Whammo!
I'm like... distracted, it's been such a full and good few days. Hmm.
Thursday
Discovered not only a pretty amazing and heartbreaking Bucky+Winter Soldier vid, but discovered through some link-clicking that the (!!!!!) minor key version of "Star-Spangled Man" that accompanies it has tabs at the YouTube link. Obviously I need to get into more of Ryan Sanura's original work. In the evening, after a bunch of plans fell through, I was cranky enough to not talk myself out of riding the train for an hour to meet up with a bunch of complete strangers to make comics together. And... it was lovely and energizing and great! (Diary comic about that to come, because it did not start off that way.)
Friday
arsduo is in town! So we met up for lunch and rambling through Midtown, including bits of Park Avenue/Grand Central Station/Stark Tower the Metlife building I've never seen (particularly St. Bart's Cathedral, which, holy gold WPA-style mosaics, Batman!) and Central Park. After was a gigantor but utterly marvelous seder at
byzantienne's. It was my first seder in several years, but I'd really, really missed them, and
byzantienne led it beautifully. I've been thinking since about how profoundly the Passover story burrowed into me as a kid, particularly the Angel of Death and the open door for Elijah.
Saturday
skygiants and
genarti in town for another seder! So we went to the Cloisters (both gorgeous and hilarious), drove past large swathes of the Bronx and enjoyed yet another (for me) wonderful, delightful and meaningful seder with friends. Unlike the previous two nights, I did not stay up until 2 in the morning reading comics, but I can be forgiven for that, because the comics I read were phenomenal. Unterzakhn (out of print, but floating around) is about twin Jewish girls on the Lower East Side between about 1906 and 1923, both of whom take very different paths. Richly, gorgeously illustrated, fascinating characters, tragedies that felt very personal to me, in the way that inherited or ethnic tragedy does. Syllabus is more incredible Lynda Barry pedagogy. I was more interested in her self-analysis than her actual lesson plans, but that's not to say I didn't also very much want to follow her lesson plans.
Sunday/Today
Managed not to wake up at 10:30 (see also: reading comics late), and meant to just get my eyebrows waxed and come right home. Instead, it was such a nice day out that I decided to walk through Park Slope, sort of idly planning to check out a store here and there that I like. I... wound up buying more comics, both of which I'm really excited about: One is a collection of early Nancy comics (about 1943-1945), which are supposed to be really great for storytelling and design (and are supposedly beloved and influential among the weirdo comics-makers I seem to gravitate toward); the other is called The Property (includes excerpt), about an old woman and her granddaughter who return to Poland to recover property lost during WWII. The art on that is gorgeous, and I'm really looking forward to digging into it.
That was supposed to be my only purchase for the day, which was already more than I could really swing, but then I found out that there was an open studio thing happening in the neighborhood, and one of the spots was on the way to my bus stop. So I went to this studio collective place, wandered through several rooms and chatted with a bunch of artists, and then wound up looking at works by Sean Qualls, who with his wife Selina Alko (also an illustrator and author!) writes children's books, and they're beautiful. They're largely focused on African-American history and literature (poems by Toni Morrison, a book about Virginia v. Loving, &c). He had all these incredible prints available, and if I was a little more flush, my friends with babies would have absolutely gotten one of these (scroll to the painting third from the bottom), but as it was, I treated myself to this one, a "Read!" poster for a local school event. I love the colors, I love the message and I love the not-actually-Chicago flag-stars. He was also super nice! He had a great reference library in his studio, as well as these neat mock-ups of his children's books, which act like thumbnails for the publisher. Which, duh, it makes sense once you think about it, but I hadn't realized that was a thing.
So, I'm feeling very good about people and the world. The Passover story actually gave me a lot to think about in terms of my own future, and while I've got brain chemistry working against me, I've got a little more determination to focus and figure this business out. I was going to hermit it up today, maybe get some bike riding or short running in, but didn't succeed that much (I'm not too mad). One of my favorite shops needs some seasonal help, it turns out, so I might send off a resume and earn some side money there. Tomorrow's Monday, and I feel pretty good about that.
joaniechachi is in town for a bit, and that will be a thing.
Basically, I've got some creepy-beautiful ukulele stuff to learn. (Or Dar Williams! This page was a nice surprise.) Or I might just listen to the cover for a while some more.
♥
This was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where it has
comments. I would love to hear from you at DW! If you can see this post, you can comment here using OpenID. Thanks!
