What are you talking about?

I'm preparing to write an entry and my little stress ditty serves as prologue, a way to get words going without writing, without thinking.

Interesting that Art Spiegelman is still doing cartooning that slaps the national interest. Crumb seems to be stumbling, but still Crumb, none the less in The New Yorker. I've kept contact with Wilson, but I haven't seen what he's been drawing these last years, if any of this weird shit reality is making an impression. I don't much believe in political art, unless it comes from the heart. Spiegelman, evidently living a few blocks from the towers, watching them fall, seems to have been sufficiently motivated (and wounded).

How have Crumb and Wilson and Moscoso and Shelton and Spain and, for that matter, Green and Beck been affected? Or is Beck dead? I seem to recall that Beck is dead. Same with Murphy and Griffin. More of them will undoubtedly be dead sooner than later, but they were doing interesting work in their twenties and thirties, what are they doing today? I'll ask Wilson. What's going on? Crumb and Shelton have been hiding in France for as long as I can remember. Have they been productive? Wilson and Spain are still in San Francisco. Justin's out there in the suburbs somewhere.

And you, Mr. Proprietor? What's been your contribution?

Pictures of attractive women.

Attractive women?

Attractive women of strong political conviction.

Tomorrow a session with MSB for my Photographing People class and, interestingly, my Beginning Photography class, both asking for photographs of people. MSB wants to put together a zed card, something she's evidently been thinking about since she was approached by an agency looking for models over forty. MSB, over forty, looks like she's just turned thirty and I suspect wants to do this modeling thing as a kind of closure on not doing it when she was younger or to invent a reason for losing a couple of pounds or broaden her horizon. Doesn't matter. Either way, any way, it leads to pictures.

A small experiment this evening. I have a jug of Wild Turkey in the cupboard, but I've been more interested in experimenting with sake, “drinking” sake, you understand as opposed to “drinking” whiskey. After work this evening I drove by Beverages and More, a discount liquor store in Jack London Square, and bought two small bottles of sake that are designed to be heated in a microwave and served using the top as a cup as well as a 750ml bottle of Ozeki (sake) for comparison. Well, comparison. For purposes of drinking, if not this evening, then pretty soon this weekend.

The small clear bottles of “Cap-Ace” (sake Gekkeikan) cost $2.69, designed to pop off the drinking cup top and put into a microwave oven. The large bottle of Oseki I've been pouring into a sake flask, microwaving and then pouring it into a matching cup. This is less expensive ounce for ounce, but you have to recap it, put it into the refrigerator and consume it over a two or three day period. I tried the little ones this evening, developed a buzz (and then wrote this entry).

My goodness. The idea is to drink, well, a flask in the evening. Maybe two flasks in an evening. A shot of Wild Turkey or, what the hell, two shots with water. No more. More is tempting. Am I kidding myself, walking on ice? Or am I walking on water? Not good to believe you can walk on water. Here in Oakland.