The subtle art of showing up

Over and over and over again

my printmaking obsession continues…

Hey y’all,

The late great Steve Albini once sent a letter to the band Nirvana before they recorded their last album, In Utero.

“I would like to be paid like a plumber,” he wrote. “I do the job and you pay me what it’s worth.”

I thought of Albini a few weeks ago when we had several plumbers out to the house.

I would like to be paid like a plumber, I thought. As long as I actually show up, I get paid!

We bought our old bungalow in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, and it was near-impossible to get any tradespeople to show up. A great plumber in those days was simply a plumber who actually showed up!

My diary 5 years ago

I’ve been re-reading my diary from 2020, and it has all felt eerily familiar to me.

Something I remember thinking back then was that everyone was either dying or so diminished that if you could manage to show up for people in any capacity, you could really do some good in the world.

I’d like to find a non-ableist way of rephrasing the ancient parable, “in the street of the blind, the one-eyed man is called the guiding light.”

When the whole world’s knocked on its ass, a half-assed job will do?

(Let me know if you have suggestions in the comments.)

I can feel that diminishment returning to everyday life. Everyone’s wrung out from the news and the terror inflicted by clown oligarchs and mad leaders and the general enshittification that is ensuing.

It might be cliché at this point, but that Kipling poem comes to mind: “If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs…” (I suggest watching Dennis Hopper recite it on The Johnny Cash Show.)

I get several forms of the question, “What good is making art in times like these?”