[pdx] The ZehnKatzen Portland 2016 Calendar On Sale Now

3247.So, last year I created a calendar with all-original images created by me. It didn't sell too well … perhaps because I waited until the latter part of January to get going to it.

I've learnt my lesson. Here, for everyone's delectation, edification, and, hopefully, interior decoration, is the 2016 version, available before the year in question actually starts! This is an innovation in calendar technology that took up to 8 to 10 seconds to work out. The results, of course, are stellar.

Seriously, though, here's my beloved home town through my own eyes and the eye of my camera. It's a labor of love … Portland's going through a lot of changes, but she's still the beautiful woman I remember from all those years back. I'll love her 'till the day I kick it.

It's $11.99, and available through Lulu.com via this link:

http://www.lulu.com/content/legacy-lulustudio-calendar/zehnkatzens-portland-2016-calendar/18068232

Or you can click on this button:



And, here's a preview:

[pdx] In David Douglas Land, The Stranger Abides

3246.

As a matter of fact, The Big Lebowski is one of our favorite movies. But, that's as maybe.

We live in an area of outer east Portlandia where the schools fall under the historic name David Douglas. School geography in Portland is a curious thing. The Portland Public Schools … in, what one would imagine a nominal sense, the school district covering the City of Portland, is not, in fact, the school district ones' kids go to if they live, in the main, east of Interstate 205. You can still be in the City of Portland and not pay property taxes to PPS, a fact which endlessly amuses me when I see them talking about Portland school taxes and strife on the school board and I have to take a moment to remind myself that this does not apply to me out here out 122nd Way. 

Though we don't take part in much of the David Douglas social whirl, being night owls of necessity so long it's become nature, we do take pride in being part of the David Douglas community. It's the kind of place you find yourself in that you realize, after being here a while, that you were meant to be here all along. It's also has the reputation of being the most economically and culturally-diverse community in the city.

Portlandia, as funny as it is, was not written about the Portland I live in, the Portland of eastern-European churchgoers who walk to church and never step out in anything but their best to so much as go to the store; the Portland of Somali housewives who step out dressed int the brightest colors you can imagine; the Portland where all we have to do is walk down the street and around the corner to get authentic Mexican pan dulce from the tienda. 

And there are famous people who come from here too. Last week, we attended the David Douglas Holiday Bazaar, held in the North Campus building in the halls and the cafeteria, and there were the usual throng of convivial people, all very nice, handicrafts and wooden toys and witty artifacts and all, and I don't know why I never noticed it before, but over the main hall past the school offices are photos of the student body presidents gong back more than 60 years. Particularly interesting is the one who graces 1962. He went on to Hollywood; made some good movies and TV, and played the enigmatic center about which Lebowski really revolves (and has hence been abused as a meme to the point of meaninglessness), and even though he was born in Sacramento, he appears to claim the Rose City as his home (and David Douglasville claims him as a homey) and he still came home to visit his then-going-on-97-year-old David Douglas mom (and visit an alternative newsie or two).

It's this "dude":

Sam Elliott. Being rather smug about being a Sam myself, I feel lucky to be a namesake with such a fellah.

The Stranger abides, man. And he's one of us.

[liff in OR] Portland In The Time Of Flood

3245.

The counter on the Acu-Rite weather droid for rain, while I do love this little guy, is flawed. It doesn't reset itself after the water year ends. It also appears to top out at 99.99 inches. After I snapped this, I cleared the totals … you can only clear all … so we're starting out again. This was the view on Tuesday morning:

It defines rain 'events' differently than our weather broadcasters do, and it's a little inscrutable, but over this historic weekend, when sewage gouted out manhole covers in The Pearl, when Johnson Creek rose 1.6 feet in one hour on Monday morning, when Detroit Reservoir rose 17 feet in a single day, we saw 6.04 inches of rain at the Chez ZehnKatzen.

With 8.7 inches we are now statistically over the rainfall we'd expect to get in a December, and I call the rain to a halt for this month. It can all go straight to the mountains as snow.

I have spoken.

[creativity] A Look Into A Writer's Brain. DeNiro Knows.

3244.
The quote says quite a lot without saying all that many words.

What DeNiro is attributed to say here can probably felt to some degree by a great many of us who are artists, and the part of me that aspires to writing as well as that which aspires to drawing feels each one of those; moreover, perversely, it thinks that those things are actually my more charming points.

And that is on a good day.

Via A-Z Quotes.

[PDX] Snowy Volcanoes on an OryCon Friday

3243.

