theme they've picked up for the thing. I'm a Hungry Tiger fan.

After the fireworks we went to the shopping village, which had expanded from past years by having grease trucks farther east than it'd had before. We got some veggie falafels from a truck just moments before it closed down. bunnyhugger also got a jar of garlic-flavored cooking oil from a place that we worked out has to be operating out of the neighborhood center a couple blocks from us. We've had it in a few bowls of ramen and it does add a very nice touch.

After all that --- and by then the village was closing up, as it always seems to do just as we've gotten there --- we went back to the state tree to get some photos of it up-close. We were just admiring how they don't seem to need the sort of complex wooden tresle they used to have for these trees; it just stood straight. And then bunnyhugger overheard some kids asking what that thing was and that it was a rabbit. She was expecting a wild rabbit had somehow stuck around the capital grounds through the crowd and noise and fireworks. The truth was maybe more amazing.

It was a domesticated rabbit, one on a leash, hopping around a little bit and sniffing around and eating the occasional leaf or blade of grass. An angora, which their owner explained was why they were so chill. Angora rabbits have to spend about fifteen hours a day being held in a lap and groomed, so they're used to contact --- and many people came up asking if it was safe to pet them --- and being restrained by things like leashes. We were amazed, and delighted, to meet a rabbit like this but also couldn't help imagining, gads, one excited dog and it's an awful day. The owner did say a quick bit about sometimes dogs are trouble but I guess she's confident in being able to gather the rabbit up fast. Oh also the rabbit is nine years old, which is outright old; they're doing very well getting around for being such a senior rabbit.

I won't be surprised if we never see that rabbit again, but it was wonderful encountering them at all. Made for a great way to send off the introduction to the Christmas season.

This time at the Musée I got pictures of nothing with a carousel in it. Yet is this entry still tagged 'carousels'? I don't know, it depends if I remember when scheduling this to post.

Some fairground-style attractions here now, including totally legitimate artwork of three of the caballeros and whoever Douce is.

The docent explains something about the ball-throwing gallery here.

Here's the figures that you would throw balls at,

Display of some of the ball-rolling tables with a scenic backgrop to give it a period appearance.

Something we did not get to see demonstrated, tragically: a fairground ride that gives you just a little push up and then slide back down. I feel like we saw something like this at Rye Playland ages ago but couldn't swear to it.

And, probably from a carousel, a pig-shaped mount to ride in.

Trivia: Five miles of beachfront in Russian-occupied Crimea was stripped down to clay foundation and the sand sold on the black market. Source: The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, Vin Beiser.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine, Volume 75: Grand Poobahr of Smoochistan, Ralph Stein, Bill Zaboly. Editor Stephanie Noelle.