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Weak XXIX

17 July 2022

No. 3,750 (cartoon)

A lot of people don’t hate me.

A lot of people haven’t met you.

18 July 2022

Discarded Cancerous Lung Tissue

I just saw the photo of the aftermath of the lung operation I mentioned a couple of days ago, and it’s great! The image, that is. I know that a photograph of almost anything with human meat and blood is probably going to get some sort of visceral response, but this one has so much more going for it.

I love the composition. The anonymous photographer could have made a more direct shot of just the cancerous lung parts (and the ruler for scale), but instead included the adjacent operating room tools. The ruler comes from Cardinal Health, a nice touch to set the cheap wooden ruler apart from all the other cheap wooden rulers.

As much as I admire the documentary photograph, I know better than to aspire to emulate it. I’m too old to unlearn everything I know about what a “good” photograph looks like to make one so unusually excellent.

19 July 2022

Salsa is Back!

Despite the power of wishful thinking, Coronarama is still A Thing. Hospitals are increasingly clogged and morticians are working overtime. The 1918 influenza never went away, and Coronarama will still be alive and well when I’m dead and well. Nevertheless, from my perspective, the worst of the pandemic is over.

You want proof? I got evidence: salsa bars are back!

The mighty burrito and the humble taco have one thing in common: they are both mere tortilla-based vessels that only exist to transfer salsa from a bowl, tube, or jar to my mouth and stomach.

And so, when a client—yes, I know, how embarrassing to admit that I occasionally do things for money—took me to lunch at an overpriced “Mexican” place in Berkeley, I was greeted by a sign above a salsa bar announcing the obvious: “Salsa is Back!”

I drowned my tiny burrito in over two cups of the hottest salsa on offer, and was rewarded with a pleasant capsaicin high. The worst of the pandemic isn’t over by any clinical definition, but now that I have another source of capsicum my immune system should be even stronger.

20 July 2022

Fate and f/8

Arthur Fellig dba Weegee the Famous had some great advice for aspiring photojournalists: “f/8 and be there.” Any aperture will do; the message was straightforward: be where the action is with a camera.

Angelina suggests that’s not really what he said. She posits that he never mentioned a camera setting at all and that he actually said, “Fate and be there.” She said it’s an obvious corollary to Henri Cartier-Bresson’s forthright concession, “Of course it’s all luck.”

21 July 2022

After Descartes

I don’t know much about popular culture, but I know from skimming headlines that Dave Chappelle is a popular comedian. He was in the news again after some rinky-dink venue in Minneapolis canceled his show because some workers there were offended by his jokes.

I have to admit that banning a comedian because he might offend someone is pretty darn funny! Maybe I should see if I could get hired to tell knock-knock jokes. That wouldn’t be at all funny, which is also pretty darn funny.

I see a lot of angry little stupid people whose philosophy is, “I am offended, therefore I am.” After suffering through a night of knock-knock jokes I imagine that they might take up a collection to bring Dave Chappelle back so that they can go back to wallowing in being righteously indignant.

22 July 2022

Smart Feels Good Toilet Paper

Freddie bought some “smart” toilet paper; he fell for the marketing line, “smart feels good.” I tried some, and it’s the same as all the rest. I concluded that anyone who buys smart toilet probably isn’t, that smart toilet paper ain’t, and that and anyone whose intelligence can be raised with bathroom tissue probably was on an intellectual par with chocolate syrup to begin with.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2022 David Glenn Rinehart