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Weak XLIII

22 October 2024

No. 3,337 (cartoon)

Did I ever tell you that you’re a great cook?

No, you never did.

I’m certain no one else ever told you that either.

23 October 2024

AA versus AA

Sonja sent me a curious note, “I’ve given up drinking until January.”

There was nothing unusual about the message itself; many of my friends have experimented with sobriety. Heck, I even tried it myself a few times until I concluded decisively that I was getting more from alcohol than alcohol was getting from me.

“Sober curious or changing teams and leaving Alcoholic Achievers to join Alcoholics Anonymous?” I asked.

“Oopsie, typo, forgot a comma!” she replied. “I’ve given up, drinking until January.”

24 October 2024

Swordfish at the Speed of Death

There are all sorts of pointy critters in the briny deep that can kill you. Just ask Steve Irwin, who died diving eighteen years ago after a stingray pierced his chest. That’s the kind of thing that really hurts in the morning, but he didn’t last that long. And then there are swordfish.

I’ve always avoided Xiphias gladius because of the dangerously high mercury content. I don’t eat them and they don’t poison me; it’s a comfortable detante. I recently learned that swordfish can also kill, which brings us back to pointy marine life.

Giulia Manfrini learned that swordfish can be lethal the hard way: a swordfish jumped out of the water and stabbed her in the chest while she was surfing. That sounds highly improbable (because it is), but it’s worth remembering where the “sword” in swordfish comes from: it’s the pointy bill at the business end of hundreds of kilograms of fishy flesh traveling at the speed of death.

When I started writing this I thought I was going somewhere with it, but empirical evidence suggests otherwise. (I don’t think I even have Halfheimer’s yet, but how would I know?) What is clear is that, unlike stingrays and swordfish, I don’t have a point, but that’s now beside the point since, as you may recall, I don’t have one.

25 October 2024

Hairy Stories

I saw something unusual when I looked in the mirror: I had a few new whiskers. I thought my facial real estate was fully colonized—or not—at the end of puberty, yet there they were: a few tiny hairs where there were none for decades.

They were easy to spot since my face is anything but furry. I spent weeks in the jungle in Thailand and Cambodia without shaving and came out looking like Yassir Arafat and Robert Zimmerman’s love child.

I’ll probably never know why I’m getting new whiskers at this age, if only because I’m not going to investigate. I’ve always been that way with hair.

I remember my first dinner with my girlfriend Barbara’s parents when I was just twenty. Franz and Eva were Austrian immigrants, and I was on my best behavior trying to make a good first impression. It was all going well until Barbara asked her father, a pathologist, what I’m sure she regarded as an innocent question.

“Dad, David says sex makes your hair grow faster; is that true?”

I have many more hirsute stories, but that’s more than enough for today.

26 October 2024

Dead Influencers

Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim is a dead influencer, and a very persuasive one at that. Hang on to your eyeballs; the story gets complicated.

Someone on her team made the snapshot above, but of course it’s not a real snapshot. It’s a carefully crafted advertising photograph, but I’m not sure what the message is. Is she trying to influence women to be vain, vapid, and indolent? Or maybe they should plaster on so many layers of makeup that they look like a cartoon character with ridiculously long fingernails and bovine-sized breast implants.

She and another influencer died soon after this image was made on 29 September. They refused to wear life jackets because they weren’t part of the brand, and might interfere with their tanning. Anyone could easily predict what happened next: they drowned when their speedboat capsized.

I always wear a helmet on my bike after hearing about the cyclists who split their skulls open because they weren’t wearing a lid, and I always wear a seatbelt after seeing the photos of idiots who went through a windshield face-first at a hundred kilometers an hour. And now, thanks to Aline Tamara Moreira de Amorim and Beatriz Tavares da Silva Faria, I shall always wear a life vest.

Gosh, I hate to admit it, but maybe the influencers really are effective even on a cynical old curmudgeon like me.

27 October 2024

Walking Wild in NYC

New York City. I’m sure you’ve heard of it, if only from Motörhead’s R.A.M.O.N.E.S.

New York City, NYC,
Pretty mean when it wants to be.

It’s the debauched metropolis where anything goes; nothing is too outlandish, kooky, or kinky. And now things are even more corybantic: weirdos and freaks are walking wild in the streets.

It’s true.

This may come as a shock, but it’s now legal to jaywalk there for the first time in sixty-six years. (Nice little etymological note: “jaywalk” comes from “jay” (a silly person) and “walk.”)

I’m disappointed. Just as marijuana has lost its aura as one of the forbidden fruits now that it’s legal, there’s no more edge to being an outlaw pedestrian in NYC. To conclude on a positive note, I’m sure that it’s still pretty mean when it wants to be.

28 October 2024

Introducing the Amazing Leica Jacket

Riddle me this.

You’re walking around with a twenty-four-thousand dollar titanium Leica hanging off the stump that holds up your head and you glance at your twenty-eight-thousand gold Leica watch: what time is it?

It’s time to buy an eight-hundred-dollar Leica jacket to complete the ostentatious ensemble. And now you can!

A Leica spokesperson declared that the new jacket, “... combines craftsmanship and functionality to truly enhance the photographer’s journey.” I now recognize that my old, tattered clothes have not contributed to my journey as a photographer. The Leica jacket also features a “refined silhouette.” I could certainly use a refined silhouette; I ain’t got nothin’ like that in my shabby wardrobe either.

The remarkable garment also features “strategic” vents as well as a removable cloth for getting the schmutz off a lens. Gosh, I can’t count the number of times I’ve wished that I could detach part of my dirty, grimy jacket to clean and polish a three-thousand-dollar lens. Oops, I almost forgot to mention that it also boasts plenty of pockets: real big ones, real little ones, lined ones, plain ones ... yep, it certainly has a plethora of pockets.

I didn’t see anything about this in the press release, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it has a layer of bulletproof aramid fiber. This is cruel speculation, but might the photographer who recently died when she backed into a spinning airplane propeller still be alive had she been wearing the amazing Leica jacket?

So what’s missing?

I’m glad you asked; I need genuine Leica fingernail polish and lipstick in Leica Red (Hex #E20612/RGB 226, 6, 18/CMYK 0, 100, 100, 0) and Leica Black (black).

If I was struttin’ my stuff wearing a posh Leica camera, Leica watch, Leica coat, Leica nail polish, and Leica lipstick, I’d be making a definitive statement: I am a pretentious, imbecilic nincompoop with a thousand times more money than brains.

29 October 2024

Seven Melting Popsicle Tropicals (Triptych)

I look at a popsicle the same way as I see a dead animal rotting by the side of the road: something I might photograph, but never put in my mouth.

When I made Eleven Popsicle Remnants, the frozen crap on a stick melted into a sticky puddle. I got a very different result seventeen years later with my latest piece, Seven Melting Popsicle Tropicals (Triptych).

I noted in 2007 that the ingredients seemed unsavory if not inedible, but things have devolved into a disgusting chemistry experiment since then.

I’m talking about the Popsicle Tropicals (Caribbean Fruit Punch, Tropical Orange, Hawaiian Pineapple) ingredients: Water, Glycerin, Maltodextrin (Corn), Less Than 2% of: Citric Acid, Guar Gum, Vegetable Juice (For Color), Aspartame*, Acesulfame Potassium, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Turmeric Oleoresin (For Color), Annatto Extract (For Color), Locust Bean Gum. *Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine.

Note the absence of a single molecule of fruit. I’m not sure how the other ingredients interact, but the way the popsicles melted was disturbing indeed. Glad I was there with my camera to witness it so you didn’t have to suffer through it.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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©2024 David Glenn Rinehart