John & Belle Have A Blog

So, I suck at blogging, basically.

But here are some pix of me and my brother in Vietnam and Cambodia. We had a great trip, especially the magical night in Hoi An when they banned all traffic from the downtown (including scooters) and turned off all the lights, leaving just traditional chinese lanterns and the full moon to provide light. It was like going back in time, so beautiful. My brother also got the chance to truthfully work into a converstation that he was 15 klicks south of Da Nang, and he totally always wanted to say that. Also, we watched a movie that was so stupid it became amazing and transcendant, summing up all the despair of America in the early 80s. Tank. Don't question it; just watch and be amazed. Favorite quote: (racist sheriff) "They're not heroes!" (news reporter with unrebuttable proof or awesomeness) "But they have a tank!" Yeah, baby.

 

Three Tschichold-inspired S&O Pages

I see that commenters are starting to inquire, politely, whether we are still alive. Probably a sign it's time to feed the blog, eh? News, news? Belle has been busy. I have been busy. We have all had colds, been traveling, returning, been grading papers. That sort of thing. I just reviewed a book about the typographer Tschichold for my colleague Axel's new literary thingummy. In honor of all that, three new pages of S&O:

And:

And

I'm in the process of planning to make S&O into a book, finally. It's a bit hard to know how to do so best. (Thanks to those of you who have been politely inquiring after the product.) The problem, really, is that the only way to print it in a cost-effective way is in large volumes ...

But I've got tenure. Some people have got REAL problems, or so I read in the newspaper every day.

Nadir

OK, Slate has officially taken pointless contrarianism to its absolute nadir with this article: "It's time to give Creed another listen. Seriously."

And it's not that the band didn't deliver. To the contrary, Creed seemed to irritate people precisely because its music was so unabashedly calibrated towards pleasure: Every surging riff, skyscraping chorus, and cathartic chord progression telegraphed the band's intention to rock us, wow us, move us. Tremonti was a brutally effective guitarist, and by 2001's "Weathered" he'd even added subtlety—or the hard-rock version of it, anyway—to his arsenal. Creed was formulaic, but that's only an insult if the formula doesn't work. One of the surprises involved in returning to Creed with a fresh pair of ears is how rocking, exciting, and, yes, moving, the songs can be. "Higher" might turn out to be the nu-grunge "Don't Stop Believing": dismissed by cognoscenti on arrival as bludgeoning and gauche but destined for rehabilitation down the road as a triumphant slab of ersatz inspirationalism.

How will they ever top this bullshit? They can't. They're talking about Creed.

How The Tiger Got His Stripes - page 5

Final page of our Just Not So story:

Tenure

I got it. Tenure, that is. Just got the official letter yesterday. Thought I should mention it. (What a long strange trip it's been!)

Plato's Allegory of the Charioteer

Tomorrow I'm lecturing on Plato and psychology. (I'm having the kids read Jonathan Haidt, whom I quote in Reason and Persuasion, in the Meno intro chapter.) Anyway, Haidt quotes Plato's famous metaphor, from Phaedrus (246a - 254e). The soul is like a charioteer having a bit of trouble. The horse on the right is noble and white. The dark, shaggy one, on the left, is deaf as a post and yields only to the whip. These correspond to the honor-loving and appetitive parts of the soul, respectively. The charioteer is, of course, reason. And there are (sort of) a couple versions of the myth, so maybe the horses have wings.

I've been meaning to make an illustration to go with this one for a while and I finally got around to it tonight. I think it turned out alright. Flu is mostly kicked by this point, but work is piling up.

Fever Dreams

So this time everyone is sick. Last night my fever was pushing 39 C (which is 102 F for the rest of you). So I'm not going to get that last page of our thrilling S&O "Just Not So" story drawn today. But here's my question. What should I do with my fever - which has now subsided considerably, but not entirely? I thought I might use it to read old Legion of Superhero comics. But somehow that failed to satisfy. Can't imagine why. Last night I listened to the first two chapters of an audiobook version of the first Gormenghast book. Swimming in a fevery haze while hearing Simon Vance's voice describe the Tower of Flints, Rotcodd and Flay meeting in the Hall of Bright Carvings, was an ok use of my time. What should I do with the rest of my fevery day?

How The Tiger Got His Stripes - Page 4

Next page. (A bit easier to read this time.)

And, in other news, I finally finished some useful teaching resources for the Plato book. Namely, a handy-dandy set of mcq questions about Euthyphro, culled and collected and extracted from my years of writing exams. If you are interested in that sort of utilitarian teaching product, check it out.

