There are a bunch of things I haven't been doing enough of, and a few things that have been moving a little slower than desired, so rather than my usual to-do-list method of going about my day (where often times many items on the list don't end up getting checked off and are relegated to the following day's list), I'm attempting to implement a stricter time-blocking method. Essentially, a timetable. Like the kind they used to give us in school (which I imagine they must still be using in schools today).
It is for this reason and this reason alone that I managed to work in a blog entry this morning; I had it time-blocked.
Let's see how the rest of the week goes.
#journal #efficiency
Peter Biskind's DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES is worlds apart from his EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS. Whereas the latter is inspiring, the former is just icky. Not a fault of Biskind, but the Hollywood scene of the 90's he's writing about is very different from that of the 60's/70's. You feel like you've been thrown into a pit of sheer nasty backstabbing scum. Everyone is terrible. Every time I read a bit, I just feel like taking a shower and sitting on a park bench somewhere pleasant, where you might strike a delightful conversation with someone without want or ulterior motive.
#reads
Spent yesterday doing kitchen things: filling the jars in my spice cabinet and extracting all my groceries from the packaging they came in, emptying them all in reusable containers. What the latter activity does (which I'm realizing is a highly unusual practice by most peoples' standards) is completely de-brand my kitchen. No longer is my fridge or pantry an eyesore, and no longer do their contents constantly scream a cacophony of brand advertisements whenever I make use of the kitchen. A de-branded home is one of the ways to ensure your place of residence is a true refuge from the constant corporate messaging of the outside world.
Of course, they still tend to reach you through screens, but there are ways around that as well. Ad blockers for your browsers, and streaming services instead of standard television for instance.
Some friends have asked me “But why?”
Because every one of those things is a tug for attention, even if very minor, they all add up. Upon elimination, you'll be surprised by the serenity caused by the mental alleviation—and thus mental clarity—of this sort of cleansing.
#journal
An assortment of summer vacay doodles:
#sketch #doodle #journal
Just had my first “fuck, what was I thinking?” moment.
In preparation for drafting the last two chapters in THE SOLAR GRID, I've been re-reading all THE SOLAR GRIDs I've put out to date in an effort to find all the authorly breadcrumbs we tend to leave ourselves. Breadcrumbs that often come in handy when bringing the whole yarn to a close. But as early as chapter 2, I found that I may have done the unspeakable. It's really fucking bad. There is a point to it, but that point doesn't quite transpire till several chapters later, which is way too much to ask of a reader. It's the sort of thing that upon sight makes you want to toss the book at the nearest wall. As early as chapter 2 for crying out loud!
Only now, 8 years later, am I able to envision a far more graceful way of pulling it off, which I may just have to adjust for the collected edition. Shit.
I'm rather surprised no one has called me out on it yet. It's really fucking bad. Fml.
And then there are typos littered throughout the series. So many terrible typos. So many printed copies including said typos as well as my horrible Ch. 2 mishap. This will drive me mad, at least until the amended collected edition.
#ResistDystopia #comix #TheSolarGrid
2084 words in 4 days. Shameful in many ways, except the words are so damn good.
#work
Got the latest “booster” the other day and my body did not take too kindly to it. Out of commission for the day which frustrates me to no end. Trying to read and failing, may end up having to be a slutty TV day. Let's see what I can find.
On another note, my latest piece:
It's called POWER DANCE PATTERN, hand-stamped on 300 gsm acid-free paper, 9”x12”. The variation in stamping makes each one completely unique.
#journal #art #work
“Home is not where you are born, it's where all your attempts to escape come to an end.”
I've always cherished this quote attributed to the great Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz. Year after year, its meaning and relevance become ever more acute for me. I've also always loved a particular photo of Naguib with a fedora (a “western” piece of apparel) on his head, the picture upon which the above pictured artwork series is based. Not quite how Naguib is typically depicted or remembered.
Aerosol over letterpressed print on 11”x17” archival paper. Limited edition of 10, available only at Garage.Ganzeer.
#work #art
Quite into Amazon Prime's adaptation of William Gibson's THE PERIPHERAL despite it standing on a rather shaky premise that demands a huge suspension of disbelief: That people in the future would easily be able to transmit data to the past, to the point where they could transmit the data necessary for the manufacture of devices that allow for the transmit of data from the past to the future. The how is never explained, and all the characters in the show seem to just buy into it. When confronted by this information, the characters from the past (which is still in our future) do have a holy shit moment, but that's the extent of it. Even the obligatory “nerd” doesn't seem to geek out about the science involved or anything. It's kind of frustrating.
But there was a bit that resonated hard; when it is explained to the main character from the past inhabiting an artificial body in the future what “the jackpot” is. Or was rather. A mass extinction event resulting from a trifecta of severe climate change + global pandemic + nuclear war. I watched that particular episode just one night before the Arctic Blast hit Houston, weather plummeting to well below freezing temperatures and losing power and all form of heating in the house. I had also just read a report on recent pandemic statistics; an all new high with something like 400-related deaths a day? You wouldn't know it because of the lack of pandemic-related restrictions/precautions though. Seems like the only thing missing is a nuclear war, which I guess we're far from actually living through. Although this batshit crazy headline appeared on the WSJ not long ago: The U.S. Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War.
#journal #watching
“And it is absolutely inevitable that when a tradition has been evolved, whatever the tradition is, the people, in general, will suppose it to have existed from before the beginning of time and will be most unwilling and indeed unable to conceive of any changes in it. They do not know how they will live without those traditions that have given them their identity.”
From an essay by James Baldwin titled THE CREATIVE PROCESS. A dear friend sent it my way the other day, and it has stuck with my since. It stuck with me in my dreams all night, and this morning too upon my awakening. There's a gem in every sentence really, but it is the bit quoted above that embodies the key to it all. Or perhaps more accurately... the lock. The act of unlocking it is what really represents the key to the creative process, at least for me. It is artists who help herald a turn in the social tide, who suggest a way of being and doing that is other. I should say that when I say artists, I don't mean it in the crass definition often accepted by today's standards. There are artists who are visualists, and those who are musical. There are lyrical artists, as are there literary. There are those who work with fabric and the human body, and those who construct habitats for human dwelling, and those who explore the sciences of the natural world and posit various uses for them. There are artists in all known field and endeavor and there are many who operate in these areas who are not artists at all but are of no lesser importance.
It is artists though who push the envelope, and are thus often reviled, feared, and ridiculed by society at large. Until—as is often the case—long after they're dead when society finally catches up with their ideas and propositions. Of course, there are artists who achieve mass acclaim within their lifetimes. Anyone can likely name a handful alive today who might fit the bill without thinking twice. I would like to posit something somewhat controversial though, and that is if indeed an artist has reached a degree of widespread appeal after having gone through the unpleasant business of social jeering at the onset of their practice, then one might say that that artist is surely lucky to have lived to witness the kind of seismic shift their art had always hoped to affect. However, if what they continue to do thereafter is being met with social glee, then chances are they have ceased to push the envelope beyond that initial push and are probably likely doing much of the same work they had done prior. No longer producing work that might suggest an alternative to established tradition, it is at this point that their work is no longer art and they no longer artists. There might be a great degree of craft involved, a great degree of skill involved, but craft, skill, and art are not one and the same. To be an artist is to be revolutionary.
#journal