JanerBlog

Late Night with Scott McCloud

Yesterday, I drove back out to EMU and spoke to Richard Rubenfeld's grad students. It's something I've done in years past, and every year, I've had a really great time. On this trip, though, I was joined by Scott McCloud and Jim Ottaviani, and what fun it was! It's always a joy to work with Jim; he's so darn smart and eloquent, I usually feel like a gibbering idiot by comparison, but he's quite gracious and for some reason keeps agreeing to appear in public with me. Scott's in a whole class by himself, and to say that he's one of my real heroes is putting it rather mildly. Getting to talk with him for three hours, to a room full of artists, was an incredible experience. I had my MD player running, and so I should have most of it available as downloadable MP3s in the next day or two. I brought three discs on which to record, and the third one punked out on me, so I got about 3/4s of the talk.

We covered quite a bit of ground, and since most of the grad students had already read Scott's book Understanding Comics, they had a pretty decent grasp of what comics were, even if only a handful of them had read comics in earnest before taking Richard's class. This left us free to discuss comics at a more esoteric level than I usually get -- since I'm frequently talking about the absolute basics of comics -- this was also a treat. We compared comics to a lot of different forms of art, talked about the difference between porn and erotica, discussed the possibilites of the infinite canvas, and generally convinced a dozen people to go read more comics. It was really awesome. One guy even told me that my comic was the first one that he'd read as an adult, and one of the attendees, who was pretty skeptical of comics as an art form at the beginning of the class, came out a convert by the end, and one of the turning points for her was getting to see my book -- and how different it was from the rest. That was a real thrill.

Scott, it goes without saying, was an incredibly gracious and intellectual speaker. I could literally sit at his knee and listen to him talk for hours. In many respects, he really is an Engineer, in that he is capable of taking this really really complex idea, "How Comics Work" -- and distilling it down into easily comprehensible concepts. He's made it possible to talk in concrete terms about this big, amorphous, diverse, complex (not to mention sometimes competely crazy) art form that so many of us know and love. It doesn't really matter if you agree with all of his conclusions or personal philosophies, because the most important thing he's done by far is start the discussion, and give us the basic terminology and tools we need to be able to discuss the subject intelligently.

At one point during dinner, Scott mentioned how geeked he was to meet his hero, James Burke ("He kissed my daughter!"), the host of the TV show "Connections," and of course that made so much sense. James Burke was able to take these huge ideas about geography and geology and biology and a zillion other sciences and show a huge audience how they all interlocked and made the world we live in. Scott's doing that with comics, and it's really amazing to hear him speak.

After the lecture, Jim and Scott and I went out to dinner, and after going passed a few favorite Ypsi restaurants that were sadly closed (no DalaT or La Fiesta for us, boo!) we wound up over at the new La Shish that's in the old Bill Knapp's on Carpenter. Man, what a job they've done on that old place! It's a really great restaurant now, completely unrecognizable from the previous chain restaurant, and you should all totally go eat there. </plug>

It was a really great time, and I got to hear about Jim's new project idea, which is a pretty radical departure from what he's done previously, but sounds like a phenomenal story and one that will translate incredibly well into a comic, especially in the format he's considering. With his knack for getting talented artists to illustrate his stories, I'm certain it'll be gorgeous. Scott filled me in on the guys behind the Flight Anthologies and Pants Press, each of which have recently cracked my head open like an egg. Amazing stuff, and you should all totally go read about them. I'll wait. Back? OK, good. The sheer amount of talent coalescing in Portland these days is unbelievable -- we're all pretty sure there's something in the water -- and Scott had the skinny on most of them.

We then got to go have dessert at Jim's house, delicious scones and tea and icecream served by the lovely and talented Kat, and more conversation and sound effects and other geekly delights. Such an evening. I am well and truly blessed.

Good Lord, this is terrifying.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1501AP_Coral_Death.html

Various crunchy geekeries, short format.

The Farmer's Market opens in one month! EEE!

The Food Co-Op has started carrying Amish-country low-temperature pasturized, non-homogenized, GMO, rGBH and pesticide-free whole milk! Let the cheesemaking begin! YAY!

One of my growlights broke free of its duct-taping and burned two of my seedlings to death. AIEE!

Paul pointed out that I should use something to support them -- not plastic (heat melt) -- not screen (too dark) -- not glass (too breaky) -- and the old cookie cooling racks I inheirited from Paul's grandma fit like they were made for the purpose. SCORE!

