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Weak XLV

5 November 2011

No. 3,021 (cartoon)

No one can blame me.

I blame you.

You’re no one.

6 November 2011

Sophia Unmolded

Sophia told me that she’s recording earthworms; she’ll use the sounds as the basis for her new symphony.

Crazy, daddio.

I have many extraordinary and anomalous friends, none more so than Sophia. Before the gods made her, they broke the mold.

7 November 2011

Kill the Baby!

Amelie reported that her dinner with Lina went terribly wrong. They were feasting at North Beach Pizza when Lina stopped eating halfway through her huge plate of pasta.

“I really need to lose some weight,” Lina said. “Look at my stomach; it looks like I’m about to give birth.”

“Kill the baby!” Amelie replied.

They went on to discuss ambitious dieting plans, punctuated by their new rallying cry, “Kill the baby!”

Their waiter came by, and apologetically asked if they might change the subject; their loud conversation was disturbing the pregnant woman in the adjacent booth.

Oops.

“I should have known better,” Amelie concluded. “You just can’t go around saying ‘Kill the baby!’ without getting someone’s knickers in a twist.”

8 November 2011

The Curatorial Police

But is it art? That question’s been kicking around ever since art emerged from the primordial muck, but now we have at least one definitive answer: ask the police.

Once upon a time earlier this year, Greggory Moore was photographing the Long Beach County (California) Courthouse, as one does. That seemingly innocent act caught the attention law of bored enforcement officers who’d been trained to spot potential terrorists. As a result, a squad of eight Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies detained and searched the suspicious photographer.

Steven Roller, a captain in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, defended the heavy-handed response. “They respond to information they receive that there’s a potential terrorist across the street taking pictures, okay? They go over there, they contact him, they pat him down to make sure he [doesn’t have] weapons, for their safety. Nothing wrong with that.”

Well, actually, there is; it’s unconstitutional. Fourth amendment, look it up. But that’s not where I’m going with this.

Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures “with no apparent esthetic value” is within the Long Beach Police Department’s policy. In other words, the cops were acting as curators.

It would be fun to see an art exhibit curated by cops. At least it probably wouldn’t be any worse than the other dreck on gallery walls.

I’m certainly never going to go to Long Beach. If the cops there ever saw my tedious imagery, they’d throw me in the hoosegow without hesitation.

9 November 2011

Snorting Caffeine

I have a theory—a stupid conjecture perhaps, but a theory nevertheless—that people like snorty drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine because they like to snort drugs up their nose. I suppose that’s why I’ve never been seduced by them; the only things I like to pass through my nostrils are fresh air and the occasional Cabernet vapors.

Perhaps that’s why I’m not interested in AeroShot, an inhaler that delivers a hundred milligrams of caffeine along with the recommended daily dose of niacin as well as vitamins B6 and B12. Oh, and it’s sweetened with stevia and artificial lime flavoring.

Yuck.David Edwards, a biomedical engineering professor at Harvard University, concocted the dubious product. He’s also the inventor of Le Whif, an inhalable form of alleged chocolate that has no calories.

Yuck redux.

If I want to be caffeinated—and who doesn’t?—I drink a cup of coffee. And if I’m in a hurry to alter my chemistry, I’ll have an espresso. (Espresso’s fast; that’s why it’s called espresso.) And since I’m cheap, er, thrifty, why would I spend three dollars on an AeroShot inhaler full of lime-flavored chemistry when I could have a yummy cup of coffee instead?

Snorting drugs is stooopid, snorting caffeine especially so. Feh.

10 November 2011

Gratuitous Photo of the Weak: Grocery Bag

I stuck my head inside a paper grocery bag and looked into the sun; why I did so is neither interesting nor relevant. I was surprised to see that the folded paper created interesting shapes. I photographed the pattern before tossing the bag in the recycling bin.

11 November 2011

Eleven Eleven Eleven

Today is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the eleventh year of this century. A lot of my friends are excited by 11.11.11, but the number eleven repeated three times fails to meet even my very low entertainment expectations.

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©2011 David Glenn Rinehart