We had a much needed, literary day. We went to the small press expo in Rockville, and then to Second Story Books, and then to Atomic Books. I’ve also failed to document recent book hauls (gifts included), so here they are.
When traveling, we like to visit independent bookstores, and support them. When we visited Burke’s Books in Memphis, I picked up a used copy of The Secret of Ventriloquism by Jon Padgett. As I lay in bed at our Airbnb, I read the opening pages about someone meditating during yoga, and I had the idea about someone astral projecting from one’s body and getting locked out. This + the fall of the FSK bridge in Baltimore = Terms of Service.
And when we visited Livraria Lello in Portugal, I bought a copy of Frankenstein. I was working on Brains at the time, and reading it really helped.
I walked into Pioneer books in Provo, Utah, and walked up to the second level (fiction). My eyes immediately fell upon Getting food from Water.
I’m actively working on my animation Fishwife, and without giving anything away, this book relates in a very inspirational way. I got goosebumps!
As I was checking out, I told the bookseller my history with finding magical books while working on films. Asia showed me some of her art, and an amazing 3D printed vending machine her partner helped her make to sell her work. So cool.
In Salt Lake City, I visited Ken Saunder’s Rare and Used books. I picked up a used copy of The Frank Zappa Companion by Richard Kostelanetz.
The store spans 3 floors in a rather corporate feeling building. All the folks working there were very friendly.
I also visited the Salt Lake City public library. The building is expansive and beautiful, and clearly supports various populations. I found their maker space was closed, but seemed to be robust and impressive.
I was delighted to see they have borrowable zines in their collection (as well as free zines!).
Here we are at another year end recap! This is post #1330.
The start of the year seemed to be about used bookstores. We visited Wonder Book and Second Story several times, and found some good treasure. 2024 deepened my interest in reading and writing, and, well, I love a good used bookstore.
It’s been a challenging year – I mean, how could it not have been, given all the nonsense in Washington, and around the world? But there have been some challenges at home, too.
I returned to graduate school, only to have to stop three weeks into the semester. My brand new supervisor/dean/vice-provost abruptly stopped telework for her direct reports in August. She slammed her palms on the conference room table and barked “The pandemic is over!” After having an eleven year run of hybrid telework suddenly revoked, I found myself spending the equivalent of an entire workday commuting to and from my job every week. I need to maintain my exercise regime to manage stress (more than ever, in fact), so something had to go. I absolutely loved the writing program while it lasted, and will return when I am more able to give the time required.
We lost our beloved Pi, and his presence is still missed.
My mom lost her husband to old age and his family genetics, and it was terrible on multiple levels. Seen through the lens of the Leo Retrograde, hard truths were revealed and faced.
Mom then passed away in hospice on December 4th, with me at her side.
I spent the equivalent of an entire month in Florida starting at the end of July. Mom’s decline happened so quickly – it was shocking. So much loss in so short a time.
Here is something else that’s shocking – I paid $131.00 to The Baldwin Brothers in the Villages, FL to have mom’s remains delivered to me. I came home from work to find this on the sidewalk in front of my home.
By contrast, our dog required a signature to collect his remains at the post office. I’m stunned. Mom would be very disappointed.
Whew – what a bummer! In the asset columns, a lot of cool stuff happened, too!
I made a lot of art in 2025, and that’s all documented here. I’m proud of the that work I made, the volume of work that I made, and I’m excited about all the ideas I still have to complete in 2026.
I set out to draw more this year, and I believe I did draw more when I wasn’t producing work for shows, etc. But I also worked at a feverish pace for the entire year.
I completed several rounds of a new series I’m calling Abecedarian. I was honored and surprised to find myself a finalist for the Baker Artist Award.
I got to meet Mark Hogancamp at a group show in NY. I made him a diorama, which he is placing over a mantle in the Marwencol clubhouse.
I can’t remember when I first learned about Hogancamp, but I definitely remember being run over by Welcome to Marwen. I have a great deal in common with Mark, and it was my great pleasure to have a long, frank discussion with him about it. He’s delightful, kind and generous. I’m glad to be friends.
I spent two and half months animating Terms of Service. I’m really pleased with this one – it pulls from a more formal approach to writing. I made a complete animatic before I started drawing, and that helped A LOT.
And Terms of Service won the Baltimore Showcase at Sweaty Eyeballs! What an honor this is for me. My first Sweaty Eyeballs festival was 10 years ago, and as I sat in the audience in Falvey Hall at MICA, I remember thinking “THIS is what I want to do.” And so, I set out to be an animator.
