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Weak XL

1 October 2024

No. 8,164 (cartoon)

You can drown in a bowl of water.

Like a toilet bowl?

I am that bowl.

2 October 2024

Money and Chocolate Syrup Formulae

Julian told me I was right about the transformation of root beer into high fructose toxic waste; he said that’s happening across the corporate landscape. He illustrated this by showing me the ingredients in Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup: High Fructose Corn Syrup, Corn Syrup, Sugar, Water, Cocoa, Contains 2% or Less of: Potassium Sorbate (Preservative), Salt, Mono- and Diglycerides, Polysorbate 60, Xanthan Gum, and Vanillin, Artificial Flavor.

He compared that with the formula for the same product decades ago: water, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and salt.

Can you spot the differences in the formulae? The former is a method of making money; the latter is a recipe for chocolate syrup.

3 October 2024

The Real Golden Gate Bridge

I sometimes stay at one of my alternate homes on what is unwarmly known by Sans Friscans as Snob Hill. When I do, my usual bike ride is to pedal to the base of the Golden Gate Bridge—where I made this snapshot—and back. Now for the verbose caption ...

The bridge construction was completed in 1937, but almost ninety years later the fabrication of the image has not been completed, and never will be. With every iteration by skilled photographers and clever computer operators, the span becomes more colorful, majestic, awe-inspiring, and just plain downright purdy.

That’s the image, and then there’s the cold reality, figuratively and literally.

I took my photo on a typical afternoon, with the bridge all but enveloped in a clammy wet fog. I couldn’t see the structure, but then I couldn’t see the tourists either, so the comfortable cycling weather worked out just fine.

4 October 2024

National Poetry Day

I told Sandra that I couldn’t come up with anything for today, National Poetry Day.

“Why bother?” she asked. “You only like one poem out of a billion.”

“Thank you!” I replied after she gave me the out I needed.

I finally realized what National Poetry Day means to me. We give the miserable poets of the world—and they’re all sorrowful sods—a token acknowledgment of their lugubrious, saturnine existence then go on to enjoy the other three-hundred and sixty-four days while they’re in their moldy garrets writing obfuscated jeremiads that no one will ever see let alone read.

5 October 2024

DO NOT SIT HERE

I took my hypochondriac friend to Berkeley Urgent Care today. While I waited for the doctor to confirm there was nothing wrong with him, I noticed that there were two comfy chairs at the base of a staircase with NO NOT SIT HERE signs on them. There’s a story there, but I’d rather guess what it might be than ask the receptionist.

Putting a couple of large armchairs at the bottom of the steps at a medical facility seems like a good idea. What with all of them sick people and everything around, I’d think some of the weak ones might need a break before or after tackling the stairs. Maybe the signs are only there when there’s almost no one around like today, a slow Saturday morning. Or perhaps the chairs are in transit, and they’re in temporary storage. I wouldn’t be surprised if union workers don’t touch furniture on weekends.

Those explanations are as unlikely as they are charitable; I suspect the notices are there to reserve the best seats for passing administraitors.

I think the idea has artistic potential. Maybe I’ll print a stack of DO NOT SIT HERE fliers and distribute them selectively, both for my amusement as well as for practical purposes such as getting a bit of elbow room waiting in a crowded airport.

6 October 2024

Daniel Day-Lewis’s Big Mistake

Daniel Day-Lewis announced he is resuming work seven years after he claimed that he’d retired. I hear he’s a smart fella, so why has he failed at retirement?

Why oh why oh whine oh why?

I pretty much retired in my thirties. (I say “pretty much” because I never really worked before I retired.) It’s easy: you simply stop working for other people/corporations and money and only work for art, amusement, love, et cetera. That was so long ago that I can’t remember if I read Marcel Duchamp’s observation before or after I retired.

“I consider working for a living slightly imbecilic from an economic point of view. I hope that some day we’ll be able to live without being obliged to work. Thanks to my luck, I was able to manage without getting wet. I understood, at a certain moment, that it wasn’t necessary to encumber one’s life with too much weight, with too many things to do, with what is called a wife, children, a country house, an automobile. And I understood this, fortunately, rather early.”

Poor Day-Lewis; he should hire me as a consultant to help him understand re:tired. Oops, never mind, then I’d have to go back to work.

7 October 2024

Death for Dummies

That might come in useful one of these days.

That was my initial reaction to seeing a mention of Simon “Bob” Boas’s A Beginner’s Guide to Dying. I read the book review; the volume sounds like a huge disappointment.

The book is just three essays cobbled together. Even worse, it’s apparent that the author died before he could finish his primer. Sorry Bob, but I’m sticking with my current guide when it’s time to cross the Styx, Death for Dummies.

8 October 2024

Rispin Nascent Aperture Revisited

I revisited Rispin Drive three weeks after I noted some cryptic marks spray painted on the recently repaved road. At the time I suspected that they indicated buried water, sewer, and utility connections and it turns out I was right. First time for everything!

I’d envisioned little metal covers flush with the fresh asphalt, but the street looked like massive iron mushrooms on steroids had popped out of the concrete substrate after a spring rain. If you don’t experience the same visceral visual excitement looking at my photographic documentation, I can only conclude that you need to lower your entertainment threshold by rather a lot.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2024 David Glenn Rinehart