Neither my first nor second plantings of Speckled Roman tomatoes, Nausturtiums, or Cayenne peppers have emerged. BOO!

This weekend, I get to rake off, grid off and spring-plant the garden with peas, beets, extra-early spinach and lettuces. HOORAY!

Finally remembered to send stripey eggplant seeds to Seedbuddy Karen in Connecticut. DOH!

Tonight I'm getting a tour of Neighbor Nora's vermicomposting hotel. SQUIRMY!

Rah Rah Hurons, Hats Off to You

Eastern Echo writer Michael Greenlee does some spot-on, excellent investigative reporting about my Alma Mater. They've closed the honors dorms, Jones/Goddard, where I spent many a year of my life. If I had a dollar for every hour I lost running Caucus or Moria down in the old VAX lab, I'd be a rich woman. It also appears that 28% of last year's freshman didn't return; they either dropped out or transferred elsewhere. Hard times, indeed.

Homeless in Kalamazoo

Just a few blocks from our house, in Downtown Kalamazoo, is a McDonald's. It's constantly full of the homeless and transient. But how do you get treated if you're homeless, versus well-to-do? A writer for local alternative paper The Kalamazoo Voice takes a look, and compares with two other nearby McDonald's.

Interesting. I wish more local journalists were willing to do stuff like this. While I don't always agree with the behavior of some of the city's homeless population, everyone -- and I do mean everyone -- deserves to be treated like a human being.

Squeee!

Sixty days from now, I'll be in Alaska.

EEEEEEEEE!

We now return you to your regular workday.

Bill Moyers Rules

By way of old buddy Mark Bernstein:

These charlatans and demagogues know that by controlling a society’s most emotionally-laden symbols, they can control America, too. They must be challenged. Davidson Loehr reminds us that holding preachers and politicians to a higher standard than they want to serve has marked the entire history of both religion and politics. It is the conflict between the religion of the priests – ancient and modern – and the religion of the prophets.

It is the vast difference between the religion about Jesus and the religion of Jesus.

Yes, the religion of Jesus. It was in the name of Jesus that a Methodist ship caulker named Edward Rogers crusaded across New England for an eight-hour work day. It was in the name of Jesus that Francis William rose up against the sweatshop. It was in the name of Jesus that Dorothy Day marched alongside auto workers in Michigan, brewery workers in New York, and marble cutters in Vermont. It was in the name of Jesus that E.B. McKinney and Owen Whitfield stood against a Mississippi oligarchy that held sharecroppers in servitude. It was in the name of Jesus that the young priest John Ryan – ten years before the New Deal – crusaded for child labor laws, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, and decent housing for the poor. And it was in the name of Jesus that Martin Luther King Jr. went to Memphis to march with sanitation workers who were asking only for a living wage.

This is the heresy of our time – to wrestle with the gods who guard the boundaries of this great nation’s promise, and to confront the medicine men in the woods, twirling their bullroarers to keep us in fear and trembling. For the greatest heretic of all is Jesus of Nazareth, who drove the money changers from the temple in Jerusalem as we must now drive the money changers from the temples of democracy.

Rest of the article is here.

Go. Read. Brilliant.

Can I get an 'Amen'?

Jane Smiley (no, not me. her actual name is Jane Smiley.) writes in The Huffington Post:

Bruce Bartlett, The Cato Institute, Andrew Sullivan, George Packer, William F. Buckley, Sandra Day O'Connor, Republican voters in Indiana and all the rest of you newly-minted dissenters from Bush's faith-based reality seem, right now, to be glorying in your outrage, which is always a pleasure and feels, at the time, as if it is having an effect, but those of us who have been anti-Bush from day 1 (defined as the day after the stolen 2000 election) have a few pointers for you that should make your transition more realistic.

**

Your ideas and your policies have promoted selfishness, greed, short-term solutions, bullying, and pain for others. You have looked in the faces of children and denied the existence of a "common good". You have disdained and denied the idea of "altruism". At one time, our bureaucracy was full of people who had gone into government service or scientific research for altruistic reasons--I knew, because I knew some of them. You have driven them out and replaced them with vindictive ignoramuses. You have lied over and over about your motives, for example, making laws that hurt people and calling it "originalist interpretations of the Constitution" (conveniently ignoring the Ninth Amendment). You have increased the powers of corporations at the expense of every other sector in the nation and actively defied any sort of regulation that would require these corporations to treat our world with care and respect. You have made economic growth your deity, and in doing so, you have accelerated the power of the corporations to destroy the atmosphere, the oceans, the ice caps, the rainforests, and the climate. You have produced CEOs in charge of lots of resources and lots of people who have no more sense of reciprocity or connection or responsibility than George W. Bush.

