September 15, 2024

Hitting The Links: 9/15/24

This one's got a ton of great links, my thoughts on last Sunday's memorial and what community means, some fitness-craziness, and the end of My Struggle

The Virtual Memories Show News

A 2x/week email about a podcast about books & life

Community

Last Sunday’s email was from a train to Charlottesville for my friend’s memorial service. This one is from my Eames Lounge Chair. In better world, it would be coming from a hotel room in Rockville, MD during the Small Press Expo, but I just couldn’t bring myself to drive a ~500-mile round trip this weekend, not after last Sunday’s trip and not when I’ve got my own conference at that hotel this Wednesday-Friday. (A pal suggested I just stay there for SPX and my conference, but if I’m going to be away from home for a week, it sure af isn’t going to be in Rockville, MD.)

John’s memorial was good. We celebrated his life at the home field for his senior softball team, the Charlottesville Retreads. There was a sing-along to New York, New York, a speech by the team captain, and the dedication of a plaque to John on the home bench.

After, his family gathered by third base to share some prayers and to spread some of his ashes. It put me in mind of the wonderful end of season 3 of Brockmire. Then we went on to the local Elks Club for eats & more speeches. I ate, listened, made conversation, and snagged a couple of the memorial baseball cards his family made for the memorial.

I headed out early because the 3:45pm train got delayed and that meant I had a shot at getting home a few hours earlier than the 7pm train I was booked on. (There were more delays, it was a rough train ride, and I got in the door at 12:15am, on a day that started at 3am, and during which I started showing the first symptoms of the sinus infection that walloped me this past week.)

It was good to meet John’s family & friends. It turns out that I was the only person from his professional life to attend, which irked me a little, but that’s who I am, good & bad. (Good = I love my friends & make efforts like this, Bad = I get snippy/self-righteous at people who don’t)

I’d never met any of his family before, though I’d corresponded on IG with a daughter-in-law before John got sick, and again near the end. Upon introductions, a few of them said, “Oh, you wrote that wonderful piece about Dad!” I was honored that it meant something to them during their grief. Beyond my being a good writer, I think what they dug was the way I showed how John’s character — his loyalty, tenacity, humor — carried over into a professional context, that he wasn’t someone else when he was at work. I think my love for him was evident in that piece, and that meant a lot to them.

I loved hearing their speeches, his kids talking about the love & support their father showed them all their lives. When one of his stepkids spoke, I realized that he’d never described any of them as anything but his kids. It made me cry a little.

On the train home, I thought of the room full of people: family, friends, teammates, a frat-buddy or two from 50+ years ago. It was a community, people whose lives he touched and who came together to celebrate him.

Which semisorta brings me back to missing SPX this year. It’s not just the podcast sessions that I won’t get around to recording, but the community that I’m missing out on this weekend. Last year, I ran myself into the ground hanging out with friends at the bar (they were drinking, I was pretending), dinner, exhibit hall, etc., and recording some great conversations in my room, but it was wonderful seeing everyone and renewing friendships.

I saw one pal/past guest that first night and maybe inappropriately swept her off her feet in a massive hug. We hadn’t been in the same room in 4 years, and it was like magic.

This year, I’m home. (I’ll probably be writing the same thing about Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) in 2 weeks, but we’ll see.) I didn’t get to see anyone, but I did have an idea for a 3-page comic that I want to draw today. (Not related to SPX or anything, just a poem-comic about a little aspect of my natural world.)

I left a few comments on friends’ IG feeds that I wish I was down there with them; one was incredulous that I was absent, that it just didn’t feel right. We all have to pick our spots, and if I didn’t have ~13 hours of train travel last Sunday — almost as much time as I spent on a flight from Newark to Shanghai a decade ago — I may have been up for this trip. I’ll miss that community, but it’s good to know someone(s) will miss me, too.

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And now, let’s hit the links!

Links & Such

• Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Dash Shaw • Jess Ruliffson • Joe Coleman • Anita Kunz • Shalom Auslander • Maurice Vellekoop • Laura Beers • Robert Pranzatelli

• RIP James Earl Jones . . . RIP John Cassaday (here’s a tribute to Cassaday by his collaborator Warren Ellis) . . . RIP Rebecca Horn . . . RIP Pravin Gordhan . . . RIP Sergio Mendes . . .RIP Frankie Beverly . . . RIP Tom Squitieri . . . RIP Walt Ehmer . . . RIP Alberto Fujimori . . .