And, in other news, Mei Mei is in the emergency room. Again. Barfing. Can't keep down food or liquid. Some sort of flu bug. Doesn't seem too serious, however, and - after leaving wife and child there just a few minutes ago, after spending the first hour with them - I confidently predict that child and wife will be home by 3 AM, armed with rehydration this-and-that. I'm home with Zoë and might as well post this post while I wait.

Here are some fairies Zoë drew last week. They are stewardesses for Fairy Airlines. They have very nice uniforms.

How The Tiger Got His Stripes - page 3

Next page:

How The Tiger Got His Stripes - plus Zoë commentary

Another Just Not So story. I'll start us off with two pages: 

And:

Now I've just got to finish the story.

Zoë and Mei Mei are sick (what's new), but Zoë managed to complete some other art projects recently:

That's an episode from Roald Dahl, The Witches. And:

Zoe does literary criticism. These are summaries of her home readings that she does for school. The "Salt Is Better Than Gold" one is very nice - the book, I mean. I bought it so Zoë could appreciate the illustration:

We are currently seriously addicted to "Kitchen Princess". We have read all the way through volume 3.

Oh, and apparently search engines will like it more if I link to my book while clearly identifying it as a book about Plato! Plato! Plato! (Just a little experiment in shameless SEO, there. Science advances, it truly does.)

88 - Owl is deeply vexed to learn ...

This one may be too abstract to be amusing. You be the judge.

In case that isn't entertaining enough, some fantastic Zoë art. She has done a series of portraits of animals in their own homes, with portraits of the animals themselves on the walls. With food. I think you'll get the idea. Gerbil:

 

And turtle:

 

And cat:

 

The cat is actually our new neighborhood kitten find, known as Smallspice. That is a fairly accurate representation of the tail-shape, which is indeed a bizarrely wonky affair.

87 - While above him, on layers of ice glide Zambonis ...

Zamboni jokes have been standard comics fare since Charles Schulz' time, of course. Still, perhaps that is because they are always funny. (At any rate, I am going to see if I can make a few a week, thus keeping the hiatus on semi-hiatus. This week I illustrated almost a whole Just Not So story, which is seriously fast work for me. Saturday is daddy's drawing day.)

Zoë spent quite a bit of saved-up allowance on Kitchen Princess vol. 1, which she herself went to the groaning manga shelves in Borders and discerningly selected. Apparently she has a friend who likes Kitchen Princess. I had to read it to her since a lot of the Japanese names and food terms are well above her reading level. I myself found it barely comprehensible. I could scarcely figure out in which order the word balloons are supposed to be read. (Yes, I know about the back-to-front and right-to-left business. What do you take me for? I just find this one hard to follow.) The main character is going to this weird academy because they have silver spoons and she wants to meet her 'flan prince' - who gave her a flan after her parents died? seriously?

Result: Zoë and Mei Mei agree. Kitchen Princess is completely awesome and is much better even than Winx Club. I am fated to read every single Kitchen Princess volume to my daughters unless and until the older one ups her reading level. (I really must get to work on this.)

I guess I sort of get it, about the Kitchen Princess thing. It's food-themed. As a Daniel Pinkwater fan, I understand that heavily food-themed and curiously uneventful children's literature can be successful. But I guess I'm not really what you would call a Kitchen Princess fanboy myself just yet.

There are recipes in the back of the book and Zoë wants Belle to make her ... a flan!

More Pulp!

No more Squid and Owl, for now, but I uploaded some more good old fashioned pulp. I like the lettering on this one.

More Squid and Owl - Three Fresh Pages

I drew a few more pages to celebrate the fact that Reason & Persuasion is finally not just listed on Amazon but in stock! You can buy it and get it, like, two days later. (Hint, hint.)

Right, back to Squid and Owl.

This first one was supposed to go with some others - way back when round about number 65 (the Hemulen Vicar and the Fez-Topped Mystic and friends in the drawing room).

And two more, that go together:

I don't think I quite like Owl's meaningfully droopy eye in this one yet. Needs some clean up.

I think it would be fun to make a whole novelty deck. (But I don't think I quite have the time to work that out, let alone draw it all.) Now Squid and Owl are going back on hiatus for a while. But I'll try to post more regularly, or maybe get Belle to get back to it. Wouldn't that be something from the old days?

More Flickr Fun

I know, I'm neglecting the blog. And Belle is way too busy too these days. But - to console you for the temporary loss of Squid and Owl - some more Flickr nonsense. Old Timey 'serious' lit paperbacks. And random Singaporean record finds. Enjoy!