If the Simpsons ever do any right, it’s a miracle, and the picnic at Mr. Bruns’s mansion is a typical disaster. Thinking that the boss likes dessert, Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa bring gelatin dessert to the picnic. (So does everyone else.) It’s an honest attempt to please the boss but Burns hates the jello […] read more

In The Odyssey, the one-eyed giant Polyphemus is a cannibal who lives in a cave, but in Ethan Coen and Joel Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou?, he’s at a picnic eating chicken, pickles, and drinking beer. The Coens claimed they did not read The Odyssey, but someone on staff did, especially Book 9, Ulysses’s […] read more

Momentary serenity and happiness are upended in Welty’s “Asphodel,” a humorous picnic story in which three old maids are frightened by the appearance of a naked man. Cora, Irene, and Phoebe plan a picnic at Asphodel, the former home of their recently deceased dear friend Miss Sabina. They are unaware that the name Asphodel alludes […] read more