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Weak XLIV

30 October 2019

No. 5,414 (cartoon)

I’m a decent artist.

I’m an indecent artist.

31 October 2019

White Glitter Pumpkin

Popular holidays are defined by their clichés. The United Nations General Assembly designated today as World Cities Day, but who knows anything about that? The prosecution rests.

That’s why people are celebrating Halloween tonight with sanitized satanic imagery and candy. It’s a triumph of marketing.

And then there are the pumpkins.

Rainbow Grocery, more popularly known as the hippie food store here in Sans Frisco, had a large display of hollowed-out pumpkins with intricate carvings in the fruit’s rind, ostensibly intended to elicit shock, horror, and disgust. Customers were asked to vote on which of the gourds was the best, a preposterous proposition given that pumpkins have never been scary and never will be until someone detonates a kilo of C4 hidden in one. (That’s a venal, horrific idea, but it clearly answers the question, “Trick or treat?”)

I think contests are silly, yet I was nevertheless pleased with the winning pumpkin: it was untouched except for a thick coat of glossy white paint sprinkled with silver glitter. What a visual treat: an ivory pumpkin in a predictably dull orange sea.

1 November 2019

The Way It Is

I saw a headline today, “Death toll in Yemen war reaches 100,000.” The grim news didn’t surprise me. I remember hearing that there was some sort of armed conflict in Yemen, wherever that is. It seems perfectly logical that the bloodshed hadn’t made the news until now; publishers usually don’t report on such stories until the number of non-American dead reaches six figures.

As Walter Leland Cronkite Junior used to say, “And that’s the way it is.”

2 November 2019

Bad Things With Food

Things are getting worse at the airport “security” circus. This morning, the buffoon barking instructions told the human cattle to remove their electronics, jewelry, hats, shoes, underwear, and food for inspection.

Food?!

“Bad people are doing bad things with food,” the clown explained.

I asked him for an example, and he reported that they confiscated a burrito stuffed with fried potatoes. I agreed that terrorists were doing abominable things with food. Why, in only the last twenty-four hours someone tried to serve me execrable gluten-free pasta that tasted like reheated mucous, disgusting palm oil “mayonnaise,” and a vile croissant made with margarine. Margarine!

The insecurity agent shook his head in agreement—if such a thing is even possible—and waved me through.

My verbal diversion worked! He overlooked the two kilograms of potentially lethal black beans with habañeros I’d hidden in my dirty clothes bag. Fortunately for my fellow passengers, I’m a good guy doing good things with food. Ask anyone who’s received a first-degree capsicum burn from one of my meals: it was worth it.

3 November 2019

Musical Causation or Coincidence?

I feel better than I have in over a week; I’m listening to music for the first time in over a week. I’m not sure which came first, the music or my good mood. I suppose it’s a sturgeon or the caviar question, as my Russian friends say.

4 November 2019

Halfway Through In-between

Bettina was too busy to talk when I called her; she explained that she was, “halfway through in-between meetings.”

I’m still trying to parse that densely packed Teutonic concept; I fear it may be impenetrable for someone of my modest intellect.

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©2019 David Glenn Rinehart