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Weak XXIX

17 July 2016

No. 4,607 (cartoon)

I suffer for my art.

Everyone does.

18 July 2016

Who’s Joe Blow?

I stopped listening to “public” radio a couple of years ago when administraitors devoted over ten percent of the broadcast time on the “noncommercial” stations to advertisements. I still listen to some of the very few worthwhile programs that are available as recordings; that way I’m able to skip through the ads.

After every commercial break in the prerecorded interviews, the host resumes the discussion by saying, “If you’re just joining us, my guest is Joe Blow.” That always confuses me. If he’s Joe Blow to new listeners, who’s the person I’ve been listening to for almost an hour?

19 July 2016

Ask Any Prostitute

Rebecca has been trying to sell her artwork. That’s a huge mistake; monetizing something something you love can make you loathe it. Ask any prostitute: it’s a really, really, really bad idea. And when it comes to art, selling out is especially pointless since almost no one’s buying.

“How much money are you making as a commercial artist?” I asked.

“I have enough sales to keep me in abject poverty,” she reported.

And that’s the thing: I make as much money from not selling my artwork as I would if I foolishly tried to market it. And why would I want more money anyway since I have everything I need?

20 July 2016

Overtones of Ammonia and Asparagusic Acid

Randall’s wine tasting parties are the talk of Georgetown; lots of people with more dollars than brain cells love to debate which overpriced bottle of wine tastes better than the others.

He serves the usual collection of wines for tasting, but with an acidic twist: he warns his guests that at least one of the offerings is five percent urine. Virtually none of the District of Columbia wine snobs is willing to opine which of the offerings is superior lest they humiliate themselves by choosing the urine wine. As a result, a few brave people have one or two cautious sips, and Randall gets to drink the remainder after they leave.

Randall told me the punch line on the condition I keep it a secret: none of the wine is adulterated.

21 July 2016

Avoid Serious Injury

My local bike mechanic has a poster in her shop warning her customers that giving her unsolicited directives will result in serious injury. The advisory features a simple graphic explaining the grave consequences of such folly that even a cyclist who’s suffered multiple concussions can immediately understand. The sign is rather charming, to the degree to which grievous bodily harm can be charming.

I can afford to be amused. I have no fear of incurring my mechanic’s wrath since I’m certainly not going to tell her what to do with my bicycle. If I knew the difference between a crankshaft and a cassette, I’d fix my bike myself.

22 July 2016

Not Abandoning Aspirations

I read some brilliant writing from a most improbable source: a joint statement released by Australian, Chinese, and Malaysian ministers. They admitted they have no idea what happened to a missing Malaysia Airlines jet that disappeared—poof, just like that—over two years ago.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing on 8 March 2014. And then, well, no one knows what happened. The huge airliner vanished into thin air, figuratively speaking, and/or the deep ocean, literally speaking. After spending a kajillion Malaysian ringgits scouring over a hundred square kilometers of ocean bottom, representatives of the Australian, Chinese, and Malaysian governments leading the search announced they were abandoning the quest.

Sort of.

“The suspension does not mean the termination of the search,” they reported. “Ministers reiterated that the aspiration to locate MH370 has not been abandoned.”

What a great line!

I can imagine an alcoholic working on the second bottle of bourbon before lunch declaring, “I have not abandoned the aspiration to drink less.”

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©2016 David Glenn Rinehart