Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak XXXII

7 August 2017

No. 3,432 (cartoon)

My work speaks for itself.

It’s mute.

You’re deaf.

8 August 2017

Sex and Vinyl

Vinyl records are enjoying an improbable resurgence. Perhaps someone with impeccable hearing can detect subtle sonic nuances, but I certainly cannot. What I do notice about digital recordings is the absence of hisses, scratching, and pops inherent in a photograph needle dragged through kilometers of record grooves.

Sonja is an audiophile, so I asked her to explain why anyone would use a phonograph in 2017.

“It’s all about sex,” she explained without explaining anything.

Everything is about sex and/or money, so I asked for more details. She said that virtually the entire market for vinyl records comprises impotent men. Changing records gives people with sex problems an excuse to get out of bed every twenty minutes.

That makes sense; almost everything has something to do with sex if you slice it thinly enough. Or perhaps not: it would take over one hundred and ten days to listen to all of the recordings I have in my pocket.

9 August 2017

Death Before Fruitcake

It’s a fact: no one eats fruitcake. Every fruitcake ever concocted is still in circulation; most of them are regifted—and never consumed—during the last six weeks of the year. Thus I wasn’t at all surprised to learn that researchers found an allegedly edible fruitcake over a century old in Robert Falcon Scott’s Cape Adare camp in Antarctica.

Scott wanted to be the first person to journey to the South Pole. He made it only to discover that some damned Norwegians had been there a month before.

He died on the expedition, but not before he wrote, “It seems a pity, but I do not think that I can write more.” The intrepid explorer chose death over fruitcake; that’s all anyone needs to know about the inedible monstrosity.

10 August 2017

Gymnastics Redefined

Selena greeted me at her studio with a couple of bottles of open wine, a bushel of corn chips, and a sea of guacamole.

“You’ve arrived on a most auspicious day” she announced, “Let’s celebrate!”

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

“I failed to make it to the gym today,” she explained.

“Why the party?”

“It’s the thousandth day in the row!” she exclaimed.

I agreed that not only is any big round number a reason for festivities, but also that chips and wine are most efficacious in preventing hunger and thirst.

11 August 2017

HyperCard at Thirty

Ah, HyperCard. The application slash programming tool is thirty years old today. I remember its birth well; no one could have forgotten the hype in HyperCard. I recall it as an extraordinarily powerful new tool that would revolutionize digital art.

I never touched it.

Even at the time, I saw it for what it was: writing in disappearing ink. The program hasn’t been updated is almost twenty years, and won’t run on contemporary computers. That’s why I’m not creating virtual reality crap; no one will be able to see it in a decade or two.

I write, use images, and make noise just as our species has been doing since we became a species. My work will be readily accessible until I die, a date closer than I can possibly imagine.

12 August 2017

Three Thousand, Five Hundred and Sixty-Two point Six Grams of Russet Potatoes Precisely Proportionate to Phi

I know fuckall about art history; my ignorance has served me well. My most recent work, Three Thousand, Five Hundred and Sixty-Two point Six Grams of Russet Potatoes Precisely Proportionate to Phi, may be the first time that irregularly shaped objects have been viewed in the context of one plus the square root of five divided by two.

As someone who appreciates tuber-based mathematics, I was pleased to note that the average weight of each potato is 197.9 grams, and the median weight is only 1.1 grams more. And phi speaks for itself. Potatoes provide excellent entertainment value if you know where to look.

I don’t care if it’s been done before; I cultivate my lack of knowledge because it keeps my eyes open.

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2017 David Glenn Rinehart