Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak

Weak III

15 January 2024

No. 2,985 (cartoon)

Your mind is a bunged-up sieve.

You’re just seeing mental entrails.

I was flattering you.

16 January 2024

The Decisive Bovine Moment

Cameras are getting smarter and photographers are getting lazier; it’s a convenient arrangement. The latest Nikon can tell which cow is about to give birth; what a marvelous feature! I’m investigating whether I can get that capability added to the one I use as a software update. I hope so; the next time I head out to farmland I want to come back with photos of a bloody calf, not more feeble excuses why I missed the decisive bovine moment yet again.

17 January 2024

Nothing Personal

Stephano, one of my fictitious friends, asked me why I never wrote about my personal life in these notebook entries. I thought that was a good question; that’s why I made it up.

The truth about my private life is so boring I get tired just thinking about it. I’d much rather hang around with imaginary friends than reveal there’s nothing to reveal.

Oops, Stephano just opened the bottle of Bunnahabhain he brought; gotta go!

18 January 2024

Clichés in the News

The Beverly Hillbillies was a great television show, Muswell Hillbillies was a good album, but for real entertainment value nothing beats real Kentucky hillbillies.

I’m thinking about Nick Wilson, a Republican representative in Kentucky’s House of Representatives, who recently introduced a law to legalize sex between first cousins. That was a bit over the top even for inbred moonshiners, and he hastily amended the “accident” after everyone had a good laugh.

Ah, those clichés come from somewhere and it’s usually Kentucky.

19 January 2024

Making Stupid Art

When it comes to art, I usually sit in my own little bubble breathing my own fumes. I don’t recommend that to anyone else, but it works for me. As a result, I just discovered David Shrigley, who of course has been there all along.

He makes good work that speaks for itself; that allows him to talk about it in self-defecating terms. Now that I’ve done the setup, it’s time for the punchline, his reply to someone who asked him why he created a piece.

“It’s art, that’s why. And I get to do whatever I like because I have made lots of money and I can piss that money away making stupid art.”

I couldn’t have put it better myself; thanks, pal!

20 January 2024

The Eithers and the Ors

I’m not seeing many artists in the popular press; they seem to have been replaced by “the creatives” and “the influencers.”

I find that jolly amusing, especially semantically speaking. If there are influencers then there must be the uncreatives and the influenced, popularly known as sheeple. It’s all a stupid game, and I long ago learned the only way to win is not to play.

21 January 2024

Fifty Years (and Change) Later

My writing is anything but timely, and it’s only now that I realized that I failed to note a major anniversary last November. Stop the presses!

I was in eleventh grade at Interlochen, and had decided to abandon playing the French horn after a painfully objective assessment of my musical abilities (and lack of same). The only problem with what turned out to be a wise decision not to be a mechanic, as Frank Zappa described orchestra musicians, was that I had no idea what to do with my life. Until ...

It was November, and I’d recently discovered marijuana when I picked up a friend’s fancy camera, looked through the telephoto lens, and never looked back, figuratively speaking. I was studying photography for four hours a day by the time I went home for the holiday break. Over the next year and a half I completed my formal art education with Jim Alley, Wayne Brill, and Lary Lien; too bad they’re all dead.

Happy belated fiftieth anniversary, such as it is. That’s more than enough looking in the rearview mirror for 2024; it’s time to stop lollygagging and get back to work.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

Last Weak  |  Index  |  Next Weak
©2024 David Glenn Rinehart