Letter

This one begins from a box-set of fifteen French-language instruction 45s. They’re in a crate of records my landlords are tossing. Their place——upstairs from mine——is about to become a demolition, then construction zone. It’s been in the works for years; now it’s happening.

I expect to spend a lot of time elsewhere in the coming weeks.

First thing I do is toss the records. I’m not interested in brushing up on my French; the Russian’s keeping me plenty busy these days. What I liked was the box and the grey record sleeves. I knew when I saw them that I could make something out of them.

I’d like to teach myself some rudimentary bookbinding for these collage books, but in the meantime, a container like this box will do nicely.

The sources, as ever, are old sketchbooks, homework assignments, aging construction paper, and scavenged neglected books. I use several airplane drawings I made when I was about fifteen.

I bought a bunch of new tagger markers at the art store recently. I never got into graffiti and doubt I ever will, but these markers are amazing. The marks will cover any irregular surface. I love the occasional drips too.

I made fifteen two-sided pictures. Here’s the whole thing. The built-in advantage of this format is that the viewer can rearrange the order any way they please. Like a choose-your-own-adventure minus much narrative. My crummy homemade version of Chris Ware’s Building Stories.

A couple months ago, I sold the first of my six collage books. All but the Mersanes Benz one are available. No reasonable (or unreasonable) offer refused.

Drop me a line if you’re interested.

Two full days selling books at Printers Row left me with one powerful insight: children born in the last ten years have to be told what matches are. Matches are no longer part of these almost-people’s reality. Is this good or bad? Does it matter?

I’ve been saying for years there will come a time when a kid won’t know how to read a clock face. I think that has been widespread for a while now. It seems absurd to someone my age, but give me a kerosene lamp or ask me to shoe a horse, and I’ll be just as lost as any of these children I’m disappointed and puzzled by. Who says what cultural artifact or technology should stay and which should go? In a few years, seeing a movie in a theater will likely be as quaint as a magic lantern show seems now. Hopefully, we’ll stop insisting on owning our own private motor vehicles. Perhaps, and this is pie-in-the-sky, I know, but people will be provided a basic income instead having to demean themselves at obsolete professions for little compensation. Don’t begrudge me my silly dreams.

Child after child came up to my table and grabbed an Old Style or Music to My Eyes matchbook. They knew enough to take one and wanted to because they’re colorful and small, like candy in a bowl in a waiting room. But what are they? Their parents tried to explain. I’d helpfully ask them not to start any fires. Not sure whether they knew I was joking. The grownups who picked them up were charmed and got that faraway nostalgic glint in their eyes. They had no idea anybody even made matches any more. I told them I had to order them all the way from New Jersey. One older lady was so overwhelmed by the matchbooks, the fact I’d written, illustrated, designed, and self-published the books I was selling, she kept congratulating me. I thanked her several times, then kept the smile frozen on my mug until her granddaughters led her away.

I guess, since I don’t have any distribution channels for these books, aside from my bicycle and the ever-changing moods of USPS, I should participate in more fairs. I did really well at Printers Row. Much better than I expected to. I’ll have to break down and get a burner smartphone to run credit card sales, because sending the poor people to my webstore and watching them struggle to input all the info in the burning late-summer sun is painful for all concerned. So be it. My barber told me the other day she has an old iPhone gathering dust in her car. That might work.

In the meantime, I’ll keep confusing children with my matchbooks.

(I illustrated an essay about chronic illness, tattoos, and the Soviet immigrant experience and added new bookmarks to my shop.)

Thalia Zedek Band at the Hideout, 9/16/21

Eleventh Dream Day at the Storehouse in Michigan, 9/18/21

Back when I wrote book reviews for the Chicago Tribune, every now and again my efforts were unappreciated and rejected. Without exception this happened with negative reviews. It always made me wonder which side of the journalistic/promotional fence my editor had more allegiance to.

This was six or seven (nine?) years ago. The book-review landscape was in decline, but not the bleak tundra it is today. Maybe that editor——who has since been let go as have most employees of that publication, when it was sold to whatever hedge-fund/junk peddler/bottom-feeder runs it now——knew that the way things were going, our job was just to fluff out publishers’ press releases and be happy to cash our checks.

I’m dumb that way. When I review a book, I read the whole damn thing and try to convey what it did for me, imagine what some other reader could get from it. I don’t care about pull-quotes or making sure my review’s publication coincides with the book’s release date. I’m not paid by publicists or authors, so I don’t do their bidding. But, like I said, I’m dumb and don’t know how to play the game.

Anyways, what prompted this brilliant think-piece is that I was cleaning out a folder of old writing and happened upon the killed review of Testing the Current. I don’t recall the precise reasoning my dearly departed editor gave for not running it, but it had something to with not seeing the point of publishing a negative review of a New York Review of Books reissue. I guess since that respected entity deemed the book a lost classic, we had no right to disagree. Maybe they sent her a free tote bag and she felt guilty not reciprocating graciously. Who knows?

Maybe with the dearth of outlets willing to even give lip service to books, the time of the enthusiastic pan has passed. Does this mean we only mention art we endorse now? Trust me, no corporation in their right mind would want me as their brand ambassador or junior shill.

Perhaps my work here is done.