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Weak XXXIV

20 August 2024

No. 5,443 (cartoon)

You can either leave me or I’ll leave you.

If you leave me I’ll leave you too.

Freedom of choice!

21 August 2024

Inside and Outside Spiders

Spiders have been around for a very long time indeed. I’m so certain that that’s true that I’m not going to add any details such as assertions, facts, and numbers that are irrelevant to today’s rambling rambulation.

I’ve always enjoyed a mostly peaceful relationship with spiders. When I find one in my room, I thank him/her (how do you sex a spider?) for eating insects then escort it to the nature preserve outside my door. I was modestly proud of myself until I read, “Catching spiders and putting them outside is either pointless or cruel; there are inside spiders and outside spiders, and they can’t switch.”

Now hold on just a minute: where did the inside spiders live before humans built structures with outsides and insides?

I suppose I could track down an arachnoidologist and find out more than I’d ever want to know about the mysterious wee critters, but I’d rather scratch my head and marinate in my ignorance.

22 August 2024

Subway Twigs and Leaves

I was on the mostly empty subway (or was I in the subway?) late in the morning, so of course the grungy kid covered in tattoos with the oversized skateboard sat a meter away from me. Of course he did.

The kid was no kid, perhaps he was in his mid-twenties. He had the deep tan and faintly grimy patina of an unhoused person. (There are no more homeless people in San Francisco; they’ve all moved a rung up the semantic ladder and now they’re all unhoused.)

A leaf fell to the floor as he unrolled and unpacked the old, black sweatshirt he was using as an ersatz valise. As he continued to reorganize, a small cascade of twigs and leaves fell to the floor of the train. I realized he’d probably spent the night sleeping in the bushes.

He got off the train at the next stop and blended in with the thousands of other homeless specters barely surviving in the shadows of great wealth.

No conclusions here, just a scattering of garden detritus to remind me how extraordinarily fortunate I am.

23 August 2024

We Were Jerks

I just read a great interview with Laurie Anderson. She was predictably surprising, including this line: “I was in this art scene where we thought what we were doing was the most important thing ever. We were jerks.”

Self-defecating remarks always carry more weight when someone on the genius spectrum says them.

24 August 2024

Cat-astrophe Averted

I’m catsitting for Dr. Serafini this weekend. There’s no work involved: she lives with two great cats so it’s a great joy to be here.

I’d just moved in when I spotted an important warning note taped to the refrigerator.

The two bottles of wine on the counter are almost full; you know what to do.

I immediately recognized the severity of the corked conundrum. Unless I acted quickly and decisively, KaBOOM! No more moose and squirrel.

If the wine in the tightly-corked bottles fermented, one or both magnums (magni?) might explode sending sharp shards of broken bottles around the periphery, possibly piercing a passing puss. I abandoned the alliteration and commenced to spring into action to disarm the potential bombs.

I put a baguette of sourdough and a brick of cheddar on the table and went to work on the Merlot while I thawed a huge piece of salmon to go with the Chablis. My wise friends recognized the severity of the threat and rushed over to help. It worked; we emptied the last of the bottles just as the sun set.

I was fortunate that the cats slept through the entire emergency; they enjoyed their dinner blissfully unaware of their brush with death. Having nine lives is a beautiful thing indeed.

25 August 2024

Separate Czechs

Here’s the joke Hubert told me:

Two guys walk into a restaurant in Prague and the waiter asks them what they’d like. “Separate Czechs,” they reply.

“That’s it?” I asked.

Hubert seemed puzzled that I wasn’t doubled over with laughter, then slapped himself on the forehead.

“I totally screwed that one up,” he apologized. “It was supposed to be ‘Two cannibals walk into a restaurant in Prague.’ ”

That’s when I laughed. A lot. There aren’t many jokes as funny as a bad joke with a botched delivery.

26 August 2024

WGI and CGI

Toni showed me the book Anastasia gave her for her birthday, Wilfried Kaute’s Murder in the City, New York, 1910–1920. It could have been called Weegee Before Weegee except for two things. The photographs weren’t as nuanced as his, and then there’s the police sculpture. I can’t describe the image better than the caption: “A skeleton fitted with features made from wax in order to identify the slain party.”

The 1972 film A Computer Animated Hand is often cited as one of the first examples of CGI, or computer-generated imagery. I was pleased to be reminded that we had WGI (wax-generated imagery) long before CGI. I’m sure kids a couple of generations from now will look back at today’s CGI as similarly quaint as they enjoy scratch-and-sniff art.

27 August 2024

Pop Smear Concert

Willy and Fiona are back from one of those wretched pop star stadium concerts with completely different reviews.

Willy kvetched that he paid over two hundred dollars for a seat so far away from the act that it was in a different time zone. Fiona, however, was in a very cheerful mood.

“It was hilarious,” she exclaimed. “There I was, near the roof looking down at a tiny little stage where a trained ant, or maybe a minuscule Lilliputian, was performing for me like some sick lab experiment.”

“It was just pathetic!” she added with a laugh.

I nodded in agreement. That certainly sounds like almost any stadium concert to me.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2024 David Glenn Rinehart