Six years ago I typed out and illustrated Stuart Dybek’s Christmas story, “Vigil” for Chicago Independent Bookstore Day. The idea was to stop into each of the twelve participating stores and collect all the pages of the story into a folder, while shopping.
Having trouble falling asleep a few nights ago, I had the brilliant idea to read the story aloud. Since it’s illustrated, I decided to film it as well. In my memory, it was a short story, but once I turned the camera and mic on and began, I realized the faultiness of my memory. Turns out it takes a long time to read twelve pages. Not that I even considered stopping. I stumbled a bunch times——you’ll hear that, should you make it all the way through——but I made it to the end. Once one of these ideas gets into my head, it’s best to carry it to its terminus, otherwise it eats at me and won’t let me be.
I’ll put some of the original art up for sale in the shop soon.
This was one of my favorite projects.(Typing out and drawing Dybek’s story, that is; the 36-minute video six years after is just the result of fulfilling the requirements of tunnel vision.)