Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak XXXV

28 August 2020

No. 4,615 (cartoon)

This tastes funny.

There’s nothing funny about cannibalism.

Why do you hate clowns?

29 August 2020

Cooking as Conceptual Art

The Internet claims that Antonin Careme (1784-1833) and Alexis Soyer (1810-1858) were two of the greatest chefs in history. (I haven’t bothered to investigate, but I’m fairly sure this is based on the premise that the only history that matters is European and American.)

One can hear the music and see the paintings and sculptures of nineteenth-century composers and artists, but no one alive has ever seen a photograph of Careme’s or Soyer’s creations let alone tasted or smelled anything that came out of their kitchens. I wonder if the cooks were conceptual artists centuries before that idea gained popular acceptance?

I preserve all of my work in digital amber, so I wouldn’t call myself a conceptual artist or use any other label. As for cooking, I can and do fry up some good grub, but I can’t imagine spending all that time, effort, and maybe even passion on concocting an exquisite meal that will be defecated into a toilet soon after it’s experienced.

And that’s quite enough philosophizing for today. It’s almost noon and all this talk about food has made me hungry. Luciana will be here soon, so it’s time to sizzle up some herring, spinach, and rice on the griddle for a truly forgettable meal.

Yummy nums!

30 August 2020

Two or Three Seconds to Live

Nell suggested that, in addition to my towering ignorance, one of the reasons I couldn’t grasp much of anything about the cosmos was that I thought in earth years. She ignored my protest that I was an earthling and proceeded to introduce me to galactic years.

As I understand it—and I’m not at all sure that I do—using earth years as a measurement is a mistake. I should instead be thinking in galactic years, the time it takes our solar system to make one orbit around the center of the Milky Way. That makes our planet about twelve years old spinning through a sixty-year-old universe.

I stopped listening before she could explain how that concept could help me conceptually understand the universe. Instead, I asked myself one of my favorite questions: what’s in it for me? I made some quick calculations and found that I’m almost ten galactic seconds old. I may or may not have another two or three seconds to live.

Time’s a-wastin’ and I ain’t a-wastin’ any more of it on numeration today.

31 August 2020

I’m Not Inflammable

“Picasso in old age was outrageous and a bit pathetic, playing up to the role of the veteran creative toreador while torturing himself in his studio as he tried to recapture the priapic energy of his youth.”

Jonathan Jones’s sentence from his review of a Picasso exhibit made me very uncomfortable. If I live as long as ol’ Pablo—he was ninety-one when he died—I think I’ll still be asking myself the same thing I have been for the last forty-plus years: what have you done lately? No one’s asking that except me, and no one cares about the answer.

I started this notebook at the very end of my thirties to address corollary questions. Have I already done the best work of my life? Have I run out of ideas?

I don’t think these questions can be answered. That doesn’t matter, especially since no one’s asking them except me. Thinking about them keeps me awake and alive. (Strong coffee helps too.)

The description of Picasso as “a bit pathetic” for making new work until he died seemed most unfair. I’m sure Picasso didn’t care about public opinion; that’s the only way for an artist to thrive and survive.

Pathetic compared to what? The young artists marketed by savvy gallery owners as good investment opportunities? The musicians who’ve been popular since the sixties for performing the same songs more or less exactly the same way for over half a century?

I’m not inflammable, but I agree with the pope, “Who am I to judge?”

. . .

Oh dear, I’m only halfway through the sentence and it’s time for bed. To end the night on a positive note, at least I know what I’ll be doing tomorrow: finishing my thoughts about the rest of Jones’s highly concentrated sentence.

1 September 2020

Priapic Energy

I’m usually not one to brag, but I am a high school graduate. After decades of reading, or at least skimming text, it’s very rare for me to come across an unrecognized word. I did yesterday, though, when I read, “...[Picasso] tried to recapture the priapic energy of his youth.”

I had to reach for my dictionary, and found that “priapic” in this context means, “relating to male sexuality and sexual activity.”

Gosh, that seems sexist and silly. Georgia O’Keeffe also made it to her nineties, but I’d bet a bottle of Bunnahabhain that even the stooopidest academic never wrote anything close to, “She tried to recapture the vulva energy of her youth.”

I’m going to stop there. Artspeak is bad enough, sexism is worse, and I don’t want to think about the inanities of combining them.

2 September 2020

The Fujinon XF 50mm f/1.0 WR

Fujifilm corporation just released a new lens, the Fujinon XF 50mm f/1.0 WR. This announcement has caused no small amount of consternation among photographic equipment enthusiasts (not to be confused with actual photographers). Should they spend five hundred dollars more than the thousand-dollar Fujinon XF 56mm f/1.2 to get the latest one that’s a tad faster?

One of the photo weenies—Ralph Gibson’s memorable description—bought both lenses to investigate. He (photo weenies are almost exclusively men, or at least male) photographed a brick wall, and concluded that the new lens is decidedly sharper. Now the idjits can endlessly debate the relative merits of the six-millimeter difference in focal lengths.

I shall remember the test results in case I ever have occasion to photograph bricks and mortar under very dim light without a tripod, a day that will never come for me. Who would photograph a wall that ain’t goin’ nowhere anytime soon without a tripod? Photo weenie isn’t the answer; they just evaluate cameras and lenses and never actually photograph anything.

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2020 David Glenn Rinehart