Thursday
Discovered not only a pretty amazing and heartbreaking Bucky+Winter Soldier vid, but discovered through some link-clicking that the (!!!!!) minor key version of "Star-Spangled Man" that accompanies it has tabs at the YouTube link. Obviously I need to get into more of Ryan Sanura's original work. In the evening, after a bunch of plans fell through, I was cranky enough to not talk myself out of riding the train for an hour to meet up with a bunch of complete strangers to make comics together. And... it was lovely and energizing and great! (Diary comic about that to come, because it did not start off that way.)
Friday
arsduo is in town! So we met up for lunch and rambling through Midtown, including bits of Park Avenue/Grand Central Station/Stark Tower the Metlife building I've never seen (particularly St. Bart's Cathedral, which, holy gold WPA-style mosaics, Batman!) and Central Park. After was a gigantor but utterly marvelous seder at
byzantienne's. It was my first seder in several years, but I'd really, really missed them, and
byzantienne led it beautifully. I've been thinking since about how profoundly the Passover story burrowed into me as a kid, particularly the Angel of Death and the open door for Elijah.
Saturday
skygiants and
genarti in town for another seder! So we went to the Cloisters (both gorgeous and hilarious), drove past large swathes of the Bronx and enjoyed yet another (for me) wonderful, delightful and meaningful seder with friends. Unlike the previous two nights, I did not stay up until 2 in the morning reading comics, but I can be forgiven for that, because the comics I read were phenomenal. Unterzakhn (out of print, but floating around) is about twin Jewish girls on the Lower East Side between about 1906 and 1923, both of whom take very different paths. Richly, gorgeously illustrated, fascinating characters, tragedies that felt very personal to me, in the way that inherited or ethnic tragedy does. Syllabus is more incredible Lynda Barry pedagogy. I was more interested in her self-analysis than her actual lesson plans, but that's not to say I didn't also very much want to follow her lesson plans.
Sunday/Today
Managed not to wake up at 10:30 (see also: reading comics late), and meant to just get my eyebrows waxed and come right home. Instead, it was such a nice day out that I decided to walk through Park Slope, sort of idly planning to check out a store here and there that I like. I... wound up buying more comics, both of which I'm really excited about: One is a collection of early Nancy comics (about 1943-1945), which are supposed to be really great for storytelling and design (and are supposedly beloved and influential among the weirdo comics-makers I seem to gravitate toward); the other is called The Property (includes excerpt), about an old woman and her granddaughter who return to Poland to recover property lost during WWII. The art on that is gorgeous, and I'm really looking forward to digging into it.
That was supposed to be my only purchase for the day, which was already more than I could really swing, but then I found out that there was an open studio thing happening in the neighborhood, and one of the spots was on the way to my bus stop. So I went to this studio collective place, wandered through several rooms and chatted with a bunch of artists, and then wound up looking at works by Sean Qualls, who with his wife Selina Alko (also an illustrator and author!) writes children's books, and they're beautiful. They're largely focused on African-American history and literature (poems by Toni Morrison, a book about Virginia v. Loving, &c). He had all these incredible prints available, and if I was a little more flush, my friends with babies would have absolutely gotten one of these (scroll to the painting third from the bottom), but as it was, I treated myself to this one, a "Read!" poster for a local school event. I love the colors, I love the message and I love the not-actually-Chicago flag-stars. He was also super nice! He had a great reference library in his studio, as well as these neat mock-ups of his children's books, which act like thumbnails for the publisher. Which, duh, it makes sense once you think about it, but I hadn't realized that was a thing.
So, I'm feeling very good about people and the world. The Passover story actually gave me a lot to think about in terms of my own future, and while I've got brain chemistry working against me, I've got a little more determination to focus and figure this business out. I was going to hermit it up today, maybe get some bike riding or short running in, but didn't succeed that much (I'm not too mad). One of my favorite shops needs some seasonal help, it turns out, so I might send off a resume and earn some side money there. Tomorrow's Monday, and I feel pretty good about that.
joaniechachi is in town for a bit, and that will be a thing.
Basically, I've got some creepy-beautiful ukulele stuff to learn. (Or Dar Williams! This page was a nice surprise.) Or I might just listen to the cover for a while some more.
♥
This was originally posted on Dreamwidth, where it has
comments. I would love to hear from you at DW! If you can see this post, you can comment here using OpenID. Thanks!