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15 May 2018

No. 4,583 (cartoon)

I fear that you’re going to live many more years.

Fear? I hope so.

Even though all the good ones are behind you?

16 May 2018

Typos Galore!

I just hit the “send” button to mail another batch of these notebook entries to the people who’ve asked to automatically receive them. (After twenty-two years of doing this I’m pleased that I get about one new subscriber every other month or two; I don’t want this endeavor to get too big too quick.)

I always feel a bit better after the transmission even though empirical evidence suggests that it’s highly probable that my work is riddled with typos I’ve missed after several apparently incompetent proofreading sessions.

And now things are getting worse. I relied on an Internet site to proof my writing. Apparently, the company’s business model is the same as any drug dealer on the corner: the first one’s free. The free software now only corrects spelling errors; I’d have to pay a hundred and forty dollars a year to have it identify my myriad grammar and punctuation errors.

Feh! I’m going to keep my money and my mistakes, especially since the really egregious ones generate notes and calls from my wonderful friends.

17 May 2018

Drunken Manslaughter Can Be Fun!

Angenette Marie Welk made three serious mistakes after drinking a lot of alcohol: she drove, she killed a woman, and she smiled beguilingly for the police who arrested her for drunk driving. A more seasoned alcoholic would have at least remembered to appear remorseful even if s/he wasn’t.

18 May 2018

Tell Me

My learned friends at the Internet Archive are converting 78 (revolutions per minute) records to digital recordings. As part of the process, they’re photographing the records. They made a huge oversight while doing so, though. Each of the records is shown on the turntable with the spindle protruding through it. Generations yet unborn may never know that the records had a hole, not a piece of metal, in the center.

That’s why I made Tell Me, a diptych featuring the same record hole with different lighting.

Tell Me was written by J. Will Callahan and Max Kortlander, performed by the Waldorf-Astoria Singing Orchestra directed by Joseph Knecht, and released on Columbia Records in 1919. This may or may not be a rare record; all the other versions I’ve found feature the Waldorf-Astoria Dance—not Singing—Orchestra. I’m guessing that it’s the same record with two different marketing approaches, but I can’t imagine listening to even one of those scratchy, hissy records let alone two.

I wouldn’t like the piece nearly as much were it not for the title. For the last week, I’ve been showing the diptych to friends. When they ask me what it is, I reply, “Tell Me.”

Repeat as necessary. This annoys them and amuses me; that’s what I call art!

19 May 2018

Tom Wolfe’s Harmless Aggression

Tom Wolfe, the great writer, just died. Or at least I presume that he’s a great writer; that’s what all the obituaries said. I never read any of his books; my attention span only lasts a few paragraphs. That’s why I will only remember him for a couple of quotes.

“If you’re attacked enough, you can’t miss.”

“I would say that everyone lives by a fiction absolute, a set of values that, if they were absolute, if there were a God who said ‘Yes, these are the right values,’ would make them and people like themselves paramount in the eyes of God.”

Oops, correction: I will remember him only for a couple of quotes and his habiliments. I’d characterize his wardrobe as post-pompous, but I won’t even try to describe it since it’s easy to see in every portrait of him. Wolfe is, er, was a better writer than most people, and so I admit his description is better than mine: “neo-pretentious,” and “a harmless form of aggression.”

It’s too bad that grave robbing is generally frowned on; I’d love to open his casket in a decade and make a posthumous portrait of the dandy.

20 May 2018

Stupid Long

In the most improbable event I wanted to work for money, I’m sure I could have full-time employment as a bicycle mechanic. I could make a lot of lucre if I was paid by the hour and not by the task.

I lamented to Freddie that it took me a ridiculously long time to patch a small leak in my inner tube. I needed a magnifying glass and tweezers to remove the tiniest piece I’ve ever extracted from a tire.

“Exactly how long did it take?” he asked.

“Stupid long,” I blurted out.

I know that being impressed with yourself is a red flag, but I was indeed rather chuffed that I invented such a useful phrase.

Before anyone fires up their typewriter to rebuke and reprimand me, I knew that it’s all been said and done before long before you did. Get over yourself; I have.

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©2018 David Glenn Rinehart