Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak LI

17 December 2023

No. 8,602 (cartoon)

I’m deathly ill.

I hope it’s nothing trivial.

18 December 2023

A Life Without Labels

Alina sent me an article, Six Ways to Make Your Life Easier and More Peaceful, by Using Stoic Principles. I normally don’t read anything that smells like self-improvement; I decided decades ago that I’d developed enough for one lifetime. I made an exception for Alina, though, since she’s a great curator, and reading about six things didn’t seem too terribly onerous.

And guess what? No one would ever guess, so I’ll tell you: ’twould appear I’m a Stoic! This reminds me of all the times Buddhists have told me that I'm a Buddhist. (I won’t mention what my drinking friends tell me; never trust a drunk.)

Being a stoic Buddhist or a Buddhist Stoic both sound positive, but I prefer an unlabeled life. Making assumptions frequently leads to morw assumptions and misunderstandings; it’s easy to imagine going to the Stoic’s Ball and being ejected because I used the wrong wine spoon or some danged thing. Or maybe I shouldn’t worry about such an improbable event since I’d certainly take it stoically.

19 December 2023

Claremont Avenue Locomotion (Diptych)

Claremont Avenue Locomotion (Diptych) is a reference to Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion, published in 1887. If you’re unfamiliar with his work and the inside joke is a stretch, then at least you can marvel at the way Muybridge spelled his first name.

20 December 2023

For Better or Worse

It’s easy to conclude that things are getting worse every year, in part because they are. Climate change? Who cares? A dictator ruling the United States? Maybe a couple of centuries of democracy was enough.

If you step back from the shithousery, though, some things have changed remarkably. I was gobsmacked to learn that it was only fifty years ago that the American Psychiatric Association decided that homosexuality isn’t a manifestation of mental illnesses.

I went to high school with gay kids. We were all discovering sex, drugs, and good music, and nothing struck me the least bit unusual about different people wanting different things. We were open-minded; I remember one of the lesbian girls telling me, “You kiss pretty good for a guy.” (She went on to become a famous author, and I shall certainly cite her praise on my curriculum vitae if I ever create one.)

But then there were Buzz and Clint, two gay classmates I barely knew who killed themselves in college. I have no idea if their sexuality was a factor, but being diagnosed as mentally ill at a young age must have made life much more painful than necessary.

21 December 2023

Jeff Koons Is a Bampot, and a Bawbag

Jeff Koons has been pretentious for so long that he’s now actually postentious. I wrote that in 2000, but now he’s finally broken new ground with Romy Golan.

Golan is an art historian who wrote what sounded like a tediously tedious piece on Koons for the Brooklyn Rail, a New York arts journal that’s one of those little intellectual rags no one reads. Koons didn’t like the draft he allegedly read, and used his “art” world connections, wealth, and legal fugamagoo to get the editors of the periodical, founded “to provide an open forum for criticism and free expression,” to kill it.

Koons is a great censor but he’s a postentious mediocre artist, a bampot, and a bawbag; I’m pretty sure there’s a connection there.

22 December 2023

Time to Celibate!

Medical professionals have warned that there’s a correlation between Christmas and penile fractures. What a lovely connection with celebrating a facetious virgin birth of someone whose body we eat and whose blood people drink to become immortal.

Merry Xmas; time to celibate!

23 December 2023

Happy Birthday, Harry

Today is Harry Schearer’s eightieth birthday; huzzah!

He’s one of the few inspirational figures in my life, since his creative energy doesn’t seem to have diminished over the decades. May I be so fortunate ...

He makes millions of dollars a year from his commercial pursuits, and that has allowed him to enjoy the freedom of making his weekly broadcast, Le Show, for over thirty years without monetary concerns.

“The calculation I made early on is to be really free, you have to be free, meaning you have to get nothing in return for it.”

Thanks, Harry; I shall crank it up to twelve tonight to celebrate!

Coming next weak: more of the same.

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2023 David Glenn Rinehart