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Weak XV

9 April 2020

No. 3,964 (cartoon)

Your torture is boring and predictable.

Everyone expects the Spanish Inquisition.

10 April 2020

Everything Was Forever ...

Alexei Yurchak came up with perhaps the best description of the contemporary Coronarama landscapes some fifteen years ago. There it was, right there on the cover of his book all along, plain as the day on your face.

Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More.

That’s awfully darn good, no?

Well, I did selectively omit a few words for brevity, clarity, and to completely distort the title of his publication, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation. But I had a really good reason.

Yurchak should release a new edition and drop the bit about the last Soviet generation, especially since it wasn’t. The sprawling autocracy is still around, just doing business as a Putintate. (That’s Russian for potentate.)

Conversely, almost everyone on the planet is surrounded by everything that is no more now that forever isn’t. Who wouldn’t be interested in that concept now that forever ain’t what it used to be?

11 April 2020

Bodices Away!

I often find the subtlest humor the funniest; here’s an example in a recent headline: Romance Writers of America elects new board after problematic past.

What’s so hilarious about that? The very concept of an alliance of romance writers! What’s even hilariouser is that some ten thousand of ’em pay a hundred dollars a year for their membership.

What do they do at their meetings? Perhaps they examine different techniques for ripping bodices off, “straining, chafing, nearly stampeding breasts.” Or perhaps they discuss different strategies for the introverted but brilliant ugly duckling to win over the captain of the basketball team, who secretly lusts after her?

Now that I think about it, a hundred dollars a year sounds like a great entertainment value. I assume the organization’s managers will happily accept my money despite the fact I haven’t written a single sentence worthy of a real romance writer. (I of course stole that phrase about the breasts in the previous paragraph; I’m definitely not good enough to come up with something that amazing on my own.)

Bodices away!

12 April 2020

Six More Weeks After Easter

I was too lazy to look at the weather forecast after waking up late this morning, so I called Antoinette to see if we were still going walkies this afternoon.

“Jesus came out of his cave and saw his shadow today, so six more weeks of the pandemic,” she reported. “On the other hand, it’s a good day for a stroll.”

“That’s blasphemy and a sin!” I laughed.

“Nah, Christ would have appreciated that,” she continued. “If I don’t sin then he died for nothing, right?”

“I couldn’t possibly address that,” I replied. “I’d save that question for the Caronavirus’s next press conference.”

Pass the buck and pass the bottle usually works, and it did again today.

13 April 2020

It’s a Wrap!

A century ago people bought fish wrapped in newspaper from fishmongers after the perverts were done mongering them. That sounds sick, perhaps even degenerate, but things were different then. There are still a very few fishmongers left, but they mostly ply their scaly trade in remote Mormon outposts along with chiffoniers, perukers, and the ubiquitous polygamists.

Fish and newspapers have adapted surprisingly well to the plastics age. Frozen fish migrate from the ocean to the dinner table in hermetically sealed plastic envelopes. The newspapers that have survived arrive on the doorstep in plastic prophylactic tubes. And still—and yet—and yet still—the relationship between fish and newspapers has continued to evolve and thrive over the decades.

As I was cooking dinner tonight, I had to discard the smelly, plastic salmon packaging. But how and where? I spotted yesterday’s empty plastic New York Times bag, inserted the former into the latter, et voilà! All the fish waste that’s fit to wrap!

14 April 2020

Creepiness in the Age of Coronarama

Conrad was in a mood most foul after a walk in the park.

“We’re all supposed to be in this Coronarama thing together, but some people are still just plain rude,” he complained.

“That hasn’t been my experience,” I said. “What happened?”

“I was at least a couple of meters away from a woman walking her dog and said ‘I’d love to pet you if it was safe,’” he explained, “then she told me to crawl back into my hole!”

“Let me guess,” I responded. “You were looking at her and not the dog when you said that, right?”

“Don’t quibble me!” he protested. “There’s simply no excuse for such unsocial behavior.”

Oh well, at least we agreed on that.

15 April 2020

Baby Gratuitously

I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately for reasons that have nothing to do with being under self-imposed house arrest. That’s not much of a change at all; I’ve spent the majority of my time pleasantly alone in my studio for decades. It comes naturally; artists and musicians and writers have always done that. Now that the virus stalks us, I’m as comfortable here as Br’er Rabbit in the briar patch.

Almost.

I occasionally find myself listening to some moving lyrics, and thinking, “yes, that’s perfect,” until I hear the word “baby” added gratuitously.

“I love you” is perfection; why ruin it by changing it to, “Baby, I love you?” Are there that many songwriters and singers who are pedophiliacs? Are there enough pedophiliacs in the marketplace to dictate adding “baby” to so many otherwise fine songs?

I shouldn’t ask questions I don’t want to be answered.

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©2020 David Glenn Rinehart