So It Goes
Sorry I've been missing-in-action lately, just been working hard and moving fast and haven't had the time nor the inclination to sit down and compose my thoughts.
I got hit with seven different print jobs in less than a week at the gallery - posters and magazine ads and a couple of different invitations - which is awesome, I mean I couldn't be more stoked on what I'm doing and how everything looks, but because I'm lost in the maze of text and image and color juxtapositions, I haven't had the desire to try and make sense of things in a literal way. In fact, I'm digging being more abstract and subtle with my visual communication, and not having to be so logical and straight-forward, which at the end of this experiment has to help me as a writer.
That's the space I've been in recently.
Tuesday night I went to CCA to see my old thesis chair, Ann Joslin Williams, do a reading in support of her new short story collection, The Woman in the Woods. (If you have a chance, please buy this book. She's an incredible writer, and this is a beautiful collection, one that you'll find powerful and haunting, and she helped me so much in grad school I'm forever indebted.)
Anyway, when I decided to go that morning, I had this nostalgic fantasy that I would arrive on the scene and all the new students would know me, perhaps a few would have even read my collection (which is part of their library) and most would have surely heard the stories about my antics back in the early days of the writing program, when our outrage with the way things were run led me to some embarrassingly funny tirades and conceptual art pieces that were a real 'Fuck Off' to the administration. Of course, it all sounds absurd and overly-pretentious, not to mention downright corny - this idea of the prodigal son returning in triumph (with a copy of XFUNS Magazine under one arm) - but we all share the same dream of revisiting our past and "showing" how far we've come, and it was hard not to let my mind wander for a moment, romanticizing how great it would all be.
Anyway, I took a $13 taxi ride over (the driver looked like Burnin' Burton from Bodega), walked into the writer's studio, recognized three people out of the sixty in attendance (who were all sipping wine and picking at the meat and cheese) and realized the reading was over.
So once again, even with the best intentions, even rushing over and trying to round up a few writing buddies to come with me - to support this amazing lady - I failed miserably at something so simple - being there for the actual reading - and worse, I felt totally out of place at the reception afterwards.
I did see two old friends, though, which was nice, and purchased a book and had Ann sign it, and she was touched when I told her I used one of her stories back when I was teaching at CRC. Other than that, I was a stranger, someone who couldn't keep up with the inside jokes and witty quips, and within a half hour, without touching the food or drinks - a sure fire sign that something was wrong - I took off, and began the cold, lonely walk home, which took about forty minutes. I stewed the whole way.
Later, met up with another writer from the program, and his new wife, for drinks, who had driven in from Tennessee for just one day - to clean up some loose ends - which rekindled my faith somewhat in that I had someone to commiserate with, but still, coming home from the Bow Bow around midnight, I was mumbling to myself in the empty streets, how I hated writers, how fucking pretentious and boring they all are, and even deeper than that, I was on this kick about going home again, how the cliche is true, you can't, and the older we get the more ridiculous it gets, the memories just hitting you with little painful truths, some things so unbearable you just try to erase it from your brain.
Even that disgust seems self-absorbed and pompous now, and it is, but this is what I do sometimes, record the highs and the lows and the weird stuff inbetween. And in tribute to the brilliant Kurt Vonnegut Jr., I'll conclude this the only way I know how: so it goes.
I got hit with seven different print jobs in less than a week at the gallery - posters and magazine ads and a couple of different invitations - which is awesome, I mean I couldn't be more stoked on what I'm doing and how everything looks, but because I'm lost in the maze of text and image and color juxtapositions, I haven't had the desire to try and make sense of things in a literal way. In fact, I'm digging being more abstract and subtle with my visual communication, and not having to be so logical and straight-forward, which at the end of this experiment has to help me as a writer.
That's the space I've been in recently.
Tuesday night I went to CCA to see my old thesis chair, Ann Joslin Williams, do a reading in support of her new short story collection, The Woman in the Woods. (If you have a chance, please buy this book. She's an incredible writer, and this is a beautiful collection, one that you'll find powerful and haunting, and she helped me so much in grad school I'm forever indebted.)
Anyway, when I decided to go that morning, I had this nostalgic fantasy that I would arrive on the scene and all the new students would know me, perhaps a few would have even read my collection (which is part of their library) and most would have surely heard the stories about my antics back in the early days of the writing program, when our outrage with the way things were run led me to some embarrassingly funny tirades and conceptual art pieces that were a real 'Fuck Off' to the administration. Of course, it all sounds absurd and overly-pretentious, not to mention downright corny - this idea of the prodigal son returning in triumph (with a copy of XFUNS Magazine under one arm) - but we all share the same dream of revisiting our past and "showing" how far we've come, and it was hard not to let my mind wander for a moment, romanticizing how great it would all be.
Anyway, I took a $13 taxi ride over (the driver looked like Burnin' Burton from Bodega), walked into the writer's studio, recognized three people out of the sixty in attendance (who were all sipping wine and picking at the meat and cheese) and realized the reading was over.
So once again, even with the best intentions, even rushing over and trying to round up a few writing buddies to come with me - to support this amazing lady - I failed miserably at something so simple - being there for the actual reading - and worse, I felt totally out of place at the reception afterwards.
I did see two old friends, though, which was nice, and purchased a book and had Ann sign it, and she was touched when I told her I used one of her stories back when I was teaching at CRC. Other than that, I was a stranger, someone who couldn't keep up with the inside jokes and witty quips, and within a half hour, without touching the food or drinks - a sure fire sign that something was wrong - I took off, and began the cold, lonely walk home, which took about forty minutes. I stewed the whole way.
Later, met up with another writer from the program, and his new wife, for drinks, who had driven in from Tennessee for just one day - to clean up some loose ends - which rekindled my faith somewhat in that I had someone to commiserate with, but still, coming home from the Bow Bow around midnight, I was mumbling to myself in the empty streets, how I hated writers, how fucking pretentious and boring they all are, and even deeper than that, I was on this kick about going home again, how the cliche is true, you can't, and the older we get the more ridiculous it gets, the memories just hitting you with little painful truths, some things so unbearable you just try to erase it from your brain.
Even that disgust seems self-absorbed and pompous now, and it is, but this is what I do sometimes, record the highs and the lows and the weird stuff inbetween. And in tribute to the brilliant Kurt Vonnegut Jr., I'll conclude this the only way I know how: so it goes.
posted by Rob Simons at 7:25 PM
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