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Weak XXXIV

20 August 2016

No. 5,790 (cartoon)

I never dreamed life could be like this.

I feared it would.

21 August 2016

Becoming a Better Liar

Lucian Freud once successfully dodged a wedding invitation by claiming he was, “in the unusual position of having been involved sexually not only with the bride but also the groom and the groom’s mother.”

Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t. In any case, it’s certainly an inspiration to be more innovative in declining invitations. I’m afraid Ruth knew I wasn’t telling the truth when I told her I couldn’t attend her poetry reading last night because I’d already made plans to cut my fingernails then. My excuse was about as creative as her poetry.

I really must work harder to become a better liar.

22 August 2016

The Voynich Manuscript

I’ve never read the Voynich manuscript. No one has read the Voynich manuscript. No one knows who authored it. No one knows whether it’s written in an unknown language, an indecipherable code, or just gibberish. No one knows whether or not it’s a hoax. No one knows nothin’. (Well, almost nothing: researchers used carbon dating to determine it’s from the fourteen hundreds.)

And now, after hundreds of years, the volume is finally getting published. (It’s not hard to envisage every mediocre writer who reads this fantasizing that his or her imagined genius will eventually be appreciated in half a millennium or so.) Siloe, a relatively small Spanish publisher that always makes editions in numbers that are palindromes, will produce eight hundred and ninety-eight facsimiles of the original codex.

I couldn’t understand how that could be a viable business proposition until I learned two things. First, each volume sells for around nine thousand dollars. Also, the Voynich manuscript features illustrations of nude women. Pictures of nude women always have been and always be profitable; it’s the oldest trick in the publishing book.

23 August 2016

Bagpipes Kill

Years ago I was going through customs in New York after a flight from Edinburgh. The inspector asked the Scot in front of me what he had in a nondescript case. He replied that it contained a few kilos of C-4. The agent investigated, confirmed that it was, in fact, plastic explosives, stamped his passport, and apologized for the intrusion by explaining he couldn’t be too careful when it came to preventing bagpipes from getting into the country.

Yes, it’s true, scientifically true, even: bagpipes kill. That’s not “kill” as in make you wish your head would finally crack and explode, but kill as in, “end life, eliminate, exterminate, terminate, annihilate, dispatch, finish off, wipe out,” et cetera.

A sixty-one-year-old English piper could attest to the veracity of that statement had his bagpipes not killed him. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the noise that got him, it was bagpipe lung: he died from hypersensitivity pneumonitis. The fungi living inside the pipes were probably as annoyed by the grating, discordant din as everyone else, and got their deadly revenge.

The next time you’re tempted to kill an obnoxious piper, relax, take a deep breath, and urge him or her to do the same. It just might work!

24 August 2016

Thinking Without a Tank

Stewart got a job with the Center for Transformative Interconnections. It’s one of those think tanks in Washington, DC, where rich people pay smart people lots of money to write voluminous tomes that no one ever reads.

“What does your organization do?” I asked. “Is it left wing? Right wing?”

“It’s flightless and motionless as far as I can tell so far,” he replied.

“So, do you just sit around thinking all day?” I continued.

“That’s pretty much it,” he confirmed. “I have no idea how long it will take until I can finally drive the tank.”

Washington is a figurative and literal swamp, and I’ll never understand why anyone lives there.

25 August 2016

Arch Rubble

As I noted last year, Arch Rock near Point Reyes is no more. I’d been hiking there for thirty years, so Veronica and I decided to take a long walk and see what Arch Rubble looked like.

We never made it.

The trail was blocked perhaps a hundred meters from the ocean with a large sign. Here’s what it said: “The Trail to Arch Rock overlook is closed due to a collapse. This land remains unstable and extremely hazardous. On 3/21/2015, a visitor died following the collapse. Please respect this closure.”

My, what a confusing message. Were we to stay away because of the alleged danger and/or “respect?” If it’s the latter, I suppose that’s a coded way of saying that the hiker’s body is still buried in the rubble. I looked at a satellite photograph and saw what appears to be a huge mesh tarp covering much of the debris. Was it there to stabilize the rocks and boulders, cover the human remains (what would be left after almost a year and a half?), or something else?

(As a semantic aside, I wonder if that was the first time I’ve ever used two question marks in the same sentence???)

26 August 2016

Photo Pills

Twenty-five years ago I put almost everything I owned into what I thought would be temporary storage in Lynn’s chicken coop. There’s obviously nothing I need there since I’ve done fine without it for a quarter of a century, but every time I visit Petaluma I pull out a few boxes and either give the contents to a charity, a recycling center, or a landfill.

On today’s trip down the memory hole, I discovered a couple of bottles of white tablets among darkroom supplies. I vaguely remembered them, but what were they for? The labels are mostly gone; the only clue I have is that one tablet “contains .45 grains” ... of what?

I developed my conventional film in Rodinal. (Now sold as Adonal, it was patented in 1891 and is one of oldest photographic products available.) I might have added some sodium sulfite to it on occasion for the obvious reasons, but can’t imagine why I would have used the chemical in tablet form when I had a kilo of it on hand to make print developer.

I have no idea what the photo pills were for, but I suppose the tiny dark brown bottles should be useful for something. Or not.

As I manipulated the photos of the mystery bottles with my computer, I’m pleased that I’ll almost certainly never use a darkroom again.

27 August 2016

Lost Mail

I noticed that I seem to have lost a lot of old email messages. I suspect it happened a long time ago when I added some filters to get rid of bushels of spam. I probably threw out the digital baby along with the digital bathwater.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I have almost every personal letter I’ve received since I was a teenager; I’m glad I kept them. Paradoxically, I doubt I’ll ever read any of them again or even see who wrote them. I suppose they might make good kindling for my funeral pyre, but other than that I have no idea why I don’t recycle them tomorrow.

And that brings me back to the lost email. I doubt I ever would have looked at any of them again, and I’m glad no one else will ever see the old love letters I received. Still, I’m sorry that I discovered a loss of mail I would have never missed.

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©2016 David Glenn Rinehart