bullet-point the blue sky

[constance]

• Hey! I'm going to New York City! (Guitar across my shoulder like a 30.06.) I'll be there from June 11-15. Where will you be then? If you'll be there too, why don’t we be there together for a while?



• Leory is recovering nicely from his ordeal on Wednesday. (I think I will refer to it from now on as His Ordeal, in manner of Victorian Spinster.) So far, he seems to be not especially different. Still big, still black, still fluffy. Maybe a little quieter, but who knows if that'll last?



• I went end-of-season shopping last night, and bagged $130.00 worth of sweaters for under $20.00, which :D:D:D:D. But also there was this adorable jacket, a cropped swing which is going to be dated instantly in a matte mulberry satin which is going to be terribly impractical for wear, in a size which is going to be (I hope) too big for me by next year anyway. So I didn't buy it even though it was only twelve dollars. But now! Now I am regretting it so heartily that I am considering driving all the way back across town for it -- assuming it’s still there by the end of the night -- and finding occasions to wear it, as in the romance novel I read many years ago in which the heroine's mother wore ancient evening dresses to garden because she loved the dresses and couldn't bear to retire them even though they were hopelessly unstylish. Mulberry satin to work! To the Wendy's drive-through! With my plaid flannel pajama bottoms!
  
  I totally think it would work, right? Would you go back for the jacket or not?



• Then there's this heartbreaking and lovely interview with Lynda Barry. I don't mention enough -- to be fair, I don't think I actually could -- how deeply her comics and to a somewhat lesser extent her novels have affected me, and how profoundly they've influenced the way I write. Not that I write like Lynda Barry, no one does, but if there's anyone, ever, whose entire body of work I wish I could have produced, it's hers. Her writing is funny and harrowing and melancholy and insightful, so personal that often you don't even perceive its universality until you take a breath and step away. If you haven't read her, I recommend starting with Ernie Pook's Comeek, her semi-autobiographical tour de force, produced over three decades. It's episodic and scattershot and plotless and one of the most painful and unflinching and lyrically beautiful accounts of childhood I've ever read.
  
  I've adored her since college, and when I read the article linked above, I was shocked to realize how little love -- never mind the money -- she's received for something so generally huge, and so specifically resonant in my own life. It's kind of jarring to realize that not everyone is reading her the way I read her, that not everyone wants to stand up when she speaks publicly and tell her how important she's been to them over the years.
  
  Because everyone should. Everyone really, really should.

Comments

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

That's kind of a heartbreaking article (much like her work itself). I only followed Ernie Pook's Comeek sporadically but I remember Cruddy scaring the living shit out of me; much like Alison Bechdel, I thought, "What the hell kind of childhood must this woman have had?"

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

I will be in New York. Vist me! Since you have already been to the Tenement Museum, maybe we should go out to Green-wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and look for the graves of Mae West and Harry Houdini.

And definitely go back for the mulberry satin jacket. I can remember things I passed up buying with inifinitely greater regret than things I bought and seldom wore.

I love, love, love Lynda Barry. Part of my connection with her is that we are the same age and grew up on the west coast, so I relate to a lot of the funny details in Ernie Pook's Comeek. My sister and I sometimes consider Marlys and Maybonne as our alter egos. I took her writing course several years ago at the Open Center in New York. It really was wonderful. It didn't make me a novelist (nor did I expect it to) but it sure made me think, and all the other people there were very cool. One thing about Barry is that she is so intimate that it's easy to think of her as a peer. When I said I was going to the workshop, the first thing my girlfriends asked me is what was I going to wear to meet Lynda Barry. That interview was sad, too. I quite buying the Village Voice when they quit running Ernie Pook. I hope she can find a way to keep reaching her audience.

[thalia]

I'll be in NYC the first weekend in May! Which has nothing to do with your trip; I just felt like sharing.

Thanks for the link to the Lynda Barry interview--it was the weekend I was at Escapade, so I didn't see the Trib. "Ernie Pook's Comeek" was an amazing piece of work. I didn't know she wrote novels; I'll have to track them down.

[kickthebeat.livejournal.com]

where were you shopping?! i'd go back for the jacket. this comment is disjointed because i have slept poorly all week and i'm on my way to a nap but oh man, i'm reading that lynda barry article this weekend; she sounds fascinating and i am completely unfamiliar with her. so, dearest heart, thank you for that.


♥ post-ordeal bbd ♥

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

I would go back for the jacket. I had a similar experience a few years ago and now wish I had.

