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Weak II

9 January 2022

No. 929 (cartoon)

Dip me in honey and feed me to the lesbians!

You can’t say that in 2022!

I’m quite certain that I just did.

10 January 2022

Ms. Longest-Name Williams

Eight years ago I wrote about Janice “Lokelani” Keihanaikukauakahihulihe’ekahaunaele’s fight to have her full name printed on her driver’s license. But them’s small taters in the new world of ridiculously long names.

Take Rhoshandiatellyneshiaunneveshenkescianneshaimondr-
ischlyndasaccarnaerenquellenendrasamecashaunettethalem-
eicoleshiwhalhinive’onchellecaundenesheaalausondrilynn-
ejeanetrimyranaekuesaundrilynnezekeriakenvaunetradevon-
neyavondalatarneskcaevontaepreonkeinesceellaviavelzada-
wnefriendsettajessicannelesciajoyvaelloydietteyvettesp-
arklenesceaundrieaquenttaekatilyaevea’shauwneoraliaeva-
ekizzieshiyjuanewandalecciannereneitheliapreciousnesce-
verroneccaloveliatyronevekacarrionnehenriettaescecleon-
patrarutheliacharsalynnmeokcamonaeloiesalynnecsianneme-
rciadellesciaustillaparissalondonveshadenequamonecaale-
xetiozetiaquaniaenglaundneshiafrancethosharomeshaunneh-
awaineakowethauandavernellchishankcarlinaaddoneillesci-
achristondrafawndrealaotrelleoctavionnemiariasarahtash-
abnequckagailenaxeteshiataharadaponsadeloriakoentescac-
raigneckadellanierstellavonnemyiatangoneshiadianacorve-
ttinagodtawndrashirlenescekilokoneyasharrontannamyanto-
niaaquinettesequioadaurilessiaquatandamerceddiamaebell-
ecescajamesauwnneltomecapolotyoajohnyaetheodoradilcyana Koyaanisquatsiuth Williams for example. Her parents named her that so she’d have the longest first name in the world, one that requires the addition of eighteen manual line breaks in order to be displayed legibly(?) on the Internet.

Some people become freaks after a lifetime of hard work, others have being a freak thrust upon them. Some parents are better at that than others.

11 January 2022

Dolphins Got Clitorises!

Lara showed me an article in yesterday’s edition of Current Biology, “Evidence of a functional clitoris in dolphins.”

“I knew I’d read about such a scientific breakthrough someday!” she enthused.

She then added wistfully, “I hope I live long enough to find out whether researchers can find one in humans.”

And that reminds me of the old laboratory query, “What’s the difference between a clitoris and a pub?”

Men can usually find a pub.

12 January 2022

The Problem with Thai Recipes

Penelope sent me a recipe for tom yum Thai soup, claiming that it was so simple that even a midwestern simpleton like me could make it. She misoverestimated me, alas ...

Everything sounded great until I hit the usual roadblock to Thai cooking: ingredients. Fresh makrut lime leaves? Lemongrass stalks? Thick slices galangal? What in the hell is a galangal?!

This is why I cook main Bulgarian, Italian, and Mexican food in addition to the trailer park specials: I can find the inexpensive ingredients at any store that sells cheap red wine, i.e., anywhere I shop.

13 January 2022

Art Grade Photography

Gareth asked me what kind of photographs I make. Ideally I would have shown him some work and let him decide, but since that wasn’t an option I had some ’splainin’ to do.

It would take too long to spell out what I meant if I told him that I make the best David Glenn Rinehart photographs there are, so instead I made up some entertaining rubbish.

“There are four recognized grades of photography,” I explained, “art grade, commercial grade, consumer grade, and industrial grade.”

“So what grades are yours?” he asked.

“Well, they’re certainly not commercial, consumer, or industrial grade, so they must be art,” I concluded.

“That makes sense,” he agreed with a smile.

I suppose it does kinda make sense; that’s sophistry!

14 January 2022

Ghost Bike

When a cyclist dies on the road, survivors sometimes make a shrine by painting an old bike completely white and leaving it as a memorial where the rider died. There’s a ghost bike up the hill from me on Claremont Avenue in Berkeley that’s quite a shrine.

I studied it for quite a while without learning a thing about the deceased or when and how s/he died. I axed the Internet—Knows all! Sees all!—and discovered the memorial was for Rebekah Kaplan, a sixty-one-year-old midwife. Her husband described her as, “a sage, badass, prescient, and solidly-grounded being.” What a great, succinct obituary!

As for the morbid details, there were none in the news account I read, just “... the solo accident that occurred three days before she died.”

I’ve ridden that steep grade many times. I’m usually going about fifty clicks an hour on that stretch of road. There aren’t any tight turns and the pavement’s in great shape, but at that speed even the smallest mistake can be fatal. (If I ever have an accident like that, I hope it takes me three seconds to die, not three days.)

I’m alive because I’ve always been lucky; she’s dead because she wasn’t. That’s the way life and death work, especially speeding along on two wheels.

Coming next weak: more of the same.

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