Letter

I decided to quit Google. It’s a thing I’ve been thinking about doing for a year or two, so last weekend I finally pulled the trigger. The reasons are many, but basically boil down to a need to cut down on pointless internet use and a resentment at the all-pervasiveness and ubiquity of one company’s presence every time I turn on my computer. I’m still thinking through what I’ve done and whether there was any point to it, but for the moment, it feels like the right move.

What made me hesitate in all the time I’ve been considering cutting Google out of my life is the hours of mind-numbing work it would take. I’ve used Gmail for well over ten years and have stored thousands of files in Google Drive for many, as well. Going through thousands of email, image, sound, and word files to figure out what to keep, where to put it, and what to cull was a daunting task. But once I started—like binge-watching some TV show I just discovered—I couldn’t stop.

The first thing was to find a new email service. I chose Proton Mail after reading some articles rating various options. I had to pay a subscription fee to get some features I wanted, but I have no problem paying for products. One of the devastating mistakes of the internet is the idea that anything on it is free. One way or another we all pay—be it in dollars or by sprinting furiously on someone else’s hamster wheel for their research and benefit, nothing on our screens is truly free. Nor should it be. People deserve to be compensate for their labor. Once you know your habits are being tracked for marketing or other purposes, it seems like a no-brainer to offer money rather than data for the products you like. I have no doubt Proton Mail isn’t run by saints, but their smaller size and forthright demand for payment for enhanced email features feels a lot more attractive than Gmail’s allegedly free model.

The second step was finding a browser and search engine to replace Chrome and Google. I went with Firefox and DuckDuckGo because they take steps not to track people’s searches. I’m sure it’s not foolproof and I’m not worried about companies finding out anything embarrassing or incriminating from what I look for online, but I’m sick and tired of Google searches which constantly morph from keywords and subjects I use. The feeling of constantly having my sleeve tugged to buy this or that has gotten very old.

The third step was to move all my cloud-stored files from Drive to Dropbox. That took about seven hours, after which my poor laptop seemed to be gasping to catch its breath. Then I deleted about 60 gigabytes of data from Drive. It felt good. Like emptying out a room I no longer wanted to go into. I could now shut the door.

Step four took the longest. I had to go through thousands of saved email to see what to save and what to cast aside. This took days. I had over seven hundred messages just devoted to my John Lurie debacle six years back (I’ll share that ridiculous story with you after he’s dead.) Other folders were full of letters from exes, long-forgotten, often unrealized art projects, and much correspondence with people I could no longer remember. I made word files for ones I thought could be useful for future work and dumped the rest. After the selecting was done, I went to the All Mail tab, hit Select All, and sent over 25,000 email to the digital graveyard, where, hopefully, only tech wizards with time on their hands can ever get to it again. Whether that’s so or not, I felt a weight lifted knowing that I would never have to consider wading through it all again.

Much like the time four years ago when I quit social media and smartphones, there were people in my life questioning what I was doing. I explained the best I could, but it boils down to simplifying my life and purging unhealthy and unnecessary habits. Chief among them, the use of Google’s search engine. In the absence of the dopamine rush of Likes and Follows, I’d sometime use Google for similar narcissistic bumps of self-approval. You can get an up-to-the-hour update of what people are looking for that relates to you. You can keep refreshing these searches as the day goes on and wondering one thing climbs the rankings, while another disappears altogether. For compulsive types like me it’s irresistible, but also completely insane making. Getting rid of the option to even look was the only way I could stop this bad habit. Sure, I can look myself up on DuckDuckGo, but it doesn’t feel the same. And because I’m self-conscious about it, I don’t do it nearly as often. I’m hoping I wean myself of the habit altogether except for practical research work reasons. We’ll see.

These last few days have felt like I moved to a new neighborhood. Quiet and unfamiliar but one I think I’ll like over the long haul.

—Wanna read an article about the shitty small press which put out my second book?

— I Don’t Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians is about the Odessa Massacre perpetrated by Romania against that city’s Jews, but it’s as powerful an evocation of a country’s refusal to accept its historical culpability as I can recall seeing in a long time. It nails the way people twist facts to suit their own ends in a way that should give pause to anyone living in the US these days. Go see it if you can.

Frank asked me to make a flyer for his band. He’s a painter, so I was kind of surprised. When I wondered about it, he said, “What am I gonna do, paint a tree?” (he’s paints landscapes), so I agreed to do it. I’ve haven’t seen or heard them yet, but I’ve known Frank nearly thirty years, so I’m happy to do a thing if he asks.

