“People linked together by friendship, affection, or physical love found themselves reduced to hunting for tokens of their past communion within the compass of the ten-word telegram. And since, in practice, the phrases one can use in a telegram are quickly exhausted, long lives passed side by side, or passionate yearnings, soon declined to the exchange of such trite formulas as: 'Am well. Always thinking of you. Love'.”

This passage from THE PLAGUE by Albert Camus brings to mind how interaction with friends and lovers with whom hours upon hours were once upon a time regularly spent laughing, discussing, and debating have now been reduced to likes and shares. An unintended consequence of suddenly being separated by time-zones, and the Defacto mode of communication being social media: instant yet far from substantial.

“Some few of us however persisted in writing letters and gave much time to hatching plans for corresponding with the outside world.”

#reads #journal

3 days until PAGES FOR PALESTINE at Basket Books in Houston, organized by the Jewish Voice for Peace in partnership with Houston Zine Fest (who also provided the event graphic).

#journal #event

Was planning on penciling some TSG today, but the whole day was lost to scanning all 200 pages of THE MEANING OF DEATH before shipping it off to its buyer.

I note that the vibrant pink pigments I used on quite a few pages (including the one pictured), barely turn up at all in the scans. Interesting.

#work #journal

Moved my most-read blog post, THE PALESTINIAN PROBLEM, to the main dot com, and also populated a few of the sections with some work I hadn't yet uploaded. More of that over the next few days.

Penciled one page of TSG and will attempt another right after I break for some excercise.

#journal #work #writing #comix

THE SOLAR GRID #1 is completely sold out. Issues #2-8 are still in stock. I'm sure the time will come when I look upon these single-chapter editions as the strange time capsules that they are.

Started THE PLAGUE by Albert Camus. This being my third Camus, it's now very evident that Camus' writing appeals to me. Adequately sparse, just the right words in exactly the right places in a way that evokes more than what is being said. Something I don't find entirely true of most contemporary authors who lean towards the extra telegrammatic. The buildup of eerie over the first 30 pages in THE PLAGUE is really perfectly paced.

#journal #comix #tsg #reads

Newsletter scheduled to send in a few hours from now. This will be issue #213 and its title is The [Inherent] Evil of Techno-Optimism, and just as it says on the tin, its main feature is a [partial] takedown of Marc Anderseen's horrendous The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.

Inbox 63, RSS 311

A snack and dishes before tending to those. Would like to kick the weekend off with a clean slate. Sumud for Palestine tomorrow.

#journal #rf

Not quite a collection of short fiction as much as it presents blueprints for approaching fiction, often very grand, interestingly-structured fiction. The reviews of fictitious non-existent books are my favorite in the collection, but there are only a handful of those, and the rest is mostly pretty straight fiction which I didn't get much out of. Not that I didn't like them... Full review of Borges' FICTIONS over at Ganzeer.Reviews.

Day lost to migraine. Will attempt to turn in early tonight and get a fresh start tomorrow.

In other news:

• Lionsgate Inks Deal With AI Firm to Mine Its Massive Film and TV Library — The Hollywood Reporter: A new age of schlock is upon us.

• Society of the Psyop — E-Flux: Wherever there's the smoke of a conspiracy theory, you better believe there's fire.

• Michael Chabon on Israel's latest attack on Lebanon:

#reads #journal #radar

Pushed myself too hard over the past couple days, so today I have one of those debilitating migraines to contend with. Finished and delivered PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE though. I keep getting tagged in videos from Jesi, so today's playlist is Italian Cafe Jazz to assist with all them fomo feels.

Finished Cesar Aira's THE SEAMSTRESS AND THE WIND which completely lost me midway through. Luckily, it was a short and quick read. Considering a return to Camus with THE PLAGUE which already awaits in my tbr pile.

Inbox 100, RSS 266. Terrible.

Need to get through those and get some TSG pages in, granted if I can overcome this migraine.

#journal #work

Still racing against the clock to finish PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE, so only logging on very briefly today. A few key updates:

• Two days until Oltremari opens in the Italian city of Jesi. Not sure I fully realized that the Accademia di Comics, Creativita ed Arti Visive was involved.

• The Hudood exhibition at the SOAS Gallery in London (where I have some work showing) is open for only 4 more days before all the work returns to the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah.

• Dana Omar's STUCK is now 82% funded! Only 4 days left before her campaign ends.

• This coming Saturday: I shall be hawking a few of my wares in person at this Palestine-solidarity event in Houston.

#journal #work

Eggs, pancakes, and granola for breakfast. Big day ahead, must complete PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE today, something that might ideally require a week needs getting done in less than 24 hours. Phone on airplane mode, killing the internet connection, relying on record player for music. Drowning out the world, nothing exists aside from the project at hand.

#journal #work