antique mall jackpot(!)

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Clockwise, from top: Dick Tracy two-way wrist radio (1961); Spidey Halloween basket (1979); DICK TRACY MONTHLY No. 2 (Feb 1948); No. 4 (April 1948); No. 9 (Sept 1948); and No. 11 (Nov. 1948). Below, the opened glory of the two-way wrist radio.

Also picked up SUPERMAN’S METROPOLIS, an Elseworlds riff I had never heard of (and now that I’ve learned it’s the first of a trilogy with BATMAN: NOSFERATU and WONDER WOMAN: BLUE AMAZON, I’ll be seeking those out as well):

Damn fine Saturday.

WHITE JAZZ (Ellroy, 1992)

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(read: 20220809->17; my complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here. )

Another one that's been in the to-read stacks for awhile, but now that my first complete reading of Ellroy's first LA Quartet (all in first editions, I'm proud to say) – I'd read BLACK DAHLIA and LA CONFIDENTIAL previously; this was my first time with both THE BIG NOWHERE (excellent) and WHITE JAZZ – is done, I'm awash with a sense of accomplishing something: what that something is, I haven't a clue – a chance to start over with a re-read, perhaps: age and mileage do, if nothing else, add perspective.

That being said, I remain both tepid (similar to my reaction to each of Ellroy's in-progress Second LA QUARTET offerings – though mercifully devoid of the utter scorn I hold for the second in the series, THIS STORM) and somewhat confused because – in spite of some brilliant moments weaving in and out of this rare (for Ellroy) first-person account by an unfamiliar though nonetheless excellent protagonist (whom I hope Ellroy revisits sometime: it's a shame Klein's been out to pasture for 30 years and never appeared in prior works – though please correct me if I’m wrong) at the center of the machinations of two forces of LAPD nature, I can't figure – other than acting as a coda to the tales of Exley (who's far more of a shit in the books than in Guy Pearce's excellent film portrayal) and Dudley (Cromwell was perfect), and a pivot between the first LA Quartet and the Underworld, USA trilogy (JAZZ features the debut of my favorite of Ellroy's characters, Pete Bondurant, one of the three protagonists of my favorite of Ellroy's works – and one of my favorite books of all time, AMERICAN TABLOID) – why WHITE JAZZ needed to exist in the first place.

Then again, I might have answered my own (long-winded) question. Wouldn't be the first time.

I am a bluetooth device and my blood is sending me push notifications

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Changed my CGM yesterday evening and, as is sometimes the case, alerts woke me up twice in the middle of the night to tell me that I was crashing into hypo-ness but fingerpricking revealed I wasn't, pretzels and sugar gel for zilch. And now, it's doing the same thing this morning: CGM screams, You're at 53 and dropping and oh my fuck you're going to die, while the fingerpricking, the same one I've had since day one of T1D/TFD (this fucking disease) says, Nah, you're fine. 102; carry on. Fuck this fucking disease and the deeply flawed technology it uses to notify me of its fuckeries internal.

obsidian victories

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Victory the first: I think I've figured out how I'll digitally index physical notebooks: while I had once subscribed to the romance of the analog, card-based system, two things have brought me 'round to using Obsidian for that as well.

  • One: my handwriting is, has been, and will always be shit (I've given up) and, thanks to this, I have as much of a chance of losing my brain "data" in analog form as in digital, cloud-based form.

  • Two, that forming connective tissue via effective tagging is far simpler and more facile via Obsidian; now that I've found my way to a more effective tagging system, the benefits far outweight my erstwhile digital resistance.

Current victorious method of indexing physical notebooks: tag each entry NB30 -PageNumber/TIME (PN & T outside the tag) in my Obsidian Daily Notes; if it warrants a separate note (or requires it later) it gets one – though I do try to keep all notes on a single Daily Notes page because while I can abide cluttery, messy pages, I have a hard time dealing with cluttery messy file systems.

Victory the second: my quest for an iOS shortcut to access today's daily note in Obsidian from the homepage is at an end: (Daily Notes Shortcut V1 ). YAY.

wed/20220824

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61ºF, sun: all good on the medical front, happy pill cocktail remains the same, my nose is fine (though still a bit sore), internal numbers have stabilized and yielded a satisfied doc... the sting of being free from an onerous responsibility is more stinging than I thought – that it triggers more than a bit of emotional PTSD doesn't help – but oh well fuck him: I did more than my share and he's not worth the intrusive shenanigans mental... shit's getting scandalous at the Bratwurst Festival ... dismay at snail's pace of current fictional progress heightens; trying, nonetheless, to keep something Nick Cave said somewhere in mind: when it's not coming, it's coming – rhythm rhythm rhythm ... if heaven exists, mine will look like this though perhaps I'll be satisfied with calling it my happy place internal... happy 96th birthday to my grandfather: it's been a(nother) hell of a year, but here we are, starting another... kind words glow continues… the day awaits.

EJK on PRESS (A) TO START

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Elizabeth Joan Kelly, one of my favorite composers working today - and, in the interest of full disclosure, one of my favorite collaborators - on the first edition of my PRESS (A) TO START series:

“… a beautiful and heartbreaking work: Weaver navigates the complex reality of losing a family member - albeit one who represented significant trauma - through a mixture of self-analysis, memory, narrative, objects, and drafted obituaries. The central tension comes not from a sense of loss, but from the inherent sense of guilt that comes with saying goodbye to a complicated relationship. But despite how devastating it is, LAST CHRISTMAS IN JULY is also breathtaking and, in a way, comforting, because it is evidence that trauma can beget great work, and that is what great art does: it makes us feel and astounds us with what it makes us feel.”

PRESS (A) TO START is a twice-a-year, print-only premium (though decidedly imperfect and raw) zine produced exclusively for MacroParentheticals subscribers. The first issue, LAST CHRISTMAS IN JULY – A COWARD’S EXORCISM, is now available. You can sign up here to subscribe.