I'm hoping to stick to a system of only two books at a time, one fiction and one non-fiction. Oddly enough, I find that I've been enjoying non-fiction far, far more lately. The more fiction I read, the more it becomes apparent that the bulk of it actually has very little to say.

Before A.I. slop, an onslaught of human slop has always been around.

Today will hopefully be the last day of podcast notes.

#journal

And! New “invisible” floating shelf installed:

Back to podcast-notetaking.

#journal

The Retro Sci-Fi: GIF Edition reminded me of all the animated gifs I had once created for the first iteration of TIMES NEW HUMAN, the format of which was web-based. Most of those gifs are now lost to history for some reason. I've never been good at adequately archiving my output, something I've been working towards changing, and partially why Ganzeer.com is built to function as a genuine archive of all the work rather than a mere web brochure with a handful of samples. The latter being what is dominant in the field. I haven't quite managed to make it a “genuine archive of all the work”, but it's certainly more in that direction.

I wonder why I ever thought to take the animated gif route for those TIMES NEW HUMAN illustrations, given that a print edition was kind of the end goal all along. Seems like added unnecessary working hours. I suppose it's partially because animated gifs lend themselves so well to the web as a medium, and rather than copy-paste something as is across all media, the “purist” in me would like every iteration of a thing to be tailored perfectly to its own medium.

But really, how necessary was it? Seems like so much time gone to waste now.

Today is Tidy-the-Studio Day. I choose Wednesdays because the weekend seldom works. If I finish early enough, I might just get to drafting the newsletter. But first, email. Inbox is now at an unruly 43.

Overextending? Probably.

#journal #work

I am a terrible multitasker. I thought I'd be able to alternate between writing and taking podcast notes, but when I'm in the writing zone (indeed in any zone), I find it very difficult to pull away and do something else. Even if I designate the something else towards the tail-end of the day.

So today I will attempt to power through 6 episodes, half the season we recorded. Now, each episode is quite long; an hour or more in some cases, which means more video-watching than I can handle. Basic logic would dictate spreading the episode-watching and notetaking across several days to ease the blow of the task at hand, but that would necessitate employing the kind of mental gearshift that I sorely lack.

Why am I like this?

#journal #work #podcast

Okay so today I decided to get a little too aspirational with the would-be reading corner. Pulled a couple plants out of the garden and potted them inside. I have no idea whether or not they will survive, but if they do... I may attempt to make this corner even more lush.

#journal #studio

One of my pet peeves of living in America was how fresh herbs were treated like gold. You'd get less than an ounce of the stuff squished into a palm-sized plastic container for 2 bucks or more. Egypt has the opposite problem. Fresh herbs are in great abundance, and they're always sold in big bunches that go bad faster than you can put to use. So today, we are oven-drying rosemary for the first time. 4-6 hours apparently on the lowest setting for best results.

Writing is going oh so swell today.

“Conan in a trenchcoat.” – May just be the best line in this Frank Miller/Rick Rubin interview.

#journal #work #radar

Eyeing my reading corner aspirationally until Ikea get their shit together and restock the chair's cushioning, which they only informed me was out of stock the day of delivery. A full week after I'd originally ordered it.

Haven't even had a chance to put this part of the space to any use and Tiger has already mauled one end of the rug to shreds. Comes with the territory of being chosen by a cat, I guess. And I really do need to have that tinted glass replaced. Fall is here and the sun has already shifted to where it seldom enters the space.

Given the above situation, not much reading has been getting done (I'm not great at reading in bed), but I did manage to write 11,451 words in September. Looking to churn out much more through October. Very little drawing this month. Hopefully I'm not too rusty by the time I do return to the drawing board.

STATUS:

#work #journal #studio

The complete THE SOLAR GRID box-set can now be nabbed through Asterism.

October is already here, which I'm gonna need to dedicate almost entirely to wrapping up TIMES NEW HUMAN if I can. Quite a bit of work travel slated for November, which knowing me will disrupt any semblance of flow.

Got the strangest email the other day inviting me to be interviewed about THE SOLAR GRID for a podcast... in exchange for a fee. Didn't even realize that was a thing now.

RADAR: Great Kim Stanley Robinson interview over at the Crisis and Critique Youtube channel.

Watched SOYLENT GREEN the other night for the first time! What a great goddamn movie! Can't believe it passed me by. It must be Ganzeer-discovers-the-70s season over here.

STATUS:

#work #journal #radar

Freshly-minted short story shipped off to Jared Shurin for his forthcoming edited issue of ParSec. The brief he sent me, a single image, was impossible to resist:

More TIMES NEW HUMAN rewrites this morning, reserving the backend of the day for email and podcast notes.

Inbox: 17, RSS: 5.

#journal #work

• THE SOLAR GRID makes The Markaz Review's The Anthropocene Book List, a handsome list of 10 very fine books that I am humbled to see my demented graphic novel share company with.

• Steven Heller showcases 10 cover samples of UN SEDICESIMO, a 16-page Italian quarterly that provides a blank slate for a different artist to do whatever they want with each time. How I wish more books and graphic novel covers looked like these.

WORKSTREAM:

Today, apparently, is brain fog day. A condition I must overcome because there is much writing to be done and quite a bit of email to catch up on. Four coffees and a handful of cigarettes for breakfast did not help.

Inbox: 17, RSS: 9

STATUS:

#journal #radar