City of Roses is a serialized epic firmly set in Portland, Oregon: an urban fantasy mixing magical realism with gonzo noirish prose, where duels are fought in Pioneer Square, and union meetings are beseiged by ghost bicycles.
Since I believe there is a most intimate relationship between the quality of a person's life, its abundance or sterility, his integrity, and the quality of his poetry, it is not irrelevant to say that, judging by some—not a few—I have met on my travels, the people who write banal poetry and, to almost the same extent, those who in desperation make up a fake surrealism, usually seem to be the same academics who talk a liberal line concerning education and politics (and often, as teachers, are genial and popular) but who, when it comes to some crucial issue, such as a student protest, will not commit themselves far enough to endanger their own security. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is their poetry banal because their lives are banal, or vice versa? I think it works both ways. If these people committed themselves, took risks, and did not let themselves be dominated by the pursuit of "security," their daily lives would be so changed, so infused with new experiences and with the new energy that often comes with them, that inevitably their poetry would change too (though obviously this would not ensure better poems unless they were gifted in the first place).
When I watch Desert Hearts now, I think of a few people. I think of the (older) baby queer I matched with on Tinder who disappeared and who I followed up with a month later anyway. I think about how, because of that follow-up, we spent a night together where, following her lead, we stopped at making out with clothes on. I think about how that person is now so much more settled in their queerness—with their sexuality and their gender.
Yeah, so that was digital lettering. Again, at that time I was not that focused on comics. I came out of Milton Glaser Studio. It was my first job coming out of college. He was an instructor at college, at SVA, so I was working there, and like I said, my dad was in advertising. So I'm just used to that world of dealing with type. Back then we used to glue it on boards, you know with the rubber cement and razor blades and all that stuff and overlays. You have what they call Rubylith. I'm not even gonna explain what Rubylith is.
“You said you were going to kill me,” she says, her voice gone soft and thin.
“I might,” he says.
“What is this,” she says. “What are we doing.”
“Magic,” he says. “Take up the blade.” Closing one eye, the other hidden beneath an eyepatch cupped there beside his sharply angular nose, naked on his back on the floor, his wrists bound up over his head with a sheer black stocking, tied to a pole that braces a little yellow table above them both. His long black hair spread over the grimy linoleum like a fan. In the aisle between two lines of those little yellow tables, orange plastic chairs bolted to the poles to either side, she’s kneeling over him, one leg stockinged, one leg bare, black lace stretched taut about her wide round hips. Her long black hair threaded with white ribbons and silvery spangles that sweep over his narrow chest, his belly, her breasts brushing against him as her hand still in a black and white striped arm sock closes about the hilt of the long knife beside him, a slight curl to it, and no point but a sudden wedge of a tip. “It, it feels real,” she says.
“Of course it does,” he says, opening his eye.
“I mean, it doesn’t, it isn’t–”
“Don’t touch the blade,” he says. “Not with your hand.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to do anything–”
“Hush,” he says, sharply. “By the hilt. Both hands. Firmly.”
“It’s real, isn’t it,” she says, the blade upright before her face. “I mean, it’s sharp.”
“I think he stuck the landing. This was good, damn good.”
“The surrealism, the lush detail, and the loving attention to local Portland culture…”
“—to explain how this is Emma Bull’s War for the Oaks plus Portlandia with a smattering of Little, Big and Chinatown.”
