Letter

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.

Vigil by Stuart Dybek

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.)

Snow is my favorite thing that nature does. These last few weeks, after years of disappointment, of feeling shortchanged and cheated, nature has delivered. Chicago has had the most snowfall in 40 years. There’s a small mountain that tops out halfway up my front window. I’ve shoveled the walk and stairs three or four times, as have my landlords. We dump it into the little yard I look out every day.

Light reflects off the white of snow into my place, changing the cast of colors in the pictures I work on. There are no leaves on the trees streetside, so the light is harder, then when it bounces off snow, there’s a silvery sheen as it filters into the room. the paintings come out gray, cold yellow, few warm tones. Fitting for the season.

I feel at my sharpest in winter. The definite contrast between inside and outside makes my mind work better. The bracing blast of cold air outdoors makes me feel alive. I run hot, so the chill is a relief. The opposite of summer, when I feel stuck in the muck of heat and sweat.

This winter was the ten year anniversary of the huge snowstorm that stranded cars on Lake Shore Drive. I drove my cab through it, not giving up and going home past midnight. We’ve barely had more than a couple inches here and there since. So the mounds, rows, and hills covering the city feel special. I feel fortunate not to have to deal with a car in it. The city could do much better with clearing sidewalks, but other than that I love walking through it.

Snow slows everything down. It allows time to reflect. Hurrying through becomes impossible and that’s a good thing. The effort it requires to navigate restores the proper relationship between me and the environment. It reminds me that I’m small and the world is big, that struggle is necessary to get anywhere.

This cover of Trip Shakespeare’s “Snow Days” might be my favorite thing the Flat Five sing. Go buy their record already!

— I talked shop with Lindsay Hunter and Alex Higley.

They say not to judge a book by its cover, but we all do. And why not? What else do we have to go by? I’d heard about Breece D’J Pancake’s stories for years, but didn’t read one till last week. He’s one of those legendary cult writers, more influential than known, his stature and mystery ballooning after an early suicide.

I avoided reading him all this time because of that name. Seems like a put-on. Turns out only the D’J is made up, the result of a misprint of his two middle names, Dexter John. He didn’t correct it, but kept it instead. I wonder why. Maybe he thought it made him sound more strange or mysterious. What it did for me is to keep me from reading his stories.

Whatever I imagined a person with a phony name would write is not what I found. His sense of place and language is so precise. His people are farmers and miners and deckhands. Their days are spent dreaming of escape, but not having the means or know-how to achieving it. They’re mournful stories, but neither maudlin, nor self-pitying.

He has a story about a hunt, in which parts are told from the animals’ point of view, but he somehow avoids all the landmines this literary trope comes saddled with. No cutesy talking Disney critters, just matter-of-fact rendering of landscape and conditions from ground level.

I’m grateful I got past my prejudice and thank Mr. & Mrs. Pancake for making such a beautiful flapjack, er, writer.