... continues to accrue graphic goodness, day by day.
Amazing artist Nick Derington's on board, now,
gonna be providing a huge page of original sequential art.
Jon Adams of Truth Serum fame is working on a two-pager for the antho.
Lance Myers is putting his nonpareil talents to paper & ink for Minerva's, too.
Patty Leidy's working on an angst-ridden-yet-somehow-kawai tour de force.
And Angelica Brenner just showed me the roughs for her one-page comic.
And, textually speaking ...
I have an article due from Marc Savlov on Friday;
Marrit Ingman just turned in her terrific
"What the Alamo Drafthouse Means To Me" piece;
Kirk Lynn's new short story ~ that I commissioned so
it could be Nori-fied ~ is excellence itself; and Hannah Kenah
just finished recording her roundtable discussion with the Rude Mechanicals ...
Slowly, slowly, the edition accumulates ...
Just a day after Shando McCormick snagged me
for hosting duties for part of next Thursday's line-up at
the Out Of Bounds Improv & Sketch Comedy Festival ...
... I got a call from Paula Hanna of Riot Ink,
who asked me to be the featured reader at the next iteration
of their twice-monthly poetry reading series on that very same night.
No way, of course.
But she'll be calling about some future spot in the months to come.
Ah, so much to do, so much to do ...
The Chronicle's Arts Editor, the redoubtable Robert Faires,
has assigned me to write the feature about Rubber Repertory's
The Casket of Passing Fancy, for our October 10th issue.
I'll have a length of between 2,000 to 3,000 words to work with.
I'm very happy about this,
and look forward to exercising my craft in ways that befit
what those Rubber Reppers have accomplished with their own.
And, if you've got some spare time for reading,
and especially if you like movies,
and most especially if you like your snarkery all popcultural and brilliant ...
... then I suggest you click the forthcoming link
and check out the bantery battle between Kimberley Jones and Josh Rosenblatt
in the Austin Chronicle's current Film Fight series.
Because they're fucking hilarious and trenchant, is why.
Also, not to diss Jones by comparison, but Rosenblatt ...
Josh Rosenblatt is like some marvelously warped combination
of S.J. Perelman, Dorothy Parker, and a slightly less manic Ren Hoek.
What's even more impressive is that he's that way in person, too.
The man is, I mean, quick.
So why he's not already making millions with his wit, I don't know.
Actually, Rosenblatt might not be totally sure about why not, himself.
But ~ here's the thing ~ he's exploring that very subject in depth
in an essay that he's working on for Minerva's Wreck.
Minerva's Wreck.
You know: That thick, oversized, limited-edition literary-and-graphic arts anthology
that I've been working on for about a year, now, and will publish
sometime in December of 2008 or January of 2009?
Yeah, that one.
Just so you know.
Yes: CONNECTONS.
See, as some cheesy commercial hype might point out,
the word is meaningless unless "I" is involved.
Heh.
Of course, there are a couple problems with that.
In the first place, it involves the " 'I' is involved " construction ...
which sounds more like the grammar of Bizarro
~ who me am definitely not, y'know what I'm saying?
And, in the second place, I'd like to suggest
that there are such things as "connectons," actually,
and that, CERN's potential findings notwithstanding,
they are both more evident and more prevalent than any goddam Higgs particle.
I mean, you could seriously dispute the above, sure;
but it'd cost you a few billion dollars to do so effectively;
and, meanwhile, the whole field of quantum physics
continues to seem more and more like a vast community involved in
some mass interpretation of Thurber's "The Unicorn in the Garden," doesn't it,
and it only remains to be seen just who's going to wind up in the booby hatch.
But all that is merely tangential to this post, really.
Which exists mostly to provide an update so this blog doesn't stagnate.
And this post reports the joy of connections in that, soon, my Spawn and I
will be flying to Orlando to see my darling Katherine and her mother.
But it also reports the sadness that, in going to Orlando,
we'll miss much of the annual Out Of Bounds Improv and Sketch Comedy Festival
that so galvanizes and delights Austin for an extended weekend.
And the joy is immense and the sadness relatively minor, yes;
but, still, one likes to amplify or mitigate where possible ...
So I checked with my friend Shannon McCormick, one of the Festival's producers,
to see if Ange and I could get a pair of media comps for Thursday the 28th,
which is 1) the night before we leave, and 2) the night featuring The 3 Actorteers
(who are hilarious and who include pal Alan Metoskie ~ who'll be flying in from Chicago
to join the other 2 Actorteers ~ Chuck Watkins and Jason Newman ~ onstage).
And Shannon's like, "Sure, and do you want to host that night?"
So now I'm not only going to see the show, I'll be the emcee for that segment.
Because of the whole McCormick-OutOfBounds-Chronicle-Brenner
quantum community arrangement sort of thing.
Because of the connectons, y'see.
