Unexpected Nostalgia Overload

What with all the hubbub about Ghost World, Tom and I were talking about these postcards we got from Dan Clowes back when we were winsome young lads of 17.

I knew that I still had the card tucked away in my magic box of all the personal mail I’ve received over the last 18 years or so (Yes, I’m that big a pack rat), so I went digging for it, and found myself in the middle of an emotional minefield for which I was totally unprepared. This has been a pretty rough year for me so far, and dredging up so much past at once was just a bad, bad idea. Sifting through all those old cards and notes and letters and care packages, my nostalgia quickly gave way to regret, sadness, and embarrassment. (Thank goodness for those little touches of irony, such as a letter from my old girlfriend in which she refers to our first confession of love as “our little coming out.”)

Seriously, though, it was awful. Try as I might to just skim through until I found this stupid postcard, I still found myself glancing through the physical evidence of almost two decades’ worth of maudlin affirmations of devotion from friends I no longer see, notes from girls I had misguided crushes on, old boyfriends’ love letters that have lost their meaning, and the paper trails of melodramatic misunderstandings.

Sure there were people with whom I had those overwrought adolescent friendships that seem so perfect but fade away at the start of the next semester, but there have also been all these wonderful, wonderful people who I loved dearly but lost all contact with because of simple laziness. What a dick I feel like, knowing that I’ve deprived myself of people who once made life seem so worthwhile. These last few months, I’ve tried to remember how easy it can be to take people for granted, and keep it from happening. I’m really sad that it’s a lesson I didn’t learn earlier.

Also, it was interesting to notice that I haven’t necessarily changed as much over the years as I always think. Mostly, in good ways, thankfully. As much as I’ve grown and matured and all that junk, I can look at letters from 15 years ago and see that my friends pretty much appreciated the same things about me as they do now. A lot of the same little things make me happy, and a lot of the same things I do seem to communicate my affection to my chums. So I guess I haven’t always been a complete jackass to everyone in my life.

OK, time to go to bed and forget all about the Box of Old Horrors.

Critters

I was all irritated this weekend to discover that after two years of basement living, a rat had finally gotten inside. After finding some food strewn around the kitchen, Ralph and I noticed a large, cartoonish semicircle of a hole in the wall down by the baseboard. The evidence was clear — some huge hunk of vermin had violated the Rumpus Room, and needed to be destroyed immediately. I felt worse for Ralph, whose bed isn’t three feet off the floor like mine, and who was a lot more likely than me to hear any scratching around during the night. I plugged the hole up with steel wool until I could get to the hardware store (if they try to eat through it, it chops up their innards and kills them) and tried to think about the things I still liked about my living conditions. The next morning, I filled the hole with poison (mmmm, tastes like peanut butter, apparently) and steel wool, slapped some sheetrock tape over it all, and sealed the whole mess up with some spackle, hopefully trapping the dirty beast in a deadly prison. Do not fuck with a fairy who knows his way around home repair!

Autocontent

Why do I feel like we’re all filling out someone’s slam book? Oh wait, because we’re basically doing the fin de siècle version of that. We really are just 14-year-old girls at heart:

