Jon and Amanda are having their baby, and Jon is blogging it live! I’ve been following along as the due date came and went with mounting anticipation (like, surely more than THEY have been), so I’m really glad they’re keeping us updated so closely. The child I can ruin is almost here!
Category: Naïvete
Selfism
Sumana has managed to combine almost all the reasons I read her blog–inspiration, clarity, critical appraisal of systems and examination of self–into one spectacular post. You should read it.
There’s a quote from Count Zero about being taken up from a low place, rotated through “invisible stresses,” and emerging changed. It’s actually kind of negative in context so I’m not going to reproduce it here. But at some point I have to write about how my interaction with propelled and propulsive people has changed me: how my internship at Dixon Design, followed by meeting Leonard and Sumana, followed by living with Kevan and Holly, reshaped me into someone who no longer fits anywhere outside the self-determined life.
I would have to actually achieve that life first, so I’m not writing it yet. But Sumana’s post brings up another connected point: work that matters for its own sake is superior to work that matters by fiat, which is to say that academic work is worthless in the short or long term, which is to say that I think the lecture-test educational system used in the United States (and, in my understanding, most of the rest of the world) is a sham, a wreck and a hindrance. I graduated with awards and honors from a large public high school and an elite private college, and I still say the system failed me. The intersection of what I learned in classes and my work, play and continuing interests is almost nonexistent; meanwhile, I’m still dealing with the fear and shame endemic to those institutions, and the ways they damaged me.
Under all that I continue to grow more absorbed with the idea of having children someday. I’m starting to consider my life choices in terms of where they’ll grow up, how I’ll support them and how they will learn. (How I’ll actually go about having them is almost secondary.) Could I in good conscience send them down the path less traveled, without having checked it for perils myself? Could I ever prepare them enough for the perils of the path I did take? Sumana again: isn’t it possible to sidestep the bad parts, with enough planning? Well, no, Brendan. Don’t deny the imaginary kids their own invisible stresses.
But if I start seriously working on my own propulsion, maybe my example can reshape someone else.
Mars needs pull quotes
What are some of the brightest lights in webcomics saying about Brendan Adkins and Ommatidia?
–Tycho Brahe of Penny Arcade
“Asshole.”
–Scott Kurtz of PvP, at the Emerald City Comicon
“Pretty slick, but my shout-out is not without motive.”
–Kristofer Straub of Starslip Crisis*
* Kristofer Straub was paid $50 during book creation for unrelated reasons
Day Whatever: Portland
I keep the Moleskine and the Micron next to my bed so I can write down story ideas I have while falling asleep, and on mornings after they usually turn out about half useful and half dumb. But even in their hastiness and abbreviation, I can almost always follow the signifying notes back to the image or twist that precipitated them.
I had two last night. One was a Chosen Ones story that I’ll probably do up for next week. The other?
“Six big diapers.”
I offer this to the world.
I live in Portland now. I had some exceedingly mild adventures in San Francisco, and took a lot of pictures that you will see sometime around 2018. Maria came to visit and that was really nice. Hugner is fine.
I’ve been in a self-imposed sweatshop lockbox all this week, trying to prepare for the big show: Stumptown Comics Fest, where I will be exhibiting with free microcomics and a six-word story completion marathon and, yes, Ommatidia, the first Anacrusis book. No, you can’t buy it online yet, not until I finish setting up the storefront. I am planning to have that up by my birthday (a week from tomorrow).
I realize that I have announced this far too late for anyone who wasn’t already planning to come to Stumptown to show up; trust me, that is all part of a strategy. Eventually I may even figure out what the strategy is. But on the off chance that there are any Anacrusis fans in the PDX, show up! There are a lot more reasons to do so than just me and my tablemates (“Cinema Sewer”).
Self-passenging
OKAY KIDS. On the last day of March I’m leaving my suspiciously generous hosts here in NorCar and driving across the country, with stops in Louisville, Birmingham and eventually Berkeley. After two weeks (I hope) in the latter, I’m moving up to Portland to stay from somewhere between four and nine months. Looks like the trap got me after all.