Right.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'll sing a few verses of "Particle Man,"
drink another cup or three of coffee, and get my ass to work.
The painting called Malocchio is done, done, done,
and it turned out better than I thought it would.
Image to follow, eventually, after I've better acquainted myself
with the camera that I bought so long ago and have been
Meaning To Get Better Acquainted With One Of These Days.
* * * * *
Those most excellent Rubber Repertory folks,
wishing to retain something of me even though
circumstances have kiboshed my involvement in
the highly anticipated Casket of Passing Fancy this winter,
have had me teach the talented and handsome Carlos Treviño
(who's replacing me in the event) how to perform my song "Sitting in the Armchair."
Which I did last night, after almost two hours of volleyball; and that was fun
and Carlos was terrific, of course; and no one's covered a song of mine before,
so it felt kind of strange, and it was Carlos performing it, so it felt kind of like an honor.
* * * * *
Four weeks from now, Labor Day weekend,
my spawn Angelica and I will be on an airplane,
flying together for the first time ever,
going to visit Katherine and Katherine's mother in Orlando.
And it occurred to me, the last time I was with Kat,
that, huh, my daughter will be checking out the physical parameters
of those pieces of my pre-Texas history that played out before she even existed.
That Spawn of mine will see Weaverville and Lake Eola and the Library
and The Leaper and, heh, those particular iterations of Denny's and IHOP,
all those places and things that informed my raw and ragged twenties ...
Of course, she's also going to meet that dear Nancy;
which meeting is the main reason for our traveling together.
And Ange is seventeen, the age that Kat was when I met her ...
Circles within circles, the clockwork gears all turning ...
* * * * *
"Excuse me, Rorshach, I'm informing Laurie ninety seconds ago."
~ Jon "Dr. Manhattan" Osterman, in Alan Moore's Watchmen
The following is, verbatim, a transcript of the recent conversation
between me and The Artwork I'm Currently Working On:
T.A.I.C.W.O.: Hey. Hey, dude.
What you're doing with the thread there?
It is teh suck.
Me: 'Scuse me?
T.A.I.C.W.O.: What you're doing? Teh suck, dude. Totally.
Me: What's wrong with it?
T.A.I.C.W.O.: You don't wanna sew red lines in the middle of the black lines like that.
It's totally detrimental to the whole ray effect you achieved
by masking out those black lines in the first place.
Me: It is?
T.A.I.C.W.O.: Trust me.
Me: Well ...
T.A.I.C.W.O.: Seriously, what you wanna do?
You wanna rip out those red lines you've already sewn and ~
Me: Hey, that's a half hour's work right there.
T.A.I.C.W.O.: I said, you wanna rip out those lines and ~
Me: I've put half an hour into this shit already, man.
T.A.I.C.W.O.: Dude, cry me a river.
Cry me a fucking ocean, if you feel like it, okay?
But rip out those goddam red lines.
[beat]
Me: Yeah, okay, you're right.
Yeah, goddammit, those red lines are definitely teh suck.
[rips them out]
T.A.I.C.W.O.: Righteous.
Now, what you wanna do next,
you wanna take that yellow thread you bought for your next project
and you wanna sew an outline around the painted letters
that spell out the word "malocchio" along the bottom there.
Me: No fucking way.
T.A.I.C.W.O.: Dude.
Me: No fucking way, man. That'll take, like, hours.
T.A.I.C.W.O.: So?
Me: So I don't wanna spend that much time on this thing, okay?
Jesus, I've already put a couple days into it.
T.A.I.C.W.O.: So you want it to look like shit, is that your point?
Me: I don't want it to look like shit, I just ~
T.A.I.C.W.O.: No, hold on, I get it. You don't want it to look like shit,
but you're not willing to do what it takes to make it not look like shit.
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Me: Fuck you, man.
[beat]
T.A.I.C.W.O.: Outlines, dude. Sew the outlines.
Me: [sigh] Yeah. Yeah, okay.
Which brings me, outlines finally sewn
& the whole piece almost complete,
to this point: I'mma go for a brief swim
in the apartment complex's pool
(which I've been making frequent use of, lately,
such a lovely sensation in this heat)
and then I'll walk down to Hyde Park Theatre
where I'm meeting fellow Chronicle worker Steve Raymond
~ the IT guy who keeps my cats as his own ~
to see the latest incarnation of Sloppy Sean's Lonely Highway at 10 o'clock.
And it'll have been a day.
And tomorrow another.
...
I have risen from my bed early,
after having spent about an hour there after waking and reading more of
Douglas Hofstadter's I Am A Strange Loop.
Easy enough to rise early, if I wish it so:
Katherine calls me every morning at 6am these days,
a long established checking-in habit she's had with her mother
& which I am now included as part of;
and Wakerupper.com rings me at 7am daily,
so I can have ganked an extra hour, approximately, of sleep by then.
After which time, up & at 'em, the idea is.
