I started illustrations for The Jungle. A bird’s eye view of the stockyards with countless cattle corrals and smokestacks in the distance. Portraits of Sinclair and the other contributors. The first of what will likely be many pictures of men posing with ripped-open carcasses. This is the sixth book I’ve undertaken in the public domain series. I wonder how many there will be when I’m done. Thinking about Melville’s The Confidence Man or maybe Tristram Shandy next. But four are already queued up for next year. Who knows? Maybe I should take a break. But what would that even mean? How would I spend the hours, days, and weeks?

The hardcover of Old Style is gone but for a couple copies at Tangible. Should I make a paperback? Would anyone even want it without that foil-stamped blue cover? The thing with each of the four hardcovers I made is that many people who pick them up are disappointed that there’s text and pictures inside. They want them to be blank books with a cool cover that they can fill with their own important thoughts.

I recorded a talk with John Tottenham. As soon as we were done I jumped on the bike and raced downtown to the Siskel to catch Fassbinder’s Fear of Fear. He made it for German TV in 1975 and there’s still not much on TV like it. Right between Polanski’s Repulsion and Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman. So painful, but I couldn’t look away.

Thursday and Friday, K and I started a new Thanksgiving tradition of watching the entire run of Horace and Pete. Hadn’t seen it since the awful year it came out but it’s lost none of its despairing power. Notwithstanding its creator’s fall from grace or the horrific political era it anticipated, as great art is wont to do.

The preorder’s up for Winesburg. Buy early and often.

Trying a different t-shirt company. Here’s the Chicago Sewer shirt.