I reunited with Blister Freak Circus this year, and I jammed with Oxglove.
My Pedal of the Year award goes to Stacks FX Thsee Anomaly. I bought it used on Reverb from Juan Alderete (Racer X, Mars Volta, Marilyn Manson, etc.). I LOVED Juan’s YouTube channel with Nick Reinhart, and found much inspiration with these guys during downtime at work. I also bought Juan’s Pearl bass drum pedal that’s currently attached to my electronic drum setup.
The pedal didn’t come with a manual, and I wasn’t able to track one down online. I was nervous about the mA requirements, and wrote to a couple of the Stacks FX guys who worked on this pedal.
Both were super friendly, and Brian Frederick (no longer with Stacks) sent me this on LinkedIN:
I really like this quirky pedal, and plan to use it on the next RPM challenge. I was also blown away by Chase Bliss’ Lost and Found and Reverse Mode C this year. I added Electro Harmonix Glove to my board, and I think it will replace my Plumes in 2026. Lots of good weird stuff coming off my pedal board – can’t wait to get into recording.
What else? I began taking photos of trash trucks from behind them. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before now. It’s great.
And maybe it’s a visual metaphor of how 2025 went.
Here’s my list of books for 2025. I’ve expanded the list this year to also include meaningful short stories.
The Magicians, Lev Grossman
The Bright Sword, Lev Grossman
American Gods, Neil Gaiman
Unseen Academicals, Terry Pratchett
The Stranger, Albert Camus
The God of the Woods, Liz Moore
All Fours, Miranda July
A Murder of Quality, John le Carré
We Solve Murders, Richard Osman
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway
The Black Box, Michael Connelly
The Stand, Stephen King
The Circle, Dave Eggers
The Librarianist, Patrick deWitt
Poor Things, Alasdair Gray
Dead Zone, Stephen King
Never Flinch, Stephen King
The Sopping Thursday, Edward Gorey
The Glorius Nosebleed, Edward Gorey
The Betrayed Confidence, Edward Gorey
The Willowdale Handcard, Edward Gorey
The Hapless Child, Edward Gorey
Raw Sewage Science Fiction, Marc Bell
My Most Secret Desire, Julie Doucet
Milk White Steed, Michael D. Kennedy
Frankenstein Magazine Presents: OSSO, various artists
Warnebi, Wiebke Bolduan
Heaven and Hell, Michael Deforge
Ants, Michael Deforge
Best American Comics 2019, Bill Kartalopoulos
Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli
Best American Comics 2008, Lynda Barry
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy Snyder
My Effin’ Life, Geddy Lee
Multipliers, Liz Wiseman
All the Beauty in the World, Patrick Bringley
The Art Thief, Michael Finkel
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders
The Pigeon Tunnel, John le Carré
Trouble, Jack Livingston
The Situation and the Story, Vivian Gornick
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert
Crumb: A Cartoonist’s Life, Dan Nadel
Sleeping with the Dictionary, Harryette Mullen
Blue Hour, Carolyn Forché
The Golden Book of Words, Bernadette Mayer
Never Bet the Devil Your Head, Edgar Allan Poe
Street Haunting,Virginia Woolf
Burl’s, Bernard Cooper
Somehow Form a Family, Tony Earley
Return to Sender, Mark Doty
I think my favorite book this year was Crumb. There’s a kind a magic in drawing for me, and I enjoyed learning about Crumb’s path as an artist. Next is The Bright Sword, The Pigeon Tunnel and Asterios Polyp.
As for 2026, we are set to do more races. I will continue to hone my Tai Chi and overall fitness. I have 3.5 films ready to go, or already underway. I have a pretty good backlog of books to read, and am looking forward to getting into them. And I have some thrilling prospects just ahead.
Pause and harvest the most radiant moments of 2025, let gratitude fill every corner of your being, then step into 2026 aligned with trust, expansion, and the quiet certainty that abundance is already on its way.
Happy New Year, friends. I hope you are happy, healthy and safe.
We spent a few days in New York, ahead of the Phantasma show at One Mile Gallery. We walked all over Kingston and visited the beach. We also drove to Saugerties and Rhinebeck.
Below are some photos from the trip.
When we visit new places, we like to shop at the local bookstores (both new and used). Inquiring Minds has a Dog Hall of Fame, like Burke’s books in Memphis.