I have: work that I should be doing
I see: clearly now, the rain is gone
I need: to be out of debt
I find: lint in my bellybutton
I want: A room with a view, or at least a cellular signal
I have: more good friends than I have time to enjoy
I wish: that thing never happened (more realistically, though: treats)
I love: all of you, each and every one
I hate: only two people, because they hurt people who deserved better
I miss: solvency
I fear: more now than ever
I feel: lonelier than I care to admit
I hear: the hum of a tiny fan, the low rumble of the HVAC
I smell: I’m rubber and you’re glue…
I crave: a grilled cheese and bacon
I search: for a fella who’ll keep me on my toes, but in a good way
I wonder: Do you hear me when you sleep?
I regret: Oh, if you only knew…
When was the last time you…
Smiled: This morning, but that’s easy
Laughed: Last night, a lot
Cried: Last month, but I choked it back
Bought something: 3 hours ago
Danced: Why, just last night, a little. A few weeks ago, in earnest
Were sarcastic: When do I stop?
Kissed someone: Wednesday night
Talked to an ex: Sunday before last
Watched your favorite movie: Yeah, like I could narrow down to a favorite
Had a nightmare: Can’t remember
Last book you read: Open Secret : Gay Hollywood, 1928-2000, David Ehrenstein
Last movie you saw: 101 Reykjavik
Last song you heard: “Ain’t Nobody’s Business But My Own,” Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Jordan
Last thing you had to drink: Snapple, the sugary monkey on my back
Last time you showered: 4 hours ago
Last thing you ate: Boston creme doughnut
Smoke: Nope
Do drugs: Not even once
Have sex: Now and then, at irregular intervals
Sleep with stuffed animals: Nope
Live in the moment: At least a couple of times a day
Had a dream that keeps coming back: Not for a few years. Too bad, because I miss the flying.
Play an instrument: Only in a metaphorical sense
Believe there is life on other planets: Oh yeah
Remember your first love: Sure do
Still love him/her: I love her more then ever
Read the newspaper: On a Palm Pilot
Have any gay or lesbian friends: Er, you do read this site, right?
Believe in miracles: I believe I’ll never be able to explain everything that happens, and I like that
Believe it’s possible to remain faithful forever: I suppose that depends on how you define “faithful”
Consider yourself tolerant of others: Much more than I ought to be
Consider love a mistake: Egads, no! Specific instances, maybe.
Like the taste of alcohol: Blech!
Have a favorite candy: Reese’s peanut butter cups, really good marzipan
Believe in astrology: No, despite being a textbook example of Virgo
Believe in God: Shyeah, right
Believe in magic: I kinda wish I did
Pray: Only facetiously
Go to church: I try to avoid it
Have any pets: Just the spiders and the mosquitoes
Talk to strangers who IM you: Not if I can’t identify them
Wear hats: Only under duress
Have any piercings: Not any more
Have any tattoos: Three, with more planned
Hate yourself: Not like I used to
Have an obsession: that’s a strong word, don’t you think?
Have a secret crush: I have a backlog of them
Collect anything: Woodtype, old signs, foreign coins, art books, self-esteem problems
Have a best friend: An embarrassment of riches in that category
Wish on stars: A little corny, don’t you think?
Like your handwriting: Despite what you see, no
Have any bad habits: Shall we start with the “A” section?
Care about looks: See “self-esteem problems,” above
Believe in witches: Not as much as they believe in themselves
Believe in Satan: Oh, please
Believe in ghosts: I just chalk that up to unexplained phenomena

Play along, kids! Drop me links to your answers in the comments section.

Art Chantry Saved My Life

As I mentioned, I got a piece of unsolicited e-mail yesterday from my idol, a Seattle-based designer named Art Chantry. He was doing a Google seach and ran across this old journal entry of mine where I mention that he saved my life. Curious, he dropped me a quick note to ask what in hell I was talking about.

Well, back when I was a senior studying design in college, I found myself swiftly losing my winsome zeal for my chosen profession. My work was adequate, in that I was doing what was required of me with a certain amount of technical proficiency, but I was disillusioned and my enthusiasm was pretty much gone. I was spending all my time at a computer, pushing stuff around on a tiny black-and-white screen, trying to finish assignments but not having much fun with them. I couldn’t remember what had once seemed so enticing about design, because it just felt like I was at the start of a lifelong career path of churning out monotony. After three-and-a-bit years of art school, for which I’d waited most of my life, I was getting the sinking feeling that I’d made a bit of poor choice in focusing on graphic design.

I was plucky, though, so I still kept reading about design and keeping myself involved in the field, hoping I was just in a rut. I tried to get the most out of my student membership in the AIGA by going to see a lot of talks by famous-ish designers. One time, I went to go see this guy Art Chantry speak. I hadn’t heard of him, nor had anyone else at school, but we saw a couple of examples of his stuff and it looked fun, so off we went. WOW! His stuff just blew my ass away. And not only was his work good, but I also loved his attitude and his approach to design. He did stuff that was raw, and funny, and sensitive to details, and — this was the kicker — expressive. Yes, he was doing work for clients, but he found ways of putting his own energy into the stuff he produced. He often did a lot of work for chicken scratch, because he believed in what the clients were doing and because they gave him the freedom to take some chances and be playful. (I use the past tense, but I assume this is still the case.) Suddenly, I saw a version of graphic design that wasn’t just slick and clever commercial art. This stuff was everything that I ever loved about comics and punk and zines and B movies that ever made me want to make stuff of my own.