OryCon 37, the yearly must-do and the SF con I designed the program books for this year (which I'll talk about perforce) opened today and we went down to get the lay of the place, connect with much confriends, and get copies of my program book.

I was too busy to take photos inside, but let me tell you, the kids are alright, and the adults aren't doing too badly, not neither. The daytime parking … the nearby SmartPark garage offered $15 flat for four hours or more … that's another matter. Weekend parking is going to be a lot more kind, economically speaking.

The view from the 7th floor of the 2nd and Jefferson SmartPark was almost worth the price of parking there. Actually, priceless.

I give you two Portland icons. In the foreground, the Hawthorne Bridge. On the horizon, Mt. Hood, called by our Multnomahn predecessors Wy'east.  You won't be able to see this view forever though, in the next few years, a new and monolithic Multnomah County Courthouse is going up on that block between this POV and the bridge. How, I'm still not certain, but they're promising it's going to happen, much to the Veritable Quandary's dismay.

What is that white stuff on it, you may ask, fellow Oregonian?

Snow. It's snow. We haven't seen it out there in a while. And an ironic moment for me was realized when I remembered that that stop-sign in the middle, at the bottom, where the traffic from northbound Naito Parkway patiently waits for eastbound access to the bridge, is where Working Kirk Reeves did his best work.

Still miss that fellah. Haven't seen that vivacity around here in a long time.

Cropping the photo to more focus on the mountain gives a different feel. More drama. You lose the deck of the bridge but you gain the feeling of a whole other world.

I love Mount Hood.

Of course, when it comes to volcanoes …

… we got 'em coming and going around here. But not quite erupting just now, a kindness that. Saint Helens reminds us we have to keep our eyes open.

They do make for an almost-indescribably-beautiful mountain, though. 

[art] What Do You Do At East Burn at 11 PM on a Sunday Evening?

3242.

Well, since the tables are covered with a sort of Kraft paper, and crayons are provided, you draw something.

And this is … well, certainly something. 

The crayons were kinda sad and unhelpful, so I used the trusty Cross Classic Century.

Another thing you do is order and share the Trinity fries, which are regular French fries, sweet-potato fries, and deep fried leek shreds. This is really tasty and relatively economical … you get a big bowl of fries for $8, and if you split that, that's $4 per. And $4 really isn't so much to spot when they taste that good. Also came with rosemary aioli. I'm not that big a fan of aioli.

And since it was sitting between us, we were suspiciously close to playing with (or in) our food.

And, it was all fun and games …

… until Rocketship X-1 showed up.

We didn't stay around to welcome the astronauts. We'd already had a full day.

[Out122ndWay] Cruiser's Cafe's Neon Is Back!

3241.

Cruiser's Cafe is a totally adorable diner out past 122nd on SE Division; precisely speaking, it's on the southwest corner of SE 136th and Division. It's been there about forty years, since the 80s, and for all that time, it's served its own version of the classic American burger-joint dependables: burgers, cheesburgers, fries, tater tots, patty melts, and the  rest, and some unexpected things too: The Wife™ says the deep-friend shrimp there are divine. Big portions, reasonable prices. Can't lose here, really.

What they've been missing is the neon on the outside. It's been visible, and visibly, sadly broken. This last evening, as we came homeward bound on Division, though, we saw it … shining out in the night like an oasis to the weary diner lover. The neon has at last been repaired.

There are two levels of hot-pink-and-teal stripe; one along the roofline outside, and another along the ceiling line, inside. Both were working and simply beautiful from the street.

The most attractive thing to me, was the type. Looks like Cooper Black Italic; it's chunkiness gives it that old-school American diner feel. I took snaps while Wife™ stepped in for a vanilla soft-serve cone, which we shared … which was superb as well.

She chatted up whoever was in the building; she said they said they've been working on the funding for this for about eight months now.

Money and time well spent, I'd say. 

[pdx] Molten Gold In The Skies Over Downtown Russellville

3240.

The one-way couplet that distributes east-west traffic along SE Washington and Stark Streets from SE 75th through SE 108th Avenues has its anchors in two nabes of long-standing establishment. By far the more well-known is Montavilla which, as befits its name. starts on the northeastern shoulder of Mount Tabor and is in full effect through about SE 82nd Avenue.

