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Weak XXXVI

3 September 2012

No. 6,144 (cartoon)

Give me liberty or give me death.

The latter.

4 September 2012

Cats!

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, recently presented the Internet Cat Video Film Festival. The organizers were surprised when some ten thousand people showed up for the outdoor screening; that was over twice as many as they’d expected.

Ten thousand cat lovers? That’s nothing. If they wanted a large audience, they should have presented an Internet Kitten Video Film Festival. They’d had have had at least a million viewers. At least.

Kittens!

5 September 2012

John Cage at One Hundred

My computer tells me that this is the fourth time this year that I’ve mentioned John Cage. That statistic surprises me; I try to never refer to anyone more than once a year. I suppose that’s testament to the long shadow his ideas have cast over my aesthetic landscape.

So what can I say about Cage that I haven’t already said here? Well, I like his music conceptually but I’d never want to hear it.

6 September 2012

The Unknown Lives of Soldiers

What goes on in military tanks? I have no idea; I’ve never wondered what the daily life of a soldier involves. Alexander Semenov has obviously given the matter some thought, and has a patented a solution to the problem of what to do with the tank crew’s excrement.

Semenov’s crude drawing on file with the Russian patent office shows a soldier defecating into an artillery shell. The fighter then fires the projectile; problem solved! Is there a traditional payload as well? What about urine? And what do they do when they’re on parade in Red Square?

I shall continue to let soldiers’ lives remain mysteries.

7 September 2012

Heavenly Dinosaurs

Helena told me that her mother Mabel is afraid of dying.

“That surprises me,” I replied. “I thought she bought the whole god in heaven package.”

“That’s the problem,” Helena said. “She’s not afraid of death; she’s afraid of the dinosaurs in heaven.”

I wonder what, if anything, I’ll find when I die. There’s no sense wasting time on such conjecture; I’ll know soon enough.

8 September 2012

False Economy in the Shower

Sally told me something that surprised me, something that surprised me twice: she wears her clothes in the shower in order to wash them as she bathes. I was taken aback that she did this, and equally amazed that she knew I did as well because she’d read a notebook entry of mine from over a decade ago.

“I used to shower naked,” she admitted, “but I hate doing laundry.”

She seemed so pleased with her false economy that I didn’t mention that I only wash my clothes in the shower when traveling.

9 September 2012

Gratuitous Photo of the Weak: Wind in the Trees

This isn’t a proper photograph; it’s a frame grab from five minutes of video I shot. This was the only video that I’ve ever found, as opposed to created intentionally. I looked out my window, saw the wind whipping some spindly trees around, and recorded the sight.

Pretty nature photographs are of no interest to me, so what now? I think I’ll put a large black box in the middle of the frame, and the some white text inside that box, perhaps either jokes or random numbers. Everyone likes jokes and random numbers!

This isn’t a proper photograph, but then what is?

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©2012 David Glenn Rinehart