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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
Announcement for Italy exhibition has been posted on social media, where lots of never-before-seen comix process stuff will be on show. Opens first in the city of Jesi, but then will travel on to Pordenone in November where I'll also be in attendance if everything goes to plan.
PROJECT POSSE added to immediate docket. In addition to PROJECT BLOSSOM and PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE, that makes three projects along with THE SOLAR GRID I need to work on this month.
A friend of mine was luring me with an event in Mexico City in October, but I really want to wrap TSG up first, given how much I know travel can be disruptive to my process.
And it looks like I may have to skip Zine Fest Houston this year because of daddy duty, and I really don't have a babysitter I can trust with my child yet for such an extensive number of hours.
Coffee after 4:00pm for me is usually a bad idea, guaranteed to keep me up until well after midnight. So I was surprised to find myself crashing immediately after a 7:00pm Americano, only to reemerge among the living at 1:00am. Circadian rhythm officially fucked.
Phase 1 of PROJECT BLOSSOM complete. Now I can put it aside before entering phase 2 later next week. PROJECT TWENTY-FIVE I must dedicate Monday to, do the whole thing start-to-finish in a single day. Hoping to have 3 full days assigned entirely to TSG next week, need to pencil in a minimum of 6 pages, but more if I can manage. This weekend is for my boy.
The second half of the Penguin edition of Borges' FICTIONS seems to be dedicated to more straightforward short fiction, but much of it still flies over my head regardless. Close to 70% into this strainful little book that I had no idea would be so difficult. Late night gyoza to help me power through.
On a completely different note, love this collection of Kafka covers by Peter Mendelsund.
Borges himself was a translator of some note, and in addition to the translations per se that he left to Spanish culture—a number of German lyrics, Faulkner, Woolf, Whitman, Melville, Carlyle, Swedenborg, and others—he left at least three essays on the act of translation itself.
From Andrew Hurley's A Note on the Translation, printed in the back of this Penguin edition of Borges' FICTIONS (which is oddly hard to find actually).
In “Versions of Homer” (“Las versiones homericas,” 1932), Borges makes it unmistakably clear that every translation is a “version”—not the translation of Homer (or any other author) but a translation.
This is one reason I have resolved to learn Spanish (aside from my desire to spend more time in Mexico City). Having been exposed to works by Arabic authors in both the original Arabic as well as in translation to English, I can see how a work in translation genuinely isn't the same as the original. If I could have things my way, I'd also be learning French, Mandarin, and Hindi, but as a man in his 40s who sucks at multitasking, I've only got so much time for so many battles, and it seems wise to start narrowing one's struggles down to just one or two, maybe three.
It's been gray and rainy all day. Less than ideal day to venture out for a haircut and groceries, but I'd already planned it that way and stuck to the plan.
Work: Only had enough time to rough out one TSG page, and did some sketching/thinking on PROJECT BLOSSOM.
Reads: Past the 50-page mark on Borges' FICTIONS which I have heard much lore about and have been dying to read for a while now. It's true what they say: slim volume containing universes within. Starts off with what read like reviews of non-existent books, completely fictionized but written about completely straight-faced as if they genuinely existed, despite the absurdity of such a notion, given the nature of said books. The first one is fantastic, and the second one is very good, but by the third I had gotten a little tired of the formula. Fourth and fifth stories take on a more traditional approach to what one might expect of a short story, though the fourth one was quite meta and may require a second read for me to wrap my head around. I can certainly see how he must've influenced an author like Italo Calvino, who does in fact have a blurb printed in the front: “I love his work because every one of his pieces contains a model of the universe.”
Screens: Finished watching KAOS on Netflix, and Warren did not lie, it is very good. Judge it not by the first episode, it gets so much better real fast. Like Warren, I also did not like that they did not adequately tie it all up in the last episode. Doing so wouldn't have denied them the opportunity to create a second season—which is clearly what they're aiming for—the world they created is certainly fertile enough ground for more stories even with a firmly closed first story arc.
Status:
It is hard to believe that this chapter may very well be the last time I draw her for a very long time if not forever.
My plan for the day turned out to be a little too ambitious after all, but TSG pages are coming along smoothly.
Today's background listening included:
Bret Easton Ellis interviews Paul Schrader — Really great. I particularly love the few Pauline Kael anecdotes Schrader shares. Kael is grossly overrated in my opinion, and I say this having enjoyed a number of her books. She did good to bring actual critical criticism to the field, but neither her taste nor how she expressed it really jive with me.
TRACKMARKS by Hamed Sinno — Sinno, who is one of the most talented and creative people I know, was on a train in London when it got held up because a man on the tracks in what was apparently a suicide attempt. Folks on the train started to get irritated, and that irritation soon ballooned into rage, directed squarely at the distressed man who messed up their schedules. Hamed was wise enough to record this vocalized rage and weave it into a powerful song together with lyrics drawn entirely from advertising slogans seen on the London Underground. 👌