Now you are fleeing him, but it's only because he's got the earmarks of a loser. Your problem is that you don't know why he's losing. You think he's made mistakes. But no. He's losing because the ideas that you taught him and demonstrated for him are bad ideas, self-destructive ideas, and even suicidal ideas. And they are immoral ideas. You should be ashamed of yourselves because not only have your ideas not worked to make the world a better place, they were inhumane and cruel to begin with, and they have served to cultivate and excuse the inhumane and cruel character traits of those who profess them.

Go. Read. Brilliant.

Iron Age

While I was sick this last week, I dragged out an old VHS tapeI'd made of Nova's Secrets of Lost Empires, the infamous Trebuchet episode. You know, the one where they fling pianos for fun? Anyway, on the end of the tape were three out of the four episodes of the BBC's Surviving the Iron Age, which was kind of like Survivor, except no one got voted off, and "winning" involved not getting dysentery.

I watched these all the other night, and was struck by the hippie-dippie neopagan faux-druid, Chris Park. I looked him up and found that he's done all these amazing things. He mostly does educational talks to schools and also does custom-built wicker art and installations (from a huge turf hedge-maze to a tiny one-man wattle-and-daub hut he bulit on a school's grounds as part of a full-semester study unit) as well as festival appearances. Man, that's awesome. He also did a one-man peace journey involving making a genuine stone-age horsehide coracle and sailing it nearly 200 miles down the Thames over the course of three months.

Damn. I wish I could do stuff like that. I know it's the reverse of my nice quiet studious little life, but ah for living closer to the earth, moving with the rhythms of the seasons, and screwing the day job mentality.

*sigh*

No Whey!

Cheese Wastes turned into Ethanol.

Gorrammit! Two in one week!

Well, sheeyit, pilgrim. In one week, Body Shop sells out to animal-testing assholes L'Oreal, and now Tom's of Maine, one of my favorite companies, sells out to Colgate-Palmolive.

Pretty soon, making my own soap isn't going to be kooky, it's going to be the only way I can get hold of natural product that isn't manufactured by some corporate evil animal-testing giant. I can't even relish my Ben and Jerry's anymore; now owned by Unilever, they have all sorts of weirdness in their icecreams now, including Splenda.

Poopie.

... I'm getting better! I feel happy! Sooo Happy! Hap*thud*

No posts yesterday because I had a relapse back into the creeping crud that I've been fighting for a week. I was feeling really great on Monday and was all happy and chirpy, but then I decided it'd be a great idea to hang out in a smoky Ypsilanti diner (YAY ABE'S YAY) until midnight chatting with awesome comics creators, then drive home. Well, okay, it was a great idea, but not one terribly condusive to getting over the flu.

So I spent most of yesterday in a coughy headachey phlegmy funk. Fun, eh? The only good part of it was rediscovering, yet again, that I have the bestest husband EVER. I got a bowl full of oranges and grapefruit fizzies in my batman cup and vitamin C drops and chicken soup to make me feel all better, and tucked in to bed early to sleep it off.

Ladies, he's the best, and he's all mine all mine all mine. Wouldn't even trade him for Alton Brown.

Nerdyboys: Part Deux

So the fifth guy I wanted to include in my Nerdyboys Icon of Lurve was David Suzuki, and he only got excluded because I was afraid no one besides me and Dagny would know who he was.

However, today I found out that David, whom I've had a sexy nerd-brain-nature-dude crush on since our family first started picking up grainy CBC transmissions in 1980, is even sexier than I could have ever dreamed. Hai Chihuahua! Dude's sixty-three and he looks that good?!

Allow me to repeat: I Heart Nerdyboys. But again, for the record: I loved David first for his big, sexy brain. And his treehugging. And his awesome Narrator Voice. And that hair.

From Steph: Hope for the Future

Yesterday the Boy [Steph's nephew] and I left the house to go run some errands. We got into the car, and the radio was on and playing some sort of pop tune. We weren't even out of the driveway when the Boy asks from the back seat:

"Can we please listen to some real music? You know, tunes?"

