Thanks to Katie Skelly for posting her artwork for his new album, and making me aware of it. Always good to hear new Jon Spencer. Here’s an article with a track list and tour dates (with the Melvins), unfortunately not coming close to Maine.
And a video of the first track off of the album:
Steve Ditko RIP
I didn’t know Steve Ditko. I only met him through the pages of Spider-man, Dr. Strange, Hawk and Dove. In later years he developed Shade the Changing Man, and squirrel Girl for the big companies. His other characters include Mr. A, the Question, and many more.
He became a recluse and declined interviews in the 80sI think, and worked mostly on his own B&W comics.
He was found dead in his apartment on June 29th, and may have been dead for 2 days according to the police.
Here’s one from one of his Mr. A comics, and a tribute I did as a portrait of a friend.
Paul Klee’s Oil Transfer method
Paul Klee (1789-1940) was an German artist who was affiliated with the Bauhaus, Expressionistic, and Surrealist movements. Here’s some interesting pieces on his oil transfer method of turning a drawing into a painting.
First a YouTube video:
and a well illustrated blog post on the technique:
Paul Klee’s oil-transfer drawings
and one of his 9000 paintings:
Killing Gravity
Great SF book. Quick read.
On Doing Nothing: Finding Inspiration in Idleness By Roman Muradov
Not just about doing nothing, but about how doing stuff other than your art can help with it. I, also, read his graphic story Jacob Bladders, which is interesting, esp. the art.
Confabulations by John Berger
A nice little book of essays on art and life. I especially liked In Arcadia Et Ego.
Samuel Morse–Inventors Series 2
Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, which was patented on June 20, 1840. He held patents for several other electromagnetic improvements, and was a fine artist as well. His political views were a non starter for me. He advocated for slavery, and was anti-immigration, among other things, but he did have some shining accomplishments in spite of that.
Here’s his Wikipedia article.
Lloyd Augustus Hall–Inventors Series 1
Born today (or the 20th, or 21st depends on where you look) Lloyd Augustus Hall. African American scientist who amassed 59 patents in food preservation.
Not much online about him, but here’s the Wikipedia article.
It was, also hard to find a picture. The drawing is from the first of only 2 that I found. Both are real small, and look like they come from some kind of yearbook, or company thing.
Couple more links:
African American Scientists Page
Web Archive of Inventor. org page
Money and Work Unchained by Charles Hugh Smith
Great book. I was a little slow getting into it, but it panned out well. You can read from the blurb below what it’s about, so if you’re into economics, interested in the why nots of Universal Basic Income, want to know how we can change our relationship to money and work, this is a good book for that.
How to Do What You Love
Paul Graham writes about doing what you love.
Some quotes from it, and how hard it actually can be, even if you don’t have to work at something else. (Which is a flaw with Universal Basic Income, which I’ll get into sometime.)
Another test you can use is: always produce. For example, if you have a day job you don’t take seriously because you plan to be a novelist, are you producing? Are you writing pages of fiction, however bad? As long as you’re producing, you’ll know you’re not merely using the hazy vision of the grand novel you plan to write one day as an opiate. The view of it will be obstructed by the all too palpably flawed one you’re actually writing.
….
Most people would say, I’d take that problem. Give me a million dollars and I’ll figure out what to do. But it’s harder than it looks. Constraints give your life shape. Remove them and most people have no idea what to do: look at what happens to those who win lotteries or inherit money. Much as everyone thinks they want financial security, the happiest people are not those who have it, but those who like what they do. So a plan that promises freedom at the expense of knowing what to do with it may not be as good as it seems.