Letter

I’ve been getting rid of things. Books and records, mostly. When you live in one place awhile you accumulate stuff. Like a squirrel drags flotsam from the outside world to gird for winter, we bring things home to make it feel more like home. But after a time, all this crap starts weighing on the psyche. You come upon a book you bought because of some momentary enthusiasm but have never opened. You have to admit to yourself that you will never open it and that it would have a better chance of being useful elsewhere. So you through it, and dozens of others like it, into a rolling suitcase and carry it down your three flights of stairs, onto the bus, and a couple blocks further, to the non-profit, donation-only bookstore. Then you have an empty suitcase and you feel lighter. At least, that’s what I did. And it felt so good that I kept going.

I started going through the records. The box sets went first. There’s some kind of psychological barrier with playing those. For some reason, the packaging feels to daunting to get into. Opening it to get to the music seems insurmountable. Then, if you start on the first record, there’s an implicit expectation or suggestion that you must then listen to the other three, four, five, or ten. I try to think back to the moment I decided to plunk down money for these doorstop-sized guilt magnets. Like with so many things that can be acquired, the momentary daydream of ownership is much better (and cheaper) than actually going through with it.

Many books and records remind me of particular people or situations I’d rather forget. That’s reason enough to find them new homes. It’s no knock on the quality of the art, but a personal association can so color a thing that it’s impossible to appreciate it. Sometimes it has to do with who made it, other times how I got it. If all I can think of is that person when I read/see/hear it, then it’s time for it to go.

I’ve sold books and records back to stores since I was a kid. There’s a shameful pawnshop aspect to doing this. It’s what junkies and homeless people do. But I’ve worked at making this current culling into a positive experience. After a block of records or books is gone, my place feels roomier. It gets easier to breathe. I don’t feel cheated for only getting ten cents on the dollar at the record store because I know that whoever buys them next will value them more than I have. I’ve never collected as an investment. I have no strategy for the things I buy. Certainly no eye for what they might be worth in the future.

It’s odd to see things I once owned—sometimes for years—for sale in a store. In the case of the LPs, I traded the ones I wanted to get rid of for store credit. So I return to the shop now and then to browse. Some of the my old higher-end records are given pride of place, faced for easy access. Then, the next time, one or another will be gone. Scott, the store’s owner, will tell me who bought it. In that way, the story of these things, which once meant something to me, continue.

There is, of course, an inherent contradiction in this ascetic-like purging. The books and pictures I make myself are adding to the teetering pile of things in the world. I’m making the problem worse no matter what I do. My latest recycling scheme intended to thin out the flatfiles is these bookmarks. It’s satisfying to cut up old pictures and through the unneeded parts in the trash. It’s also satisfying to have people buy them and get them out of my life. In my dream scenario, the only art of my own that would be in my house is whatever I’m working on at the moment.

There’s a good chance that I’ll be moving to a new place in the coming months. This likely prompted this latest reassessment of what to trash and what to keep. The idea of having to deal with a few less boxes is very appealing. But it’s felt good to have a little less. To lightened the load. To literally get rid of baggage. I highly recommend it.

But, if on the contrary, you’re looking to add more to your nest, do I have a deal for you! Help me empty out this place so I can start over in the new one with less.

I feel like I’ve been on a promo tour for a year. Ever since I brought boxes of Music to My Eyes back from Dekker Bindery in Michigan last February and hauled them up my three flights, a chunk of my attention and waking hours has been devoted to planning events, trying to get attention, and, most of all, hand-selling books. There have been many good moments, but overall it’s been an exhausting and often discouraging process. I’m a lousy salesman. I have little faith in the various apparatus of commerce, such as advertising and promotion. I’m a reluctant self-promoter; the bullshit repeats on me even as it escapes my mouth. And yet, there’s no one else who wants the job. So what else am I to do?

It all came to a crashing halt last Thursday at Uncharted Books. I’d asked my friend, the historian Paul Durica, to do the last of my scheduled talks to promote the publication of Soviet Stamps. The secret back room of the shop (accessible by pulling a particular book in a book case) was set up with chairs, but no one showed up to fill them. I’d cancelled events where no one showed up before, but decided to have the talk anyway. Have a listen, there’s some good stuff there. It’s a shame there wasn’t anyone to hear it as it happened. After we were done, Paul and I went to Simon’s for a drink. So the evening wasn’t a complete waste.

