- 20 February 2007
- No. 356 (cartoon)
- I will never break your heart.
How can you know that?
Because I will annihilate it.
- 21 February 2007
- Ballet Plumbing Concerns
- I was surprised when Samantha told me that she loved the San Francisco Ballet. Although I hate to subscribe to stereotypes, I nevertheless had a hard time imagining a plumber at a dance performance.
I suspected she might suffer from the same problems with dance that I do, so I asked her if her enjoyment was based on cute boys in tight tights. She claimed that her interest in the dance company was professional. According to Samantha, so many of the dancers suffer from bulimia that she’s frequently paid to replace pipes that have been corroded by acidic vomit.
- 22 February 2007
- Unremarkable Sigmoidographs
- It’s hard to talk about some things, including having a camera thrust up my colon. The problem with that delicate topic isn’t the subject matter. Rather, it’s difficult not to resort to a string of bad sigmoidoscopy jokes.
And so, I’ll just remark that this morning’s painful procedure yielded unremarkable photographs, just the kind of images one hopes to see from such an intimate portrait. At least I have a five-year break until the next such ordeal. The date is already on my calendar, along with a reminder to request that the doctor use something smaller then a Hasselblad next time.
As I said, it’s difficult to write about getting a sigmoidoscopy; at least I restrained myself to only including one stupid joke.
- 23 February 2007
- A Finger Story
- Some German bit into an Italian candy bar and got a little surprise.
“I suppose it went unnoticed because there were nuts in the chocolate and it was hard to tell the difference,” a police spokesperson in Mainz speculated.
In this case, “it” refers to the tip of a human finger, complete with fingernail. I wonder why people are always finding fingers in processed food? Some fingers are planted as part of a fraud or extortion scheme, but most end up there because of some sort of industrial mishap.
I understand how such accidents may go unnoticed; I sometimes go for days without being cognizant that one of my fingers is missing.
- 24 February 2007
- Another Finger Story
- Another day, another finger story. I just read that scientists are figuring out how to regrow human fingers with an extract of pig bladder. I’m sure some people need ten fingers, but I’m not one of them. For reasons I prefer not to explain, I find the absence of the finger preferable to the finger itself.
I’m also not quite sure what to make of the pig bladder extract, either. A friend of mine has a bit of pig bladder in his heart after a repair job. I suppose that’s fine, except for the pig.
In the unlikely event I should ever regrow my finger, I think I’d prefer to use cat cells (as long as it didn’t hurt the kitty). Hair on my finger is nice, but fur would be better, especially if I got a sharp, retractable claw as part of the deal.
- 25 February 2007
- Nineteen Recordings I Enjoyed as a Teenager
- Although two data points don’t make a curve, my “piece a month” strategy seems to be working. I’m pleased with this month’s work, Nineteen Recordings I Enjoyed as a Teenager. It’s mostly a conceptual piece, just photographs of vinyl record grooves. I enjoyed the opportunity to make some retinal work under the guise of a conceptual artist. Also, the photo weenie in me enjoyed dusting off the camera bellows I haven’t used in some thirty years.
My only disappointment with the piece is that I couldn’t capture the musty smell of the cardboard records. I suppose that’s not really a problem, in that I like making sterile art.
Nineteen Recordings I Enjoyed as a Teenager
For Your Pleasure
Roxy Music
String Quartet No. Five
Béla Bartók
Stranger in a Strange Land
Leon Russell
My Beautiful People
Melanie
Horn Concerto No. One in E Flat Major
Richard Strauss
Good Morning Little School Girl
Johnny Winter
Hello, I Love You
The Doors
Double-Breasted Woman
Roosevelt Sykes
A Case of You
Joni Mitchell
All Day and All of the Night
The Kinks
Symphony No. Seven in A Major, Opus 92
Ludwig von Beethoven
Crosstown Traffic
Jimi Hendrix
Move Over
Janis Joplin
Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?
Derek and the Dominos
Dead Flowers
The Rolling Stones
L’Histoire du Soldat
Igor Stravinsky
Earschplittenloudenboomer
Steppenwolf
The Song Remains the Same
Led Zeppelin
Quartet for the End of Time
Olivier Messiaen