So! Are you in a southwestern state or the Bay area? Would you like to hang out? Would you like to damage local hotel revenues by letting me spend a night on your couch? These can be arranged. Other things that can be arranged: me renting a room or subletting an apartment from people you know because MAN it is hard to get people on Portland Craigslist to get back to you when you don’t live in the same city. I don’t know why!
I promise to take pictures on the trip but I can’t promise you will see them in the living future. Oh, hey, if you want to ride out with me and fly back, as I once did with Leonard, let’s talk. I should warn you that due unwise purchasing decisions on my part, you will have to ride in the glove compartment.
Rock Band Wishlist
My phone has no ringtones and I’ve never owned a CD I didn’t rip, but the record industry has finally found a way to get even me to pay for songs I already own: Rock Band. At least the downloadable tracks have the value-add of being interactive at multiple levels. What they do not have, sadly, is a way to cater exclusively to my taste. Until now!
I put these together working on the three-songs-per-band model they’ve established on Live so far, and basically within the creators’ bent toward three- or four-piece groups and a fairly narrow definition of “rock.” Also with the fact that I don’t really know anything about music before 1998.
Semisonic:
- “Brand New Baby”
- “Closing Time” (well, I mean, come on)
- “Get a Grip”
Queen, although I know these are all impossible for one reason or another:
- “Bohemian Rhapsody”
- “Under Pressure”
- “Killer Queen”
Jimmy Eat World:
- “Lucky Denver Mint”
- “Sweetness”
- “Nightdrive”
Barenaked Ladies (man, this is hard):
- “Brian Wilson (live)”
- “Too Little Too Late”
- “Maybe You’re Right”
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists:
- “Me and Mia”
- “Counting Down the Hours”
- “La Costa Brava”
I know there are already a million Foo Fighters songs, but still:
- “Everlong”
- “Breakout”
- “All My Life”
The New Pornographers:
- “Mass Romantic”
- “Letter from an Occupant”
- “Sing Me Spanish Techno”
And, finally, U2 (yeah, I know they’re working on it):
- “Desire”
- “Mysterious Ways”
- “If God Will Send His Angels”
I invite you to eviscerate me in commentary, or post your own wishlists. Maria, for example: Prince? Lisa: TMBG? Someone: Beck or the Decemberists?
Update 1432 hrs: Andy suggests replacing “Sing Me Spanish Techno” with “The Bleeding Hearts Show,” and offers a Tragically Hip three-pack:
- “New Orleans Is Sinking”
- “38 Years Old”
- “Fireworks”
And Ken, inevitably, has a list with a lot more depth than mine:
Jamiroquai:
- “Canned Heat”
- “Alright”
- “Black Capricorn Day”
Smashing Pumpkins:
- “Cherub Rock”
- “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”
- “Today”
Guns N Roses:
- “Welcome to the Jungle”
- “Live and Let Die”
- “Nighttrain”
Pearl Jam:
- “Life Wasted”
- “Alive”
- “Rearviewmirror”
Talking Heads:
- “Psycho Killer”
- “Uh Oh, Love Comes to Town”
- “Take Me to the River”
Beck (most doesn’t translate well to guitar, bass and drums):
- “Loser”
- “E-Pro”
- “The New Pollution”
Spoon:
- “Don’t You Evah”
- “I Turn My Camera On”
- “Sister Jack”
Jimi Hendrix:
- “Spanish Castle Magic”
- “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)”
- “Fire”
Pink Floyd:
- “Comfortably Numb”
- “Money”
- “Arnold Layne”
Sublime:
- “Smoke Two Joints”
- “Santeria”
- “Pawn Shop”
And single songs:
- The Dandy Warhols – “Bohemian Like You”
- TV on the Radio – “Wolf Like Me”
- !!! – “Must Be the Moon”
- Arctic Monkeys – “I’ll Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”
- Styx – “Renegade”
And Scott put up a list for Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears, who would be insanely fun (and REALLY HARD) to play in RB–not impossible, either, as Harmonix has been pretty good to indie rock:
- Flight of the Knife
- Imitation of the Sky
- Son of Stab
I always thought Rowling gave arithmancy short shrift
Stories I have written that revolve around invented or reinterpreted methods of divination: Stella, Jaboullei, Rob, Shekel and Jewel. I was kind of surprised it was this few–I feel like it’s one of the structures to which I keep returning. There’s another one coming Monday, if you hadn’t guessed.
