Year in Review: 2019

This post will serve as a month in review for December as well as a year in review. December is the busiest month of the year at work; coming in early, working late. That said, I still got quite a bit done. I came close to finishing the six page comic. The last page is sketched and inked and nearly colored. I'm also nearly finished with an essay for Jesus the Imagination. I still have time and may finish one of these two items tonight.

Goals for 2020: 

1. Finish new comic project. Comic will be approximately 24 pages. Hope to finish 2 pages a month. That shouldn't be too hard, right?
2. Read 2-3 pages of Finnegans Wake a day and comment on it once a week. Again, not too hard, right?
3. Finish some of the books I started or hoped to read this past year (mostly on economics).


Books read in December:

Francis Spufford, Red Plenty
Matt Stoller, Goliath: The 100 Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy
IA Richards, How to Read a Page
Andrew Bacevitch, America’s War for the Greater Middle East

All four of these books were quite good. Red Plenty is a novel, very funny. Deserves a closer rereading. Goliath was a history of 20C America. Very good. Arguably one of the best books I've read this year. IA Richards' book is a classic and foundational text for New Criticism. It was also a pleasure. I'm using it as a framework for a pictorial lexicon that will work as a framework for my next comic project. The Bacevitch book was also very good. Essential reading.

Here is the list of books I read in 2019:

1. Anand Giridharadas, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World
2. Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom 
3. Jill Lapore, These Truths
4. Rick Perlstein, The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Regan
5. Tony Judt, Thinking the Twentieth Century
6. Tony Judt, Postwar
7. Richard White, The Republic for Which It Stands: the United States During Reconstruction and the Gilded Age 1865 to 1896
8. Mark Blyth, Austerity
9. Paul Cartledge, Democracy: A Life
10. Goodstein, Georg Simmel (started, plan to finish later)
11. Buchanan, Frozen Desire (started, plan to finish later)
12. Erik Loomis, A History of America in Ten Strikes
13. Plato, Apology, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Menexenus, Ion, Gorgias, Protagoras, Meno, Euthydemus, Lesser Hippias, Greater Hippias, The Republic
14. David Graeber, Debt: The First 5000 Years
15. Chris Hedges, America: The Farewell Tour (didn’t finish, too depressing)
16. Alfred McCoy, In the Shadows of the American Century
17. Pierson and Hacker, Winner Take All Politics
18. Kim Stanley Robinson, The Years of Rice and Salt
19. Kim Stanley Robinson, New York 2140
20. Kim Stanley Robinson, Aurora
21. Joanna Russ, We Who Are About To
22. Michel Bernanos, The Other Side of the Mountain
23. Marianne Williamson, A Politics of Love 
24. Iain M. Banks, Player of Games
25. Iain M. Banks, Use of Weapons
26. Shakespeare, Cymbeline
27. Walter Tevis, Mockingbird
28. Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus 
29. Emile Zola, Money
30. John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle
31. Jefferson R. Cowie, Stayin’ Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class
32. Kerascoet, Beauty
33. Kerascoet, Little Miss Don’t Touch Me 
34. Mandeville, Fable of the Bees
35. Daniel Defoe, Roxanna 
36. Elizabeth Anderson, Private Government 
37. Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments 
38. David Harvey, Neoliberalism (started, plan to finish later)
39. Dostoyevsky, The Gambler 
40. David B., Black Paths
41. Dylan Horrocks, Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen
42. Francis Spufford, Red Plenty
43. Matt Stoller, Goliath: The 100 Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy
44. IA Richards, How to Read a Page
45. Andrew Bacevitch, America’s War for the Greater Middle East

Month in Review: November

I was converted August 31st. The change gave me an additional day off each week, sometimes more, because now I am given off holidays in addition to my standard days off, whereas before the holiday WAS my day off. This has been a blessing. Of course, Emily was born a month and a half later and so any free time I hoped to have was largely lost. Still, we are adjusting to these changes. I have still been doing some drawing, but not much reading. I have only two pages left of my short comic, "Simon on the Shores of Ruin." I hope to finish page 5 today and the last page sometime next week. I am not entirely happy with how the colors look and am considering doing another six page comic with water colors. If I'm satisfied with this I will go forward with the longer project.

My reading was scanty. I've been picking away at Dostoyevsky's novella, The Gambler, but still haven't finished it. I've also read about 50 pages of Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments. I read all of Matt Stoller's Goliath and I reread the second half of Jill Lepore's These Truths. I read Dylan Horrock's graphic novel Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen as well. I'm finishing up Francis Spufford's Red Plenty today.

