My best friend, Liz, and my best-friend-in-law, Martyn, loaned me a bunch of books the other day. I just finished one of them. House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski is a book about a guy who finds a book written about a documentary that doesn’t exist, that features a house that doesn’t exist, that was filmed by a man who doesn’t exist. House of Leaves is a work of fiction, so technically if you read it, you are reading a book about a guy who doesn’t exist, who finds a book that doesn’t exist, written about a documentary that doesn’t exist, which features a house that doesn’t exist, that was filmed by a man who doesn’t exist.
You should read it. It’s pretty good. But very intense. Not for the young of heart or the young of age. Ye be warned.
The next book is The Gargoyle, by Andrew Davidson. I’m still working on it, but so far as I can tell it is about a porn star who gets into a terrible car crash after combining cocaine, bourbon, and driving. The crash results in lots of fire burning him all over his body, and then he has a chat with a crazy lady while in the hospital. The chat is the thing I wanted to quote here, because it made me giggle with disproportionate glee.
I indicated the little statue on the bedside table. “I like the gargoyle.”
“Not a gargoyle. It’s a grotesque.”
“You say oyster, I say erster.”
“I ain’t gonna stop eating ersters,” Marianne Engel replied, “but that’s a grotesque. A gargoyle’s a waterspout.”
“Everyone calls these things gargoyles.”
“Everyone’s wrong.”
— The Gargoyle, pg. 81
See? It proves something that was never called into question in the first place. I once did thirty seconds of research on Wikipedia and now, years later, I’m reading a book that confirms my research and I’m all, “Yay! This makes me happy.” I just thought I’d share. It’s a good read so far.
Finally, my computer broke recently. I have the worst luck with computers. But this time I don’t mean it crashed or it got a virus. I mean it literally broke. It started coming apart at the seams. It’s currently being held together with duct tape and binder clips.
So I got a Mac.
Good news: I came up with a new comic idea. I was inspired by English class and Shakespeare, since lately I’ve been working toward getting my teaching certification so I can teach high school English. Without meaning to, this comic became a bit of an homage to Kate Beaton’s comic, Hark! A Vagrant. Though it was not intended, I am in no way sorry. Beaton’s work is some of the funniest I’ve ever seen.
Bad news: My copy of Photoshop Elements is for PCs only.
Results: I drew the comic and then took pictures of each panel. Enjoy!
Writer’s Block
11/11/15