Good onya, Steph. Raisin' him right, you are.

And I'm Proud to Be an American...

... because there are still people like Jim MacDonald here. Way to go, Jim.

Mandatory Green Day Joke

A Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman die in a plane crash and when they get to heaven, God apologizes to them for the untimely ending to their lives and grants them each one wish for something that will help those they left behind.

The Scotsman goes first and says "Lord, Scotland has never won a world cup soccer match, and I'd like to see them do it next time aroond."

God promises it will be done and asks the Englishman what he wants. "I would like to see a great wall built around England so that no one could ever threaten our country again," he said. "Consider it done," God said, and turned to the Irishman.

"Tell me more about this wall," the Irishman asked God. "Well," said God, "it's 150 meters tall , with three concentric rings of native stone blocks five meters high and three meters thick, sealed with weatherproofed concrete."

The Irishman nodded and said "fill it with water."

Ypsilanti Courier

I can't seem to find it on their website, but it appears that there's going to be a rather nice, lengthy article on me, Colleen Doran, Layla Lawlor and Laurenn McCubbin in the Ypsilanti Courier. Lemme know if it comes out! I'm on the other side of the state and can't get a paper copy easily.

Nerdyboys

Finally made my first LiveJournal Icon. Enjoy.

Little in the middle but she got much back

The only irritating thing about losing weight is that I always lose it from the last place I gained it. Meaning that, my middle and tummy are finally approaching slender (hello, iliac crest! So that's where I left you!) but my arse is still enormous and my saddlebags protruberant. The upshot of this is that my backside appears twice as big as it did before I started dieting, and any jeans that still fit my drumsticks are all gappy around the middle.

Oh well, at least I'll still appeal to Sir Mix A Lot. Maybe I'll have Tish show me some bellydancing moves when she comes out next week. If I got it, I might as well learn how to wiggle it.

"The only moral abortion is my abortion"

In light of the South Dakota insanity, and the news that Mississippi is also planning on banning abortion, here's an interesting article - "When the Anti-Choice Choose".

Dat's 'Parashujaner.' Dat means 'Janer Wid an Axe.'

I chopped up the last bit of firewood last night. I'm actually getting a bit more proficient with my aim, and most of the time I was splitting logs in only one or two blows. For those of you who know me, you will probably concur that this is a dangerous thing. Not for me, of course, but for anyone else who gets too close.

It's a balmy 55 degrees today, and croci and snowdrops are popping up everywhere. Of course, it's supposed to drop thirty degrees overnight and start snowing. Big surprise.

More DIY Sustainability

Granted, you have to be willing to poop in a bucket, but if you're up for that, these guys rock. Be sure to check out their handbuilt adobe oven.

Couldn't do it.

I couldn't. I returned one pair of the new shoes today. They were full price, and I don't need them, and I found a nearly identical pair on Ebay for $20.

I put the difference on the small mortgage.

May the fashion gods have mercy on me, and the frugality goddess smile.

Progress...

I can finally get into size fourteen clothes without the use of either winches or pulleys. This is a Good Thing ^TM

Phooey!

Well, I suspected as much, but it looks like I won't be shopping at Old Navy anymore. Back to Value Village for me. Just as well; of the clothes I bought on my buying spree, 70% were either from hippy dippy shops (where the store owner actually goes round to the villages and works out deals with local craftspeople) or used clothing stores. Meh. The big box thing is skin-crawly to me anyway.

Sprout!

Eee hee hee. The seeds have sprouted. They are so much with the cute.

The "Red Sails" lettuce from Tish was the first to wake up; it was 1/2" above the soil before any of the others were even out of their seed coats. Today, everybody's germinated except the eight peppers, which are sleeping late, apparrently.

In other news, I've come up with a master plan for the seed pots. Once they've gotten too tall for their little propigation dome, I'll move them to styrofoam egg cartons in the aquarium. That'll keep them segregated enough to prevent their roots from conjoining, and will keep me from having to cut the existing tray down to make it fit. Yay.

They're so darn cute at this age: tiny wee leaves that remind me despite the snow outside, spring's a-comin'.

Comics God inna House

Venerable comics genius Scott McCloud is going to be speaking at EMU on March 20th. All of you guys should totally go.