I have nothing else scheduled until a couple art shows late-summer. I can look back on the Soviet Stamps events over the last month and a half and be satisfied with the different public conversations I had. My Virtual Memories talk with Gil Roth went live last week (we taped it in New York City on January 3rd). Christian TeBordo interviewed me at the Dial on January 9th, Kyle Beachy did it at City Lit on January 30th, and Ben Terrall followed on February 5th at the Green Arcade in San Francisco. I also appeared on Nick Digilio’s WGN radio show. Each conversation was different and forced me to think on my feet. It’s a testament to each of these people that there were so few questions repeated. I’m grateful to know some smart people who took the time to read my work and think about it and show up to help get it out into the world.

I managed to sell some books. But now I can go back to doing what I’m best suited for: painting and writing.

I’ll continue to carry copies of books everywhere with me. Until I figure out some other way to sell them, this will be it. It’s really been this way from the start. Even with Hack, I hand-sold more copies than any virtual or brick-and-mortar outlet. On my low level of recognition, this is the only way to make any money off books. My next two books will likely be self-published. I’ll have some time to think out some new strategies in the meantime.

Work continues on Old Style, my bar book. I’d say I’m about halfway there. I’m finishing up design work on an an LP for a friend in New Mexico. I’ll share it with you when he gives the thumbs up. It came out pretty well. 

I’d meant to visit State Bird Provisions for years, but I’m not in San Francisco too often and reservations are hard to get. So when I booked a return appearance at The Green Arcade to promote Soviet Stamps, I made a reservation right after finding a flight. I’d know Stu and Nicole in Chicago. I even briefly worked with Nicole at Red Hen Bread. I’d hear about their restaurant from time to time and make a mental note, then forget about it.

On the flight west I started J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine. It’s another bird-themed thing I’ve heard about forever and finally got to. I don’t care about birds one way or another, nor for nature as such, but the way Baker writes about obsessively observing, following, and trying to understand this one animal is not like anything I’ve read before. Few writers could make sitting in a windswept, gray countryside for months sounds so exciting.

Deborah met me at the airport, then we went for lunch and a walk. San Francisco has transformed in recent years from a fabled counter-culture mecca to a creepy tech-bro dystopian nightmare. We walked the loop of Sales Force Park—an elevated, artificial green space above a bus depot. Fountains bubbled to announce arriving buses as young tech drones strolled about on their lunch breaks. It reminded me of the near-future of Her; everything is tasteful and muted, a melding of technological and seemingly artisanal, but all slightly off. It’s as if a computer rendering program generated all the ingredients of a place people might spend leisure time in, then combined it all and 3D-printed it into reality.

We arrived at the bookstore a little after 6pm, greeted Ben, then left to get coffee. The place he recommended was closed so we looked up another place a few blocks away. When we asked the girl at the counter for coffee, she didn’t seem to know exactly what were asking for. Looking at the menu, we realized the place was some sort of space-age teahouse. At the very bottom-right there was something coffee-based. It came cold but the girl said it could be warmed up. There were many different kitchen implements and devices behind the counter. It looked more like an experimental test-kitchen than a cafe. The name was Urban Renewal or Urban Waste or something. We left with our coffee-adjacent concoctions and walked back to the bookshop.

Ben was nervous about nobody showing up, but a bunch of his friends filtered in and we had a fun, rambling conversation about my book and our long friendship. It makes things easy when you know a guy over thirty years. Patrick, the owner, asked where we were eating and when Deborah said State Bird he seemed jealous. We said our goodbyes and walked the half hour to the restaurant. 

I didn’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t the lively, hectic scene we walked into. State Bird is an endless dance of staff bringing by small plates dim sum style. Each thing is either a combination of ingredients I would’ve never thought of, or a rejiggering of some staple in an elevated, refined style. But there’s no pretension in presentation. It’s a fun place to be in a way fine-dining often isn’t. I guess I expected it to be more serious. Stu stopped by and chatted a few minutes. It’s nice to see someone I knew long ago doing so well. He sent out a bunch of free plates. We were treated like VIPs. Between the amazing food, the good conversation, and a bottle of something called Vranac from the former Yugoslavia, it was a memorable meal.

The next day I hung out with Ben for awhile, then headed to the airport. The flight back made a brief layover in Las Vegas. I deplaned and bought a corndog from Nathan’s, for reasons I can’t reconstruct. it must’ve been the blinking, flashing one-armed bandits lining the airport hallways that spurred that questionable choice.

Back on the plane, my new neighbor was a bruiser of a woman who took up all the airspace at shoulder height, so I spent the three-hour flight in a half-twisted lean into the aisle. Nevertheless I read a bunch more of The Peregrine, which took me far away from crummy, human-filled sardine silo to which I was confined.

Great art will do that. Even if it’s about birds. Which, as I’d mentioned before, I don’t give a flying fuck about.