Good morning. Hello. How are you? #564
Arcologies, Sigur Ros, mental illness, book covers, more tantrums
Good morning! Hello. How are you? Everything good today? This week going okay? It is Wednesday. The sun is shining. One of my desktops today has a lovely Paolo Soleri illustration on it. That guy is awesome. Never noticed this arcology city has “mining operations” on it. That’s interesting. I became obsessed with Soleri because his Arcology: The City in the Image of Man was the largest book ast the Noel Wein Fairbanks North Star Borough Library. As in, physically the largest book. Original edition, big and red. Just mammoth. I have the re-print, but it’s only a 1/2 scale book. Still huge, but not as huge.
Also going on this morning, I’m listening to the new Vinyl Me Please edition of Sigur Rós’s third album, Ágætis byrjun, with it’s big hit song “Svefn-g-englar” and it is really taking me back to when they came through Boston, like, three times in a couple of years: once (or twice) to Avalon (or whatever it was called then) and once to the Berklee Performing Arts Center and once to the Opera House and, man, they were so good back then, and this song just made me cry and I haven’t really thought about them in years.
That back-of-Avalon phase, where I’d watch every show from the back bar, before the remodel. ‘Twas so great.
I watched The Devil and Daniel Johnston yesterday and it was way, way more harrowing than I was expecting. I was not unaware of Daniel Johnston’s mental illness, but man, I did not realize the depth and severity of it. How he almost killed himself and his father when he threw the keys out the window of a flying plane, and his dad had to ditch the plane in some trees. How many times he ended up in jail for assault. Just… overwhelming. I thought i was signing on to watch a sort of uplifting story of adversity in the face of mental illness, but… nope. And, of course, sadly Daniel has passed, so watching a movie where they sort of try and show you a happy ending, when you know he’s about to die, makes it even harder. Still, though. What a songwriter. I am glad I got to see him that one time. Even if it was deeply uncomfortable.
Speaking of mental illness we had an incident up in Fairbanks yesterday with an old friend of ours who is suffering from deep mental illness, and she accosted my mother, and it was so upsetting. I mean, it was harmless, everything is fine, but my mom was scared, and I was learning about it right as I got to the point in The Devil in Daniel Johnston where he accosted a little old lady and broke into her house and scared her so much she jumped out of her window and broke both of her ankles, so I was maybe not in the best emotional place to learn this information.
Mental illness, man. What a bitch. Not sure what else there is to say about that.
I spent a little time yesterday working on the cover of the GMHHAY book. Well, doing some photo selections, trying to find some that I sort of liked. Threw together a quick fake cover, not a real type treatment, to sort of get the feel of each image on the cover. Let me know if any of these strike your fantasy. Also, Lisa says she is estimating January 18th for her next pass on the edit. We’re doing this one as PDF annotations, though, so once I get it back, I will have to manually go through the book to make the changes, and to re-flow the text for orphans and widows, so that will take a little while, but I think we can get this thing ready for press by the end of January, which is very exciting.
Anyway, let me know which ones are your favorites. I think I like 6, 9, 13, 16.
More tantrums from Jane yesterday. A good 45-minute one at lunch, and then the beginnings of one at dinner, but I put my foot down on that one, and she gave it up at, like, 10 minutes, which of course introduces all sorts of questions. Because by “putting my foot down,” I said “oh no we are not having you ruin another meal with another 45 minute tantrum you can go straight to the bedroom,” and just flopped her onto the bed in the master bedroom, which is her first-floor timeout zone. I did this instead of the intense, bi-parental amount of patience and kindness we showed to her during the lunch tantrum. So, you know, bad parenting worked, which is not particularly the best message for either of us to receive. She got very upset that the delivery driver left our dinner at the garage door instead of the front door. She wanted to get the dinner, but only if it was at the front door, even though honestly the food comes to the garage door more often, this should not have been a surprise. But she gets these visions of how things should be, and screams and yells at you insisting that you change reality to reflect her vision. Sometimes it’s possible and minor, so you go along with it. Sometimes it’s possible but insane and not doable, so you do not go along with it. Sometimes it’s completely out of your hands, she’s railing about a third party or the physical world and you’re like “no, sorry, I cannot convince the sun to back up so we can try again.” I suspect we should be responding to every one the same? But that seems insane and impossible, and also it seems like she should learn that some things can be changed with some (polite) cajolling and some things cannot, and there is a difference? The worst is when she remembers to add a “please” to one of her physically impossible requests and you have to be like “no, sorry, I know you did a good job asking please, but still no.”
Really ready for this phase to end, it is unpleasant. You can never shake the sense that there’s a key, that there’s some “perfect action” you can do to “solve” the situation, because that is what we as adults default to as a belief, and all those parenting books lead you on about, but I suspect that’s not the case. Parenting books be all like “just sit there with them and let them know you are there for them” meanwhile in reality your kid is pushing you away, strugging to get away, insisting you leave. Okay, book, I’ll do that. That’s working great. Thanks for your helpful advice. I will antagonize my kid and remove their agency by sitting a few feet out of their reach while they yell at me to leave. Seems healthy.
Anyway, mix time. W Hotel Lobby mix, mix of old and new. Really feeling that Single Gun Theory album again this week, listened to the whole thing. Some other oldies include Chris Connelly of Ministry fame, and a sweet mellow dance jam by Inspiral Carpets, Manchester’s red-headed stepchild that they never really want to claim, but really should. Criminally underrated, Inspiral Carpets. Jussi would agree. And “Cornelia Street” came on the other day and I liked it a lot more than I did when it came out. Lover seemed like a rare misstep in Taylor’s career but I think it might be due a revisitng.
Haopy Wednesday. We can do this, maaan. We can make it.
I like 1, 15, and 16 best. 15 speaks to me most because it’s an interior and that’s what i associate with the pandemic most 😞
I like a lot of the covers but the one that gripped me most was the first one. I can’t explain why.