It wasn’t just the final products that struck a chord, but also the way Art spoke about how he came up with stuff. He hadn’t become enslaved to a Mac, and has never really made use of a computer part of his work at all. He made stuff with his hands, pushed around typeset galleys, and experimented with what could be done on or off press. He played with the materials at hand, and tried some things just to see if it could be done. A cruddy budget could be an opportunity to see how interesting a picture could be made with photocopies and white-out. If a retro-style wood-type poster was needed, why not just have an authentic old poster shop set the type? If a burnt edge was needed for the design, why worry about creating an illusion when it’s simpler to singe the stack of press sheets? This is what real “thinking outside the box” was about before that became such a terrible cliché. And behind all this was a sharp wit, a really solid sense of typographic texture and form, and an understanding of craftsmanship needed by the designer, the printer, the typesetter, and anyone involved. It was so damn refreshing. It was exhilirating to see that there really could be a place in design for all the other things I loved and was learning: drawing, printmaking, photography, painting, whatever. It made me realize that design could be what I made of it. It could be personal and expressive and still work for someone else. It could be tactile and physical and textural, not just a flat abstraction or a printout.

I raced home that night with my head overflowing with ideas and inspiration. Nothing specific, but just these flashes of other ways to try things I’d been doing all along. I took out a couple of huge pieces of paper and feverishly scrawled all the ways I could think of to make images or to set type or make marks on paper or deal with paper’s third dimension. It sounds corny, yeah, but that single brainstorming session opened the floodgates for me. I wound up redoing all the projects I’d worked on that semester, starting most of them over from scratch and doing about a million times better. I got the same grades I would have otherwise, probably, but that wasn’t the point. I realized how to do work that I was excited about, that I was proud of.

With a few lapses in conviction over the years, those lessons have stayed with me, really playing a huge part in making me the designer — the artist, if you can generalize like that — that I am today. This is not to say that I do work that looks like Art Chantry’s. Far from it. I’ve worked out a lot of my own visual and conceptual and philosophical ideas over the years, and seem to have arrived at an approach that is certainly my own, little seen as it may be these days. (I might also point out that this is the same approach that led me to give up on working as a designer for the time being, freeing me to think of design as my medium of choice for personal work, not just a job I happen to like.) No, I learned how to incorporate play and handicraft and integrity into my work. I learned that slick or flashy is not always good, and that new solutions can come from old tricks, as long as you maintain a fresh perspective. I know, that’s a lot of ethereal-sounding hoo-hah, but it’s true. Damnit!

Thanks, Art. You rock.

Bawdy Engineers

You can all have fun quoting the crazy phrases that show up in your search-engine logs, but I would like to offer a few of the zany entries from some forms I’m creating at work today:

  • Shaft Stiffness Ratio
  • Coupling Guard [Like a crossing guard?]
  • Mechanical Seal Gland
  • Non-Spark Coupling Guard Required [Typical, just typical]
  • Throat Bushing Required
  • Throttle Bushing
  • Barrier Flush Plan

Yes, it’s that dull a day that I have to look for naughty humor just to pass the time.

Le Grande Tour

Sparky’s World Tour 2001, possibly coming to your town soon:

Aug. 17–20 Washington, D.C.
Sep. 1–2 Goshen, NY
Sep. 12–16 Denver, CO
Sep. 22–30 San Francisco, CA
Oct. 18–22 Reykjavik, Iceland
Nov. 16–26 London and Lancaster, England

In order to facilitate all this travel, I will not be spending money or eating during the interim. Please be advised and adjust plans for our social engagements accordingly.

Recycled Insight

We’ll start with a quick quote from a towering literary figure:

But it’s not me so much as my brain. My brain just sits up there, reporting back to me, clicking on and on like ticker tape. Sometimes it feels like my brain is smarter than I am. It doesn’t seem to matter what I want. My brain just goes on and on relentlessly, expanding to space.

