A brief revisit

 

This may not be the last time we trot out old pictures from Japan here at clerkmanifesto. There is still too much satisfaction in it because we loved it there. 

It is now a year since we were actually in Japan, but, and this one seems strange to me: We were nevertheless in Japan more recently than we were in the United States.

You know, of America.

"Ah! America!" As people say in France after we figure out they're asking us where we're from and we answer them. 

"Ah! America!" They say.

What do they mean by this?

That they've heard of it?

There is no level of French I can be at that will understand this response. But I accept it. Yes, America.

The important point though here is that I am fully obsessed with what I might fairly describe as a color shaker toy for my photos. You take your little magic can (TM) and load it with any three to five colors you want. Select your photo and mist it lightly with your Ansel Adams Solution, being careful not to saturate it. Then firmly close the top and shake it for 20 seconds or so, et voila! Remove the picture from the cannister and hang it to dry. 

In less than ten minutes: Color magic!

My best solution to what to do with all my color magic pictures is to group them up by category. Today is "Japan". I think I might still have a "Minnesota" group, and a "Belle Epoque City" one. After that maybe I'll be ready to try something else, you know, like writing one of those witty essays everyone is always pretending I write. "Thank you for your hallucinatory xray images of the oysters you ate, but what I really enjoy are those crazy little essays you write where you imagine the reader is saying stuff and then you respond to it but it's all in your own head!"

Wait, I don't do that, do I? 

The doubleheader

 

Today I have for you two new I E Skin cartoons. Two!

I could just show one, I know. It would be perfectly reasonable. Even employing as much AI as I do here, these still take tons of time to make, mostly with me yelling at and begging the AI to do what I want. But they make such a nice set about my life in France.

I don't know how to explain it, but the first one is a bit of how it feels trying to do the right thing in a slightly confusing other culture. The second one is probably my trying to make peace with the seedy life of the streets here.

The most beautiful flowers ever

 

Sorry about the hyperbole. 

These aren't the most beautiful flowers ever. Flowers aren't ranked. I know that this is hard to remember when one is on the Internet. In the real world nothing is ranked. This is sort of like how if you are dreaming you can try pinching yourself to see if you maybe are really not dreaming. If you are not sure if you're on the Internet ask yourself which song ranks higher: Weight of Love by the Black Keys or Candles in the Rain by Melanie. If an obvious answer occurs to you you are on the Internet!

There is nothing wrong with being on the Internet. It's the 43rd best thing to do on a thursday!

Er, anyway, I made these pictures of flowers for you. They are of course, unranked, because this isn't...

wait

now I'm all confused.

The return of I E Skin's Guide

 

Way back in the mid nineties, not so very far back for some of us to go, I experienced one of my ever so modest peaks of public artistic success with a weekly comic called "I.E. Skin's Guide to All that there is to Know". It ran in a weekly paper in the bay area for a few years and then it went away.

Or did it!

Maybe this here, right now, clerkmanifesto, is really I.E. Skin's Guide to all that there is to Know!

Sort of, I guess, whatever.

This is not the first time I have mentioned my old alt weekly comic, even at some point bringing forth the historical comics here, or maybe posting to an auxiliary clerkmanifesto site that was easily viewable and is still link listed on the sidebar here. Doris the super intelligent alien and even the character of god, stalwarts of I.E. Skin's Guide, have appeared here as well over the years of clerkmanifesto in various ways.

But I can't say I have ever done a proper resurrection.

Until today, because, why not?

Our first return, a sort of let's get our feet wet, is a reworking of an original cartoon of I.E. Skin's Guide, but with some redesigns and a little modern rewriting.

For the second cartoon, we venture into the wholly new, featuring none other than fox and skunk.

Metadistential

Yesterday I came upon the new word metadistential.

Well, I mean, I wrote it.

Did you know that the most famous clerkmanifesto post of all time was in the coining of the word "Condeluded" meaning to be confused in one's own interest. 

Had I struck gold again?

Not that there was any gold for me in "condeluded".

However, I did become super famous and acquired, let's see:

Zero new readers.

Welcome to each and every one of you.

And now was the magic was about to happen again?

Metadistential. Here is how it appeared yesterday:

 Sorry, I didn't mean to get all metadistential.

Whoa, metadistential.

I think I have a new word.

I was pretty excited, naturally, what with all the fame and glory headed my way.

Metadistential.

Metadistential.

Metadistential.

Now all I had to do was come up with a meaning.

Actually, I had the meaning.

I just can't explain it.

No, I'm not being clever here. That is the meaning: To know the meaning but not be able to explain it.

No, it's actually not very likely to catch on. It's too...

too...

metadistential.

The best new song

 

If someone wants to point me to new music I am ready to listen. I should be studying modern jazz or global fusion or something, instead of scrolling through my corporate Internet feeds, smeared as they are with the patina of real people to keep me hanging on in hope and addiction. 

THERE ARE NO REAL PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET!

Even here on a clerkmanifesto, I am just a figment of your imagination until you step away from your phone or your computer. Only then do I exist.

"Oh" You say. "I see. It's all there."

But only later, not now.

Sorry, I didn't mean to get all metadistential.

Whoa, metadistential.

I think I have a new word.

But we'll get to that later. Or not. 

My point is:

I have a hard time finding new music.

And I have a hard time having the attention span for new music. And if I expect some instagreddit feed to point me sagely in the right direction, it's not happening. They just keep showing me Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, which is comforting, but possibly a bit played out?

But then, today, by purest chance and scrolling I hit something absolutely electrifying!

Alas that it is from 1966.

A dead Lou Reed recommended it.

How did I miss this?

Well, I'll still take it, ancient as it is. And in case you somehow missed it (there was a ton of interesting music coming down the wires of 1966!) I hearby share it with you.

This is exactly the kind of song I like. And what an experience to hear it for the first time (at least that I'm aware of). Like, it's a nice mid sixties soul song, and the singer has an interesting clear voice, higher it seems than what I would usually hear here.

Here here!

And the lyrics have a good, heartfelt, heartache to them, and then,

Holy crap. The song is just ripped open. Completely unhinged with feeling.

I can't stop listening.

I have to go listen again. Join me if you like. But we are done with all art and creativity for the day. We are just living in shadows...

https://youtu.be/5TOaUxgkLSg?si=hPXXyO0dVS3l2r8W