The other comprises the area from about SE 92nd Avenue through 108th, and has a freeway running through it. That area is Russellville, and that's my home. The areas have two different characters: Montavilla a little more toff, with a strong dash of modern Portlandia; the businesses along the north-side of Stark between 80th and 76th feature a measure of poshness that's not too hard to discern from the street. There's still the echo of the working-class there, but it's seeming to attenuate over time. Russellville is still pretty down and dirty in the good way, and real; where Montavilla has the hip late-night bistros, and the pet supply store with artisanal products, it's Russellville that has the pizza parlor, the Dollar Tree, the strip clubs, and the Target store, and the freeway running through it (I-205).

Please note I cast no aspersions intentionally. But I live here; this is what I see. And, in the manner of community, if Montavilla gets the finer stuff, that's not to say they're bad; similarly, to say that Russellville's a bit more careworn, that's not to say we're all bad either. But sometimes we get compensated in unexpected ways. Such as late Saturday afternoon, when The Wife™ and myself walked out of the Jack In The Box at SE 105th and Stark, to see the sky.

It's all in where you're standing, and where you are when you are.

The sun, which was setting behind Mount Tabor to the west, was impinging on the clouds and not merely illuminating them from with out, but scintillating sunset rays were clearly at furious play in the clouds themsevles.

A thing like this can even make a Denny's look like a place that has a dignified view of heaven.

Meanwhile The Wife™, whose powers of observation are typically quite sharp, directed my view over the Saylor's Old Country Kitchen, the restaurant on the north side of SE Stark Street. It's famous for a 72-ounce chunk o'meat that's free if you can eat it all down at one sitting, but tonight, it was renowned for this:

You can see it just over the sign, above it at to the left of it. The setting sun was actually inflecting the clouds behind the point of view. It's a sun-doggish, sun-bowish thing, which is a little inaccurate to say, because those effects happen totally different ways. But it's how I thought of it.

Since it's a little tough to see unaccented, I bumped up the reds and it stands out much better.

It's all in where you're standing. And when you're standing. And that's like life. 

[pdx] Superbloodmoon of 2015, Washington Park, Portland

3239.

It was harder to find a good vantage point for the SuperBloodmoon than I thought. Or maybe I just underestimated the popularity.

Me, like (apparently) many … oh, so many … of my fellow Portlanders figured that the east lawn of the Pittock Mansion would be ideal. And, as far as views go, it is. And so also though about 6 million of my fellow Portlanders, who blocked up NW Barnes Road and NW Pittock Avenue nearly all the way back to Burnside, and had people parking their cars on Burnside and walking all the way up that hill just to get to the mansion.

The free day about two years back didn't get this much traffic. Throngs of people all wandering about in the narrow roads, making it impossible to get any where without wondering if the next thing you were going to hear through the car's chassis wasn't the sound crunch.

So. Re-emerging, after some travail, where NW Barnes Rd debouches onto West Burnside Road, I get the idea to try the Washington Park Rose Gardens. And why not? As something to shame me, despite my oft-boasted about adoration of my own hometown, I go to the Rose Test Gardens astoundingly infrequently. This problem was about to to solved. Quite easy to get to, actually … turn south off West Burnside onto SW Tichner Drive, then hang a right on SW Kingston Avenue. That leads you right in. A fortuitous parking spot opened up just as we got to it; a very patient TriMet Bus 63 driver gave us the leave to wait a minute or so while the car cleared the space, and we parked it.

The time was about 7:15 PM, Pacific Daylight Time, Sept 27th, 2015. We had my tripod and our Canon S100 PowerShot, which isn't the most ideal camera for astronomical phenomena without a great deal of help but we were going to put her through her paces.

The moon took a long time to emerge. It rose from the haze on the horizon, and more or less materialized into being. It did look noticeably larger than usual.

It was a good spot, though not ideal. The layout of the gardens, on the side of the hill, afforded a number of good vantage points, and the people were polite and nobody crowded us. It was actually pretty cool just to be there, and there was an intangible bonhomie in the air. People were at ease, casual … kids going down the stairs anyway but the steps … I remember an adult telling a 13-year-old girl that she was going to be an old fogy like him someday as she ran up the steps.

"Nooooooooooo!" she retorted.

I got a big of a glimpse of Mount Hood just before the sun went down. The poor mountain is looking so denuded after the hellish summer we've had. Barren and sere.

Toward 8:00 PM, we finally got conditions that gave the best opportunity for some memorable pictures, at least as good as my Canon would give.

It would have been a little better, I suppose, if we didn't have the bright lights behind and in front of us. But I opened the aperture as far as I could, set the exposure for as long as possible, and this is what we got, and at least we have a memory to show for it.