Carrie Fisher, Surrender the Pink

I’ve been a little down on myself, berating myself for not writing much here that showed any insight or revelation. It dawned on me, though, that I just take stuff like that for granted, so I just don’t think to share once I sit down to post. My brain, fidgety thing that it is, is constantly processing what I read and watch and do and remember, and constantly spitting out minor revelations, or at least the raw material for them, which usually take shape the moment I turn my attention back toward a particular subject. I’m often surprised when I start to talk about some damn thing or another, and discover that I seem to be able to piece together a reasonable opinion. (Except when asked about any or all of those things that have never crossed my mind, which usually prompt me to raise my eyebrows quizzically and exclaim, “Hmmm, I have no idea at all.” I don’t like to fake opinions.)

Here are a few recycled thoughts, then — ideas usually shared in conversation or pondered during heat-crazed walks around town:

    • Exhausting as my social calendar has been, I still really like the idea that the widespread Homo Blog Clique has forged so many links here in the analog world. Getting to know the people behind the blogs adds new and exciting dimension to what they write, just as familiarity with their writing makes getting to know the people easier once you meet them. It is a clique, of course, the natural result of a filtering process we all go through as we browse around and link and bookmark and then weed out all the sites that don’t hold our interest after a while. Just like in the normal world, we formed a big clique based on shared obsessions, experiences, respect, or circumstances. The thing is, an internet clique casts a wider net, catching a wider variety of fish. Clique we may be, of some kind or another, but it’s certainly one made up of an extraordinary variety of interesting people. It’s incredibly self-indulgent, though, to keep writing about meeting each other. It’s OK. I guess, but still self-indulgent.
    • I’m perfectly willing to let run-of-the-mill Hollywood movies play me like a fiddle, but I can only take so much. I love action movies and period movies and all that stuff that is so emotionally manipulative, that practically writes itself after the initial exposition. Doesn’t bug me — I’m sometimes there just to have entertainment spoon-fed to me, and that’s fine. They’re so easy, though, that they set me up for the thrill of seeing films that catch me off-guard and really make me think, laugh, or gasp in sublime shock. that’s a lot of added value, baby. Ghost World, for instance, was so brilliant because I found myself laughing moments later, once the dark and sublime jokes had a chance to sink in and stew. And it ended without any real resolution, an honest and courageous way to end a movie that more Hollywood movies should be willing to try. Things in life don’t always end in nicely resolved circumstances. It’s a lazy convention of theater and film and literature to tidy up everything that’s been written, instead of ending on a note of an unkown, unknowable future to come. Sometime a pat ending is right for the story, sometimes (and I’m thinking especially of A.I. here) it’s an enormous effort spent to do what’s expected when ending the story without wrapping it all up would have been more thought-provoking and more satisfying.
    • It’s been a wild since I’ve really had a crush on someone. I miss those. I miss that feeling of desperate lust and fascination, that kind of primal longing and fluttering of the heart. A good crush is bittersweet. It’s also good copy. I like to think the drought has nothing to do with my getting old and jaded, and just more to do with me not meeting anyone that extraordinary recently.

Just a Fling

Hmm, so here’s a pickle: let’s say you meet a guy under dubious circumstances and a he’s a total snack — way tastier than you usually get a shot at — and he seems to think you ain’t so bad, either. As a bonus, he turns out to be sweet and even able to hold up his end in a conversation. Score! Now let’s say you’re a jaded old mess already, so you don’t worry about whether or not there’s any future, because it’s just much easier to go with the flow. So what’s the rub? Oh yeah, that boyfriend he tells you about. You admire his candor and have every intention of having as much fun as you can squeeze out of the situation (which, apparently, the BF is OK with), so what’s nagging at you in the back of your mind? Oh yeah, that loss of possibility, that awareness that at best you’ll be a fondly remembered fling. Whatever. There are worse ways to amuse yourself.

So Many Choices

Ah, New York in the summer — so much to do, and so little time to do it. For instance, I’d really been looking foward to catching a free show by Bebel Gilberto at Summerstage, but then my friend Josh calls to remind me that Brave Combo is playing at the Bottom Line that same night. So as much as I love Brazilian grooviness and free shows (and I’m already mad that I missed the Basement Jaxx show and the Propellerheads/Asian Dub Foundation show at Summerstage), I certainly can’t pass up one of the rare opportunities to see my favorite polka/latin band on one of their rare visits from Denton, Texas. Especially not when there’s actually someone else around now who can appreciate them with me.