We caught wind of the “Book Village” in Hobart, NY, about an hour and a half away from Kington. We made the trip, and I recommend that you do not.
There are actually around three proper bookstores, and then craft shops with some books. Think book section at Goodwill. The biggest store was closed when we arrived, and then posted a note saying “will be open sometime this afternoon.” Alas. But Rhineback and Saugerties did not disappoint. I also picked up a copy of Welcome to Marwencol in Kingston, which Mark Hogancamp signed for me.
We celebrated our first wedding anniversary! Here are related and unrelated photos from this weekend.
I listened to Geddy Lee read his memoir called My Effin’ Life.
One summer when I was in middle school, everyone was talking about Rush, and in particular, the song Tom Sawyer. My pal and neighbor Allan Kistler gave me a cassette of Moving Pictures. I cannot remember my initial impression, other than it sounded… alien to me. I did not have much context for rock music. Rush quickly became my favorite band. They were the first band I discovered organically, and whose recording I identified with as “my kind of music,” along with Cheap Trick.
I bought a cassette of their live album Exit Stage Left. They were touring to support that album, and somehow, I managed to get tickets to see them at the Capital Center outside of Washington, D.C. My dad and I shared a love of virtuoso drumming, especially Buddy Rich. Neil Peart was an easy sell for dad.
Hugh Welton was a fellow drummer at school that I was friendly with. As I remember the story, Hugh was going to see this show with Mark B., another drummer in our neighborhood. Mark reneged on his word, and Hugh was distraught. In his desperation, Hugh wrote to Neil Peart and asked if he could help him get tickets, as the show was sold out at this point. A few weeks later, he received a hand written post card from Neil that said “I’m sorry to hear this happened. I don’t have tickets, but maybe this postcard will help?”
We were speechless. The photo on the front of the card shows Neil playing his drums on a river, a reference to Tom Sawyer. I think, on some level, this connection with such a colossal celebrity must have factored into my reaching out to Steve Vai many years later.
I felt bad for Hugh, and I invited him to go with my mom, dad and myself. That set up one of the greatest friendships of my young life. It was my first ever rock concert. I have this memory of walking through the halls of the Capital Center, and as we walked to our seats, the darkness erupted with lights and smoke and The Spirit of Radio. My jaw dropped – I was so happy to be there.
Hugh and I attended many concerts together after that (including several more Rush shows), and spent many a weekend listening to music and partying with our friends. Hugh was very kind to me, and we made many discoveries in our adolescent years together.
I spent many hours playing drums along with Exit Stage Left, and Moving Pictures. I learned a great deal about drumming from those recordings, and I think they set my up for my work with Bazooka Joe after college. But even as Rush was very influential during my formative drumming years, I was not really a super fan in the sense that I knew very much about them.
I loved the first half of My Effin’ Life. I enjoyed hearing Geddy tell his stories. It is well written. I teared up several times (his account of his parents’ trials in the concentration camps, meeting Neil for the first time, etc.). He made me laugh out loud several times, too.
I found the second half of the book to be somewhat tiresome, and lacking the care taken with the first half. Geddy shifts his tone toward that last part of the book, and it lost the depth generously provided in the first half. I suspect he’s guarding his privacy around the later Rush years, as they are closer to the present moment. I would have liked to learn more about his collections, non-Rush things, and non-musical obsessions. Perhaps those are covered in his bass guitars book, which I doubt I will read. I think this is the last Rush book I’ll put my eyes into.
I’m sure die hard Rush fans probably love the second half of the book. I do not know the albums/tours covered. I found myself wondering “How much more of this do I have to listen to?” Did Mr. Lee’s editorial budget only apply to the first half of the book? Elvis Costello’s Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink also felt too long to me, and both men lost my attention in their telling. Yet, I persevered and made it to the end, where there are previously unreleased solo demos, which is a neat thing to include.
I was shocked to learn about the amount of drugs Rush consumed. I had the impression that they might sip a Canadian beer from time to time. I hopped into some of the newer albums on my streaming service, as Geddy talked through how they came into existence. None of them did much for me, sadly. Clockwork Angels, for example, is Geddy’s favorite record, as I heard him mention in an interview. I gave it a spin, and I should probably give it several listens before forming my opinion. And yet. I do not want to do several more listens.
This book certainly is a gift to the true Rush fan. I appreciate learning about what Rush were doing leading up to and during the years 1980-85. Moving Pictures remains one of my favorite all time records. And Rush hold a special place in my musical background – enough so for me to bother with this post.