It was a good experience. We need to go to the Rose Gardens a little more often, The Wife™ and me. After, all, they are why this is the Rose City. And perhaps I'm just a poser if I can't say I've been there.

This last one, just above here, was the whole, uncropped scene … and the 15-second exposure time made wonderful ghosts of the many people who were there with us to see this thing.

Superbloodmoon over Portland, September, 2015.

[pdx] The View From The Stadium Fred Meyer Overlook, 3rd Floor

3238.

We've been to this view point before, but one level down.

I miss some things about NW Portland. I lived there at one time, long before things got fashionable and expensive, in a house between 21st and 22nd on NW Flanders Street. It was a good time. I can't go back to this area without thinking about it.

My first drawing board, real drawing board, was bought at Stadium Fred Meyer. I still have it; it's my wife's now. It was an entirely different building then. Now, of course, is the days of Trader Joe's (formerly the Thriftway on NW Glisan), conveyor belt sushi in the Stadium Fred Meyer, and a luscious 3-floor viewpoint in that Fred Meyer that you can see good things from.

The earlier vantage, the 2nd floor was good enough. The third floor?

"Get that western sky, said Wife™, meaning this view to the southeast (well, it's a Western sky, no matter which way you look, innit?). That tallest building is the lamented and overdue Park Avenue West, about to be the 3rd tallest building within the boundaries of Oregon, at 31 stories. And it's almost done.

Some people are pretty lucky. You look west and south at the hillside, and you see some of them:

The Wife™ noticed this aspect and zoomed in on the house on the right; I chose a wider angle. The big askew building is the grand old Vista Saint Clair apartments, named for the street they sit at the corner of. The cornice in the foreground belongs to the home of the Kingston Tavern. That house and the motel-like apartments to the left of it, those are located on SW 21st Avenue, and they look out (obvs.) over all those buildings and get a great view - or blinded when the sun reflects off the Wells Fargo Tower. Either way, with rents being what they were in this area … it'll cost you.

One corner that seems marooned in time is the corner of West Burnside and SW 21st Avenue, seen here:

Unlike most signs which stand for their historic value, the VOLVO isn't up there for the sake of atmosphere. That glossy teal building is still, to this day, the home of Jim Fisher Volvo, was probably since before I was born (a point we shan't explore apresent). The little brown building in front of it is Levine's Dry Cleaning, which sports the same sign it had back when I lived along NW Flanders back in the 80s. 

Like I said, good times. Behind the cornice on the lower left? Down that street used to be the studios of KPTV, Channel 12, back the in glory days. 735 SW 20th Place. Classic Portland, right there.

At least you don't have to pay rent to watch the view from the Stadium Fred Meyer, not just yet. And, if you look up NW 20th Avenue, just over the trees …

Yep. The arch of the Fremont Bridge. 

Real Portland.

[liff] The ZKT Mailroom: What Jim Horwitz Sent Me

3237.

This is another thing I've been holding back for a while, and once again I am remiss; I think a public thank you is in order for this man.

Jim Horwitz draws Watson, a comic which is has fierce fans, of which I am one. Sometimes it seems that Jim is as much of a fan of his fans as his fans are of him. I've come to know him as a correspondent with an incredibly generous heart.

Last year, he sent me a book that was important to him, and I've grown to love it too. It's this:

It's Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai.  It tells of the journey of a young, preternaturally intelligent boy being raised by a single mom and in search of his father. It speaks to genius, the creative process, the restorative power of art. It's also a fiercely-good piece of fiction, provided to me at a time when I was growing out of being just a genre reader and falling in love with the idea of literature at large, its power to create little words that are very very real as we need them.

I'll be reading this again soon, between books on writing and creativity and Pynchon and Proust, because I have a feeling that it hasn't delivered its full message to me. A great novel, I've found, is that way, just like a favorite movie, it's a flower that opens a little more with each reading.

Jim wrote a personal message to me on one of the pages. I won't share it now; it's that personal to me, but I never took the opportunity to thank him for sending it my way, just the right thing at just the right time … how he knew it, I don't know.

But he knew.

I won't share the message, but I keep this post-it on the page facing:

Watson should be a guide to everyone trying to find their way … as I still am.

[liff] The ZKT Mailroom: Paint By Numbers From Donna Barr

3236.

We get sent stuff occasionally from cartoonists. This is a delicious awesome hazard which comes from being acquainted with people with ebullient and generous spirits.

