[image id: a four-page comic. it is titled “do not stand at my grave and weep” after the poem by mary elizabeth frye. the first page shows paleontologists digging up fossils at a dig. it reads, “do not stand at my grave and weep. i am not there. i do not sleep.” page two features several prehistoric creatures living in the wild. not featured but notable, each have modern descendants: horses, cetaceans, horsetail plants, and crocodilians. it reads, “i am a thousand winds that blow. i am the diamond glints on snow. i am the sunlight on ripened grain. i am the gentle autumn rain.” the third page shows archaeopteryx in the treetops and the skies, then a modern museum-goer reading the placard on a fossil display. it reads, “when you awaken in the morning’s hush, i am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circled flight. i am the soft stars that shine at night. do not stand at my grave and cry.” the fourth page shows a chicken in a field. it reads, “i am not there. i did not die” / end id]
a comic i made in about 15 hours for my school’s comic anthology. the theme was “evolution”
teaching paddling courses to kids is so much fun because without fail every class will have one or two children who are terrified to the point of tears about getting into the canoe, and every time I ask them what they’re most afraid of. I ask genuinely, “what do you think is the worst thing that could possibly happen to you today? If something horrible happens to you today, what will that thing be?”
And it’s always that the boat will capsize, that they’ll fall in, etc.
In summer courses, the answer is easy. I just walk into the water wearing my life jacket, start floating, and say “this is what it looks like when your boat capsizes and you fall in. I’m doing it right now. I fell in.”
If it’s chilly out and I don’t want to spend all day wet, I tell them, “want to know something funny? We’re going to capsize on purpose later. We have to learn how to capsize so that we know how to help ourselves when it happens on accident. Do you think we’d so something on purpose that’s dangerous? What will happen is that we will all fall in the water, and our life jackets will hold us up. I know that, because it’s my job to check your life jacket. Then we’ll all float around until we get back in our boats, and then we’ll go inside and change. The worst part of it all is that you’ll be soggy.”
This has never failed me. They always calm down, get in the boat, and end up having fun the entire time. Time and time again, the Unknown is the ultimate fear, and a little bit of patience at the start is all it takes to keep things running smoothly.
All that said, my favorite kids are the funny ones who clearly respond well to humor, so I get to tell them, “I can absolute guarantee that no one is going to drown today. I would never let that happen, because I don’t want to have to fill out the paperwork.”
She walked into my office with the swagger of a racecar pit crew boss. From her steel toed boots to her safety glasses, this dame was giving me forklift certified vibes strong enough to shake me loose from my classic depression laced with alcoholism.
her carabiner jingled with keys to four speakeasies, two u-hauls, and a thousand broken hearts.
I’m just fascinated with how the gods are all by themselves sides of the same coin. Apollo is medicine and plague. Demeter is harvest and famine. Athena is the order of the polis and the uncertainty of war. Dionysus creates chaos only to reinforce order once the party is over. Poseidon is the untameable sea and the liberty that seafaring permits. Artemis is a goddess of the wild yet helps young girls transition into their settled life as adult women.
I hate that waffle irons aren’t see-through. I don’t like how unsupervised they are in there
G: Like a Gameboy?
J: Like a Gameboy!
G: But Jerry, Gameboys are plastic! Waffle irons, they-they heat! They’ve gotta be made of metal. The plastic would melt!
J: I don’t know, George. Technology these days! They got them space-age polymers. They could make a waffle iron outta polymers-
G: Polymers, polymers! What do you know about polymers?
J: I know things!
G: You wouldn’t know a polymer from an amorphous metal!
J: What are you talking about?
G: I don’t know, I read an article.
J: Of course. An article.
(KRAMER enters. Audience cheers.)
K: You talking ‘bout that new NASA article? It’s disgraceful the things they’ve been doing with carbon these days. Disgraceful!
G: Jerry thinks waffle irons should be see-through.
K: Why?
J: They seem unsupervised! I wanna know what’s going on in there!
K: Well why should you get to know? See I think they deserve some privacy. We live in a police state, Jerry! Constant surveillance! The government, first they’ll be wanting to see the waffles cook, next they’re trying to find out how the air fryer fries! Before you know it you’ve got the CIA barging in on your slow-cooker without a warrant! A watched pot never boils, Jerry!
at times when hope is too big of a thing to have, curiosity (even clinical or small) is a very good placeholder
asking myself “why continue” & finding the answer is always, in some form, “i want to know what happens next”, even if that want is tired or detached or outright morbid
I don’t know how else to say this but I want art to destroy me? Absolutely wrecked. A demolition of the psyche. For what is to be a leap beyond what was. Break my heart and leave me numb. Trust me to navigate the turbulent wake. I cannot promise I will still be me, but I will still be.
I’m not saying everything has to be adapted into a video game (I just think it), but Kolchak in a L.A. Noire style open world mystery adventure would be the game of all time.
If Rockstar can do it for The Warriors, they can do it for Carl Kolchak.
