this started out as a Brian Kitely exercise (#109, “Nudes”), and then turned into something else.
We spent Memorial Day weekend in Oxford at my cousin’s house, visiting friends, celebrating Meg’s birthday (24!), and going to a beautiful wedding on a farm outside Cincinnati.
Steven told me that Art Spiegelman had an article in the June Harper’s about the Muhammad cartoons, with a level of analysis that would put any literary critic to shame. It’s a good thing he promised he’d send me a photocopy.
After talking to a few of my old professors this weekend, I’ve promised myself that I’m only going to an MFA program that will accept my visual/comics work with open arms. Otherwise, it’d be a waste of my time, and my work would suffer.
I have yet to listen to the new Futureheads album. I really like the way Paul Simon has laid out the lyrics for his new one, SURPRISE, “sonically engineered” by Brian Eno. And, it’s true: if you write, you should read.
We’re driving back to Cleveland this morning. I get so many good ideas for my work when I go on trips…it’s too bad you can’t draw while you’re driving.
Our man maintains that comics are a first-rate art form, Fantagraphics’ battle against lousy cartooning runs on 30 years, Michael Pollan and Meghan are in Texas at the same time, and the Walkmen rock out NPR.
Great article on LOST, and the inspiration for including OUR MUTUAL FRIEND in the plot. I studied O.M.F. in Cambridge and loved it. I drew these crazy maps of the “psychological geography” of the London in the book, which my tutor found far more interesting than any of the drivel I wrote up for him. Guess I should’ve known then that my pictures trump my words…
Anyways, my co-workers always ask me what’s my pet theory about LOST, and I always have to say, “I don’t have one, and really, I don’t care.” For me, it’s all about the ride of the episode, and the characters, and the great writing. And the pneumatic tubes! Sometimes I think I should get one of those: just roll up my latest sketchbook, stick it in a cartridge, and pop it in the pneumatic tube to nowhere…
Based on a true story we watched on the news a couple nights ago. (There’s also a plan out there to construct highway overpasses in such a way to make them safer for wildlife, and us.)
Some links for your week-end:
inspired by our lovely weather…
here’s Lynda Barry’s interview where she talks about her process that i’m trying to rework…
This is the first in what I hope to be several exercises hatched under the influence of Lynda Barry. See, Lynda keeps a stack of index cards with different words on them, and every morning she gets up very early, gets her ink ready, dips her brush, and pulls out a word, and whatever that word is, she uses the image it conjures to start up a piece of writing. Whenever she can’t think of how to start out, she uses the words, “It was a time when…” and goes from there. And because she’s using the top of her brain to make the letters look neat with the brush, the bottom of her brain can work on the good stuff. Oh, and she can’t erase what she’s written. She wrote all of CRUDDY this way.
To try it out, I opened the dictionary, and the first word I looked at was “juice.” I started out with a big rectangular block of black, and started erasing…
…death to Microsoft Word!
Recliners. Dust. Daybeds, loveseats. Jerry was old. Going out of business forever. No one in their right mind bought furniture anymore. Sitting down was a felony, and taking a nap was punishable by death.
How did it ever get to this point? He pulled out a stool. Bent his knees. Sat down. Sighed. Waited.
– a so-so fibonacci sonnet from last night’s writing group
“Poseidon sat at his desk, going over the accounts.”
So here’s Kafka at his desk. At the insurance company. All he wants to do is go home and get to Work, but instead, he’s got to be at the office, doing work. The problem is: he’s competent. This was supposed to be a “temporary” sort of gig, but they’ve promoted him twice in the last six months. They’ve got him writing memos. They’ve got him writing articles. Annual Reports. Lectures. Evaluations. The work piles up. Everybody loves him. “That Kafka,” they say, “he sure can write a memo!” He’s in his twenties. It’s a respectable job. His father brags to friends. He enjoys the bread, but the work means nothing to him. He dashes off e-mails to his girlfriend: “The office is a horror!” He only wants to Work, but he must work. So he writes in secret. He writes a story about a god who can’t be a God because he’s too busy doing godly paperwork. He writes a story about a faster who’s pretty much out of a job, because nobody sits around and watches fasters anymore–they have cable and internet. He writes a story about a guy who hates work so much that he transforms himself into a giant cockroach. (Think of the sick pay!) Then one day, with the Microsoft Word cursor blinking at him, his fingers hovering over the Minimize Shortcut [WINDOWS key + M], his nerves shot from looking out over his shoulder for snoopy co-workers passing the cubicle, Kafka has a revelation. “Screw it,” he says. “I’m going to go get my MFA.”
*sketch from Kafka’s notebook
He’s sneaking in his mother’s house—the place makes him ten instead of twenty. He keeps his shoulders square with the wall, back and neck pressed against the cool plaster, finger around the trigger guard of the gun. It shoots only caps, but he’s painted it black to make it look real. It would be useless against an intruder, but after all, this is only make-believe, and he is only playing. He loads the red ring of caps, spins the cylinder shut, and aims the barrel at the hallway bulb. A silent kerpow from his lips, a flick of the switch, and an explosion of imaginary glass and genuine darkness.
He’s keeping it dark. In case they come.
– from a new story
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