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Weak XXXIX

24 September 2025

No. 5,477 (cartoon)

Our love will last forever.

I’m shooting for Monday night.

25 September 2025

Elliot Ross, Elliot Ross, and Seven Edward Westons

I was confused when I saw a color photograph of a guy in some sort of sports outfit with the caption, “A Navajo man cries out for water on a pinnacle in Utah: Elliot Ross’s best photograph.” I’ve known Elliot in passing for decades, and, as far as I know, his impressive body of exclusively black and white work doesn’t include an image of a fellow human.

It took me about a minute to solve the puzzle, which really wasn’t much of a challenge since “my” Elliot Ross is from San Francisco and the other one is from Taiwan. Although I may sound a bit pretentious by using David Glenn Rinehart as my handle, it prevents me from being confused with all the other David Rineharts out there.

And speaking of confusing names, I’m reminded of Mike Mandel’s 1974 book, seven never before published portraits of EDWARD WESTON. They were images of seven different men named Edward Weston, none of whom lived in Carmel. I generally avoid using the word “brilliant,” but will make an exception for Mandel.

26 September 2025

From Seventeen to Nineteen

Abbie confused me when she said she worked in Manhattan from seventeen to nineteen, since I know she spent her teenage years here in New Mexico. The mystery demystified as quickly as it appeared when she explained that she was referring to the years from 2017 to 2019, not her chronological age.

I’m not sure, but that may be the first time this millennium that I’ve heard someone refer to a year with two digits instead of four. And that concludes today’s excitement.

27 September 2025

Locomotion No. 1

Sometimes I can’t resist the appeal of big, round numbers, and today is such an occasion, thanks to coming across this timely roboreport on the Internet.

On September 27, 1825, Locomotion No. 1 became the world's first steam locomotive to carry passengers on a public line, the Stockton and Darlington Railway, in North East England. Locomotion No. 1 was built by George Stephenson at his son Robert’s company, the Robert Stephenson and Company.

Let’s see; that’s exactly two centuries ago. At the risk of giving myself a rotator cuff injury, I did all the cypherin’ in my thick head, without any help from a computer. Even though I double-checked my calculations, that doesn’t seem quite right, even though they couldn’t publish it on the Internet if it wasn’t true. It seems like passenger trains should have been around longer or shorter, but I can’t figure out which.

28 September 2025

Different Formats for Different Generations

Byron asked me why almost all of my photographs are horizontal, occasionally square, and almost never vertical. I hadn’t given that question much conscious thought, and when I did, the answer seemed obvious: laziness. Oscar Barnack designed the Leica camera a century ago to be most easily held horizontally, and since that’s also the orientation of my computer monitors, I’ve slothfully made that my de facto format.

And that brings me to Kids These Days. They’re equally lackadaisical, if not more, so they’re making vertical videos with their vertical phone cameras. As Jean Cocteau noted, “Fashion is everything that goes out of fashion.”

29 September 2025

Simulated Public Intoxication

Cecelia sent me a news story about Kalab Barker, who was arrested by Iowa police before dawn when they found him in a ditch. The punch line was that he was charged with “simulated public intoxication.” She was incredulous that such an alleged crime existed, but I was not.

Again, we’re talking about Iowa here, a state that produces more corn than any other. Corn is the main ingredient in bourbon and corn whiskey, so Barker was hurting the local economy when he feigned inebriation instead of being properly paralytic.

That reminds me of a story about Richard Burton, which may or may not be true. The actor said he was always a bit intoxicated while filming, with one exception: he was always sober whenever his role called for him to act drunk.

30 September 2025

Listening to Cucumbers

Cedric is trying to communicate with cucumbers by decoding the white spots on the green-skinned fruit in his garden and discover a language that might be similar to Braille or Morse Code. He’s enjoying his futile experiments, so I didn’t want to tell him I knew what the cucumbers are thinking: “We want to spread our seeds and reproduce.”

That’s just basic biology; the cucumbers have more practical and pressing concerns than interspecies communication.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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