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Weak XLVII

20 November 2019

No. 2,453 (cartoon)

Love gives me so much energy; my life is on fire!

Put it out.

21 November 2019

An Exciting New Dimension

Samuel Tisherman claims that he and his colleagues at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have put a human being in suspended animation for the first time. (He didn’t mention whether the human Guinea pig survived.)

I have no idea where the University of Maryland School of Medicine is located; I’m guessing somewhere near Uranus. Anyone who’s ever spent an hour on this planet has seen people in suspended animation; they’re everywhere. The zombies may be technically alive in the clinical sense, but clearly whatever lives they might once have had were suspended a long time ago.

I have to admire Tisherman and his mates’ remarkable achievement. I am of course not referring to the specious claim about suspended animation, but rather the discovery of new dimensions in chutzpah.

22 November 2019

TIMELESS

Amelie insisted that I join her at some openings tonight in Santa Fe’s Canyon Road gallery ghetto. She made a very persuasive argument: I could either accompany her and get a ride home or walk eight kilometers back in freezing darkness.

I enjoyed the expensive wines and gourmet treats, but the colorful dreck on the walls was exactly what I expected: saccharine desert landscapes, cowboys and Indians, and goddamn coyotes everywhere.

I did see a great piece of art today, but it wasn’t in no stinkin’ gallery. The graphic designers working for a large chain of hardware stores created a wonderful piece: a two-meter square black square featuring a graphic image of a paintbrush with the word TIMELESS below it in backlit lettering.

I’m quite happy to make my own alleged artwork and have no desire to see what other people are concocting. If I wanted to see great art, I’d spend more time in hardware stores.

23 November 2019

Wasted Revisited

“Time you enjoyed wasting was not wasted.”

I cite that quote a lot for all of the obvious reasons. The problem is attribution. Over a decade ago I concluded that, after three minutes of research, I couldn’t determine whether John Lennon or Bertrand Russell said it first.

After all that time, I decided I should invest three more minutes of research and solve the mystery. I discovered Marthe Troly-Curtin came up with it in 1912 in her book, Phrynette Married.

Marthe Troly-Curtin?! Phrynette Married?! I can’t use that convoluted citation. From now on, I shall attribute that to John Lennon. All of the contenders are long dead, so who cares. And most importantly, I can’t go wrong as a Lennonist!

24 November 2019

(Not) The One Thing That Really Irritates

I can’t remember what Lina and I were discussing, but it doesn’t matter.

“That’s the one thing that really irritates me,” she complained.

Oh how I wish that was true. In fact, everything from falling snow (”smells like acidic vomit straight from the freezer into a blender”) to bananas (“the color of an infected herpes cyst about to burst”) really irritates her.

I resisted the urge to ask her to choose the one and only thing that really irritated her today, but I know that would never work. My request would almost certainly be the one thing that really irritates her as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

25 November 2019

Thinking Kills

Excessive brain activity linked to a shorter life.

That headline caught my attention. It was only forty-four days ago that I noted that the best chess players can burn six thousand calories a day thinking really, really hard about a really, really complicated game. And now I read that too much thinking is suicidal?

There’s only one logical reaction: I’m not going to think about it.

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©2019 David Glenn Rinehart