Or the Unexpected Benefits of a Poor Memory
I confess, I had forgotten a lot.
I had forgotten the American mania for putting ice in every beverage. (Perhaps this is why global warming seems such a distant concern in the US, every American is busy tryingto warm up his or her innards perpetually chilled by ice cubes, crushed ice, slush cones, slurpies and other freezing concoctions. An intestinal Ice Age, a glaciation of digestion that precludes any constructive observation of a warming Earth.) This said, I suppose the inhabitants of Iowa would welcome a little global warming during those miserable long winters… I know folks in Winnipeg would.
I had forgotten the delight of finding bookshops open until 10 p.m. In Switzerland, shops close at 4:30 Saturday afternoon and only grudgingly re-open Monday at 1:30.
I had forgotten how easily it is to distract people in America. Suddenly the news is full of “Truth” about “Swift Boats”, when it would seem that there are rather more important issues at hand for the fall elections. (Where’s Janet Jackson when she’s needed?)
I had forgotten you have to dress warmly even in midsumer. The hum of air conditioners pervades every edifice. Impossible to escape air conditioning. Even the hotel lobby, which was the dimensions of a respectable cathedral – 12 floors high and nearly a block long – was like being outdoors in Oklahoma in October. (No wonder global warming is such an abstract concept, it’s freezing everywhere.)
I had forgotten how affable and congenial people are in the US. Even street beggars are cheerful. Mendacity seems to be not so much an almost heriditary cross to bear as an unfortunate and possibly passing circumstance, like getting caught in a thundershower or getting a flat tire. In Europe, dropping a coin in a cup gets little reaction beyond a scowl, but in the US you get a cheery “Have a great day!” even if you don’t have spare change.
I had forgotten how thoroughly distasteful, biased and sinister news networks like Fox TV can be. They make CNN look like a model of impartiality. I had forgotten too the frightening capacity to instantaneously editorialize information as it happens. Anything that appears twice on the news is gratified with a flashy headline banner.
I had forgotten how big the US is. Indianapolis is poised more or less on the verge of what is uncharitaby known as “flyover country” – the endless sucession of states that compose the midwest. I was embarrassed to realize I had a hard time situating with certainty more than half the 50 states. And captial cities? Half a dozen. When you think that many states are a big as European countries, it suddenly seems harsh to criticize Americans for not knowing where Luxembourg is, or to reel off the capital cities of the Baltic states.
I had forgotten you must not put that little line across the number 7. (“Would yew puh-lease fi-yull aout tha-yut for-um puh-roperly sir?”) Crossing sevens in the US is practically enough to get you burned at the stake. (By the way, advice to travellers, you MUST fill out the name of the hotel you are staying at, but no need to make reservations, just write Holiday Inn like in that old Elton John song.)
I had forgotten what a horizontal country the US is. Everything seems wider, larger, of more substantial girth, from waistlines to parking spots. This horizontality, besides providing the ample foundations of skyscraper mentality, is rather like someone sprawling in an armchair, when the rest of the West sits primly upright and tries not to touch elbows, rather like irascible passengers on a long flight in coach class with only one armrest for two.
I had forgotten how American english mangles foreign names and terms. The tolerance of tongues to absorb pronunciations along with the words themselves varies considerably. (French for example: tolerance zero outside of the latin languages, Quebec French, however can keep anglicized pronunciations without a hitch in mid-phrase.) English mouths are notoriously lazy, with only a fraction of the sounds most languages require. (I should know, it was physically impossible for me to pronounce an “R” properly in French, and took months to force down my throat.) There is a close parallel between the propensity to steamroll foreign words and the capacity to take foreign cultures into account.
I had forgotten the atmosphere of optimism that seems part of the air in the US. It’s buoyant and contagious or irrationally irritating, depending on your preconceptions, prejudices or what you had for breakfast. (I had blueberry pancakes three days in a row, thanks, so I was feeling particularly cheery.)
Above all, I had forgotten the ambiguity of my feelings for America – Canada is but a happy circumstance in the shadow of greater events – I could easily have been born in that rather more populous land barely farther south. I vacillate between wanting to build a wall along the border and thinking what the heck, for all intents and purposes, it’s the 50-something state anyway, so why get so worked up about it. But then again…
But more importantly, I thank my short memory. If I hadn’t forgotten all that, I’d never have noticed it all over again.
QUAY
“But WHAT was he doing in Indianapolis??” I can hear everyone wondering…(like anybody cares). At Gen Con 2004 Decipher launched their new sci-fi collectible card game WARS, for which I did a bit of work. Because I am so abysmally slow and disorganised, I only managed to do concept work, not finished colour. Of course, their offer was too good to refuse: design the Quay, an alien race that is right out of your worst nightmare…
Here are a couple of sketches (sorry about the poor scans, my valiant but nonetheless budget priced scanner is giving up the ghost):
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“But WHERE in his sick little mind does he find all that??” I can hear you asking. Well… when my son was little, he had a half dozen Batman masks. He used to wear them two at a time, one with the ears pointing down, the other overlapping it, with the ears pointing up…
Almost forgot; I had indeed forgotten how scary it is to be in the same city at 30,000 avid (and mostly overweight) gamers. Gen Con was fun nonetheless; I wandered about talking to the artists who had rented booths and got loads of pointers on how to make it big in fantasy art, (I keep my accreditation in my pocket and manifest a great deal of polite interest) which was very enlightening (to say the least).
I also scored a hefty armful of t-shirts but they are all as big as tents. I must adopt a more scientific approach for shrinking laundry so my son and I don’t look like coat racks with sheets tossed over them. (Yes, I DID bring back some for my wife too, but curiously enough, she doesn’t seem to appreciate “Call of Cthulu”, “Dungeons and Dragons” or “Dork Tower” t-shirts. Go figure…)
SCORE
The documentary is actually going to have, besides some music done VERY close to home, an original score by Swedish musician Anthony Lledo. Check out his web site here.
NONPLUSSED
A few weeks ago, someone from the forum kindly sent me his copy of the Bulgarian one-volume Lord of the Rings, sporting a rather novel cover to say the least. Armed with the editor’s name, I found their web site, and wrote off to request copies of any books that they might have used my covers upon thankyou kindly very much appreciated. (This is of course my thinly disguised but nonetheless gentlemanly approach to much-preferred machiavellian back-stabbing, which is of course the favoured second step.) Normally, nobody replies, and I hand it over in a fit of rage and despondency to HarperCollins, who are much better equipped to deal with this kind of thing than I. (Usually.)
But, Bard Publishing very kindly sent me copies of their 3-volume boxed set of the Lord of the Rings. With these covers:
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NOW what do I do? They’re really sweet, they SENT me books. And it’s a boxed set besides! It seems unreasonable to holler at them for repainting my artwork – their artist admittedly cleaned it up rather smartly – after they were forthcoming enough to send copies. And I only asked ONCE! Heck, there are English and American editors I’ve been unsuccessfully pursuing for ten YEARS to get the odd book. I’ll have to think about it…
