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Weak VII

12 February 2023

No. 2,555 (cartoon)

Everything is black.

You’re beginning to see the light.

13 February 2023

Not Super

I agree with Noël Coward when it comes to reviewers: “I can take any amount of criticism, so long as it is unqualified praise.” I’d wager that Marco Goecke concurs as well.

Goecke was so furious with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ballet critic’s comments on one of his recent productions that he was apparently at a loss for words. That’s the most charitable explanation of why he rubbed dog shit all over Wiebke Hüster’s face in the lobby of the Hanover State Opera.

“She threw shit at me for over twenty years. And at some point I asked myself the question whether I want that,” he explained unapologetically.

“I think that the means I chose were certainly not super,” he added. “I think from a societal viewpoint, making use of such a method will not receive approval or be respected.”

That’s quite an understatement from a man who kept on digging after having already dug his professional grave. But why grovel when you can shovel? The entitled twerp should have taken Ben Hecht’s advice.

“Responding to criticism is a foolish thing for a writer to do, and an unpleasant one. It is much better to read only the advertisements of your work and to note, briefly, your royalty reports. These will tell you how popular you are. How good you are, or are not, is a thing you should know only too well yourself.”

As for Hüster, at least she didn’t trash Man Ray, who once opined, “All critics should be assassinated.”

14 February 2023

Love and VD

Stephano suggested that I “say something about love” since today is colloquially known as VD. I thought that was a bad idea, but since I don’t have anything in my pocket at the moment I will.

Love is deaf in both eyes and blind in both ears.

Maybe he was right after all; love is easy!

15 February 2023

Winter Cycling Shot Calculations

If you find yourself where it’s so cold that you have to light two matches and rub the flames together in order to start a fire, it may be too cold to ride a bicycle. If you only need one match, then you too can ride a bike with the right preparations.

I frequently enjoy bike rides in subzero weather; it’s all a matter of making the right preparations. The first thing to remember is that four shots equal one jacket, so it’s time to get all technical here.

I usually require three jackets on the coldest days, but only need two after four generous shots of Scotch. (What cheeseparing degenerate would pour a miserly shot?) That’s not the best advice for an extended winter expedition, but it works a charm for ten or twenty clicks on a sunny day.

That may sound simple, but I learned the hard way that it’s not. One or two shots are insufficient to provide the increase in circulation needed to compensate for one less jacket. Six or seven shots can send one into a reverential sideways spiral that’s often incongruent with frigid cycling.

I did your research for you; you’re most welcome.

16 February 2023

(I Know) I'm Losing You Revisited

I’m still using a Leica lens from when I was a teenager; it will be in fine fettle—if that’s a place a lens can go—when my carcass is but a distant memory. Electronics are a different story. They’re fungible, finicky, and can’t be repaired.

My old speakers and/or amplifier died. Happens all the time. Kinda like a horse with a bad knee (do horses have knees?); you put a bullet through its horsey brain and move on.

My replacement sound system arrived today. Life goes on (until it doesn’t).

Speaking of my unspeakable teenage years, I put the new speakers through the traditional test: Ronnie Lane’s bass line from (I Know) I'm Losing You on the 1971 album, Every Picture Tells a Story.

I cranked up the volume to just under thirteen and letter rip. A wine glass vibrated off the shelf and shattered on the brick floor. Yep; them’s good speakers; I’m keeping ’em until they’re shredded.

And the circle remains broken, good times!

17 February 2023

A Day

It’s too bad that you almost certainly don’t know about my dear friend Dr. Galleymore. That’s your loss, but it works out well for me. I frequently plagiarize the clever and brilliant things she says with impunity; I can’t do that with anyone famous.

She’s suffering from the dreaded lurgi, and told me this morning that she felt “feak and weeble.”

“I'm a-gonna plagiarize that!” I declared.

“Be my guest,” she replied. “It’s just another Spoonerism.”

Spoonerism? I had to look up the definition; you can too.

Alas, any idjit can spake a moonerism with a little applied dyslexia. And so, here I am back in hunter/gatherer mode looking for something juicy to claim as my own.

Later: not even a nibble and it’s time for bed, so I’m going to call it a day.

A day.

18 February 2023

Balloon Remnant

It all started a week or so ago when a sonic boom rattled the windows here in La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís; I don’t recall that ever happening before. (Kirtland Air Force Base is the nearest place for jet fighters, and that’s a hundred clicks away.) I shouldn’t be surprised; recently military jets have been blasting any floating thingie labeled with “Made in China” out of the sky.

That was then and this today, and today is when I discovered a balloon remnant impaled on a giant saguaro cactus near the studio. It looked like a generic party balloon, but the shred pattern was consistent with the explosion impact pattern of an AIM-9L “Sidewinder” missile.

Did a military jet use a four-hundred-thousand-dollar missile to destroy a birthday balloon?

Probably.

19 February 2023

A Long Day on Venus

A day on Venus lasts longer than a year on Venus.

I’m grateful to J. C. Duffy for bringing that to my attention in this morning’s The Fusco Brothers comic strip. I never met the hombre and know nothing about his bony fides, so I checked and confirmed that a Venusian day is indeed eighteen Earth days longer than a Venusian year.

I shouldn’t have doubted. After all, everyone knows that Duffy couldn’t have published it on the Internet if it wasn’t true.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2023 David Glenn Rinehart