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Weak XXIX

17 July 2019

No. 7,456 (cartoon)

You’re a psychopath.

I’m going to punish you for your insolence.

Have it your way: you’re a psychofreeway.

18 July 2019

No More Manholes in Berkeley

There are no more manholes in Berkeley, California. Once upon a time not that long ago the city had hundreds of utility access points, but every single manhole disappeared overnight. The workers didn’t need lots of labor or heavy equipment; the earnest members of the Berkeley city council did it all by themselves when they officially banished the name from the city limits. From now on, utility access points are “maintenance holes.”

I wonder how long it will take for “maintenance holes” to be used salaciously? I wonder if I just did?

19 July 2019

Abandoned

Tim Herrera made an interesting observation while riffing on Voltaire’s aphorism, “Perfect is the enemy of good.” He noted that at some point not only does more editing and tweaking fail to improve a creation in progress, it makes it worse. I thought that was insightful, but personally useless. I’ll let Paul Ambroise Valéry explain ...

“An artist really never finishes his work, he just abandons it.”

I get bored reworking something endlessly. Come to think of it, I usually get bored reworking something at all. I’m bored with this now, so consider this notebook entry abandoned.

20 July 2019

Fifty Years Off the Moon

Fifty years ago today humans landed on the moon, had a look around, planted an American flag, defecated, then came home. No human has gone for a stroll there since. Everyone’s making a Big Deal of the anniversary for reasons I do not understand.

Fifty years ago today my parents and I went to Cleveland, Ohio, and did more or less what the astronauts did except for the flag part. It too was an unpleasant, inhospitable place I’ll never see again, but I’m not sending out any press releases.

21 July 2019

Anastasia’s Wetzlar Necklace

Anastasia has more money than brains. She told me that she was thinking about spending fifteen thousand dollars on a new Leica camera. She asked my opinion but I knew she was just fishing for praise.

I encouraged her to buy it.

“I’m sure the photographs you’ll never make with the new camera will be superior in almost every way to the photographs you’ve never made with the old one,” I enthused, “how could they not be? There’s no other possibility!”

I didn’t add that it will make a wonderfully ostentatious necklace; that’s obviously the reason she wants it.

22 July 2019

Finished Means Done

“What are going to do with it?” Willy asked.

That was his response after I told him that I was about done with a convoluted art piece I’ve been working on for some time. His question flummoxed me. When I finish a piece, it’s done and there’s obviously nothing more to do with it.

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©2019 David Glenn Rinehart