Sandal Nirvana Part Two...

Well, I did it. I went to the other local shoe store to try on the two kinds of Dansko sandals I'd been eyeballing. I just couldn't get used to the 'rocker' sole on the newer kind, so I settled on the Maxine. The good news? Discontinued brand, 40% off, last pair was in my size. Unbelievable. They're not perfect -- they're a smidge too chunky and not really sleek enough to be perfectly dressy, but they're really nice to walk in and seem darn near indestructable.

Yay!

Seeds

I started my seeds last night! they're upstairs in their wee little propagation dome with the heat mat. They're so cute.

I'm thinking, however, of hacking apart the little setup I currently have, in order to make it fit into an aquarium that I bought for the purpose of keeping the cats out of my seedlings. Then I won't have to transplant them into pots, I can just keep them in the little jiffy peatpot holder even after they've grown nice and tall. A new dome's only $10, so even if I biff it up, it's not a tragic loss.

Also, sadly, I just found out some disturbing news about Seeds Of Change, one of my favorite organic catalogues, and the folks from whom I bought the majority of my seeds this year. They're owned by M&M Mars. How creepy is that? No wonder they have the money to print their seed packets in full glossy color.

Sandal Nirvana

I'm obsessed with black strappy sandals.

No, really.

You see, about six years ago, I bought The Perfect Sandal. They were black leather, with lots of nice 1/2" crisscrossing straps that were the perfect blend of casual and formal; you could wear them with absolutely anything. They had a flat front sole and a 1 1/2 inch heel, so they were the perfect height. The heel was spongy rubber, and the insole had a ton of padding, so you could walk in them all day long and never, ever have sore feet. Think art fair. Think several days of art fair. Walking and walking and walking, and never getting sore feet. Best part? They were $35 at Target. These were, in my opinion, Sandal Nirvana.

I wore them until they self-destructed. I patched them, re-patched them, sewed broken straps, sharpie-markered the faded insoles and JB Welded the heels until they were ready for a Viking Burial. This was three long years ago.

Since then, I have been on a quest to replace The Perfect Sandal. I have never found them. I obsess over them. I have sworn that if I ever find The Perfect Sandal, I will buy at least two pair, and if they're under $100, three pair. These three brands are the closest I can come to The Perfect Sandal, but they're still flawed: Not enough strap, too chunky a sole, too expensive.

This is why I tend to shy away from fashion, and purchase only from old, established brands. I have a deep seated love for Birk Arizonas, and I can get them anywhere, anytime. They're my fallback sandal, but dammit, you can't wear them with a formal outfit. Sandal Nirvana still eludes me. Will I ever find you, O Perfect Sandal?

For those of you I've told:

The thing they carved out of him was, in fact, a mole. An ugly thing, but just a mole, and nothing else.

Let the rejoicing begin!

Spare Oom in my War Drobe

I came upon an unexpected windfall the other day. Won't say where from, but it was enough that, after tithing a nice fat donation to Planned Parenthood, I decided to go out and buy some new clothes.

My wardrobe's been getting closer to desperate lately, as I'm at the top end of my usual weight, and most of my pants don't currently fit well. I tried to avoid buying new pants to encourage myself to lose the weight faster -- I have tons of nice pants one size smaller than my current weight, see -- but then I spilled tea in the lap of one pair, and the other is just too raggedy. And my shoes are starting to get to that "unnacceptable for work" stage, as well, and finding shoes at the thrift store and Ebay is so time-consuming as to be almost not worth the monetary savings.

So, on my lunch hour, I went out and bought two new pairs of shoes, a brown and a black. Same basic style of largely unadorned slip-on loafer that I hope will go with everything, business and casual. I like 'em.

After work, Paul and I hit Old Navy and Kohls, and I found Jeans That Fit, as well as a few desperately needed flattering blouses in nice springy colors. These are overdue because I'm doing some spring library talks, and need something decent to wear. I'm hoping that the lilac, sea green and light blue will translate well into summer, because they're a long way away from my usual intense color palate. I also went through my dresser and closet and threw out eveything that didn't fit or hadn't been worn in ages, and will compile a box for donations shortly. It was a good feeling to get rid of some of the skaggy old stuff I'd been holding on to for no real reason.

Still, I spent more money on shoes and clothes in one day than I have in the last calendar year. It was heady and scary and I'm feeling a bit of buyer's remorse.