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What It Is: 11/8/10

What I’m reading: The Odyssey and the first book of Clyde Fans.

What I’m listening to: BLACKsummers’night, Boxer, Barking, High Violet, and a new Mad Mix I’m struggling with.

What I’m watching: The first week of season 1 of In Treatment (I’m intrigued enough to stick with it; also, I’m a huge mark for Gabriel Byrne, ever since Miller’s Crossing). On Saturday night, Amy & I tried giving Avatar a try on HBO. After 45 minutes, we were so bored we decided to take our chances with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, which turned out to be a lot more entertaining and inventive.

What I’m drinking: Citadelle & Q-Tonic.

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Nothing exciting. They took a shorter-than-usual but vigorous hike up in Wawayanda on Sunday, and they were kinda bummed that there was no farmers’ market to visit on Saturday. Seriously, they seem to have figured out a 7-day week, and got all agitated when a Saturday morning went by without a trip down to the market. Poor boys.

Where I’m going: New Orleans, for the AAPS annual meeting.

What I’m happy about: I had an idea for a recurring podcast segment that I thought would be awesome. I shared it with a few potential interviewees and they were all thrilled by the idea.

What I’m sad about: Having to learn how to be a good audio interviewer in order to execute that aforementioned idea. For my day job, I do my interviews on the phone and then transcribe them for the magazine/website. I always shudder at the sound of my own voice and the vapidity of some of my questions, but then, maybe I’ll be more engaged when the topic is something I’m more interested in. And I can use a voice-distorter to sound like a kidnapper or something, instead of my occasionally “nasal wraith” voice.

What I’m worried about: Not following through with this awesome idea. It’s a recurring problem of mine. I’m hoping that I’ll overcome it by watching lots of In Treatment.

What I’m pondering: Going back to wearing glasses occasionally. I realize that my midlife crisis is manifesting itself in a desire to dress well (within a budget), which I think is a lot healthier than my dad’s version — buying a Corvette and a motorcycle and dating an 18-year-old hairdresser. So I’m thinking of buying a pair of these, because I need to look more bookish (?).

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What It Is: 11/1/10

What I’m reading: The Odyssey. Also, after reading this great Frank Santoro post, I reread Chester Brown’s Helder and Showing Helder. And I was feeling nostalgic for feeling nostalgic for superheroes, so I reread Grant Morrison & Frank Quietly’s Flex Mentallo mini-series. The ’90s sure were a funny time.

What I’m listening to: A bunch of Anthony Hamilton records. Whoa, nelly.

What I’m watching: Outside of American Splendor (on Halloween, because we didn’t get around to watching it on Harvey Pekar’s birthday earlier in October) not much of anything, besides some World Series games.

What I’m drinking: Fifty Pounds gin & Q-Tonic.

What I’m eating: A peach and blueberry pie. It’s the last one of Farmers’ Market season, which saddens me. It was my Saturday tradition (formerly our Saturday tradition, but Little Ms. Gluten-Free Diet can’t participate anymore), picking up a 5″ fruit pie from the Concklin Orchards stand for weekend devourification. The dogs will be sad/confused, too, since they somehow figured out the 7-day schedule and knew that Saturday mornings were when they get to promenade around the market and get love and affection from unsuspecting locals.

What Rufus & Otis are up to: They enjoyed some longish mid-week walks, courtesy of some unseasonably lovely weather. And when things started to cool down again, they still managed to get in another 5-mile grey-hike! Pix here! Spex here! And then, they got dressed up for Halloween . . .

Where I’m going: Back to Ithaca, even if I didn’t think too much of this essay.

What I’m happy about: Getting that first podcast out of the way. Also, discovering that Tyler Brule of Monocle has many of the same poor mannerisms that I do when conducting interviews/conversations: too many “um”s and “you know”s and a tendency to speak in full — and multiple — paragraphs.

What I’m sad about: That he’s much more successful than I’ll ever be. Also, that whole peach and blueberry pie thing.

What I’m worried about: Writing two articles in the next two days to wrap up my Nov/Dec issue. So, um, don’t call, okay?

What I’m pondering: Whether to consider the Odyssey in terms of a whole with the Iliad, or whether to contemplate the Iliad on its own, without considering Odysseus as an alternative to Achilles as Best of the Achaians.

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What It Is: 9/20/10

What I’m reading: The Iliad and about 500 pages of Jaime Hernandez’ Locas comics.

What I’m listening to: Not much of anything, sad to say.

What I’m watching: Not much of anything, sad to say.

What I’m drinking: Bluecoat & Q-Tonic

What Rufus & Otis are up to: A Sunday grey-hike, demolishing new squeaky-toys, and not getting used to their new beds.

