The Atlas is Out

A copy of the 3-D World Tour & Atlas showed up in the mail today!

It looks so good. I'm quite proud to have written it, though Andrea (the editor) gave me a lot of direction.

Retro Photos

Three years ago, about this time (September 9th, to be precise), I fled Uganda.

There was romance involved, or rather a sudden and severe lack of it, and the only answer was to get far, far away. But I wasn't ready to skulk home yet with my tail between my legs, so I went to Namibia to lick my wounds on my own terms.

Of course, you don't need me to tell you that. I was already blogging at this point. If you go to the 2005 entries and read from the beginning, you'll get the whole story. Or almost the whole story. If you are good with subtext, you can read the unwritten stuff as well.

I put up some Uganda photos a while back on Facebook. Have a look.

The Restless Gene

"I have a theory about dopamine and boredom," said an older man in the audience to my right.

Huh? That wasn't a question.

"If I'm not doing something extreme, I become depressed. I have low dopamine. Extreme sports or adventures raise my dopamine level."

I don't know one biochemical from another, but the basic idea...yes, it has merit. I was feeling it today, walking to the train feeling so lackadaisical from routine and work. Do I self-medicate through novelty? Travel, balloon-riding, bag-sewing...when I don't find novelty or innovation, I fall into a kind of mild despair.

Kelly and I were at the Rubin Museum of Art, in the Q&A part of writer/photographer Alison Wright's promotional reading of her new book, Learning to Breathe. I bought the book but haven't read it yet. She'd written an amazing article a few years ago, which became the basis for this book.

Alison Wright was in a horrific bus accident while traveling in Laos some years back. She was so close to dying. Here, don't let me retell it. Just go read the articles.

When the event ended, I asked the dopamine-guy to explain further. To my disappointment, he was all about extreme sports. Kayaking, parachuting, biking in Manhattan. That's not what I do. Same idea, though.

And then I read this passage in God's Middle Finger, by Richard Grant. "Yes," I thought. "That's exactly how I would phrase it. I'm not proud of it, but that fits."

But I was prepared to stake my personal safety for a different reward: the heightened awareness, the thrill of the unfamiliar and the melting away of boredom that comes with going to dangerous places where I didn't belong. And I was beginning to wonder if this too was a vice.

Home Sweet Home

I came across these photos of my old building, from when I lived on Avenue B in the 90s.

I didn't remember it looking quite like this, but I guess there's a reason it was so cheap back in the day.

Happy Hippo Day

Today is the third anniversary of the day I was chased by a hippo on the banks of the Nile.

But I couldn't have known that would happen when I snapped this photo on Disney's Small World ride in Anaheim in March of 2000.

More Silliness from the Mid-80s

Along the same lines as yesterday's post...


We then played Johnny Cash singing "Dirty Old Egg-Sucking Dog."

Snippets of the Mid-80s

I've become part of a huge Facebook community of former Antioch students. I was skeptical at first; what is the point in nostalgia? Was I not alienated enough the first time 'round? (We're getting there...slowly...to my background and how bizarre urban nightmares in my teenage years influenced my strengths and weaknesses. Give me time. It's a long story and I've only been blogging for three years.)

But being a part of a like-minded community has brought me more than nostaligia. It's got familiarity, sure, but there are certain commonalities among us all. I've reconnected with my tribe, in all its freaky and dysfunctional glory.

A guy named Mike—who for reasons that escaped me both then and now was called Miami Mike—reminded me of my college radio days. Lisa Whipple reminded me of how she would come into the studio and take the calls that came in from a prisoner. I was also reminded of a sad kind-of corporate takeover, where the healthy community station was ripped from local control and turned into what was essentially a satellite feed station. Local news became NPR. All things change.

I have a handful of air-check cassettes from those days. (Eww, how old is that fingernail clipping in the cassette case?) I wince when I listen to them, and that which was already embarrassing has suffered terribly in sound quality from the ravages of time. I wasn't a bad radio host at all. It's just that what was innovative in southwestern Ohio in 1986 is pedestrian now.