I've set myself the goal of completing one drawing a week, whether it be a page of a comic book or an illustration. I have too many projects that I hope to do, but since my drawing is not quite at the level I want it to be, I don't see a problem with jumping between projects so long as I'm drawing and putting stuff out on a regular basis. One project I want to do is a lexicon of images, inspired by I.A. Richards 100 Most Important Words as found in How to Read a Page. I would make one picture for each of the 100 words. I've already made an outline for my next short comic. It is to be a framing story around which other projects can be inserted. My Simon story, for example, will be one of the stories contained within this collection. Unlike Simon this one will not have a title attached, although I'm already pretty sure what title I will ultimately give it. My larger project will also be a story within this story. My inspiration for this structure is Dickens' Pickwick Papers and Wordsworth's Prelude, but to be honest, there are many other examples I could give, including The 1001 Nights and Don Quixote.  

Month in Review: October

Several big events happened this month. The most significant was the birth of our second daughter, Emily; 11 am, October 14th. Everything around Emily's birth went much smoother than Lily's, from the birth itself to the recovery time in the hospital. She fed and slept easier and cried much less than her big sister. The hospital staff was also much more helpful and less stress inducing. Of course none of this has anything to do with us being much calmer this time around.

Regarding my creative pursuits, I've finished 3 out of 6 pages of my mini comic, Simon on the Shores of Ruin. I'm quite happy with the project and am learning a lot out of the process, which invariably involves a good deal of experimentation. I hope to do a few more short projects after this before finally bringing to completion my larger project. 

I'm happy that I was able to get around to attending MICE (Mass Independent Comic Expo) this year, even if it was with one week old Emily in tow. The convention was very inspiring and I made a few connections that I hope to follow up on, including a comic drawing group that meets in Porter Square.   

I didn't read much this month, nothing on my list from last month and nothing in terms of literature save Defoe's Roxana, which I was already nearly finished with. I did pick away at Dostoyevsky's The Gambler, but haven't made much progress. I read a few graphic novels though. I finally got around to finishing David B.'s  Black Paths, which was very good. Perhaps my favorite book of his so far. I also finished Dylan Horrock's Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen, which was also quite good, although perhaps not as good as his first novel, Hicksville. 

Hopes for November? Hard to say. I definitely want to finish the short comic. I want to finish The Gambler. There are two essays I want to write. As followers of this blog will know, I've been reading a lot of books on history and economics this year, many related to an online course from Brandeis I was following: "Imagining Money." I hope to write a reflection on this course, perhaps in the context of my other reading. I'm interested in a subject I call "thinking in images" and may frame the essay in terms related to that topic. 

The second essay I hope to write is for the journal Jesus the Imagination. The topic for this year's issue is "gardens." I'm considering writing an essay on utopias as garden. The essay would take into account my interest in Angus Fletcher's ideas about "the environment poem" and how it relates to democracy. His book on topology would also be worked in. 

Anything else? Well, for leisure I'll probably read more graphic novels. More David B. Maybe finish up Lewis Trondheim's Donjon. Or tryout a few other random books I've picked up. There are several novels I hope to read in the near future, but not sure if I'll have the time or energy until next year.

Month in Review: September

I was converted to a full-time "regular" position. This means two days off a week and no more mandatory overtime. There have been some family demands that have prevented me from working as much on personal projects as I'd like, but I'm still making progress. I'm very close to begin the next phase of the big project, inking. Because I'm not as comfortable with my inking skills as I'd like to be, I've decided to start a side project as kind of a practice ground. I finished a rough of the first strip this morning. It isn't perfect, but it is serving it's purpose.

As for reading, I didn't do quite as much this month. I'm in the middle of Daniel Defoe's *Roxanna.* I also read a third of Elizabeth Anderson's *Private Government* and even less of Adam Smith's *Theory of Moral Sentiments.* I recently started David Harvey's *Neoliberalism.* Unless I'm mistaken, these are the only books I read all month. Pretty sad, only four and I didn't finish a single one.  I've also been listening to older episodes of the amimetobios class, "Imagining Money." I hope to write up a review of the class soon. I have watched quite a bit of Star Trek TNG and am now on season 4. Here are a few books I hope to read in October:

Dostoyevsky, *The Gambler*
Catherynne M. Valente, *The Orphan's Tales: In the City of Coins and Spice*

Philip Pullman, *The Secret Commonwealth*

Robert Wiebe, *Self-Rule*
Elizabeth Anderson, *Private Government* (finish)
Adam Smith, *A Theory of Moral Sentiments*
David Harvey, *A Brief History of Neoliberalism*