I used to see his bands and long-gone venues like Czar Bar when were still in school. The current band has only been together a year or two, but he played with the lead guy’s brother for many years. For a time, half that band lived upstairs from Frank and I in Wicker Park. One morning, after they’d kept me up all night endlessly practicing some Elton John song, I slipped a note under their door saying I’d burn down their apartment with the entire studio’s worth of instruments in it if they played at that hour again. They’d listen for me in the stairwell thereafter, making sure we didn’t cross paths.

But that was a long time ago. We’re all old and more or less level-headed. If this new bands show wasn’t the same night as my opening at the Rainbo, I’d definitely be there. If I haven’t drank too much or over-socialized, I may still trek up to the Montrose Saloon to check them out.

I asked to sell books and art at Jackalope Coffee House’s 7th Anniversary Block Party before looking at the forecast. I roasted in the 90-something-plus horror of it for five hours before packing up my wares ahead of a much needed storm. Strangely enough, I actually made some money. I sold a couple paintings done at the coffeeshop to a couple who’d moved away from the neighborhood and were happy for a keepsake.

Early in the afternoon, the DJ put on something off PiL’s great “Flowers of Romance” record and Martin Atkins—who played a large chunk of its music and lives in Bridgeport—wandered out of the coffeeshop, lured by the familiar sounds. He shook hands with the surprised Dj and I thanked him for making that record, which I’d been listening to since high school. If there were any air in the air, it would have been a truly beautiful moment. But even in the sweltering sauna of Chicago in July, I felt lucky to’ve witnessed it.

I also drew two pet portraits. Both, strangely enough, for local journalists. Megan, who writes for the Trib, told me she knew my work, after sending some photos of her dog, Sammy. And Sam used to live in my building for a couple years. I didn’t catch the name of his two dogs, who were back in his hometown with his parents, but it was good to see him in Bridgeport again.

Tuesday, on a whim, I went to see This Is Not This Heat at Thalia Hall. I’m kind of allergic to reunion shows, but this was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. There was hardly a wasted moment as the six people on stage made 40-year-old tunes sound completely of the moment. It also helped that I ran into Tim and Jenny, Mark, Brian, Skyler, and Gregg. It felt like a really special night, almost a pilgrimage. Listening to this music I recognized echoes of so many later bands I’ve loved. It was elemental, like having the source for a bunch of tributaries revealed in high resolution right in front of my face.

I would’ve kicked myself if I’d missed it. 

A few months ago, I got a curious email from Tel Aviv. A professor there wanted to come to Chicago to meet me. Seems she’d been tasked with writing a chapter on migrant writing for Cambridge University’s forthcoming history of Chicago literature and had chosen my work to be part of it. I asked her whether she knew my extended family, as that is my only slight connection to Israel, but she assured me she did not. I had gotten on her radar some other way.‌
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‌I met Sonia and her companion, Daniel, at Wormhole Coffee in Wicker Park. To be more precise, I met them a couple storefronts down. I recognized them instantly–hippieish, attractive couple about my age looking about a bit distractedly. We went inside and had a wide-ranging and completely enjoyable talk. Turns out this pair are inveterate travelers, splitting time between Israel, India, and other points on the globe.‌
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‌It’s a strange feeling for me to be observed; that’s usually my job. But I could feel Sonia taking my measure. It wasn’t unpleasant, only unfamiliar. After all, she’d traveled many miles to observe me in my natural habitat. I hope it was worth the trip. They asked for sightseeing recommendations and I did my best, though I’m hardly a tour guide. They promised to see me a few days later at my library talk.‌
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‌There wasn’t a single homeless person in the auditorium of the Harold Washington Library. There were very few people of any kind. But Cait was there, and so were Sonia and Daniel. An interesting guy named Terry too. He made a comment about moments in my book being like water flowing, which has stayed with me. The talk went as well as it could have and a majority of the tiny crowd bought books. Sonia had me sign one for her uncle on the West Coast, while Daniel asked me to sign one for a friend in India, his next stop.‌
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‌I’m curious what Sonia will write but will have to wait until 2021, when the book comes out. I hope she and Daniel had a good time in town. It was an unexpected pleasure to have met them.‌
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‌ —The portrait above has nothing to do with Sonia and Daniel. It is my third painting of Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson, founders of the Little Review. It is a replacement for a picture that sold at the Dial. Also, I now have a page on an elegant newish site called Neutral Spaces with links to some of my writing.‌

‌—Here’s a sketch of Joe Swanberg interviewing Marc Maron after a screening of Maron’s funny new movie, Sword of Trust, at the Music Box Theatre.‌

—RIP Leon Kossoff. He was a super important painter to me and many of my friends in art school. I cut out a magazine reproduction of Here Comes the Diesel and tacked it up in at least three apartments over about a decade. Only Auerbach and Hockney are left now from that great generation of British painters.