Friday Robots

These robots can be found near the Columbia River Gorge. They are related to robots from a few weeks ago. Those were city robots, these are country robots.

If you squint you can see wind turbines in the background. Friday Robots are in love with wind turbines; they think the turbines are soooo cute.

Harry Potter reaches middle age

Some people think that after the sad, sad events in his books, young Harry lives a happy life of bliss. I'm here to break the bad news. After having to watch almost all his friends and family die at the hands of the noseless menace Voldemort, you'd think nothing worse could happen to Harry. Far from living a charmed life, however, Harry's future is one of pain, heartbreak, and ultimately desolation.

Here are a few chapters from the rest of Harry Potter's life:

Harry Potter and the Mid-Life Crisis. Harry realizes he is no longer attractive, with his beer gut, his bizarrely-shaped bald patch, and his halitosis. He undergoes radical plastic surgery and comes out looking like an anime character.

Harry Potter and the Ingrown Toenail. It gets infected. Really gross, but for some reason Harry talks about it nonstop whenever guests are over.

Harry Potter and the Colonoscopy. Every man, wizard or not, needs one of these.

Harry Potter and the Werewoman. Harry thinks he's found a man who turns into a woman every full moon. "This is great!" Harry thinks. "I've got a new best friend AND mistress." Turns out the werewoman is just a transvestite.

Spoiler alert! For those of you who want to peer deep into Harry's future, here is what you can expect (hint: sorrow).

Harry Potter Sits on a Park Bench Wondering Where the Time Went and, as the Young People Jog By with Their Blackberries and Whatnot, He Looks Down at the Expectant Pigeons and Begins to Weep.



*Still not ready for the weepfest at the multiplex? Further Potter reading can be found here:
Harry Potter by Charles Bukowski
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

nora ephron is this generation’s woody guthrie

The New Yorker has done it again. Normally known for its snarky pieces about actors and celebrities, it defied expectation and published a gushing article about Nora Ephron. Written by, apparently, a schoolgirl with a crush, the article blows Ephron’s influence and “talent” totally out of proportion.

Judging by the tone of the article, I’m going to assume the New Yorker believes Ephron to be this generation’s Woody Guthrie. Why don’t we see how their lives stack up?

Hardships

Woody Guthrie’s mother had Huntington’s Disease, a horrific neurological affliction. According to NINDS, Huntington’s “genetically programmed degeneration of brain cells, called neurons, in certain areas of the brain. This degeneration causes uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual faculties, and emotional disturbance.” Even today, there is no cure. Woody inherited this disease. The specter of his early death hung over him his entire life.

Nora Ephron’s first husband had an affair when she was seven months pregnant with their child! It’s true. She wrote a book about it, which then became a movie starring Jack Nicholson. That must have been tough, watching her own marriage disintegrate right before her eyes in a movie theater. Maybe it wasn’t as tough because she made a million dollars off of it.

“If you want to be successful and you are a woman, you have to understand that there’s all kinds of horrible stuff that comes with it, and you simply cannot do anything about it but move on,” said Ephron, sitting in her Upper East Side apartment. Through the window you could see the sun gloriously setting on the Chrysler Building.

Ephron directed the abysmal bomb Bewitched, which lost the studio 20 million dollars, domestically. I don’t think any of Woody’s recordings ever made or lost that much, so he couldn’t even imagine the hand-wringing Sony Pictures executives went through.

Family

Woody grew up just in time for the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. After his father was badly burned and had to go live with his sister, his sister was burned to death in a tragic accident. (The Guthrie’s first house was also destroyed by fire.) In spite of, or perhaps because of, these events, Woody remained cheerful and went on to write literally thousands of songs.

Nora Ephron grew up in a house “full of apples and peaches and milk” in Beverly Hills, California. It must have been awful. Can you imagine a house stuffed with apples, peaches, and milk year-round? Unable to breathe, unable to move. The daughter of two successful screenwriters, she also grew up to be a screenwriter. To date, none of her immediate family members have been consumed by flame.

Writing Voice

Woody wrote a staggering number of songs--many still unrecorded. “This Land is Your Land” may be the greatest song ever written about the United States of America. He wrote ballads and stories, peace songs and war songs, children’s songs and protest songs. His music captures America in a time of great revival. They serve as both time capsule and timeless chorus.

Nora Ephron wrote the memoir Heartburn about her divorce from Carl Bernstein. Bernstein, as you may recall, was also a writer of some note. She also wrote: “The amount of maintenance involving hair is genuinely overwhelming.”

