Wednesday, November 19, 2008

It's Hodgman & Rees Tonight!

Tonight at 7pm at the very Barnes & Noble where I got my start in the book industry, (indeed, where I got my start in the being gainfully employed industry), Mr. Hodgman will be appearing with David Rees, creator of Get Your War On. While Mr. Rees is more famous for Get Your War On, and justly so, my enthusiasm for his work is mainly directed toward his series My New Filing Technique is Unstoppable. An unvarnished and straightforward opinion: I think that shit is the work of genius.
So, be there or be square. Or be there and square, like me.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

About this Person

My limited and probably naive efforts to raise public awareness of Tiny Bedtime Stories lead me now to address an issue I might otherwise avoid. If I am going to pester strangers and ask whether they would like a copy of the book, it seems appropriate to give some account of myself somewhere publicly accessible. Am I, JS van Buskirk, a real person? A weirdo? What is the big idea?

Yes. I am a real person. “JS van Buskirk” is an assumed name I use for creative work and online things, but it is my name for those purposes. I have been using it since sometime in the late 90's. It is difficult to remember exactly when I started. JS van Buskirk was the name I used for the first OPOYUL~ website (now gone) and for the first large-ish complicated art project I undertook. Perhaps that project will rise from the ashes one day. JS was also the name I used when I started a performance series here in Atlanta called INFO DEMO - a knock-off/homage to Mr. John Hodgman’s Little Gray Books Lectures. I was interviewed for Creative Loafing while that was going on - you can read the interview here.

Much of Tray’s interview is still fairly accurate, although I no longer have the fancy downtown office. I have a non-fancy downtown office and I work for the government. The brain tumor is still an issue - after surgery, chemo, radiation, chemo, and now chemo again, plus an increasing dosage of anti-seizure medicine. Keeps life interesting. I have not done much to increase the OPOYUL~ knowledge-base in recent years and I no longer produce OPOYUL~ trading cards for Art-O-Mat machines. You can print some out for yourself at the main site, if you like.

I write poetry more often these days than I did for a long while. The big project now is a collaboration with artist Julie Puttgen and composer Jim Carlson. It should be pretty fantastic. We are hoping to have the multi-media feast consumable by audience in August/September of ‘09. I need to get cracking, having written only about 1/4 of my portion. There might be a website for the project between now and then that will give tidbits.

I am a little weird, but not a weirdo.

The big idea is that I do things I enjoy doing, including giving out copies of this book I am very proud of.

Saturday, November 8, 2008