I think the reason I keep coming back to this is a variation on the existential dread I feel when considering the persistence of objects (eg the lives of sapient dishes): the amount of potential information in the world, and how quickly our ability to capture and interpret it is growing, and how insignificant that capability will always be–in an obscure way, these things terrify me. They also thrill me. Look at what we can discover! If time and distance are the universe’s crypto, divination is the original side channel attack.
I also live in constant fear of side channel attacks, by the way, to the point where I have resigned myself to much-more-likely primary channel attacks. I kind of never want to be even mildly famous, as that would destroy what flimsy comfort I take in anonymity.
Anyway, you’ll know I’ve gutted the shark on this theme when I write the one about logymancy. Meanwhile I want to do more of these little collect-and-explain entries; I think they’d be a better point of entry to Anacrusis for new or hesitant readers than just the sheer blank mass of the archives. When one of my best friends refers to my writing corpus as “a stupid amount” and my own mother is too intimidated to read them, I am pretty much failing to sell my product.
And now it is later
I read the arrival time on my ticket as the departure time. That is what I did. That is the stupidest and most expensive mistake I have ever made.
My housemates kindly refused to let me heave all my luggage to Heathrow myself, and so we set out together with a bag apiece at a little after 10 am. We took the express and I was at the check-in counter by 11:15, smirking at the former self who had worried about transportation time and long lines. There was no line! There was only a brusque man explaining that my flight was not at 1:00, it had been at 10:30.
I explained that I had still been on the first of several public transportation routes at 10:30.
The brusque man directed me to the ticketing counter.
I got on standby for the next flight for 200 bucks, and I did end up on it, and my seat was actually one of the best on the plane. I completely missed the last plane to Louisville from O’Hare, of course, but got on a different standby flight to Lexington and Saint Maria drove out to those hinterlands in the middle of the night to pick me up.
It should be noted that my seat on the Lexington flight was also impossibly good. Here’s what I have learned about American Airlines: reserve a seat and get fucked, or get on standby for infinite leg room and an unobstructed window view. I’m never flying on a reserved ticket again! Wait, no, I said “on a reserved ticket” when I meant “anywhere.”
My original mistake almost ended up much more costly than I anticipated. The somewhat hilarious coda is that, during my panicky evening in O’Hare, I had to make a number of pay phone calls to David Flora and Maria, trying to figure out whether I would have to stay overnight in Chicago in order to get a morning flight to Louisville. I had forgotten that trying to call a nonlocal number (like, say, any cell phone ever) from a pay phone requires more quarters than I could have held in my cupped hands, so I had to charge all these to my credit card. This meant swiping the card directly on the phone, punching in the number on the keypad, and reading it aloud to the operator before I could connect.
Apparently someone wandered by and listened to me obligingly reading out the number, expiration date, CV2, et cetera, and proceeded to charge an amount greater than my entire credit limit to the card. Capital One actually noticed and denied it; their overenthusiastic fraud department often made things inconvenient in London, but my attitude toward them is much warmer now. I’ll miss my old card number, though, which I’ve had memorized for almost ten years. Farewell, 5291071505966037! May you serve Internet in poor decision-making as well as you did me.
There is a subtext to this story: I had three friends in London to help take my luggage all the way to Heathrow, buy me yogurt and let me send emergency emails from their phones. Those emails went to more friends, one of whom was willing to put me up in Chicago, another of whom was willing to drive to tiny airports late at night just so I could get home when I wanted. I traveled across seven time zones and I had people offering me help at every step. Who cares how much ticket changes or credit card scammers might cost me? I’m rich.
I promise I’ll do the hard part
Finally got around to following Leonard’s links to Rachel Chalmers’s blog, and now regret not doing so in 2004. Her blog is the blog other blogs want to be when they grow up. Blog up. Wait, no.
I’m reading backwards through her archives, so most of the content so far has been about her daughters Claire (who appears, from this perspective, to be carefully paring down her vocabulary) and Julia (who has disappeared, then had her name retconned to Zoë, as if in a bad thriller movie). I know blogging is the new selective memory, but they sound like amazing kids. I want kids now, dammit! SOMEBODY HAVE SOME KIDS WITH ME.