Hitting The Links: 10/29/23

A cartoonist is born, lots of links, & getting back to the body

Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down

We made it back safe & sound from Barcelona on Friday, then spent Saturday in Princeton where I hosted a talk with Patrick McDonnell (I’ll post the audio in a few weeks; here’s our recent talk). Today my plan is pretty much to watch the rain fall on the remnants of autumn & decompress after a pretty busy week-plus 3-month sprint.

It’s not the view of the Porto Vell from Mountjuic, but it’s home

Barcelona was wonderful, even though I spent the last 3 days of the trip schmoozing at the gigantic trade show. Amy entertained herself without me during that stretch, and was accommodating when I came home from day 1 (Tuesday), following an hour-and-forty-five-minute wait at the taxi line, stared at the wall for a while, and said to her, “I’ll ask you how your day went tomorrow.”

(TBF, I got hit w/some sorta head cold the night before that, and so was already run down before the taxi debacle. I used the metro the next 2 days of the show, even though that necessitated climbing up 350+’ of stairs to get back to the hotel.)

A few of my clients at the conference convinced me that I went about this trip backwards; I should’ve come in the day before the trade show, and done the vacation/sightseeing stuff over the weekend after the show (or traveled on to somewhere else, as several were doing). I may try that next year, when this show is in Milan. Sure would love to get out to Rome on that trip, esp. after that Scott Samuelson conversation this year. I hope to see The Boxer At Rest in the flesh/bronze someday, and maybe try to make some new drawings of it. We’ll see in due time.

But yesterday, man. After the talk with Patrick (which went well!), he had a signing/drawing line for people buying his books. While that was going on I caught up with a few listeners who came to the talk (they know who they are), along with past-guest & pal ES Glenn & his partner. Then a young (I can’t gauge the age of anyone younger than me, so bet. 18-50) student came up to introduce herself and tell me how much she enjoyed the talk. I started praising Patrick, and she said, “I don’t know him or his work, and I’ve never read comics, but it sounds like he’s a big deal. I came because I saw you were going to be interviewing him.”

No, dear reader, not a stalker situation, nor did she serve me with a subpoena or anything. Turns out she listened to the episode I did with Princeton professor Jeff Nunokawa and wanted to let me know how much she loved it. She’s majoring in history, not literature, but she’s done interviews for her work over the years, and was interested in what I’ve learned about interviewing people.

Which was weird, but fun. I mean, it always disconcerts me when someone tells me that they actually listen to the podcast, much less praises it, and I was in full “celebrate Patrick” mode for this event, so I wasn’t expecting anything like this conversation. Enjoyed the heck out of it, though, and gave her one of my Roz Chast postcards, which are like currency.

But that wasn’t the best thing of the afternoon. See, at the very end of the signing line, there was this little kid who brought their sketchbook (and their mom). As they were at the table getting Patrick’s sketches in a book or two, he saw the sketchbook and asked them if he could look at it. He saw the child’s drawings, asked them about drawing and making cartoons, then asked, “Can I draw something in there?”, and they gave him the sketchbook. He drew Earl & Mooch, his lead characters from MUTTS, beside the kid’s Lucky Cat drawing.

The gentleness of Patrick's demeanor & tone of voice talking to them was an absolute wonder to me, the way he totally put the kid at ease and treated them with respect. Gave me a great feeling just watching them interact.

Everett, on the other hand, fair lost his mind and said, “WE JUST SAW A CARTOONIST BEING BORN, BROTHER!” Which is probably true.

I saw kid & mom on the way out of the library and asked if it would be okay to take a pic.

And now, let’s hit the links!

Links & Such

• Recent Virtual Memories Show podcasts: Adam Sisman • Lisa Morton • Daniel Clowes • Rachel Shteir • Patrick McDonnell • Keith Knight • Brett Martin

• RIP Richard Roundtree . . . RIP Matthew Keenan . . . RIP Matthew Perry . . .

• I never saw a single episode of Friends. There’s a lot of the ’90s I skipped out on. I did see The Whole Nine Yards, though.

• Speaking of places I need to visit, here’s a piece about the new Celia Paul (2020, 2022) art exhibition in Venice, her residency there, and the role the city has played in her art in recent years.

• Don’t even try to roll them oats.

• Eee! Tess Lewis (2020, 2021) will receive the Friedrich Ulfers Prize at FNL next month!

• William Deresiewicz writes about what art is for.

• In the ’90s, I attended a low-rider festival in San Antonio, and some of those were works of art. Anyway, low-riders are no longer illegal in LA.

• The day before my Barcelona trip, I was invited to an event in NYC where the dress code was “business elegant”. It took me a few minutes to figure out that just meant “suit & tie”, or “between ‘business casual’ and ‘black tie’”. I think “alpine black tie” is an alp too far.

• Uh-oh, everybody: Kaptain Ketamine thinks the world is headed in a bad direction!

Current/Recent Reading

Mason & Dixon - Thomas Pynchon

A Year And A Day: An Experiment In Essays - Phillip Lopate (finished last week)

Sound Body, Fractured Mind

I didn’t get to work out from Oct. 17 (weights) to Oct. 28 (yoga), because of the Barcelona trip. Because I don’t trust hotel floors, I didn’t get to do my morning exercise routine from Oct. 21 until the 28th, but I don’t seem to have suffered too much, even with 10+ hours in the plane on Friday. The first 3 days of the trip, Amy & I walked 8-9 miles/day, along with the occasional 350’ climb back up to our hotel (usu. stairs, but occasionally our Maps app would send us up dirt/rock/root trails). During the trade show, I did more walking, but intermittently and in dress shoes. Glad I was able to get back to my yoga workout on Saturday, and looking forward to weights today. I’m hoping to get back to my 5-day Fri.-Tue. routine next week. Might go for a run with The Guys at some point this week. In reference to last week’s note, I did in fact drop 4-5 lbs. during this trip.

Until Next Time

Thanks for reading this far! I’ll be back Wednesday with a new podcast, maybe some art, & who knows maybe a little profundity or something, and Sunday with more great links, current reading, and this broken down ol’ body of mine.

The falling leaves drift by the window / The autumn leaves of red and gold / I see your lips, the summer kisses / The sun-burned hands I used to hold,

—Gil Roth
Virtual Memories
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