Here's a snippet of me on the news. Almost all recordings of me anchoring All Things Considered were on reel-to-reel tapes, which I threw away during the last move. I had only this one local story on cassette. I hear awkwardness in my voice.

Speaking of awkwardness, this is even worse! And who the hell cares if something is on yellow vinyl? I hear bits of a Nick Hornby character in 1986-Marie.

Then I stumbled over this gem.

It's a clip from Chuck King's interview with a few of the Dead Kennedys. (Chuck was from Dayton and had a show the night before mine.) They played at Antioch...this somehow happened because I attended a meeting of local music supporters in Dayton, and the grand poobah (then) of Dayton music was looking for a venue for his pals the Dead Kennedys. I didn't really think Community Government would take the offer seriously, but one of them (was his name Jon?) took the ball and ran all the way to the theater building for the most legendary show the region would see in...well, who knows. A long time.

This Little Piggy Was Geographically Challenged

I was in Brooklyn Bridge Park last week when I spotted these strange pets out for a walk.




And then I looked up and realized Marc was right when he asked "Why is Brooklyn Bridge Park right by the Manhattan Bridge?"

Brand New Bag

Steve told me that he's reading a book about brain plasticity. And that I might be forgetting things due to too much multi-tasking, and that we need to learn new things all the time to keep our brains working right.

Which isn't exactly news. We all know that. But what I didn't realize was that my definition of learning was skewed.

"The book says that if you read a book about something new, it's not enough. Because you already know how to read. You're not challenging yourself, though you might gain some useful information."

Ah.

"What can I do to energize my brain?" I thought. I know I could use it. I always feel so alive when I'm solving problems on the road. I've been trying to find new things to do at home, but it's harder than it looks to find things that teach totally new skills.

Plus, I can't commit to much right now. I'm already enrolled in a writing workshop (two nights a week) and teaching coloring (one night a week). So anything I try that is new has to be a one-shot deal. Like what? A one-day intensive class, maybe. Climb a small mountain or hike a trail. Tube the Delaware. Learn to use my watercolors for something besides comic books.

Or sew a bag! Flirt-Brooklyn had a workshop yesterday. So off I went to learn a totally new skill (okay, not TOTALLY new—I learned to sew a button in 7th grade home ec) and get a new bag out of it.

Since it was a holiday, I took Henry the Ford Taurus along. We cruised right into the Holland Tunnel (on my E-Z Pass, of course), straight through Manhattan, and right over the Brooklyn Bridge. I parked around the corner from the class 20 minutes after I left my house.

A nice woman named Patti patiently walked me through the bag-making process. Pin the pattern. Cut the fabric for the inside and outside. Stiffen it up with an iron-on inner lining. Sew. Backstitch. Sew some more. Turn a corner. Sew again. Add a strap. Add the tie for closing the bag. Turn it all outside in. Iron.

I couldn't believe it when I stepped back and looked at my work.

It didn't suck. I'd sewn a bag.

I didn't even have to turn Henry on after that. We flew home, right over the East River and then the Hudson, coasting on air and pride.

Happy Ramadan

Here's my company's Ramadan card:



Great work by the artists. Unfortunately, when I look at it, I see that someone screwed something up while inputting it into the mass e-mailing software. It appears that it was made into too small a web file—or maybe someone made it low res and then tried to make it high res again—and this damaged the appearance. But not many people will notice that. The colorist sure will.

Here are the steps involved in producing comic book art.

First there are pencils, a kind of blueprint. June Brigman drew this.



Then the pencils are inked. Roy Richardson works as a team with June, and he inks her work almost all the time.



Then Monica Kubina colored the image. She colored the yellow background, but I put in a mask so that the designer could change it to whatever color he needed for his card. The masked out part shows here as black on the far left, and I dropped a blue on a layer to show the designer how he could change the colors.



And that's it! That's how a comic is made. Except for the writing, scripting, lettering, compositing, marketing, and all that sort of stuff.

Did anyone notice that Noora is holding my personal Ramadan lantern?