This day I rose and exercised for, like, half an hour
on the clever weightlifting contraption I have, while listening to some
bass 'n' drum channel on iTunes, it going all thumpa thumpa thumpa
and me straining to raise various masses against gravity's pull.
(What is it with one mass that it always wants another mass
jammed up against itself and thus generates (or embodies) gravity
to accomplish that end? Matter is, it seems, way too fucking co-dependent.)
No bench presses, but a French press afterward: a single cup of coffee
as a reward and a beveraged beginning to the day, brewed during a quick shower
and consumed after drying & dressing, suddenly I was all bright
& aware of the world as contained in my meager abode.
There's a big artwork on the livingroom floor, nearing completion:
a new piece called Malocchio, created (as requested by Ellie McBride)
for the Rude Mechs to auction at their upcoming Evil Eye Ball.
All it needs is a couple hours of embroidery added to its
spraypaint-and-acrylic-on-burlap images and then it's done, done, done.
But I was out of the colors of thread I needed,
and so a journey to Hobby Lobby was called for; which was undertaken
(and during which I also purchased the spraypaint & thread & burlap
needed for my next piece, ghostlike meredith's a denial acrobat)
and followed by a stop at Kim Phung for a Thai iced coffee
and a fat steaming bowl of tofu & vermicelli.
And now, home again, typing these words
before sitting down with needle and thread for, oh,
I reckon at least two hours while listening to Medieaval Baebes
and The Decemberists and Rasputina and wishing that
I was in Orlando with Katherine, embroidering my embroidery
in her apartment and only a meter or so away from her smile.
Thank you, dearlings, for your kind regards,
and my apologies for having been extremely other than diligent about posting.
I've also chosen to drop out of Rubber Repertory's Casket of Passing Fancy,
as the production schedule might conflict, in coming months,
with the necessity of trips to Orlando to be with Kat in more grievous times.
(Matt & Josh & Beegle have been very understanding & kind
in releasing me from my obligations, and they've assured me
that I'll be wanted for future productions; and I am shored up by this promise,
as it means that 1) They consider my resignation justified by the situation,
and 2) I'll not have to miss being a helpful part, eventually,
of one of the most brave and exciting theatre groups in the country.)
So it goes, and we accommodate ourselves to it;
and by "it" I suppose that, ultimately, I mean "death,"
eventual or imminent or immediate, our own or that of others,
and all of its contexts & consequences & bells & whistles
& those little paper doilies that it likes to set out for us to rest our teacups upon.
My grandmother, Julie Marion, who will turn 90 at the end of this month,
and who seems about as far removed from death as she was at 25,
bless her heart, was always a great one for tea.
At least, I think that's true,
I think I'm remembering correctly that she was all about the tea;
but I may be confusing that potential memory with my idea
of what a typical grandmother might like?
A phone call would suffice to corroborate this knowledge.
Which call I'll make, soon, and report the results of herein.
I have a paper doily of my own,
ganked from TooJay's restaurant in Orlando,
where I ate a couple of very tasty meals with Kat
during one of my recent Vizzits to that city.
I tend to save things like that: little paper things,
or packaging things, and the more mundane the better.
I have a small but growing collection, for instance,
of moist towelettes from various manufacturers.
Also, even more ridiculous: Several of those tiny anti-dessicant packages
that are included with certain products (think: hi-tech apparatus)
to eliminate possible moisture accumulation.
The way these packages are labeled is, perhaps, the meanest form of graphic design
~ the anti-dessicants much more so than the more gregarious wet-naps ~
and yet there are distinct albeit minor variations among the labels:
like the differences among the wing structures of various Sphinx moths, say.
I've been wishing, lately, that I had a package of magic anti-dessicant
that would stop lung cancer in its metastasizing tracks,
that I could place one surreptitiously in Nancy's bedroom
and it would cause one of those miraculous remissions
that always remind us of how little we actually know
about the mechanisms behind what proliferates cancer in our bodies.
But, well, I want to win the lottery, too.
I must say: I certainly won the mother-in-law lottery.
Well, I say "mother-in-law" because Kat and I are officially engaged,
although I've yet to acquire rings toward the easy public display of this fact.
And I say that I won the mother-in-law lottery because, in the first place,
Nancy has always been a bright, interesting, and wholly decent woman;
and, in the face of this cancer slowly dropping its Times Square ball of doom upon her,
she's been ... a real bad-ass, basically.
Rar, y'know?
Kat's got one of the most awesome moms in the world, it seems
(and, as I've got one of the most awesome daughters in the world,
it makes perfect sense ~ besides how it makes sense in so many other ways ~
that we're together after lo these many years).
And I'll try to keep all these things in mind;
and busy myself with the usual projects not requiring my definite, scheduled presence;
and support my beloved as best as I can
through this phase of the cursed gobbledygook of existence.
. . .
More postings, with greater levity, in days to come.
