crabby - STEVEN R. TABOR

Crabby

Can bad moods be funny?

Lucy Van Pelt is a fictional character in Charles Shultz's comic strip 'Peanuts'. Lucy is characterized as crabby, bossy and opinionated. She bullies most other characters in the strip, particularly Linus and Charlie Brown.Lucy operates a psychiatric booth, parodying the lemonade stand operated by many young children in the USA. Here, she offers advice and psychoanalysis for five cents, most often to an anxious or depressed Charlie Brown. Although she often torments, teases, and belittles Charlie Brown, she is genuinely fond of him.

Lucy was my comic favorite, because she reminded me of the women in our family who used to sit around my grandmother's table having Sabbath delicatessen. Everyone would argue at these dinner, while they devoured enormous meals. It didn't matter what the dinner conversations was about, but the adults at the table would find a way to argue about it. Typically, the men would argue in a good spirited manner, but the women would take these arguments quite seriously. Like Lucy, they could be mega-crabby at the dinner table.

But being crabby is more than just a way that some women behave at Saturday night dinner. The expression "don't bother me I'm crabby" is something of an anthem for Marylander's, yours truly included. Not only are Marylander's quite proud of our native crabs and crab cakes, but we are equally proud of our crabby behavior and attitudes. So, for this series, I assume the persona of a crab, and with the help of two models, Dafne and Ameria, I draw on the power of photographic editing to meander into some of my favorite Lucy cartoons.

If you'd like to see the full series, download the PDF photobook here.