Month in Review: August

The weather was considerably more temperate this month than last. There were only a few 80+ days, most were in the low to mid 70s and there were even a few cool days. It was a welcome reprieve. It's no surprise I was able to read significantly more than last month. Here's the list:

Walter Tevis, Mockingbird

Rick Perlstein, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus 

Emile Zola, Money

John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle

Jefferson R. Cowie, Stayin’ Alive

Kerascoet, Beauty

Kerascoet, Little Miss Don’t Touch Me vol. 1

Mandeville, Fable of the Bees

Still Reading: 

Paul Cartledge, Democracy: A Life

Kent Flannery and Joyce Marcus, The Creation of Inequality: How Our Prehistoric Ancestors Set the Stage for Monarchy, Slavery, and Empire

Progress on my comic book is still chugging along. I’ve now sketched out chapters 1-5 (of 12) and have story outlines for chapters 6-9. I basically know what I want to do with the remaining 3 chapters although I plan to hold off sketching them out until I’ve brought chapters 1-9 to a more finished form. I’ve found that I work best on my days off and that if I’m well rested and have 4-6 hours of free time I can sketch out an entire chapter. That is basically a chapter a week. So, for next month I hope to finish the next 3 chapters. After having sketched them out I will need to work on dialogue and some significant edits and revisions. I’m still debating whether to color them and how. I may try to color them digitally (which I will have to teach myself how to do).  

Dreaming and Reality in The Leftovers

These are rough notes towards what I may later work into a longer essay.

I am in the middle of the final episode of The Leftovers TV series and was struck with an observation. The series has had two opening montages and different opening musical scores for each season with the final season having unique musical scores for each episode (only the final episode reuses the music for season two's opening). It is all popular music as opposed to musical scores, only season one used a musical score. Popular music is interspersed almost at random throughout every episode of season 3. It felt at times either jarring or at least contrary to what seemed the mood of a given scene. Here is my theory for what is going on.

The theme of this series is trauma, trauma of the worst sort. It is an unresolvable trauma and so one that apparently cannot be healed. The trauma only grows worse and less bearable as time passes. The series has many moments where it powerfully conveys this sense to the viewer. Seasons one and two end in riots and chaos, where the reserves of sanity have broken away. We participate in this breaking down.

The series also has three dream episodes, where Kevin Garvey temporarily dies and so is allowed to enter the realm of the afterlife. When Kevin from one of these journeys he's asked if he was afraid. He says that on the contrary, he wasn't afraid but felt more fully alive.

David Lynch, whose films are often said to be dream-like, is a master of creating a sense of dread. His films are suffused with a palpable silence, often in the form of an electrical hum. The feeling his films evoke in me are more powerful than just about all other contemporary films. It is a kind of existential fear. Is this reality?

Watching The Leftovers sometimes I desired something along the Lynchian lines. I wanted to see the film delve deeper into this emotional state of the characters. Instead, there was a Hollywood quality to the show. For every step it advanced towards a depiction of trauma, it moved several steps back. One means of doing this is through the introduction of popular music. Listening to music, whether it is a song we know, or a style of music that summons up memories of other songs, evokes in us our own realities that seem just as real as the sense of dread.

Music has the power to create a real world, a world that is convincingly safe and knowable. It is not the world of the unknown and the unresolved. When Kevin enters his dreams and enacts a role, such as assassin or president, he is, like music, making a narrative of his life. In this kind of created reality he does feel more real.

Month in Review: July

I've been working 6 days a week consistently for most of the year. This month I went two weeks without a day off.  The hottest days of the summer were also in July. We had two periods of exceptionally hot days, where the temperatures once went as high as 110 degrees. The hottest days stretched out for as long as 3-4 days. But even when the heat did slightly break, the temperature remained in the high 80s. I'm writing this in mid-August and can look back in relief. It has been significantly cooler so far this month and even if we do have a few more hot days, I don't expect anything like July. Because of the heat and my general exhaustion I didn't listen to as many audiobooks or do as much reading at home as I had previous months. I mostly went home, had dinner, and watched an episode or two of Star Trek or The Leftovers. On the advice of Ron Drummond I watched the Australian film Walkabout which is referenced in season 3 of the Leftovers.  I read Marianne Williamson's A Politics of Love. I also read another Culture novel, Player of Games, this month. I saw this years Shakespeare in the Boston Common play, Cymbeline twice. Once with Dennis Donohue and later with my brother Joe. As far as the comic goes, I had more good ideas here and there. I picked away at it more. I did have the idea recently that I wanted to set the more modest goal of sketching the whole thing out for this year and then start releasing it next year, editing and revising along the way. I'll release a page (actually two pages-each "page" is a spread) a month.