On my way to somewhere else.
Oh, hey, Tim Powers has a new book out.
No, wait, I’m sorry. It’s pretty much exactly the size of a walnut.
Back in March, I committed one of Roy Edroso’s cardinal sins: I snarked off on Harvey C. Mansfield’s Manliness, having only read a couple of the lit world’s equivalents of the trailer. Sorry, Roy. —Well, I still haven’t read it (see life, shortness thereof), but Martha C. Nussbaum has, and oh my dear sweet Lord. (Via; via.)
Waiting for Making Comics.
Until then, here’s Wally Wood’s 22 Panels that Always Work:
Ivan Brunetti’s 22 Panels that Always Work (Sometimes):
Shaenon Garrity shows you fear and intimidation in a handful of Gluyas Williams spot blacks:
And Pete Woods gets you from A to B—
—in one! two! three! easy steps.
Nincsen rózsa tövis nélkül...
How should one celebrate a sudden vault onto the New York Times bestseller list? —Why, with art by Alan Davis and dialogue by Chris Claremont!
Suddenly, and for the first time in my life, I have been struck with an overwhelming urge to go to Burning Man.
What color is the sky?
“I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live,” says our president, who didn’t know the difference between Shi’ite and Sunni, who is “puzzled” that thousands of Iraqis would take to the streets to demonstrate against America.
The grammar of ornament.
Actually, the poster in the window of the Meier & Frank is worse, much worse: she’s lying on her back on that zig-zag couch thing, coy-defenseless, chewing on her come-hither pencil.
It’s part of a Macy’s (née Meier & Frank, and that’s a whole other kettle of fish) promotion, complete with a crappy Flash-based website and tie-ins to crappy bands you’ve never heard of with albums you’ll never hear to flog. Aspiring poet. Aspiring celebrity chef. Aspiring indie filmmaker. Aspiring editor-in-chief. All of them aspiring to do little more than dress and accessorize the part (what else could they do to convince you of their worth, since all you’ll see is a single still image in a store window?): callow images of callow youths aspiring to little more in truth than flattering snark from a Nick Denton website. (The aspiring poet is spot-on, an unholy cross between Jonathan Safran Foer and Leotard Fantastic.) —And ordinarily, I’d be laughing at this joke that can’t figure out who the punchline is; ordinarily, I’m well-enough inured.
But aspiring therapist?
(That’s what it says, there in the white box. “Aspiring therapist.”)
The other callow youths all have the accessories of their aspirations: a sleek little digital camera, a sleek kitchen set, a not-at-all sleek library of serious-looking tomes bought by the yard from the Strand, mockups of sleek magazine covers to be marked up. All our aspiring therapist has is her couch and her pencil and her fun, short-sleeved tee: Let’s Play Doctor. And her patient, of course. Who else you think she’s looking at, bub? All coy-defenseless and come-hither pencil like that? —It’s a sexy nurse joke gone off, therapy and sex and nurture and desire and love all snarled and confused, projection and projector, subject and object inextricably mixed up: who’s aspiring to what, here? This pose isn’t Dr. Melfi, it’s Tony Soprano’s fantasy of Dr. Melfi, and I shudder and turn away and stalk off with a scowl on my face. The other callow images make me snicker; even the aspiring celebrity chefs are Bobby Flay’s fantasy of what it’s like to want to be who he is. But this one makes me angry.
(Is it just me? I dunno. Think about what the image is telling you you should want, or want to be. Just ignore it? Maybe, perhaps it’s best, King Canute and all that, but first slip Mary Daly’s lens in place for a moment: ASPIRING THE/RAPIST. —Whose idea was this, anyway?)
Miserable failure.
I mean, seriously. How long was the fuze on this particular punchline? Three years? You have any idea how long that is in internet time?
Are too Redemption’s tears and not in vain—for nothing idly weeps.
It’s not just that Lindsay’s a self-hating Jew for wanting to read Günther Grass. She’s also a pædophile!
Adam and Eve on a raft.
To learn anything worth knowing requires that you learn as well how pathetic you were when you were ignorant of it. The knowledge of what you have lost irrevocably because you were in ignorance of it is the knowledge of the worth of what you have learned. A reason knowledge/learning in general is so unpopular with so many people is because very early we all learn there is a phenomenologically unpleasant side to it: to learn anything entails the fact that there is no way to escape learning that you were formerly ignorant, to learn that you were a fool, that you have already lost irretrievable opportunities, that you have made wrong choices, that you were silly and limited. These lessons are not pleasant. The acquisition of knowledge—especially when we are young—again and again includes this experience. Older children tease us for what we don’t know. Teachers condescend to us as they instruct us. (Long ago, they beat us for forgetting.) In the school yard we overhear the third graders talking about how dumb the first graders are. When we reach the third grade, we ourselves contribute to such discussions. Thus most people soon actively desire to stay clear of the whole process, because by the time we are seven or eight we know exactly what the repercussions and reactions will be. One moves toward knowledge through a gauntlet of inescapable insults—the most painful among them often self-tendered. The Enlightenment notion (that, indeed, knowledge also bring “enlightenment”—that there is an “upside” to learning as well: that knowledge itself is both happiness and power) tries to suppress that downside. But few people are fooled. Reminders of the downside of the process in stories such as that of Adam and Eve can make us—some of us, some of the time, because we are children of the Enlightenment who have inevitably, successfully, necessarily, been taken in—weep.
We say we are weeping for lost innocence. More truthfully, we are weeping for the lost pleasure of unchallenged ignorance.
—Samuel Delany, “Emblems of Talent”
Hacks of Mordegon.
Will John Crowley SAVE fantasy? Or DESTROY it?
When opportunity knocks your house down.
Ah, you’ve probably seen Aasif Mandvi on the Daily Show already. Go, see it again.
Teh best zine evar
is now a book.
Personal appearance.
Today and tomorrow and Sunday I’ll be in the Smith Ballroom at Portland State University, sitting behind a table with the irrepressible Erika Moen. We’re there for the 6th Annual Portland Zine Symposium; I’ll be hawking City of Roses chapbooks, and she’ll have a variety of minicomics available, some of which are naughty. —Also, if Dylan Meconis found a decent copy shop in time, she’ll be there with some poetry.
We’re operating under the name Bikini Girl and Tiny Top Hat Man. I should probably state for the record that I do not have a tiny top hat (just a leopard-skin fez), and while Erika may well have a bikini, she won’t be wearing it. No one’s entirely sure who’s responsible for the name, or why we thought it was a good idea at the time. So let’s just move on, shall we? —There’s going to be lots of DIY publications to browse and workshops galore and I for one am eager to learn more about the Multnomah County Library’s new zine collection.
So do stop by, if you’re in the area and so inclined. Admission’s free. Tables are open Friday from 3 – 7 and Saturday and Sunday from 10 – 5; workshops run Saturday and Sunday; parking’s not bad; there’s a farmer’s market for lunches. Liquids are allowed.
No shit, Sherlock.
You know, we start seeing headlines like this, it’s time to rethink some of our fundamental assumptions.
Crow is a dish best served cold.
So I’m noting this comment from an old friend for future gustation.
