Bartlett’s Rejects Rejects

Last month, my bathroom sink erupted — splattering walls with a geyser of thick, brown, sandy grit, and permeating the condo with the unmistakably pungent odour of sewer gas.

Two hours later, the emergency plumber arrived, and without saying a word, sniffed the air and wheeled his cart right past me and into the offending (and offensive) bathroom. Within minutes he had dismantled my sink, reached his router several feet into the depths of my high-rise building’s communal pipe, and extracted mounds of what is best described as “gunk.”

He turned to me, a thick wad of it in hand, and with a limited English vocabulary muttered, “Cat. You have cat.”

“No,” I replied, “I have no cat.”

“Before you here, they have cat,” he said, thrusting his handful of gunk toward my face to emphasize his point.

“No. I’ve lived here for over 20 years. No cat.”

“Upstairs,” he said, nodding toward the ceiling, “They have cat.”

Satisfied he’d made his point, he returned to his duties, packed his gear, pocketed the $350 I deposited into his gunk stained hand, and wheeled his cart back out my front door.

Because of COVID restrictions and my own innate introversion, this now stands as the longest face-to-face conversation I’ve had all year. My second longest conversation occurred when the checkout clerk at the grocery store asked if I needed any bags. “Nope,” I replied. “I brought my own.”

For me, such a physical void simply leads to more unfettered thinking. Each month, I’ll rifle through the thoughts, select a few that are vaguely cohesive, weave them into a new article, and eject it into the virtual void of ULTRAsomething.

Unfortunately, this month’s contemplations proved too disjointed for a thematically conceived essay, so I decided the best way to package them for satellite transmission was to simply list them. And so, in the spirit of “Bartlett’s Rejects” (2011) and “More Bartlett’s Rejects” (2013), I present “Bartlett’s Rejects Rejects” — the non-awaited completion of the trilogy.

As with all previous Bartlett’s Rejects, some of these quotes are re-statements of things I’ve written in past articles; some are paraphrases of previous concepts; and some are fresh new cogitations. In recognition that ULTRAsomething has moved beyond its photography blog origins, several of the quotes aren’t even photography-related. However, I would argue — since photography is merely an expression of life itself — that all are entirely relevant to my camera-toting brothers and sisters.

Because each article in the trilogy contains a mathematically challenged baker’s dozen declarations, the site’s collection of instantly quotable quotes has reached 42 — each ready to swipe, copy, and paste into your next tweet, research grant application, screenplay, love letter, or legislative bill.

Granted, ULTRAsomething’s pool of quotes isn’t all that deep nor particularly clever. However, it’s their author’s obscurity that will imbue your communication with a scholarly novelty that stretches beyond the perfunctorily common Twain, Shaw, and Wilde quotes that are so lazily referenced by your peers. Plus, astute readers will likely have realized that the number of available quotations — 42 — precisely corresponds to the answer for “the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything,” as calculated by the super computer in Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe.” Coincidence? Who’s to say?

---

“The crappier someone’s taste in music, the louder they play it.” – grEGORy simpson

“Society honours individuality with exclusion.” – grEGORy simpson

“The irony of social media is that it rewards anti-social behaviour.” – grEGORy simpson

“You might as well be yourself, since all the other positions are filled.” – grEGORy simpson

“The more someone appreciates you for who you are, the more they want you to be someone else.” – grEGORy simpson

“’Most popular’ is not a synonym for ‘best’.” – grEGORy simpson

“Unlike most chronic conditions, those suffering from ignorance rarely know they have it.” – grEGORy simpson

“It takes profound introspection to recognize one’s own shallowness.” – grEGORy simpson

“The better you get at something, the fewer people who will like it.” – grEGORy simpson

“Your self-diagnosed likelihood of having a terminal disease is directly proportional to the amount of time spent googling your symptoms.” – grEGORy simpson

“Knowledge cures belief.” – grEGORy simpson

“I’m not a photographer. I know this because every time I see an article titled “10 photos every photographer should know how to take,” I quickly ascertain that I have absolutely no desire to take any of them.” – grEGORy simpson

“The more discerning you are behind the camera, the less time you waste in front of the computer.” – grEGORy simpson

“We must forgive ourselves for the sins of our past, if we hope to maximize our capacity to sin in the future.” – grEGORy simpson

---

©2021 grEGORy simpson

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE: One trilogy down. Can the third instalment of the Caffenol trilogy (part 1; part 2) be far behind? Yes. Yes it can. Also, if any of these quotes have already been attributed to some other author, I assure you that it’s the result of ignorance, not plagiarism.

Regarding the photos: The fact “Mad Libs™ – Tagger’s Edition” illustrates a rather nonsensical list makes it the logical choice to lead this particular article. Alas, none of the other photos have any relevance to the subject matter whatsoever. As such, they are simply ‘filler’ material that I siphoned off the SD card these past couple weeks. Everything was shot with a Leica M10 Monochrom and a 21mm f/3.4 Super-Elmar-M ASPH — everything, that is, except “Chilli Night,” which employed an ancient Leitz 35mm f/3.5 Elmar Screw Mount lens instead of the 21mm.

REMINDER: If you’ve managed to extract a modicum of enjoyment from the plethora of material contained on this site, please consider making a DONATION to its continuing evolution. As you’ve likely realized, ULTRAsomething is not an aggregator site. Serious time and effort go into developing the original content contained within these virtual walls — even the silly stuff.