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- 25 June 1997
- Scenario for an Embarrassment
(sketch)
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Although I generally don't like installation pieces, I've nevertheless
designed a work for a gallery, Scenario for an Embarrassment. It consists
of a grid of thin, almost invisible, nylon wires attached to a delicately-balanced
tower of breakable objects. For the sketch, I used a heavy watermelon balanced
on top of a tower of soft-drink cans.
The piece works: while setting up the photograph I accidentally knocked
everything over and made a huge mess. I was embarrassed.
- 26 June 1997
- Constructive Annoyance
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A teacher told me she had a student who constantly annoyed her by repeating
"Don't tell me how to do it; wait until I ask." I like it, and
wish I'd been clever enough to annoy my teachers with that line when I was
a student.
- 27 June 1997
- Toasted Still
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I asked Nicole if she was satisfied with the whiskey she was distilling.
"How did you know?" she asked.
"How could I not know?" I replied. "By now I think everyone
recognizes a Sears Hide-a-Still: a fake air conditioner linked to a fake
refrigerator connected to a fake toaster by cords which conceal thin copper
tubing."
After that, she really couldn't gracefully turn down my request for a
sample; she poured me a glass from the toaster. The moonshine left a terrible
taste in my mouth that was gone by the fourth glass.
- 28 June 1997
- Happy Corn
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The Safeway grocery store is selling ears of white corn "PICKED
AT THEIR PEEK [sic]!!" I pointed out to the manager that she
should have used "pique" instead of "peek," since the
corn is never angrier than when it's picked. She responded by saying "their"
referred to the Safeway pickers, not the corn. Apparently the pickers wander
through the fields pretending to be en route to a party, and peek at the
corn to see if it's ripe.
"By picking the corn before it realizes what's happening,"
the manager explained with a smarmy smile, "we're able to sell you
happy corn."
- 29 June 1997
- Passing Out Properly
-
Scott's preparing for a holiday at his father's Lake Tahoe home, and
there are clouds on the horizon. (They're actually metaphorical clouds,
but sometimes those are the worst kind.) It looks like once again there'll
be too many people in too little space.
Scott may have to share a room with a man he describes as "mean
bourbon drunk." And a mean bourbon drunk who's a light sleeper at that.
Scott's taking a positive approach to the situation; and wonders à
la Rodney King why we all just can't get along. To his credit, he's not
losing much sleep over it, figuratively or literally.
"If he hasn't had enough to drink to pass out properly, why should
I be bothered if he can't sleep in my room?"
- 30 June 1997
- The Quality Control Committee Strikes
-
I just had a predictably unpleasant visit from the Quality Control Committee.
The committee members informed me in no uncertain terms that I have failed
to meet my 1997 target of one "good" piece of artwork every week.
In particular, they cited 16 April's And Now It's Neither and this
week's Scenario for an Embarrassment, both of which are "sketches,"
not finished pieces. They also judged 12 February's Mick Jagger 1997
(unpublished photograph), 12 March's (More or Less) The Same
and 11 June's Sabine Diptych to be "unusually lame."
The Quality Control Committee, never fettered by consistency, criticized
me for being too formulaic as well as not being formulaic enough. The report
mentions "Each week of 1997 (except the first) consists of one 'serious'
image and one 'illustrational' image." The Quality Control Committee's
memorandum advises "illustrational images should be used on an 'as
necessary' rather than on a weekly basis."
And so it is that I'm changing horses in the middle of the year. For
the remainder of 1997, I will be doing a "serious" piece every
fortnight instead of every week, and using more or less more or less illustrational
images.
What else can I do? No one ignores the Quality Control Committee with
impunity.
- 1 July 1997
- Lunch with Chris and Janet
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I had a pleasant but uneventful lunch with Chris and Janet. Actually,
it wasn't really uneventful, it just wasn't exciting as Janet's recent lunches.
At one, she decided to remove two lemon seeds from the bottom of her iced
tea. When she got around to it, though, the seeds were on the table beside
the glass! Another time, she was walking back to her table with a plate
of poached salmon, but, when she got there the salmon was gone. Someone--or
something--had taken it!
Spooky!
Janet also told me about the time she met Oscar Meyer, a not very tall
man with a very long car, the weinermobile. (Why is that always the case?)
I believe every word Janet says but I'm not so sure about Chris. He claimed
to have had pancakes "served by the real Aunt Jemima," but historical
records suggest there's no such person. (In 1889 Christian Ludwig Rutt changed
the name of his product from "Self-Rising Pancake Flour" to "Aunt
Jemima" after seeing comedians do a New Orleans-style cakewalk to a
tune called "Aunt Jemima.")
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©1997 David Glenn Rinehart
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