Friends

Woody was a friend to many contemporary folk musicians. Pete Seeger and he played together often. Leadbelly was a frequent collaborator. When Woody was in the hospital dying of Huntington’s, Bob Dylan made a pilgrimage to visit his hero.

Nora Ephron vacations on David Geffen’s yacht! She rents her house in East Hampton to Heather Mills for $200,000 a month!

Success

In May 1941, the Bonneville Power Authority hired Woody to write a few songs about a dam they were building. They figured the folk singer would lend credibility and good PR to the project. Today, the Bonneville Dam continues to power Portland, Oregon. Woody was paid the princely sum of $250 for 28 days’ work. In that time, he spoke with workers and traveled all around the dam site. He wrote 26 songs in that time, some of them the best of his career.

Norah Ephron wrote and directed Sleepless in Seattle, which only partly takes place in the Pacific Northwest. It raked in $126,533,006 domestically and will play on cable TV nonstop until we’re all dead. It is not as good as another Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie, but I digress.
Don’t bother turning on the radio to hear “Roll Columbia Roll,” but I bet if you turn on TBS right now You’ve Got Mail is playing. Thanks, New Yorker, for giving Nora Ephron the artistic credibility she so desperately needed.

not last thoughts on bill watterson

As a kid, I cut out Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strips, laminated them, and posted them on the walls of my room. It was homemade wallpaper. I'd like to think some of that genius seeped into my brain while I slept and made me a better cartoonist. It also establishes, once and for all, my Calvin and Hobbes geek cred.

Calvin and Hobbes' strength is in its complete insularity: you knew Calvin was not going to make terrible jokes about the current news cycle, you'd never see Hobbes endorsing life insurance or cat food. Bill ensured that Calvin and Hobbes would remain firmly in our imagination and never on some billboard along I-10.

The downside of this was Bill's withdrawal from public life. Aside from the occasional intrepid journalist traveling to Watterson's abode outside Cleveland, Ohio, or a surprising book review or introduction written by the man himself, I slowly began to understand that there would be no follow-up to Calvin and Hobbes. Bill had given us everything he had for 10 years and that, he decided, was plenty.

The problem with being a genius who revitalizes an art form is, people don't forget you. Bill may have thought that dropping out of the public eye for a decade and a half would make him disappear, that we'd all become so entranced with our iphones that we would forget that comic strip about a boy and his tiger. Well, if he wanted us to forget, he shouldn't have made Calvin and Hobbes so damn good.

Seriously, forgetting about Bill Watterson is like forgetting about Bob Dylan. "Remember that guy?" "Who?" "You know, that guy who made like FIFTEEN CLASSIC ALBUMS IN A ROW?" You see my point.

My friend Alec (to whom I now owe my life) alerted me to Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, by Nevin Martell. It will be published in October. In the introductory chapter, sent to me free(!) by the author, Nevin maps out his own desire to speak with that most elusive of creatures, the retired cartoonist. Like a man stalking a tiger in the jungle, Nevin is well aware of the dangers but plunges on nevertheless. He breathlessly narrates his hopes (will he secure an interview with Bill Watterson?) and fears (Bill Watterson will hate him forever for writing this book).

I cannot wait for this book to be released. My initial apprehension that the book would be trashy, or tell-all, or in some way denigrate Bill's work, was allayed by the tone of the chapter. This guy loves Calvin and Hobbes as much as I do, and he has nothing but respect for its author. Even if Nevin doesn't get the golden interview, we still get to hear from cartoonists and friends (and cartoonist-friends) of the main man. And that ain't bad.

Now we just have to hold our collective breath to see whether Looking for Calvin and Hobbes is as illuminating as promised. I have high hopes. Even after a decade of comics, Bill Watterson has much to teach us.

Friday Robots

Borrowed from the cover of The Crowded Universe, a book I have not read but that looked interesting (especially the cover).

quote of the day

While financial incentives are a very complicated business, two simple points hold true. First, even without payment, some folk will always record music, write software, make their feature films, do their own investigative journalism, occasionally even test their own drugs. You couldn't stop them if you tried. Second, we will all be better off with more, not fewer, professional careers available for knowledge producers. Not having to stick with a day job allows creative workers to be more creative and productive, for the benefit of all.

--Peter Eckersley, "Knowledge wants to be free too", New Scientist

Portfolio: watercolor collage

Watercolor and photograph collage, stitched together in Photoshop. The landscape is New Mexican.