Today, we got this in the mail from Donna Barr:

Now, this is ever appropriate since I've blogged about PBN here, and Donna is famous for doing drawings like these:

Donna knows horses. If I'm looking for culpability, here's some evidence for that …

… which is a good translation and better than mine, because she actually speaks German, whereas I just make a jab at it betimes.

This made my day, need it be said?

[pdx] People of the Eastside: The Division-Midway Festival of Nations

3235.

Sunday was the day of one of Portland's numerous other street fairs, this time, one quite close to home.

The Division Midway Alliance for Community Improvement … a business group centered along SE Division Street between SE 117th and SE 148th Avenues … is in our back yard. Hell, it's just as good as being our back yard. A few of our favorite merchants are within its demesne. And, each year, it celebrates the astoundingly awesome diversity that the David Douglas community has become with a little thing they call the Festival of Nations.

This year's 'do was held in the most welcoming and accessible spot yet … the western half of the parking lot of the Division Center shopping center, located at 122nd and Division. It happened from noon to 4:00 PM on Sunday, and it contained as much as it could in that small space of time. Nepalese and Karenni folk dancers (which we missed) and Grupo Latitudes (which we did not miss) provided the international flair; Latin and Somali food provided the spice. Here are some of the things we saw there …

An artist, masterful in the use of colored pencil:

Grupo Latitudes played music of the Andes.

We missed the Asian folk dancers performing … but we didn't miss seeing them in their gorgeous outfits, enjoying the food and the Andean music.

There were other crafts, too, such as the metalworker that was there, who had a most attentive student.

Some of the organization's volunteers, flush with the enthusiasm of a successful and interesting event:

We even imagine there were some "good guys" hanging around. Makes perfect sense to me.

The only real problem was that there wasn't enough of it, really. Four hours is a tough time to hold a really super street fair, and the location of it seems to hint at the challenges that our side of town has in creating community. Because of demographic shifts, the area around 122nd Avenue, the spine of the David Douglas school district and the increasingly vibrant David Douglas community.

It's a good place to be, but a place with its own challenges and obstacles that, perhaps, communities east of Mount Tabor don't share. When there are community positive organizations such as the Division-Midway Alliance and people-positive events such as the Festival of Nations that acknowledge the varied complexion of the community, though, how can one not love living out 122nd way? And how can one not have some sort of hope that a positive vision for the future of our neighborhood will prevail?

We had fun, and we hope it will get even better in the years to come. 

[writing] Harlan Ellison, Crafting the Short Story, and "Night of Black Glass"

3234.

Finally found a copy of Harlan Ellison's "Stalking the Nightmare, in paperback, for my HE shelf. The high point on this collection is the short, eerie "Night of Black Glass". This is a story which stuck with me, particularly because of Harlan's exploration of survivor's guilt and how he poses it as an existential question with a real cost; also, if anyone (and I know most of you in The Harlan Ellison Facebook Fanclub have) has ever seen the documentary "Dreams With Sharp Teeth", it was apparently written as the product of an exhibition …

The picture is of Harlan sitting down in a bookstore's front window on Fifth Avenue in NYC in front of his trusty Olympia typewriter. He is then delivered an envelope with a single piece of paper, NBC letterhead, which he then opens, reads, and then gets to typing. In a voice-over, the late Jessica Savitch, from a clip from the Today show from March of 1981, states that he was given an opening idea written by Tom Brokaw: "A man walking on a rocky beach in Maine in August, finds a pair of broken sunglasses". Five hours later, "Night of Black Glass" was finished. Not only was it a demonstration of the man's almost-preternatural ability to prolifically create, it showed that creative pursuits, to paraphrase HE, was a job of work, not something dainty and airy, fit only for occupants of ivory towers.

I read it in a magazine then and didn't see it again for many years. Now I have it on my HE shelf to read when I please.

Old novels and short-stories have become like totems of existence to me. Having them on hand physically makes me feel better about being here.

And so it goes.

And here's a link: An archival page, noting the title indicates a school resource for teaching literature, but it contains the entire transcript of Harlan's interview with Jessica Savitch on NBC's Today Show from March 24th, 1981. Very insightful reading at http://archives.nbclearn.com/portal/site/k-12/flatview?cuecard=34831 (if you search the NBCLearn site you only get a 15-second preview of the video, or you have to sign in to see it, and you probably have to be in school or be an educator or pay a fee for it. But at least you can read it.)

[comic] The Modest Avengers

3233.

