Archive for February, 2008

The Way We Live Now

Monday, February 25th, 2008
See Lulu, watching warily three weeks ago…
…as Eddie signs a contract authorizing ace contractor Roger "Butch" Malloy (click here to inquire about Butch’s services) to spend a few weeks ripping our house to shreds and putting it back together again with the rooms and walls rearranged.

At the end of it all lies a new bedroom and bath designed especially for Eddie’s mom Evelyn.
These will replace what has heretofore been our living room, on whose sofa Lulu is seen relaxing in the photo below, which was taken shortly before the destruction began.
Below: Same room, same corner, a few days later. Lulu’s sofa is now across town in storage, the carpet in a dumpster.
Below: Same room, lotsa new lumber now. The walls of the new bathroom and closet are beginning to shape.
Below: Although the heaviest of the recontruction slated for elsewhere in the house still lies ahead, it’s not too soon for carpenter Billy Langlois to bring the wall down between our dining room and what has heretofore been my workspace.
Below: Lulu explores the suddenly airy space where my iMac, printer, scanner, work table, cabinet, three filing cabinets, four flat files, and numberous CD-racks have been residing for the last four years.
Meanwhile, electricians Jim Boland and Brian Therrien are engaged in converting Evelyn’s former bedroom into what will soon be my new, relocated studio — around a dozen feet west of the old one.
Below: And here I am moving my stuff into my new professional quarters. Out of camera range are about thirty boxes of books, comics, and video tapes stacked from floor to ceiling awaiting new closet space now under construction. The door to my new workspace will be installed later, once enough boxes have been cleared away to allow one to open and close.
Below: Then there’s what for lack of a better term we call the "middle room," which is currently filled to the brim with furniture, books, and other items that have been displaced from the former living room as well as the eastern portion of this very room itself.

And guess what? Soon everything you see in photo above must be cleared out to make the final stages of renovation possible. Where will it all go? Where will we eat? Where will we watch TV?

Uh… We’re working on that.
For now, though, I can keep up with the Presidential campaigns without knocking anything over, as long as I don’t make any sudden movements.

Oops! What’s that crunching noise I’m hearing behind me even as I write this?
Why, it’s yet another wall meeting its maker (or un-maker) at the hands of Billy Langlois!

And how is Evelyn faring during all this craziness? She has taken up temporary residence at nearby Williamstown Commons Rehab Center after a suspiciously convenient (and happily brief) hospitalization a couple of weeks ago. Once she has regained her strength she is (to put it mildly) eager to move into her newly created bedroom, where in the best possible scenario she will be able to shut her door, remove her hearing aids in order to obliterate all sounds of hammering and sawing, and pretend that everything is normal in the rest of the house until Eddie and I finally peek in to tell her that she can now make her way to the kitchen without tripping over a sawhorse.

Posted in Home Life, Yesterday & Today | 3 Comments »

Perp Talk

Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Last summer I nudged the long-awaited debut issue of the North County Perp out of its birth canal and onto the streets of North Adams.

Ushering my ‘zine out into the world after its lengthy period of gestation was great fun for me, despite the fact that in order to avoid the editorial inhibitions that come from courting advertisers I had to personally fork over the bucks to get it printed. It was a financial indulgence I’m not in a position to make a habit of, but it was worth it this time just to get a little dust stirred up in this sleepy town and to provide a looser-than-normal platform for creatively-inclined locals whose interests and points of view aren’t easily accommodated by the handful of existing publications in these parts.

Stacks of Perp #1 were up for grabs for a short while on counters at Papyri Books, North Adams Antiques, and Cup and Saucer here in North Adams and a lively launch party was hosted by MCLA Gallery 51 on Main Street. A gratifying level of enthusiasm was forthcoming from the local folks who picked up copies before they ran out, and even after the paper copies printed by Becks Printing were long gone, curious would-be readers from around here and from distant climes have continued to download it for free from the Perp’s web site as a PDF document).

In other words, in its small way, Perp #1 seemed to be a home-grown "hit." I offer as evidence of this the question that people have persisted in asking me ever since the first issue’s debut: "So when is Perp #2 coming out?"

Well, predicting an actual publication date for #2 is as iffy a proposition at this point as it was during the year it took to pull #1 together, but I can now say with confidence that the Perp is officially poised to return, thanks to a $2,144 grant the project has received from the Cultural Council of Northern Berkshire.

My job now will be to once again start speading the word. So all you writers and cartoonists scattered in nooks and crannies around Berkshire County thinking oddball thoughts that you’ve never felt able to share with your neighbors should take note: the time is now to get your creative juices flowing.

You will soon start seeing fliers seeking your involvement as a Participating Perp, but you don’t need to wait until you come across a flier to get in touch with me. I’m right here.

Posted in Me, Me, Me!, Shop Talk | 1 Comment »

Friday Night in the Bronx

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
Eddie and I have never regretted leaving New York City (as fond as we were of the city, which was pretty fond) and settling in northwestern Massachusetts. We love walking out onto our front porch and being greeted by a snow-capped mountain ridges.

However…

…if I were going to be in the Big Apple this Friday night, you can bet I would subway up to the Bliss Hall Art Gallery at Bronx Community College (181st Street & University Avenue) at 5 PM to attend the opening reception for The Color of Comics, an exhibit put together by Eugene Adams and my comics colleague Alex Simmons showing the diverse ways that African American and other characters of color have been and are being portrayed in the comics medium.

Unfortunately, there’s no way I can make the drive down to be part of the fun, but at least I’ll be represented at the show by Anna Dellyne Pepper and her son Les from Stuck Rubber Baby. Who knows? This might be the night that Anna Dellyne breaks her pledge never to sing in public again, and I have no doubt that Les will be hitting the bars in Greenwich Village later in the evening.

Posted in A Tip o' the Hat, Me, Me, Me! | 1 Comment »