a fabulous message from the universe, a day early for my birthday.
if i were a doll -- the kind of doll with a string that you pulled, that said a limited assortment of things -- one of the things i would be programmed to say, i think, would be "why didn't i buy that r. crumb 'heroes of the blues' trading card deck back in 1985, when it was available in every little record store i ever went into?"
because i have said that a whole lotta times in the past 20 years. in fact, i can think of two times in the past week that i've brought it up. for twenty years, twenty, i have been scouring the surface of the earth for the r. crumb 'heroes of the blues' trading card deck. i have looked on e bay. i have queried kitchen sink press and begged them to reprint it. (and they said they had no plans to.) my dad has bid online for copies. no avail. no hope.
last week, discussing the knitting tarot via e-mail, i was commenting on the deck-of-cards format in general as a "delivery system" and how it is particularly pleasing to some, and lamenting, once again, on how sorry i was that i had not purchased an r. crumb 'heroes of the blues' trading card deck when i'd had the chance. then i brought it up again over the weekend, looking at some crumb and harvey pekar stuff on my dad's coffee table.
lament lament lament.
an unexpected chain of events: last night, ben showed me a short digital movie inspired by an m.c. escher woodcut, and i fell in love with the soundtrack, which turned out to be erik satie's trois gnossiennes no. 3. i went to tower records this morning to find a satie disc featuring the six gnossiennes, which i did, and while waiting in line, turned my head to the right, towards one of those shelves with "living dead dolls" and marilyn manson action figures and candy and other stuff piled all over it.
it was just one of those things.
i bought two decks. and the satie disc. happy birthday toooo meeeeee.