Letter

I was commissioned to make five long and narrow paintings to replace crappy figure drawings done by a former hostess of a restaurant that has since gone out of business. The dimensions were determined by the gaudy frames the restaurateur refused to part with.

I wrote about this at the time but can’t find the newsletter and, thus, don’t even know what year it happened. This is a recurring thing that will only snowball, I know. The past is a looming, out-of-focus slurry. I reach in carefully and hope to pull out the thing I’m looking for, with mixed results more often than not.

The reason I’m recalling that project now is that the one painting that was paid for but never hung—for all I know, it’s gathering cobwebs in a basement to this day—is reproduced in a new print magazine called Tableware in their first issue.

The painting is based on a photo of the open secret door in Punch House, the bar in the basement of Thalia Hall in Pilsen. I think the bar is still going, though the restaurant upstairs, where my paintings hung, is now some seafood joint, I think.

The thing with art is you lose all control of what happens to it upon leaving the studio. It’s best that way so that you’re not married to it and there’s a chance it can lead its own life. But, sometimes, you wish for a better fate than what it winds up with.

In the case of the secret door painting, it was sort of doomed from the start. The guy who paid for it to be created is a really bad guy and his restaurant wasn’t any good. Still, his money was the color of everyone else’s, so I took it.

I’m happy this forgotten painting got remembered, albeit via reproduction. Now it has a chance to live again the way it didn’t the first time out.

Talked about my public domain project with Gil on his Virtual Memories show.

I wrote about Linn Ullmann’s Girl, 1983.

Traveling later this week so my mind is a little unfocused.

I started John Tottenham’s Service. Made me laugh out loud a few times within the first ten pages. Definitely up my alley.

The other night on Tubi, I watched a pretty lousy 1989 horror flick called I, Madman, noteworthy for two things: its star, Jenny Wright—once an up-and-coming actress—long disappeared, something about a bad accident referenced online that I didn’t wanna dig into; and, my friend, Bruce Wagner, in the end credits. Had to rewind to spot the back of his head, as a piano player about to be offed by the titular madman. Full head of hair. That’s why I didn’t recognize him.

A couple days later at the Siskel, I watched a mismatched double-feature of Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest and Kurosawa’s Stray Dog. The former is a loose remake of a different Kurosawa but that’s where the synergies stop. What Lee offers is a flabby gourmet TV movie-of-the-week while Stray Dog is a nearly note-perfect treatise on desperation and bad choices.

I sold an expensive art book on eBay I’ve had for thirty-five years. It will cover the car rental for my trip. A couple more pieces from the Rainbo show sold as well. Then I got a pet-portrait commission.

Sometimes the universe looks out for me. Can’t explain why but I’m grateful.

The guy who runs Newcity sent out a call-for-entries about the Printers Row Lit Fest. I wrote back that I could put something together about the time I was a featured writer along with Gillian Flynn and some others. He bit. Then I tried to write the thing and it was so bitter and shitty that it wasn’t even worth printing in his rag.

Good thing I have a newsletter…

In 2012, the Union League Club held a kick-off event ahead of that year’s book fair. The Trib was still running the show and selected a few promising young-ish and/or debut authors to showcase their forthcoming or recently published books. The University of Chicago Press had published Hack: Stories from a Chicago Cab the previous fall, and this was an opportunity to get the book in front of a few more eyeballs.

I’d never been inside the Union League Club before. Hell, I doubt I’d ever been inside any private club before and few since. A large room held about a dozen hightop tables, each featuring a single book, its author nervously or enthusiastically hovering nearby to answer guest questions and plug their product. I don’t remember what I said or to whom I said it; I do remember drinking a bunch of free wine, waiting for the thing to be over.

Gillian Flynn, who would publish Gone Girl that year, was at one of the other hightops. I didn’t talk to her or any of the other featured writers. Their career fates likely mirrored mine. Though Hack was optioned shortly before publication, fourteen years later no movie or show has been greenlit. I’ve published eight or nine more books, most of which were enjoyed by the few who read them, but not a one has caused the smallest ripple.

Flynn hasn’t published any novels since Gone Girl but she hasn’t needed to. Movies, TV shows, comic books, and untold other media have kept her off the street. 

Do schmooze-fests do writers any good? Did Flynn say something or meet someone at the Union League Club that helped launch her career? I couldn’t tell you. In the years since, I’ve participated in the lit fest several times to sell my books. I’ve never been part of any talks, readings, or get-togethers organized by the fest.

This year I’m part of two off-site readings. Might not be Sharp Objects or Dark Places but it’s not nothing. I’ll take what I can get.

This Sunday, like a dress-rehearsal for Printers Row, I’ll be at Paper Plains Zine Fest in Lawrence, Kansas. Pop by if you’re spending the dregs of summer in the vicinity.

I made pages for the art from three forthcoming books: The Suicide’s Grave, The World is Not Empty Without Reason, and The Sound and the Fury. Not sure yet when the latter two will appear but you can look at pictures while you wait.