The Breakfast Room
For a number of years now, pretty much every bulletin board I’ve set up for my own use has had a section called “The Breakfast Room,” in honour of the following scene from Moby Dick:
“Grub, ho!” now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went to breakfast.
They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though: Ledyard, the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of all men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the Negro heart of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo’s performances–this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social polish. Still, for the most part, that sort of thing is to be had anywhere.
These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstances that after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some good stories about whaling, to my no small surprise, nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea dogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas–entire strangers to them–and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here they sat at a social breakfast table–all of the same calling, all of kindred tastes–looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the green mountains. A curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen!
–Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chapter 5: Breakfast
Whether it’s located in an inn or on the Web, the Breakfast Room is a meeting place. It’s an informal, social space where you are welcome to, and ought to feel free to, introduce yourself, brag/complain about the weather where you are, share stories and news, and generally shoot the breeze. No need to be bashful or timid. Here at RCN, we’re none of us bears, or warriors, or whalemen.
July 19th, 2008 at 12:03 pm - Edit
heylars, what do you think about the new design? Unlike the old design, the new one is fluid, meaning that it adjusts to the width of the browser window, which I like. Had to tweak the template (which, btw, I didn’t create) to allow comments on pages, though; previously, it only allowed comments after blog entries.
September 25th, 2008 at 12:13 pm - Edit
Pity that heylars has been too busy to post here, but that’s okay; he’s a great guy and I’m lucky to know him, though we’ve never met. LOL!
I did a little searching this morning and found two links to this site. Jeff at TheGoofbutton.com thanks me here for linking to his site. And the host of I’m Learning to Share! has added this site to his blogroll, under the heading “so many sites to see.”
When they happen spontaneously, reciprocal links are fun!
September 28th, 2009 at 9:05 am - Edit
I just wanted to tell you this site is amazing. Been a HUGE fan of Jones for many years (about 10) although I got into him relatively late in terms of his career.
But I wanted to say thank you for taking the time to do this….and I will for sure be back./
I went through just about every image here….so your hard work was not at waste even though I don’t believe this site is still active…I do hope you find this post and continue this effort.
thanks again!!
ricH~
September 28th, 2009 at 6:53 pm - Edit
Thanks for the various messages, Rich. This site is definitely still active, and will stay active for a long time to come, I hope, though I can see how you might get the impression that it is dormant: I definitely don’t post as often as many other bloggers do.
But I do have more scans to share…
That’s what is known as a teaser! ;)
I myself have been a fan of Jeffrey Jones since the early 1980s, when Jeffrey’s “I’m Age” was appearing regularly in Heavy Metal and I purchased a copy of The Studio from a now defunct comics publisher and mail-order distributor, and shortly thereafter got hold of Jones’s solo art book, Yesterday’s Lily, and the softcover collection of Jones’s Idyl.
I’d love to be able to scan and post more of the Idyl strips, but I’m afraid that if I bend my copy of the collection flat across my scanner I’ll break its spine. It really is a crime that that book — indeed, all of Jones’s work in comics, period! — is out of print.
August 8th, 2010 at 10:50 am - Edit
If you follow the action on RCN via the feed, I just want to say, I’m sorry. Every time I publish a post, I invariably see changes that I’d like to make, and since I don’t answer to a higher power on this blog, I invariably go ahead and make the changes. And this doesn’t happen just once per post; it happens multiple times. I adjust, and delete, and correct, not until it’s perfect, which is impossible, but simply until I tire of the tinkering process and move on. Now if I were only wasting my own time in this manner, I wouldn’t bother to apologize. Trouble is, however, every time I re-save the post, dear reader, your feed software probably marks the link as unread. So beware: if you’ve read a post here at RCN, and you know you’ve read it, but you see it marked as unread in your feed reader, you really don’t need to bother reading it again and again. (I see this in the blog stats, so believe me, it happens.) The changes I’ve made are most likely to be tiny and not worth your time, though they mean something to me, obviously.