250 Words on the Memory Hole

 

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Monday until I run out of good ones.]

In his novel 1984, George Orwell introduced the “memory hole,” a chute leading to an incinerator that destroyed forbidden history. It’s a tool of the sort of totalitarians who used to airbrush disfavored Soviet generals out of May Day Parade photos. 

As a person who can lose sleep over embarrassments or offenses going back to elementary school, I’m a fan of the memory hole.

Long ago, I realized I was probably the only person on Earth who remembered many of the social disasters I still fretted about. At most, someone else might have half a memory of a thing that happened involving someone they used to know but whose name they’ve long forgotten. 

If that’s so—if there’s no record of the disaster except the one replaying in my head—then it’s as good as if it never happened. I can let it go. 

Understand that I’m not talking about getting away with crimes. Just the day-to-day unintended fumbles and stumbles we all commit, especially when we’re young. Things we wish we hadn’t done, humiliations we wish we hadn’t suffered, feelings we wish we hadn’t hurt.

“Oooh, I could have handled that better.”

Of course, the ultimate memory hole is death. I’m not in favor of eliminating witnesses, but isn’t there some peace of mind in knowing that eventually nobody alive will know of your transgressions? I’d like to be remembered after I’m gone—that’s one reason people write books—but there’s certainly some relief in the prospect of oblivion. 

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Amazing Adventures in Emeryville!

Me, Amber and Judd with our book cover (disclaimer: the actual book is not that large).

I had a terrific time talking about Marvel Super Stories: Amazing Adventures with Judd Winick and Amber Padilla at the Barnes & Noble in Emeryville, Calif. Tuesday night. We were three of the 15 cartoonists who contributed stories to the anthology, and just hanging with them was great! The fact that there was an audience there to watch us talk was even better.

We got a lot of good questions that sparked some fun discussions ("Which Marvel character would you want to be?" Judd: Spider-Man. Amber: Storm. Me: My first thought was Thor, then switched to Captain America). 

No doubt talking about something deep, cool and clever.

One questioner asked how we constructed our stories. We all agreed that character came first: if you can take a character from A through B to C, the rest is ornamentation. However, I also said that I'm often inspired by particular images that come to me; I don't always know what they mean, but I know they're going into the story somehow, and I pulled out a page of original art to show one such image.

I was also happy to meet my friend Christy Vaca for the first time, in the way that people can be friends online for years without actually meeting because this is the 21st century. So glad she came out for the evening! 

My friend Christy! We spent some time talking about how she knows someone who met Eleanor Roosevelt, which improves my standing in the "Six Degrees of Separation" game immensely! I'm now like four degrees from people like Churchill and Stalin!

I sketched the Marvel character Beast, who appears in my story. Christy took it home.

And we even sold a few copies of A Fire Story, including a couple to a woman who said she recommended it to high school students studying nonfiction comics, which I really appreciate.

Nice night. Good audience. Great company. Happy to be a part of this project!

250 Words on the Metric System

[NOTE: I scheduled this to run the week after the election some time ago because I figured something lighter than politics would be nice no matter which way it turned out. Today, I think that’s truer than ever.]

I’ve always admired the metric system, but didn’t feel entirely comfortable with it until I became a chemist and used it routinely. It is an objectively superior scheme of weights and measures with, in my opinion, one exception.

The strength of metric isn’t just how everything’s divisible by ten, although that’s convenient. Its real beauty is how it links length, volume and mass at its foundation. 

One cubic centimeter of water—that is, 1 x 1 x 1 cm or 1 cc, a bit smaller than a sugar cube—equals 1 milliliter of volume and 1 gram of mass. 

From that seed, everything blooms. 

One liter of water measures 10 x 10 x 10 cm and weighs, by definition, 1 kilogram. Want to know how much your bucket of water weighs? Measure its volume. Want to know its volume? Measure its weight.

So elegant!

The one metric measurement I dislike is the Celsius temperature scale. Unlike the other metric measurements, it has no connection to length, mass or volume (nor could it). A scale defined by the freezing and boiling points of water is no more logical or useful than any other. 

Also, the difference in temperature measured by one degree Celsius is equal to nearly two degrees Fahrenheit, meaning Fahrenheit has almost twice the precision of Celsius. For example, both 69 and 70 Fahrenheit round off to 21 Celsius, but I can feel the difference between 69 and 70. Fahrenheit is a scalpel while Celsius is a chainsaw. 

Enjoy!

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Amazing Adventures, in Person!

Meanwhile, in the "life goes on" department, I will be part of a panel and book signing marking the release of Marvel Super Stories: Amazing Adventures next Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble in Emeryville, Calif. I wrote and drew one story for this delightful superhero anthology aimed at young readers, and this is the only appearance on my calendar related to it, so you'd better show up!

This link tells when and where but has scant info about "who." In addition to me, the other authors invited to appear are Judd Winick, a star in both young-adult lit and comic book circles, and Amber Padilla, who wrote one of the best stories in the book, in which Ant Man protects a nest of baby hummingbirds. 

I'm inordinately proud and happy to have made my little contribution to this book. If you have kids who like superheroes, or just fun colorful tales in general, I think they'd enjoy it. 

250 Words on the American Experiment

[I try to start my day writing 250 words on anything. I’ll post one every Monday until I run out of good ones.]

Tomorrow is the most fateful U.S. election I’ve witnessed. I’ve already voted. You probably have, too. 

If you have not yet voted and will walk into a polling place Tuesday undecided—in other words, if you are a one-in-a-million unicorn—and my endorsement means anything to you, I’d urge you to vote for Kamala Harris. The alternative is too heartbreaking to imagine.

I’m not an ideologue; I’ve voted for Republicans, back when they weren’t cowards or crazy. Remember when conservatives supported NATO and our “sucker and loser” soldiers, and opposed Communists and tyrants? Now they undermine our allies, insult wounded veterans and POWs, and mail dictators love letters tucked into COVID testing equipment. 

Democracy means trusting that more than half the people get it right more than half the time. That still leaves a lot of room to get it wrong. Trump’s 2016 win is explicable as a fluke, but his triumph in 2024 would be a deliberate choice. This time we know who he is. If most of us (or at least an Electoral College’s worth of us) are fine with that, shame on us. 

The American Experiment will have failed on our watch.

I don’t really expect my little essay to sway any opinions, but thought it was worth laying down a public marker. If Trump wins, I intend to do everything I legally can to resist his cruelty and fascism*. If one of his lickspittles is compiling an “enemies list,” I’d be proud to be on it. 


*I debated using the word "fascism." It’s a serious charge. But if it’s good enough for General Milley and General Kelly, who ought to know, then it’s good enough for me. 

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