[bethbethbeth.livejournal.com]

I will also be in New York! In fact, I'm there now (or near enough as makes no difference)

*bats eyes at amelia_eve in hopes of getting invite to cemetery field trip with tofty or, you know, dinner*

[somniesperus.livejournal.com]

I would LOVE to hang out with you in NYC. I'm definitely planning to go there sometime this summer after I finish my diss, although I don't know if I'll be able to make it that soon. :\ But at the very least I shall be with you in spirit.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

OMG yes, Lynda Barry. I've had a strip of hers hanging above my desk since, um, 1992 - "I'm digging on the magic of life right now. Right now I'm digging on it digging on it digging on it" - and I was so sad when Ernie Pook's Comeek ended. I saw her leading the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island a few years before that. Lynda Barry!

But it sounds like her career is picking up again, so that's great news.

[hypomnema.livejournal.com]

GET THE JACKET. GO GET IT, RIGHT NOW.

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

All grave diggers welcome on the cemetery trip. That is, if Tofty's in. I know there is lots of other cool stuff in Brooklyn (Transit Museum!) but I spend so much time in NJ that I tend not to cross over on the other side of the island much. Visitors like Tofty are a delightful opportunity to remedy that. Also, if we are going to be down that way anyway, June is a lovely time to take a ride on the Staten Island Ferry and enjoy the waterfront.

[octoberstory.livejournal.com]

She is such a genius. The! Greatest! Of! Marlys! is one of my most important books.

oh, and...

[octoberstory.livejournal.com]

Get the jacket--for sure!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Her work is heartbreaking, absolutely. For me, though, it's the sort of heartbreak that comes packaged with renewal.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I'd love to go grave-hunting! Also, if we're gonna be in Brooklyn, I have to stop at the superhero store, and the Staten Island Ferry sounds like a terrific idea. :D:D:D

I did go back for the jacket! I may never get a chance to wear it the way it was meant to be worn, but at least now if the occasion arises, I WILL BE READY FOR IT.

I should have known I'd be preaching to Lynda Barry's choir, here! I always, unsurprisingly, identified with Arna, but love Marlys and Maybonne so deeply. Were you Maybonne or Marlys?

And I used to have a subscription to the Voice, but let it go when prices went up and I admitted to myself that the only reasons I got it were (1) Georgia Brown's movie reviews and (2) Ernie Pook's Comeek.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

First weekend in May! That's close!

LB's novels are somewhat grimmer than her comics, but definitely worth reading, IMO.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I was shopping at Kohl's, and I did go back for the jacket! It is now hanging in my closet, until I can think of a way to wear it. I'm thinking with jeans and a T-shirt.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I went back for it! You're right -- twelve dollars is little enough to spend as insurance against regret.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Man, you've got your hands full! As much as I'd love to hang with you in New York, I don't see how you can do anything for the next few months. I will always set a place for you at my table, though, for sure. ♥♥♥♥

[tofty.livejournal.com]

"I'm digging on the magic of life right now. Right now I'm digging on it digging on it digging on it"

:D:D:D:D:D

My desert-island comic printout is this one (http://pics.livejournal.com/tofty/pic/0009qp8h); I do not move into a new house without it. I was so thrilled to find that she sells work on ebay. And

I saw her leading the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island

this is exactly the sort of thing I like to imagine her doing every single day.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

IT IS MINE. :D:D:D:D:D

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I knew this, of course. But: yes, yes, yes.

Re: oh, and...

[tofty.livejournal.com]

GOT IT. :D:D:D

Are you around? Ima call you in a few minutes, so I guess I'll find out then.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, I'd love to meet up!

[tofty.livejournal.com]

I think it is seriously awesome that we're arranging a cemetery date. Everything else we might do is just gravy.

[xanthophyllippa.livejournal.com]

YAY! Good work. :D

[amelia-eve.livejournal.com]

Maybonne. I have always been The Big Sister and my sister has always been The Wild One.

And bring the jacket to New York! It would be perfect for the theater -- they are always air-conditioned to a fare-thee-well. I will be quite happy to visit the suerphero store, if you can figure out where it is. Brooklyn can be a hassle to get around, maybe we will take Leit's car if we can all cram in.

[tofty.livejournal.com]

And bring the jacket to New York! It would be perfect for the theater

I'd already been thinking about bringing it, just to wear it on the street, but I like your idea so much better! :D:D:D