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caved

April 19th, 2010

Thank you all for your very helpful suggestions in re my lost iPhone. I couldn’t take it any longer, though. Had to go out to the phone store and replace it. But strangely, it all worked out rather well. This phone, the 3GS, is an upgrade from my old one. It’s faster, it shoots video. And it’s not all scuffed up. And it cost $100 less than the old one did. Somehow I had become “eligible for an upgrade.” That sounded like bizarre corporate double talk. Like, why wouldn’t you be “eligible” to buy a new phone whenever you wanted? But whatever. If I’d known all that, I’d have stolen my own phone. Anyhow. You’ll all be pleased to know that I immediately signed up for MobileMe.

I also posted on Craig’s List about my lost phone. If it turns up I’ll donate it somewhere. It was very moving to see the half dozen or so notices from the other people who lost their iPhones in Manhattan this weekend. I felt such a profound sense of community. There were also two found cats, which struck a hopeful note. And one found phone which was not mine. And one lost phone with a $2000 reward because of the incriminating photos on it of an older man, a younger man, and some kitchen utensils. The older man didn’t want his wife to find it. I couldn’t tell if it was for real or not.

Okay. Going to bed now with my new device. Check out my new holster.

lost

April 18th, 2010

That’s a picture of me sadly searching the internet for clues about what to do when you lose your iPhone. I seem to have left mine in a cab in New York this afternoon. I know it’s very unseemly to come on here and whine about it, but I can’t figure out what to do and maybe you’ll all have some clever ideas. I did call this cool 311 number that NYC has for all kinds of minor city life bureaucratic details like parking rules and recycling schedules. Very smart, snappy people take all your information and for a second you feel hopeful. I had the cab’s medallion number. But they won’t know anything for two days.

Should I call AT&T and cancel the service? This seems smart, but then whoever finds the phone won’t be able to find me. Right? We’ve been calling the phone all day to no avail, and sending texts to it

I’d show you pictures of my ferry ride to Staten Island last night to see Kate Clinton and Lily Tomlin perform. But they’re on my iPhone.

It’s very odd how much a part of myself that thing was. I feel strangely amnestic, not quite sure who or where I am.

sunday morning

April 11th, 2010

Holly and I were having a fight at breakfast—now we can’t remember what about, something having to do with me interfering with her cooking—when Holly said “Look!”

We started all these flats of seeds last weekend. And we’ve been watering them and moving them in and out of the sun. But then we had a very busy couple of days, and stopped paying attention. Now this morning there are all these little green shoots! It was a weird, science-fiction moment, as if they were sprouting instantaneously before our eyes.

Oh, and check this out! I tried to get a picture of the bear which was very delicately cleaning out our bird feeder the other night, but all you can see are her eyes.

5 items

April 7th, 2010

1.

I just emailed my colleague James Sturm to congratulate him on his new book, Market Day. I got an automatic response that read, “I will be off-line from March 19 through June 18. Any e-mail sent during this time will not be read. Apologies for any inconvenience.”

I get auto-responses all the time from people who are on vacation or something. But I’d never seen one that said YOUR EMAIL WILL NOT BE READ. What a thought! Don’t you DIE if you don’t read your email?

Apparently James is quitting the internet for four months, and documenting his experience at Slate.com. (And no, the irony of blogging about being online does not escape him.)

2.

A kind reader, Antje from Berlin, sent in this photo collage she took in a shop on a German island in the Baltic Sea. She calls it “Mo’s Paradise.”

3.

3. When I was in Chicago in February, I did an interview with a smart young woman from a blog called “Gender Across Borders.” See how hard I’m trying to look smart too?

4. You’ve probably all seen this by now, but Martina has breast cancer. Prognosis excellent. But she went four years without a mammogram! Don’t any of you be so lax, okay?

5.

Carey Maloney of the New York Public Library’s LGBT Committee just sent me this photo from the newly renovated St. Agnes branch of the NYPL, with Fun Home on display at the checkout desk with Catcher in the Rye.

Another Use for Bacon

March 29th, 2010

I ran out of suet for the woodpeckers recently, and they started hammering on the house. Holly, who is nothing if not resourceful, came up with the plan to make some out of our old bacon grease. I thought it would be a big mess, but it’s working out pretty well. (Hanging the laundry in the rain is not working out very well at all.)

Take a handful of semisolid hogfat. Mix in some of that banana granola that wasn’t very good. Stick it in the birdfeeder, and presto! Hours of fun for all concerned.

spring tonic

March 17th, 2010

Holly had the bright idea to tap some of our maples. I know in theory of course that sap starts running in the spring, and that if you collect maple sap and boil it down, it makes syrup. I’ve visited sugar houses and seen the whole thing happening. But even so, when I saw sap dripping out of my own trees and bubbling into caramel on my own stove, it was the most staggering miracle.

Later today, after making this video, I went to my acupuncturist. He makes maple syrup every year and we’ve talked about how putting a tap in a tree is kind of like putting an acupuncture needle in someone.

freedom

March 10th, 2010

I’m trying to get back to work after a week of travel. I was at Penn State last Thursday, and look! They have a giant Chas. Addams painting! It’s part of the Fred Waring Collection, which is part of the university library archives. Actually, the FWC was one of the many sponsors of my visit. I dimly recalled Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians as having played some kind of outmoded lawrence-welkish kind of music when I was a child Read the rest of this entry »

Snakesitting

February 25th, 2010

Last night the power was out so Holly and I had to wade through two or three feet of snow to rescue our neighbors’ snake. They were away and the snake needed to be kept warm. Isn’t she sweet?

funnies

February 15th, 2010

Here I am reading the big sprawling old fashioned color comics section from the latest issue of McSweeney’s. McSweeney’s is a literary journal whose physical form morphs peculiarly from issue to issue. One number resembled a stack of junk mail held together with a rubber band. This one takes the shape of a multi-sectioned Sunday newspaper, a vast 320 page broadsheet. Which includes the above funny pages with cartoons by a whole mess of cartoonists, including me.

Here’s the piece I did for it. It’s based on The Game of Life, which I played obsessively for a while as a child, often by myself. (the colors come out really garish here…sorry)

I think if you click on that, it’ll take you to Flickr, where you can see a larger version.

Anyhow, I just wanted to put that up. Now I’m off to give a talk at the University of Chicago. If you’re in the area, come by! I’ve also updated my events page. Maybe I’ll be in your neck of the woods sometime soon. Apparently I have nothing better to do than travel around talking about myself.

comics squared

February 6th, 2010

Look! Tickets just went on sale for Kate Clinton and Lily Tomlin, performing together in New York in April. It should be a pretty amazing show.

Here’s Kate’s site for more info.

Here’s another item. I went out to get the mail yesterday, and there was my Oberlin Alumni magazine. I was idly glancing at the cover as I walked back inside, and something looked oddly familiar about it. It wasn’t just the drawing of the iconic Oberlin library womb chair, or the obstreperous Richardsonian silhouette of Peters Hall visible behind it through the window…no, it was something else.

“Oberlin Writes.” Hmm. Could it be? Indeed, it was. Cartoonist David Heatley drew the cover art for this issue, which includes this very sly allusion to an image from my memoir Fun Home.

I don’t know whether anyone else will notice, but I’m very flattered. The issue is about all the various writers who’ve come out of the college, and it notes the unusually high ratio of cartoonists among them, including Heatley, me, R.O Blechman, and Josh Neufeld. (Also, though not mentioned in the article, David Rees, Barry Deutsch, and Jason Little.)