Monday, March 21, 2011

very cute owl image

Close up image of the return address label from Mac Tonnies' mother.

While at the post office today, I received a book from Mac Tonnies' personal library. It was sent to me by Mac's mother, and I am deeply touched by the sentiment. The book is The Life and Times of R. Crumb, it's a collection of essays by his contemporaries. And the envelope came complete with a cute owl image.

When I got home (minutes ago) I had an email from Mac's mom waiting for me in my inbox. It tells of a documentary film maker who is working to put together a collection of stories about Mac, where people who knew him would share their memories. Basically, a collection of essays by his contemporaries.

My final email to Mac was from a bookstore in Moab Utah. I had just purchased, at Mac's recommendation, a big book by R. Crumb and I sent him a little note to tell him that I now owned the book. It was the entire Book of Genesis from the bible in a comic book format.

Mac and I were both huge fans of R. Crumb, and I made sure to embrace that inky scratchy look as I worked on the illustrations for his book THE CRYPTOTERRESTRIALS. I told him that was how I wanted the drawings to look, lots of black ink in an overtly Crumb-like style, he enthusiastically agreed.
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4 comments:

Red Pill Junkie said...

(Hope I get this message through; internet connection is real slow tonight)

I've been thinking about you during this weekend, Mike. I engaged in a reading marathon and just finished Keel's The Mothman Prophecies.

In one of the chapters Keel describes his encounter with a 'cone of fear', a small patch of land located in the (in)famous TNT area, where he felt overwhelming physical terror. He attributed the effect to some sort of 'beam' of ultrasounds, probably similar to the roar of the tiger that manages to paralyze its prey.

But the other thing that reminded me of you is that Keel mentions a rather enigmatic character: princess Moon Owl. She seems to have made a brief public appearance on a local radio show, and afterward she (or someone claiming to be her) phoned several UFO enthusiasts living around Long Island. She even sent a cryptic message to Keel through one contactee:

"The pebbles on the beach are washed under the bridge where the birds gather and where rays of light show through."

The message was sent on June 16, 1967. 5 months before the fatal accident of the Silver bridge in Point Pleasant, Va.

Mike Clelland! said...

The "cone of fear" seems to math the irrational fear in a the tent from May of last year.

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I'll have to pull down my copy of the Mothman Prophesies and re-read the Moon Owl story again, it's been over a decade since reading it.

Anonymous said...

Owls. Never really thought much about 'em until I came across your blog.
The Wikipedia article on owls
was really interesting.Apparently,
owls are not a very welcome sign in many cultures.
But hey,for me,that's what it's about:Getting both sides of the story.

Brizdaz (Darren) said...

You won't believe this,Mike,but my homepage has been set to:
http://www.rcrumb.com/
for weeks,to remind me to start reading THE R.CRUMB HANDBOOK,which I purchased a few months ago.
The reason I haven't started reading it is because I had been reading Keel's "The Mothman Prophecies" and Andy Colvin's "Mothman Photographer's 1 & 2" with the third on it's way to me.

So many books...such little time %-)