notebook / @tww

(Re)Watching (for the nth time):

(Every bit as brilliant as I remember - and then some. Still one of my favorite films of all time, a gift that rewards with something new every time.)

In which Kirby discovers the joys of shredding paper towels. I’m only amazed that it took this long.

Another addition to the Blu-library.

Research for the next Socialized Recluse interview…

Insulin has arrived: another (increased) payment in my lifetime installment plan/ransom to not die duly paid.

A surge of activity on all fronts this morning but with it an omnipresent back-of-mind worry that, since my breakfast blood sugar was so high (adjustments to new medication always throw it the first week – yesterday, I was too low to run, which means today I’m operating higher than normal which means, yeah… on and on and–), any ideas or things I’ve chosen to explore are the byproduct of an out-of-sorts mind…

Then again, I tend to doubt everything until I confirm it the next day.

(I find it amusing that one of the side effects of anti-depressants are “grandiose ideas”: I’m a writer – or at least a reasonable facsimile of one: grandiose ideas are part and parcel of the calling, an occasionally useful side effect. The question: how can I tell the difference between one side effect or another?)

But, the good news: I have plenty of questions. Also: more insulin is scheduled to arrive later this morning, my subscription service to life continuing.

After storms last night, a heat advisory today; life under the delta-dome.

“We’re having weather, Dad.”

Watching the storm.

I’m going to own 55 copies of MULHOLLAND DRIVE before my expiration date: Citizen Kane to Lead Criterion’s First 4K Slate, via The Criterion Collection.

A must-read: Author Megan Abbott on Ballet and Womanhood, via The Cut.

“According to sources, Brubaker and Epting showed up in tuxedos to the premiere party for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie directly based on their comics, only to find that they weren’t on the list. Brubaker texted Sebastian Stan, the actor who played his and Epting’s character, Bucky Barnes, and he let them in”:Marvel and DC face backlash over pay: ‘They sent a thank you note and $5,000 – the movie made $1bn’, via The Guardian.

A snort or a jab? Scientist debate potential benefits of intranasal Covid-19 vaccines, via Stat.

The age of the à la carte internet, via Axios.

INTERVIEW: Scott Snyder says “None of us are there to just take the money and hurt comics”, via The Beat.

Chromatics Announce Split After 20 Years Together, via The Quietus.

Installation at Tokyo’s National Art Center Made From Brochures of Pandemic-Related Cancelled Events, via Spoon & Tamago.

EarBliss, 11aug2021: DISSENT, CHAPTER 1-10, by Heinrich Köbberling, Laurel Halo & Moritz Von Oswald Trio.

It’s almost as if Kirby wants to test the patience instilled from a yoga session by helping me roll up the mat…

From the Parenthetical Archives: my February SOCIALIZED RECLUSE conversation with Alison Gaylin, featuring a reading from her upcoming novel, THE COLLECTIVE (November can’t get here soon enough).

The pervasive creative well-being resulting from the choice to not waste one’s breath or time.

Watching:

The first issue of BATMAN ‘89 more than rewarded my anticipation: a wonderful return to a long-missed world.

Note to self: the benefits of finally letting yourself work on that long-gestating comics project are legion.

It would seem that the key to writing and publishing daily things is for me to say I’m done writing and publishing daily things.

Reading:

In the midst of scouring the multide of streaming services seeking that 15 minute thing (how this is not a thing in the streaming era is beyond me) to watch between the main show (the MAKING THE CUT finale – I can see why Andrea won , easily; hers a wholly deserved win at that – Gary’s still my man, though) and the bed, landed on Criterion Channel and a Wong Kar Wai video Q&A from the WORLD OF WONG KAR WAI set (which I , of course, own, given my pandemic-era need to obtain box sets of every director I love and never get around to watching them, only on streaming, natch) and one in which WKW was Q’ed “When do you know you’re finished on with project” (A Q from, I believe, the cinematographer who worked with WKW on THE GRANDMASTER) to which WKW A’ed with something to the effect of “I know I’m finished when there are no more questions to answer.”

This crystalized my problem-thinking on the novella and why my move to kill it yesterday was right: I didn’t have any questions to answer (beyond “Can I do this?” to which the answer is, probably – but that’s not enough for me now) or, if I did, they were answered within in the space of a small paragraph. The middle board is empty – but filling up; in search of: those questions I have yet to think of.

Storm clouds are gathering and the day awaits.

Abbott Labs to Pay $160 Mln Over Kickbacks, False Diabetes Claims to Medicare, via Medscape.

The First Museum Dedicated to Mary Shelley & Her Literary Creation, Frankenstein, Opens in Bath, England, via Open Culture.

This mysterious tunnel in Japan is like none you’ve ever seen before, via SoraNews24.

Reconciliation could create a new kind of climate job, via The Verge.

Italian police arrest woman reputed to be Naples crime boss, via The Washington Post.

1,000-year-old remains in Finland may be non-binary iron age leader, via The Guardian

The Lair of the White Worm (1979), via Pulp Covers.

I’ve been hoping to find a way to add this table - my grandmother’s - to my office. Finally found the way to make it fit. Good memories.

Latest game in Kirby’s oeuvre is “I know you’re looking for that dish towel but you have to figure out where I hid it for the nth time today” or Towel Hunt, with Kirby as that dog from Duck Hunt, cackling at my ineptitude.