Best five dollars I ever spent, here …

I love crossover spoofs, and this one is one of the best. The Modest Medusa cast as, of course, The Avengers.

From the left:

Modest herself as Tony Stark, a/k/a, IronMan, though Iron Monster Girl and Snakes is more appropriate … if awkward;
Marah as Captain America;
Charles as Thor:

One of the Carlos's as Hawkeye;
The Knight of Chains as Black Widow (interesting choice … and appropriately badass)
Deb the Bad Mermaid as Loki; (wrong ... I've been advised the mermaid is actually Nick Fury)

A. Snake as … okay, guys, I'll fess up, I don't know who that is. I'm guessing Ant Man. (I guessed wrong. This is Loki)
And, of course,
Jake himeself, as The Incredible Hulk.

It's fun being a born-again indie comics fan … even if I pull the occasional minor fail here and there. 

[comic] In Which We Visit Modest Medusa's House

3232.

There's a lot to like about southeast Portland. The rents are (well, relatively speaking) still cheap there. There's a lot of old buildings that hold on to the longtime working-class character of Southeast and a lot of new stuff happening, too. There's a big interesting diagonal road … northeast Portland has Sandy Boulevard, but southeast Portland has the mighty Foster Road. And every year there's a street festival called Fun on Foster.

Curiously, this year, Fun on Foster seemed kind of MIA. But there was fun to be had on Foster Road. You just had to know where to look.

We knew where to look.

On the north side of SE Holgate Boulevard, just east of its' highly-acute crossing with Foster Road, and across the street from a wedge shaped green space called Laurelwood Park, is a strip of older storefronts. On the corner is a tango studio. Next to that, an old-school barber shop. And, next to that … SharedSpace. This is a storefront with a distinctive and unique sign and what appears to be a wonderful mission … desk space rental for those of us who want to run a creative practice but don't really feel ready to go for the whole office nine-yards. For a long time, going from here to there in Southeast, we've driven past it occasionally. The only thing I had to recommend it was that funky typography in the sign … until now.

When I got turned on to Modest Medusa over at The Spritely Bean more than a year ago, I had yet to meet or get to know the creator. Time and events have healed that breach, and I've since found that Jake Richmond is just as smart and witty as the comics he creates. In the void that was the apparent lack of Fun on Foster, he went ahead with a plan to have a table sale and a semi-open-house, and if only for that, this was put on our calendar. From noon there was a table of merch of many prices. Not only was there Modest Medusa, there was also a RPG that is crazy weird and brain-bending that you doubtless hadn't heard of called Tokyo Brain Pop! (Manga schoolgirls with superpowers), and Jake's two other comic creations (the superhero comic Ghost Kiss and his Legend of Korra fan comic Asami Loves Korra) as well as some posters (one of which I have, about which more perforce), and some giveaways (little Modest Medusa pins for the lapel, yes, thanks!)

The space itself is funky, filled with great posters and buzzing with ebullient fans on this fine day. In the above picture, that's Jake there on the left. The red-haired lady was a particularly delightful person, and was inspired in not only her fandom of Modest but in the funny and passionate fan art she produced, a few items of which were in an etagere to one side of the counter, and a couple of which she brought in. Colorful bead art:

… and a whimsical bit of preparedness:

You can never be too sure.

The chatter when you are in a scrum like this talking about a favorite comic with its creator is a little hard to classify and retain, but there were some high points. I'm late to the part on Modest, but learning about how much of Jake goes into the creation of Modest's world impressed me in the way that it's got to be a very brave thing to do, to take things from one's own life and recast them into a fictional realm. It's Proustian, in a certain way. Some great drama and story results. Jake's work, as the characters in Modest Medusa have come, gone, and evolved, and the reasons why, are axiomatic there.

The real high point of the conversation for me was where Jake and I disagreed on something. In speaking of of a certain work whose comic tropes didn't speak to him, I found a lot of value … I like what I like, but I don't require anyone else to like it. Attempting to view it from the point of view of someone who spends the majority of their time creating, especially when coming from the point of view of someone who mostly takes in those creations, throws an unexpected illumination on the subject. On a personal level, I like anyone who is going to be candid about whether or not they find something speaks to them. Art is personal, storytelling art even more so.

So, Jake is a sharp and witty creator … and I was grateful for the chance to have met him and talked to him a bit more.

Anybody reading this who didn't take the chance to go down … you missed out, my friends.

Also, free chocodiles. We shall brook no further argument there.

Chocodiles, and their bouncer.