"Les Physz": The Combination of "Les Misérables" and Foxtrot (Independent Reading Post)

        Normally, I'm not a big fan of cartoons. I occasionally find a few ones that are exceptionally funny, but other than that, I don't really read them. Well, yesterday morning I happened across a Foxtrot cartoon that made me literally burst out laughing-something that should happen when I read cartoons but didn't until I read this one. You see, I love the music from the musical Les Misérables, just like so many other people who declare themselves "Les Mis" fans. It is such an emotional play with so many amazing characters. Therefore, when I saw that Bill Amend, who wrote this Foxtrot cartoon, had combined the ideas of Les Misérables with physics, I just could not stop laughing. I took pictures of the cartoon and pasted them below so that you can see what I am talking about in the first place.

        In order, the physics phrases refer to "I Dreamed a Dream", "Do You Hear the People Sing", "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables", "On My Own" (my personal favorite), and "Who Am I?". If you have ever seen Les Misérables, you can see why this is the best cartoon I've ever seen. It relates the emotional music from songs like "I Dreamed a Dream" to physics, of all things. I think what makes this cartoon so hilarious is that it combines two totally unrelated things together. I mean, who thinks of something like physics when they are singing songs powerful enough to bring tears to your eyes? I know for a fact that this is the first time in my life that I have connected these two completely different ideas. I have to give the writer credit for having such a creative mind. Not many people can take two random concepts and combine them into a piece of writing that looks and sounds good. 

        I also like this cartoon because it shows how sometimes people do some crazy things when they are bored. I admit, even I have on occasion bursted into song after working on homework for so long that I can't think anymore. Sometimes I sing random things about what I am working on. It's just something that happens when your mind is so dead that you have words and equations running through your head and you don't know what to do with them. I can also relate to this cartoon because I have a problem with distraction, as many people do. I'll be working on something when I'll get distracted and start working on something else. Then, once I finish that task, I'll forget what I was doing in the first place! As you read through the cartoon, you can tell that as the scenes progress, the character gets more and more distracted. He starts out with a kind of multi-tasking attitude and eventually ends up belting out "Les Physz" and forgetting about all the homework right in front of him. 

        To sum things up, I now know what happens when you combine Les Misérables with physics. I honestly can say that I have never actually questioned what would happen with this combination, but now I know. We are all learning new things every day, whether they be character-building, educational, or just plain random. In this case, I'm perfectly fine with learning something random. After all, sometimes the random things are what we remember best!