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Weak XLV

5 November 2020

No. 8,575 (cartoon)

You’ll be dead before the end of the year.

Things are going my way!

6 November 2020

Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan

I recently read a fascinating profile of the artist and scientist L. Mahadevan. I’m not sure that’s how he’d describe himself, but if his approach of finding the sublime in the mundane, e.g., his essay, Watching Paint Dry, ain’t art, then dip me in vodka, roll me in catnip, and feed me to Siberian tigers.

One of my favorite examples is designing a three-sided coin to randomly return one of three equally probable outcomes as opposed to the usual binary choice of heads or tails. Instead of designing a new kind of coin, he simply began with the knowledge that all of us have but have rarely appreciated: every coin ever created is three-dimensional. From there, it was simply a matter of calculating how thick it needed to be to land on its side every third time it was tossed or pitched. If you want to mint your own, just fire up the smelter and make the coin one divided by the square root of three as thick as the diameter.

The article failed to address the most obvious question: what is L. Mahadevan’s first name? The hombre is famous, so it wasn’t hard to find: Lakshminarayanan. I’ve never heard of anyone with a six-syllable first name; that may or may not be because I’ve only spent three weeks of my life in India.

If appreciating a six-syllable first name and realizing that all coins are obviously three-dimensional ain’t finding the sublime in the mundane, then drink the leftover vodka from the first paragraph and chew more catnip until it is.

7 November 2020

Losers’ Flag Revisited

It’s a familiar story these days: a pathetic old man is hospitalized with the dreaded virus, survives, but then loses his job, and he’s now being evicted from his home of many years. It’s a tale with a twisted ending following a twisted life: the man is a loser who’s earned contempt, not sympathy.

Donald Drumph is the last in a long line of Confederate generals to be decisively defeated. And evicted for good measure. That’s a good win in the battle against fascists and racists, but those human malignancies will never go away. I do hope that the losers will adopt the banner I designed five years ago, Losers’ Flag. It’s in the public domain. Grab one for your bunker, loser, and don’t forget the Walther PPK 7.65 pistol and cyanide.

I’m headed back to the studio to pop a celebratory cork or two and get some work done while the human cancers regroup for another attack.

8 November 2020

Quitting Kills

The problems with fame don’t end when you’re dead; just ask Vinnie van Gogh if you can find him.

Armchair psychoanalysts and pathologists continue to analyze his demise. The latest speculation, published in The International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, posits that the delirium from alcohol withdrawal led to his suicide.

The theory may have some merit, or, more probably, just another load of psycho-rubbish piled on a hundred-and-thirty-year-old-corpse. In any case, I will continue to savor my absinthe and wine lest I should end up with one ear in the grave.

Finally, there’s one thing on which experts agree: quitting kills.

9 November 2020

Public Health Advice

Gosh, what with people dropping like human flies in a burning outhouse and all, I think it’s high time to repeat some of my best public health advice, so here ya go ...

Read every medical study that says everything you’re already doing is good for you, and exfoliate every report that suggests that you might be doing anything that’s bad for your health. If you’d like an example, take chili peppers. (But please don’t take mine.)

“We were surprised to find that in these previously published studies, regular consumption of chili pepper was associated with an overall risk-reduction of all-cause, cardiovascular disease, and cancer mortality,” declared Bo Xu from the Cleveland Clinic’s Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute.

So what if the guy is in Ohio, one of the blandest states in the union? I heard him say that I’m better off adding chilis to my chilis then smothering them with capsaicin, as usual, so I shall continue to do so.

I may feel stupid when I’m old and dying from nothing, but I’m nevertheless going to follow Ted Kennedy’s example and drive off that bridge when I come to it.

10 November 2020

Three Spiked Shurfine Mayonnaise Deposits

For months I’ve had the same stupid thought lodged in my grey bits: is everything really better with mayonnaise on it? I’ve been pondering this ponderation in the desert, which led me to grab a squeeze tube of Shurfine Mayonnaise and deposit globs of the dubious goo on spiky vegetation. (It may technically be mayonnaise, but it sure ain’t fine.)

When I set out with my camera and tripod, I imagined making a series of one or two dozen photographs. That was before I discovered that the prickly plants that cover the desert floor only come in three flavors, hence the finished piece, Three Spiked Shurfine Mayonnaise Deposits.

11 November 2020

Not Over, Out

Alice is a dear friend for many reasons, including her unfiltered candor. She admits that her motivation for being a ruthless pedant is because it’s about the only socially acceptable way to annoy people and, on a good day, humiliate them as well.

She cheerfully recounted how she waited until the end of a long conversation with Valentine to give him a dressing-down when he signed off with, “Over and out!”

She chastised him for his appalling ignorance since even the most inexperienced radio operator knows that “over” means “over to you,” i.e., it’s your turn to talk. She added that she couldn’t imagine any civilized person saying “it’s your turn to talk” then hanging up.

“Wow, what a numbskull!” I replied.

I saw no reason to admit that I’ve been saying “over and out” all of my life without realizing my fox paw.

Out!

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©2020 David Glenn Rinehart