A dream of taco typewriters š
I'm starting a band calledĀ The Minutiae.
(Unfortunately, my band mates and I are so busy doing laundry, making food, conditioning our hair, buying toilet paper, paying bills, picking up Legos and wading through email that we can never get our act together. But when we do, we'll sound AMAZING!)Ā Ā Ā
So hi there. Read on for a couple recs and a short-short storyĀ I wrote last year. Since I turn 44 in a few days, itĀ seemed like a good time to share.
SIX HOURS OF HEMINGWAY:Ā This week I watched the new six-hourĀ Ernest Hemingway doc, and I'm glad I made the time. It's fascinating to see old footage of the writer--and interviewees include his son Patrick, now 92. Peter Coyote narrates, and other voices include Jeff Daniels, Patricia Clarkson and Keri Russell. (One of the most startling things I learned is that Hemingway survived two plane crashes in TWO DAYS. Shortly thereafter, he struggled to write and prerecord his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. It's lovely and heartbreaking.)
Stream HEMINGWAY for free atĀ pbs.org/kenburns/hemingway. And while you're there, consider watching FLANNERY, a new doc about writer Flannery O'Connor. I loved that one, too--and it's only an hour and 23 minutes.
NOMINATE PANDEMIX:Ā Last summer Dean Haspiel & I co-editedĀ PANDEMIX, a quarantine-themed digital comics anthology featuring 19 incredible artists. All proceeds went to charity; get it for $5 at heroinitiative.org. I'm so proud of this publication and would be thrilled if you nominated it for Best Anthology atĀ RingoAwards.com. I'd love to work on more independent projects like this, and any recognition helps!
VIDEOS & STUFF:Ā I had a blast doing Word Balloon triviaĀ with John Siuntres, Fred Van Lente, Crystal Skillman, Erica Schultz, Mike Norton and Dean Haspiel. Thank goodness for the "Retro TV" category, or I would've tanked.
A couple new Nightwork Studio videos are up, including one where Dean & I discuss hair-salon relationships and another where he asks how I'd hide a dead body(!).
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I post diary comics and more atĀ patreon.com/whitneymatheson. Thanks for your support!
And now for a short-short story...
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how to write a memoir at age 43
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I canāt start at the beginning because the beginning is too boringāanother hospital, another town, hang left at the strip mallāand I canāt jump to the middle, because thatās all fumbles and hangovers. So where does that leave me? Do I organize it all alphabetically, starting with airplanes, my arthritis, and the assholes Iāve known? Do I sort by city, from DC to Chicago to Nashville to New York?
Or hey, maybe I *only* write the boring parts, cramming chapters with bills and vacuums and traffic jams. Or I suppose I could just recount my medical history, which would surely leave room for a sequel.
But really, I think we both know the answer. Will you let me say it? Iāll say it now: My memoir starts with you. Imagine this is the first sentence, and you are sitting right on top of the comma. That makes sense to me. I could write and write about old apartments and sore bones and items I loaned that went unreturned, but the truth is, the only story I want to tell has you smiling and waving from that first commaāand, if Iām lucky, resting next to me on this final ellipsis ā¦ with perhaps a dog or a sandwich between us.
Holler anytime at whitmath@gmail.com.Ā Have a scintillating week.Ā
*double clap*
Toni Basil Rathbone
"Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which
the hair often falls out and the teeth decay."
- Flannery O'Connor
Reach out! Find me on Twitter, Instagram and at whitmath@gmail.com.