Where I’m going: New Brunswick, for Contracting & Outsourcing 2010!

What I’m happy about: Getting called up for an aliya during Yom Kippur services and not embarrassing myself. Although I can’t remember if I started the blessing with “barchoo” or “baruch” . . .

What I’m sad about: Not being able to cajole my dad into coming along for any of the high holiday services besides his annual prayer for his departed parents’ souls. Also, that I’ll never dress as well as Brad.

What I’m worried about: Getting most of my October issue together before our conference starts Wednesday night. Gotta transcribe two interviews, start writing another story, and lay out the rest of the articles and columns in the next two-and-a-half days.

What I’m pondering: Whether Jaime Hernandez’ comics had a downturn or “treading water” phase in his career. I’m not in love with the Ti-Girls story he recently did, but I respect it as a working-through of his longtime love for superhero comics. Reading his stuff from 1984-1999, as I did this weekend, I’m inclined to think that he’s been on an upward trajectory pretty much since Love & Rockets debuted in 1981, which means he’s been getting better for nearly 30 consecutive years. The most recent issue, as I mentioned last week, was mind-blowingly good. I was worried that the melodrama qualities of some of the story, with their native emotional hooks, were magnifying the overall intensity of his work, but there was so much more going on in those stories, so much economy in the writing and art, and so much intelligence expected of the reader, that I’m still floored by it.

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What It Is: 9/13/10

What I’m reading: The Iliad

What I’m listening to: Early Springsteen, in honor of late summer.

What I’m watching: The last few episodes of the first season of Louie, along with bits and pieces of A Serious Man, Go and A Life Less Ordinary. Also, I caught The American at a matinee after the shofar services on Thursday.

What I’m drinking: Bluecoat and Q-Tonic

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Going on their first grey-hike in a few weeks, getting accustomed to new beds, and just enjoying the cooler weather.

Where I’m going: Nowhere in particular.

What I’m happy about: The new year.

What I’m sad about: This growing feeling that I just can’t keep up with The World At Large, and that I’d be better served cutting off all those RSS feeds and Facebook views and Twitter updates.

What I’m worried about: My lack of worry over this year’s conference. Last year was really debilitating, in large part because one of my key speakers went into radio silence mode for a full six months, until one day prior to the conference. No such hassles this year, and all the other aspects seem to be running smoothly.

What I’m pondering: Fate and destiny, through the lens of Achilles’ rejection of the envoy in book 9 of the Iliad. Also, whether I’ll have a heart attack if I try P90X.

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When You’re a Bear You’re a Bear All the Way

I cleaned out the attic and our storage room this weekend, and have uncovered a bazillion photos I need to get around to scanning and writing about. Here’s a pic from around 1999 or 2000 from a birthday diner for Samuel R. Delany.

Chip is probably just holding his cane with his right hand, but I prefer to believe that he’s flashing a gang symbol.

I seem to recall that we got our wires crossed and ended up at the wrong French restaurant, two doors over from the one that we had planned to go to.

From left to right: me, my girlfriend from back then, Chip’s partner Dennis, Chip, a writer named Richard Gessner, and my pal Sang, who died early this year.

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What It Is: 5/24/10

What I’m reading: Fly Fishing with Darth Vader and Bartleby the Scrivener

What I’m listening to: High Violet, by The National

What I’m watching: The Night of the Hunter, which was a) my first Robert Mitchum flick, and b) All That. Also, caught up on Parks & Rec and 30 Rock, and watched the first third of Dark City.

What I’m drinking: Bluecoat and Q-Tonic

What Rufus & Otis are up to: Not hiking on Sunday, as we were expecting rain. Which never arrived. Maybe we should get ’em an arts & crafts project, it being summer vacation time and all.

Where I’m going: Nowhere!

What I’m happy about: Getting together with my pal Jon-Eric and his wife Monika on Sunday evening at Aozora in Montclair, NJ to celebrate his 40th birthday with the, um, time-honored tradition of Chilean sea bass.

What I’m sad about: That the weather was so bad last Tuesday that I couldn’t get into NYC for an alumni seminar on Bartleby. I would have preferred to! (but seriously, it was one of those rain-and-wind episodes that turns into a 2-hour drive just to get into the city)

What I’m worried about: Getting those last two FDA speakers locked in for my conference in September. After a long delay, my contact at FDA HQ finally got back to me on Sunday. His e-mail mentioned that I should “fill out the attachment,” but the e-mail contained no attachment. Sigh.

What I’m pondering: When I’ll get around to wearing these. (They were on sale, and they only had my size.)