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Weak XXI

21 May 2019

No. 5,354 (cartoon)

The third panel is out of whack.

Where can we get more whack?

22 May 2019

Photorealism Revisited

I’ve seen a lot of “photorealism” paintings recently; they confuse me. Why would anyone bother with all the unnecessary work to mimic a camera? After all, cameras make photographs really well. It seems strange to spend weeks with a paintbrush doing what a camera could have done in a thousandth of a second. Of course, photorealistic paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars more than photorealistic photographs; that may have something to do with it.

The photorealism school of painting reminds me of someone trying to calculate pi to a bazillion decimal places using a pencil and paper when a computer could do the same thing rather more quickly. I’m not going to worry about it too much; making art need not mean making sense.

I published those exact words on 22 May 1999. I republished them today not because they’re relevant or timely—they ain’t—but because I can’t think of anything new to say twenty years later.

23 May 2019

My Retirement from Baseball

Nancy needs a baseball glove so I gave her mine, even though it was stamped with my epithet, Edge-U-Cated Heel. I am in fact a nice guy, but generosity has little to do with it. Coincidentally, her need coincided with my decision to retire from baseball. Life is full of difficult choices, but this wasn’t one of them.

I can’t fire the ball across the diamond, and my knees that serve me so well on my bike can’t propel me around the bases lickety-split. That’s not as bad as it sounds; I never could. That’s why I didn’t hesitate to pass my thirty-year-old fielder’s glove to Nancy. And that’s why she was delighted to get a baseball glove that appears like it’s never touched dirt, grass, or even a baseball.

And with that, I’m off to my current sporting challenge, chess.

24 May 2019

Two Things About Rooster Sauce

I initially thought that Alkira Reinfrank wrote a great article about sriracha hot sauce, but later realized she’d just harvested the highlights from Griffin Hammon’s documentary on the high-octane condiment. She cited him sixteen times but never mentioned the name of his film. “Journalists” these days, I swear ...

Sriracha is a generic name like sauerkraut with myriad variations, but in this country it’s synonymous with the version made by David Tran’s Huy Fong Foods. Reinfrank notes that it’s pronounced see-RAH-cha; the first R is silent. What a waste of digital newsprint; everyone knows it’s called rooster sauce because of the white rooster on the label.

As for Huy Fong Foods, the name comes from the freighter Huey Fong on which Tran escaped Viet Nam forty years ago. About the only other useful bit of news is that Tran’s company uses over forty-five million kilograms of jalapeños a year to keep people like me almost constantly high on capsaicin-fueled endorphins and dopamine.

Thanks, David!

25 May 2019

Woodstock Fifty

It’s the fiftieth anniversary of the Woodstock music festival, and promoters are trying to cash in by reënacting it. Over two hundred kilometers away. Featuring crap, er, rap music. And legions of lawyers; it’s all rock’n’roll!

Nothing says peace and love like Dentsu Aegis, the mammoth Japanese insurance company. They funded the farce to the tune of thirty million dollars, then changed their tune and reneged on the deal. That led to a series of new lawsuits to add to the legal circus that’s defined Woodstock Fifty, the nonexistent “music” festival. It’s so bad that the organizers have yet to sell their first overpriced ticket.

I think it’s great; nothing says contemporary popular culture like empty hype, egos based solely on egotism, endless court cases, and, most importantly money. Nevertheless, I’m sure Woodstock Fifty will happen; we will get fooled again.

26 May 2019

Bad Drawing

Nora was taken aback to hear that I uncovered notebooks of my drawings during a recent excavation. I showed her some, so she wasn’t surprised to hear they’re covered again, permanently. I filed them in the recycling bin.

I made the drawings when I was eighteen, and they look like they were made my a teenager, or, more accurately, an immature, untalented, and unpromising teenager. Now that I’m forty-some years older, I now have the wisdom to do what I should have done then: destroy them.

I’m just smart enough to save a photograph of one to remind me how horrible I was with a technical pen in case I should ever hallucinate that I shouldn’t have given up the pen for the camera.

27 May 2019

Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day, time for barbecue, beer, and bloat. That’s why I was astonished to see an article with a passing reference to the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died in military service and learned a bit of history of which I was unaware. Illness killed over half of the hundred and seventeen thousand Americans who died in World War I.

I understand why people observe the holiday by drinking heavily and eating too much unhealthy food; who can bear to imagine millions of wasted lives and pointless sacrifices for an entire day?

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©2019 David Glenn Rinehart