It’s got a cover, ISBN, and will be sent to the printer in the next couple weeks so I figure I may as well put up the pre-order page to make my art survey book feel real. So, please put down some money if you’d like to be the first kid on your block to have a copy.

The thing about revisiting all this past is that, hopefully, after the book is out, I’ll be more free of it. I’m not a nostalgic person but plunging into all this looking back has made me appreciate the work a little more than I had before. That’s a good thing. I just want to make sure I don’t keep living there.

A survey should lead to wiping the slate clean a bit.

At the same time, it’s not like the goal is to return to a child-like state. I didn’t enjoy it much the first time around. There’s no unlearning or unknowing to be had. I don’t want to become any stupider than I already am.

I want whatever I make next to reflect experience but not be enslaved by it. We’ll see if that’s possible. Most artists’ late periods aren’t much good.

A good side-effect of being consumed by putting this art book to bed is I forgot about the looming horror of EXPO Chicago. By the time I realized it was coming up on the weekend my half-hearted attempts to score press credentials came to nothing. So I’m not going. It now costs $45 to get in which is whatever it’s called when something is way beyond absurd. Too busy actually making art (which is a good problem to have).

My goal this week is to send the book to the printer by Wednesday because I’m running the bookstore solo all day Thursday, Friday, and Saturday so Joe can get some rest before building ten new bookcases next door. We’re moving into a space double the size of what we have currently. He’s super excited. This is what keeps him young: the prospect of the next thing.

I should try to learn from that but all I can see for now is schlepping box after box through the door that connects the two storefronts. It will be an epic process. By the time it’s done, I will likely forget that I ever even worked on anything else.

Finished Georges Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual. Didn’t want it to end. It will go on the same shelf as William Gaddis’s JR, Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel, and Cormac McCarthy’s Suttree as books I will always return to.

Mallory and I discussed Relic.

Listening to Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee on repeat. It’s not on any of the streamers; just Lee’s site. This a musician you should support.

Watch this short doc on Lynda Barry’s classroom. She’s a real-life superhero.