• Here’s another interview with Gillian Welch & David Rawlings. As mentioned in last Sunday’s newsletter, I was gonna make time to listen to their new album Woodland on the trip to/from Charlottesville. I did, and I cry every time I hear the last song on the record, Howdy Howdy.

• “What if every moment is, in fact, unrepeatable? What if there are no hidden meanings? What if life has no shape other than the one it appears to have: You are born, you live, and when you die, you disintegrate?” Monet’s Impression, Sunrise leaves an impression on Sebastian Smee.

• The day after I get back from my conference, I’m going on the 4th Catskills Fire Tower hike with my pal. (Looks like we’ll be doing Red Hill.) A few days ago, he sent me this great article about The Long Path hiking trail from NYC up to the Adirondacks.

• I’ll send him this piece about why maybe we shouldn’t try the Maine portion of the AT.

• Ooh! Stan Mack is going to be the guest at the New York Comics & Picture-story Symposium on Sept. 17! And Danny Fingeroth will be moderating the session! You should attend (in person or virtually).

• Another great process post by Mark Ulriksen, this one about his Childless Cat Lady NYer cover.

• I liked this piece from Virginia Postrel about her not-so-elite upbringing.

• In more Virginia news, here’s Virginia Heffernan about her 9/11 experience.

• Fun commonplace-Substack by Caleb Crain.

• Lavie Tidhar is co-editing a great new newsletter, Shelfies! Go sign up for that! (Yes, I will submit a shelfie & writeup for them someday.)

• You know I am HERE for every story about the clusterfuck of Neom. Because there will always be details like, “When Samsom heard in the spring of 2021 that Neom executives were investigating the contract, he drove to the airport and left his keys in the car as he fled, according to some of the current and former employees.”

• Plus, I’m still waiting for that second album.

• NO MARS FOR YOU!

• But MOAR RICHARD KIND!

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Current/Recent Reading

The Myth of Sisyphus - Albert Camus (tr. Justin O’Brien)

“Why do I organize my life like this? What do I want with this neutrality? Obviously it is to eliminate as much resistance as possible, to make the days slip past as easily and unobtrusively as possible. But why? Isn’t that synonymous with wanting to live as little as possible? With telling life to leave me in peace so that I can … yes, well, what? Read? Oh, but come on, what do I read about, if not life? Write? Same thing. I read and write about life. The only thing I don’t want life for is to live it.”

Or

“And I had missed that all my life, coming from one place, belonging to a place, being able to call a place home. Geir used to say the definition of home was a place where no one could deny you access. And then we used to discuss whether “Hell is home” or “Home is hell.” Connecting home with a landscape and not a state of mind was my most reactionary feature, but it was also the most deeply rooted.”

Or

“Her struggle had been very different from mine; hers had been life or death. I had written that I was living an inauthentic life, I was living the life of someone else, and I might well have been, and this tormented me, but it didn’t threaten me. It did threaten Linda.”

—Karl Ove Knausgaard (tr. Don Bartlett, Martin Aitken), My Struggle: Book 6

Sound Body, Fractured Mind

I got back into the weights-yoga rhythm, despite my sinus infection & exhaustion, but I haven’t gone for a run in a while. Had to miss my morning 15-min. routine on Thursday because our dogsitting guest demanded walkies before I could do anything else, but otherwise that’s been consistent. I got in a 4-mile walk with my pal Saturday morning, and if I do weights workout today, that’ll be a whole 5-day cycle done, sinus infection be darned. Next week SO won’t happen; I leave Wednesday morning for my conference, drive 4-5 hours home Friday afternoon, and Saturday’ll be that Catskills hike. Even though I won’t have time to work out while I’m at my show, I’ll bring my yoga-mat and some bands so I can try to get my morning routine in. And I hope to get weights in next Sunday and take a post-workout flex pic for my own edification, if no one else’s.

Because I’m vain/a tease/in the best shape of my life/a fan of Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, here’s me after Friday’s weights:

Rear view:

Until Next Time

Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back on Wednesday with a new episode + art & a couple of Instax pix, and on Sunday with links, books, & workout craziness, & maybe a little profundity or something.

So, take that gun out of your hand / ‘Cause all will be well, say the bells / It’s Sunday morning and I’m holding your hand,