give me all your books. please.

it happened sometime while making my senior show. something about spending 2- 9 hours a day drawing dead babies kind of depressed me (go figure) and i lost the ability to read. well, that is an overstatement, maybe. but i went from devouring all kinds of books- classics, political commentaries, poetry, novels, biographies- to reading, well... nothing.

lucky for me, i didn't have a lot of classes that required reading my senior year. a few short articles on Buddhist pacifism, an analysis of a video of me dancing, comments on other people's art... i could do that. but for some reason, anything that demanded more intellectual involvement than a collection of Get Fuzzy strips was just too much.

it;s gradually gotten better. i got really, really into travel books this summer (bill bryson, ayun halliday, j. maarten troost, rory stewart- would recommend to anyone) and, since moving to baltimore, have mostly been re-reading old favorites. i have to read before i go to bed; if i don't, i'm pretty sure the world will implode. i'm still a little bit uncomfortable sleeping by myself in this big room in this even bigger house, listening to the sounds of fights and sirens and gunshots, so i often read for an hour or two before i can fall asleep here. and i'll be honest: one can only read the collected works of e. e. cummings so many times in a three month period, and i have reached that point.

i have tried multiple times to get through this huge stack of liberation theology books, and i've started a tale of two cities about eight times, and the grapes or wrath about 47 times. and it isn't that i don't want to read these things- i do- but i just can't right now. after hearing horror stories of clients' lives at work, and dealing with fights and drug use (clients', not mine) and so much anger and frustration and poverty and cultural differences and barriers.... well, books of get fuzzy comics start to look pretty good.

but my friend bryan runck is really, really smart, and most stuff he says is true, and he and i used to talk a lot about how great art (and literature) doesn't need to be depressing to be good. a lot of great art is born in or because or in spite of pain, but there are some great works that are absolutely saturated with joy. there are a lot of really awful works that are about joy- or trying to be about joy- but that doesn't mean that ALL joyful art is bad. it's harder to say something profound about happiness. it's harder to make someone laugh and still have substance than to make someone cry with substance. and just because the big stack of books i have by my bed is depressing, it doesn't mean i have to read them and be depressed all the time. i'd rather read something and laugh.

i promise to read those books i have saved up, i'm just not at a point where i can right now. right now what i need are some books- GOOD books, with substance and charecters and things that matter- that aren't about death, loss, rape, poverty, powerlessness, or addiction. i know that they're out there. so why don't you think of the greatest funny book you know and tell me what the title is so i can read it? better yet, why don't you buy it for me or send me your copy? i would really appreciate it. and when i'm done, maybe i'll make you a happy drawing to thank you.

i've only made about 4 happy drawings in my life, but maybe i'm up to the challenge if it means getting some books.