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Weak XIII

26 March 2022

No. 3,724 (cartoon)

Aren’t you ever going to grow up?

I’m not falling into that old trap!

27 March 2022

Aluminum Cauliflower Hats

For since almost forever some people have covered their heads in aluminum foil to prevent bad actors from taking over their brains with radio waves, x-rays, and much more. (Don’t ask me, ask them.) There’s a very good reason that these panicky paranoiacs who wear aluminum foil hats are generally thought of as crazy: they’re as crazy as a runaway caboose with a wheel loose.

And now for something completely different ...

A head of cauliflower is an albino cabbage that looks not dissimilar to a human brain; I like mine baked. (My cauliflower, not my mind, that it.)

Here’s my recipe: cut the cauliflower in half, put the hemispheres on a baking tray, coat them in olive oil, and put them in the oven. There’s something you should know before you turn on the oven, so let’s take a little break now, shall we?

If you leave a cauliflower to its own devices in a hot oven its top will have burned to crunchy black charcoal before the core of its thick stem has even given much thought to cooking. This is definitely a first-world problem. (For me, not the cauliflower, that is.)

There’s a simple solution to this culinary conundrum: aluminum foil hats! Just put one on each half, then take them off when the cauliflower is almost cooked. Just serve with food, and you got yourself a fine roasted vegetable that’s neither raw nor burnt.

Bone appetite!

28 March 2022

Has Been Here Since 1913

I use my computers to store many of my memories; what’s left of my brain is too valuable to use as a filing cabinet. It’s also not all that reliable as I discovered this afternoon.

I was walking near the subway with my serious camera in my backpack when I saw a painting I photographed before. I decided to photograph it again with a better lens, then talk about what’s different about the new photo from the old one. It worked out perfectly: the bright sunlight that attracted me disappeared seconds after I made the exposure.

I got an unpleasant surprise when I got back to my studio. Today’s photo came out fine—thank you very much; you’re welcome—but the previous version was nowhere to be found in my nine thousand five hundred and eighty-three previous entries. Searching on “been here since” brought up a story about Buffalo, New York, and the only time I mentioned 1913 was when I referred to a buffalo [sic] nickel. (The huge mangy critter is a bison, not a buffalo.)

I wonder what else I’m sure I said exists only in my imagination?

29 March 2022

The History of Photography

Alphonse has been teaching the history of photography at the university for decades. He told me that he hasn’t used his slides in years and never will again, so he was dispatching them to the landfill. I asked him to give them to me instead, and I’m glad he did.

I piled the slides on the ground and photographed them, et voilà!

The history of photography in one image, The History of Photography.

30 March 2022

Cannibal Coronal Mass Ejection Tease

The Washington Post headline reported, “A sunspot produced a cannibal coronal mass ejection ...”

I went to see the article and found out I’d been duped; the entire piece was nothing but words except for one blurry photo that looked like it was taken from a million kilometers away! C’mon, man; the only reason to check out a feature like that is to see hot hot scorching hot photos—ideally well-lit closeups—of a cannibal coronal mass ejection.

It’s a sad day indeed when a once respectable newspaper tries to mimic an Internet porn site in a desperate attempt to increase its dwindling readership.

31 March 2022

Earendel

Astronomers have discovered the most faraway star ever seen from earth, Earendel. I read that it’s twenty-eight billion light-years away, so distant that it’s taken almost thirteen billion years for its light to reach us.

Let that sink in.

And now that it’s all sunk, it’s thinky time!

A light year is the distance light travels in a year, so how can Earendel be both twenty-eight billion and thirteen billion light-years away? It’s probably some sort of typo, but it could be one of those eighth dimension things with a burp in the space-time continuum. Or something like that.

I’m not going to give it any more thought since it wouldn’t make any difference. Earendel is incomprehensibly distant, and that’s all I need to comprehend.

1 April 2022

April Fool, That’s Me!

It’s April Fool’s Day, and the joke’s on me.

I spotted a familiar tree I always thought of as rather photogenic while I was cycling up Claremont Avenue just before leaving California. I’m delighted by the way the huge redwood spilled its distended, woody guts onto the sidewalk. (Too bad that’s not a good look for a human; there’d be a lot more physically attractive people in the United States if that was an appealing aesthetic.)

As has always been the case on every other occasion I passed by, the lighting wasn’t quite right for the tree. I decided to make a photograph anyway with my bicycle leaning against it since I don’t have a single photo of my bike. (And why would I since it’s transportation, not art?)

The resulting image was a visual failure. My giant black bike looks nondescript at best, and it’s a crappy photo of the tree as well. I was an April fool for hallucinating that I could make a good photograph in bad light and ended up with two visual failures in one image.

2 April 2022

Ultrasonic Hooey

“This is the new ultrasonic shutter release for my camera,” Kurt boasted as he showed me a little plastic box with a tiny antenna. “I can control my camera from fifty meters away!”

“Why would you want to give a camera thief a fifty-meter head start?” I asked. “I’ve never heard of such a ridiculous thing.”

“Of course you haven’t heard of it,” he replied. “That’s why it’s ultrasonic, eh?”

I made a rude ultrasonic comment and then shifted my voice down to a normal conversational frequency.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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