Stuart Davis: Study for “’Art Digest’ Cover” (1953)

Just Like This Administration
Physicists maintain a unique sort of humor within their ranks. They award an Ignoble Prize to scientists performing particularly absurd studies. They're attracted to Irreproducible Results. They amuse themselves analyzing Cartoon Physics, the sort to which Wylie Coyote runs sideways. Does Coyote Gravity exist? It turns out that, while the realization that nothing supports you doesn't actually trigger gravity into action, a discernible delay comes into play when someone inadvertently attempts to walk on air when blindly running off the end of a mesa. Objects do not flatten to the extent shown in cartoons when running full speed into an immovable object, though some flattening does occur.

Our incumbent engaged in Cartoon Physics last week when explaining what happened when some Bunker Buster® bombs hit an Iranian uranium enrichment facility buried deep underground. A single 'Buster wasn't designed to penetrate to the full depth of the underlying facility, so the Cartoon Physics solution prescribed dropping successive 'Busters until achieving the required depth, except real-world 'Busters don't work like that. Each leaves rubble, which proves successively less penetrable than the original hard surface the bombs were designed to penetrate. Rubble is inherently less penetrable because it tends to diffuse force, producing more peripheral rubble. The answer to how many Bunker Busters® would be required to penetrate to the necessary depth might be infinite. I'm sure many Defense Department eggheads were well aware of this fact. They were doubtless overruled by television personalities who better understand what constitutes a salable story. Reality Television wasn't about anything real, either, just like this administration.

——

Weekly Writing Summary

This FollowingChapters Story contains the first installment of my new series, FollowingChapters. In it, I intend to capture my adventures as I enter into my FollowingChapters. This first installment wanted to be called FollowingMyself.

Louis Rhead: I diverted myself with talking to my parrot (1900) — Illustration from 1900 William Taylor edition of The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself. (Popularly known as Robinson Crusoe.)
" … accepting that I'm finally in charge of FollowingMyself."
—
This FollowingChapters story finds me juggling Priorities, the lived one, and the orthogonal one reported on.

Ben Shahn: Untitled [Washington Court House, Ohio] (July-August 1938)
"The evil done in our name serves as the greatest evil of all."
—

This FollowingChapters Story, DroppingIn, finds me pining after a more seemingly primitive lifestyle, one where schedule doesn't so dominate my days, one where happy accidents seem more likely to occur. I aspire to become more of a Hunter-Gatherer.

Harold Edgerton: Milk Drop Coronet (c. 1936)
" … not nearly as alone in this world as we could have sworn we were sometimes."
—

This FollowingChapters Story finds me more deeply appreciating my Preference, even if I can't always get in touch with what that is. I came close to mastering The Kingship of Self-Control, which means I might be a past master of denial.

Russell Lee: Detail of farmer's blue jeans, boots and spurs. This man was once a cowboy and still prefers the cowboy's dress, Pie Town, New Mexico (1940) Farm Security Administration
"I expect that I'll always struggle to get in touch with my heart's desire …"
—
This FollowingChapters Story admits that I'm surrounded by Broken things. Rather than curse this fate, I chose to embrace it. I suspect that everything was ultimately intended to be Broken, as this seems to be its most natural state.

J. B. B. Wellington: The Broken Saucer (c. 1880/90, printed April 1890)
" … not even duct tape holds anything together forever."
—
This FollowingChapters Story, TechTalk, recounts how I noticed a very tech-savvy friend reduced to a disappointed eight-year-old when wrestling with his technology. I began considering whether everyone involved with Tech was as familiar with that experience as I have been. His (and mine and your) reaction might be universal.

Kate Greenaway: The disappointment. (1890)
"I will be back at it again tomorrow morning."
—
As per usual whenever I begin a new series, I spent this first week feeling my way into my latest topic. Also as per usual, I chose FollowingChapters almost on a whim; the only factor distinguishing this selection from a random whim was the usual intuitive sense that I should follow this without insisting upon understanding very much about it from the outset. It might be a fundamental principle of my writing practice that I not transcribe, by which I mean, I felt no overwhelming backlog of FollowingChapters Stories swelling within me and needing release. It was more like 'it seemed like the right choice at the time.' Subsequent experiences confirm or disconfirm that initial sense. The first week always feels tentative, as if I haven't really committed to this effort, though I know I already have. I started acknowledging that I'm probably FollowingMyself. I then slipped in a statement about how I might finally be allowing myself to insist upon certain Priorities for myself. I appreciated a fond childhood memory of my mother just DroppingIn to visit with friends, with her kids in tow, a practice we practice far too little these days. I expect that this could change. I next suggested that I might have reached an age where I could insist upon certain Preferences without constantly worrying about whether I should be attending to others instead. I accepted the fact that I live in a world filled with Broken things. I concluded this writing week by exploring what might be a universal response to disappointment in TechTalk. Thank you for following along as I tentatively nudged my way into this series.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz