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Weak XI

13 March 2015

No. 4,923 (cartoon)

Life is punishing.

So am I.

I wish I could quit.

14 March 2015

My New Diet

Sarah told me there’s a sandwich in every beer. That’s very useful information indeed! Now that I know that, my lunch breaks will be shorter: it’s much quicker to open a can of Rainier Ale than it is to fry up a grilled cheese sandwich.

Bone appetite, bottoms up, and vice-versa!

15 March 2015

Unsound Musician

Dr. Batlan just won a four thousand dollar synthesizer in some sort of Internet scam, thus disproving my theory that all Internet scams really are Internet scams.

The sophisticated gizmo has so many dials, switches, dials, and cables that I get an attack of options paralysis just looking at it. He wasn’t surprised when I declined his invitation to experiment with it.

“That’s what I figured,” he replied, “you’re really not a sound guy.”

I agreed that when it came to music I was definitely an unsound composer and a very unsound musician.

16 March 2015

Not Listening to What’s Unsaid

“You’re not listening to what I’m not saying,” Deirdre said accusingly.

“That means that I’m listening to everything you’re saying,” I replied, “so what’s the problem?”

“The best things are left unsaid,” she explained.

“That’s balderdash,” I responded.

“And now you’re not listening to what I’m saying!” she protested.

I love Deirdre. We can and do disagree about anything and everything, and we’re never bored.

17 March 2015

(Not) Photographing Trees

I cannot understand why anyone would photograph a tree. Even the scrawniest, most bedraggled tree is much more visually interesting and aesthetically rewarding than a technically proficient image of the mightiest larch or the tallest redwood.

I suppose someone in Antarctica, prison, or some other location where there are no trees might appreciate such a picture. I don’t know anyone in such a place, but even if I did I still wouldn’t photograph a tree unless it was a new species. The Internet already offers images of some 184,372,491 trees; that’s most certainly surplus to requirements.

On the other hand, I would love to photograph ten thousand slugs devouring a charging rhinoceros; that’s a nature picture I would very much like to see!

Alfred Barr’s question remains unanswered, if not unanswerable: “Why do all photographers have to photograph bushes?”

18 March 2015

Watering the Homeless for God

“I like your Jesus but I don't like your Christians.” Mahatma Gandhi’s opinion was echoed on a bumpersticker I saw the other day: Jesus, protect me from your followers.

I thought of those sentiments after reading about the malicious “Christians” who manage Saint Mary’s cathedral here in San Francisco. A hundred people could easily sleep in the vast, opulent building, but church officials keep their edifice empty at night. And so, many of the homeless wraiths who roam the streets of San Francisco sleep outside the cathedral’s locked doors.

Or, more accurately, they used to.

The self-proclaimed godly men installed sprinklers above the church’s sheltered alcoves in which the homeless slept. Once an hour during the night, the alcoves—and anyone in them—were drenched with torrents of frigid water. The tactic effectively repelled the pitiful souls who were unsightly carbuncles on the face of their magnificent mansion.

I was not among those who condemned the mean-spirited hypocrisy of the evil old men who claim to be taking orders from god. One of the myriad problems of being homeless is the lack of showers, and they provided free ones for the poor. Or maybe it was holy water, so they’re just saving the souls in a way that an agnostic person can’t understand. Or perhaps they’re just trying to give them fatal cases of hypothermia in order to get them to heaven as soon as possible.

And to end on a positive note, at least the priests didn’t abuse and molest children in this most recent scandal. That’s progress!

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©2015 David Glenn Rinehart