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Weak XXXI

30 July 2024

No. 7,556 (cartoon)

You’re a repellent knuckle dragger.

Surely you must have meant “repugnant knuckle dragger.”

Everybody needs an editor!

31 July 2024

Typographical Nightmare

When
I was
fast asleep last
night I had my
first typographical dream and that
is what you’re seeing now, with
each line one word longer than the
previous one, and the first and last words
in italics and bold type, respectively. I have enjoyed
some insightful dreams, and this clearly wasn’t one of ’em.

1 August 2024

Zia Puck

I made a print of the center portion of a Zia a week or two ago for a project I insist I’m working on even though I’m not. (I didn’t know that the New Mexico state symbol was a Zia until I looked it up.) I put it on a bedside table to remind me that I have work to do. I used a hockey puck that’s been sitting around for months as a paperweight. I have no idea what to do with that; I’m hoping it osmoses in the middle of the night.

I used to say that I’m moving at glacial speed but with glacial certainty, but I’ve retired that line since the glaciers are melting.

2 August 2024

Redwood Lightbulb

I bought a 180-600mm zoom lens a couple of months ago. I’m embarrassed to admit it was a bit of a late-night impulsive acquisition (if you catch my drift), but I figured I’d probably need it someday.

Today was someday; I couldn’t have made Redwood Lightbulb without it.

3 August 2024

Trichobezoars Around the World

Conrad has always prided himself on working alone, but today he was eager to tell me he was sharing his studio with a huge, beautiful Maine Coon cat.

“What’s your pal’s name?” I asked.

The sound waves from my voice hadn’t reached the other side of the room before I realized what a stupid question that was. It’s a corollary to asking, “What do you call a dog with no head?” (It doesn’t matter, it ain’t gonna come.)

“Bezoar,” he replied.

Before I could ask another inane question, he added that “Bezoar” was short for trichobezoar, the fancy scientifical name for a hairball.

He went on to explain that hairballs aren’t unique to cats. Not too long ago a woman in Ecuador was suffering from a mysterious ailment that turned out to be rather simple to diagnose: she had a half-meter-long hairball in her stomach that weighed over a kilogram.

This is one of those rare stories that concludes with a conclusion: trichophagia is bad for you, m’kay?

4 August 2024

My First Digital Print

I bought my first digital camera in 1995, an Apple QuickTake 100. It had the crappiest lens I’ve ever used (“focus free!”), captured the lowest-resolution files I’ve ever made, and could only make eight exposures.

I loved it!

I stopped using film a millennium ago, and have been increasingly satisfied with each generation of digital cameras since. And now, thirty years later, I finally made my first digital print: archival ink on acid-free rag paper, the works.

I have no use for it; the photograph is a gift for a friend. It is a beautiful print; I may do it again someday, possibly in less than thirty years. In the meantime, I have new work to make.

5 August 2024

Catboxliner Sex

Two months ago today a couple of astronauts left earth on a Boeing Starliner for a three-day trip. They have yet to return from the twenty-first-century version of Gilligan’s Island. (Everybody sing along! A three-day tour, a three-day tour ...)

The Boeing lemon no longer works, so Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are stuck in orbit, but may be able to return in February.

Maybe.

I was discussing the fiasco with Angelina, and wondered aloud how they’re spending their time.

“Maybe they’ll figure out how to have great sex without gravity,” she suggested.

“Interesting proposition,” I responded. “As improbable as it seems to me, I hear anecdotally that a lot of people can’t figure out how to do that on earth, so maybe gravity is their problem.”

“I wish I didn’t know this to be true,” Angelina replied with a wince, “but gravity isn’t the problem.”

I didn’t like where the conversation was headed, so I returned to branding. After pissing away almost six billion dollars in government funding, it seems the least Boeing could do would be to rename it Catboxliner so taxpayers get a sad little joke for their money.

6 August 2024

A&W Toxic Waste

One of my first warnings on how difficult the English language is was at a drive-in when I was a young boy. I asked my parents if the item on the menu was pronounced “is-land” or “eye-land.” That’s how I learned to spell Michigan’s native dish, the coney island.

I remembered eating the coney dog with root beer when I was poking around Freddie’s reefer when I spotted a can of A&W root beer, the same thing I was drinking on that memorable evening. I decided to have a cold glass of it after a hot bike ride to take a trip back in time.

Big mistake.

A&W root beer doesn’t taste like root beer, the vile concoction tastes like toxic waste watered down with high fructose corn syrup (provides eighty-six percent of recommended daily sugar allowance) and disguised with artificial food coloring. I tried to get rid of the sickening taste by eating some chips and jalapeños washed down with a beer then brushing my teeth, but the wretched taste stayed in my mouth for hours.

My policy is to never mention brand names unless I’ve received a generous product placement fee, but I’m making an exception for A&W. I’m publishing this cautionary tale as a public service announcement. If I spare even one person the misery of ingesting the odious swill perfidiously labeled “root beer” it will have been worth it.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2024 David Glenn Rinehart