Megan Michelle: You’re the greatest artist to have ever lived. Who do you think is the second greatest artist to have ever lived? Why?

David Sankey: Impossible question. There can only be one. However, the first human that comes to mind is the Biblical Sampson, whose elaborate performance pieces included killing 1,000 men with a donkey’s jawbone and setting foxes on fire.

Q: How did you accrue your mad drawing skillz? To whom/what do you owe your genius?

A: I owe a fair amount of my mark-making ability to my parents, who forced me to find my own fun by forsaking television. In pining for cartoons, I drew Belle’s father, from Beauty and the Beast. I drew my favorite basketball players, because I could not watch them play. I drew on paper, on myself, drew in soap on the bathroom walls. I scratched runes with a dagger-shaped letter-opener into the bedroom doors of our home.

I owe almost as much to teachers who crumpled up my work, spat on it, fed it to me that I might taste my failure and produce only that which was beautiful. And without any irony, I am grateful to the powers that be for allowing me to participate, in a tiny way, in the holy and mysterious act of creation.

Q: If you could marry any piece of art, what piece of art would you marry? Why?

A: In any world where marrying art is okay, I would definitely be a polygamist and shack up with as much of it as I could. But if somehow it had to be just one, I can say with near certainty that I’d pop the question to the Anselm Kiefer sculpture Book with Wings. I had the pleasure of meeting her a few years back, and I’ve been head over heals since. I’ve been writing her letters, but they keep coming back, return to sender.

Q: Finding dead animals and drawing them must take a lot of energy and, therefore, a lot of good, nutritious food. What’s your diet like?

A: I wish I could tell you that I only eat the animals I come across, but my diet is fairly modest. I’m told that I make very good scrambled eggs. I like them well enough. I average three grapefruit a week, and as many scones. Trader Joe’s is a boon to my wallet and palate alike. I’ll never stop loving Taylor Ham, choice breakfast meat of northern New Jersey. I really like yerba mate (is it true that it gives you cancer?). Once, my sister and I unwittingly ate pepperoni made from a black bear that my uncle killed.

Q: (Yes, all naturally-occurring, herbal teas give you cancer.) Now, whenever I write a Pulitzer-prize-winning Sidebar contribution, I always listen to music to help inspire me. Do you listen to music to help inspire you while you work, too? If you do, what inspiring music do you listen to? Backstreet Boys, or Jonas Brothers?

A: I sometimes listen to music while I work, but it’s usually strictly background noise. Maybe it affects my work more than I’d like to think. There’s this great artist, Leif Inge, who slowed down Beethoven’s 9th, just edited it without altering the pitch so that it would take 24 hours to play. It’s great and cosmic. It sounds like the universe expanding and contracting. You can stream it online for free; I do that sometimes. Although, I’m always looking for inspiration in all sorts of mediums. I’ve decided it’s irresponsible to go more than two weeks without purchasing new music. I don’t ever want to not be in the middle of a book. There are too many smart people out there creating wonderful things that need an audience.

Q: I’ve heard that artists tend to not make a lot of money because they are busy being artists and artists tend to not make a lot of money. Are you rich, or are you poor? Have you been forced to take a second job, or are you able to live solely off the income you make from your dead animal portraits?

A: By day, I am a graphic designer. I am neither rich nor poor. I work at a small design firm not far from my home and put in some freelance time on the side. I try to spend as much time with illustration as I can. This keeps me clothed and fed, keeps my rent paid. While I’ve worked with some great clients and created some pieces I’m genuinely proud of, there’s a clear distinction in my mind between the commercial work I handle and the things I make on my own time. The two come from totally different places and mean entirely different things. I think the biggest difference for me is that when I’m working on a self-initiated piece, I feel there’s full potential for me to make a discovery. I think that’s the comically tragic and misleading goal of the artist, really—to happen upon something new, to actually create—that is, to make something from nothing. I’ll let you know when I’ve got that down. Through it all, though, I’m slowly learning to manage my time and productivity, prioritize. Not an easy task.

Q: Have you ever been able to travel to see famous art pieces? Like, have you ever been to the Cistern Chapel or the Lube? If you have, was it really, really great like everyone says it is, or was it just really, really boring like everyone says it is?

A: I haven’t left North America. Of course, I’ve been to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Moma, the Guggenheim, the New York museums. I’ve seen all that the National Archives has to offer in lovely D.C. Plenty of things from art history books that are beautiful, significant and moderately moving. I never get bored in those places. A few years back, though, I was at a children’s illustration museum in Massachusetts that had some great work. I got to see some of Eric Carle’s very hungry caterpillars. That was a small pilgrimage I won’t forget.

Q: How much does one of your dead animal portraits go for these days? Do you take Visa, Mastercard, or wampum?

A: These pieces haven’t been priced. I’m open to offers but I don’t think I’d like to split the series up; I think it would be a disservice. I believe they’ve found some companionship and a sense of belonging in their collective afterlife. I accept PayPal, check, cash, wampum, or beaver pelts. I have sold a few pieces in the last year or so for actual American currency. One was through a great gallery in Louisville called the 930 Gallery. I had the opportunity to show some work there on a couple of occasions, and during one of these shows, recording artists Herman Düne came through to play in the gallery’s listening room. Apparently, David, who sings, plays guitar and writes songs, purchased my print. I was really excited about that. I love his music and he’s also a very talented visual artist. That was a huge compliment. I haven’t met him or had a chance to thank him personally, so a big public thank you to David from Herman Düne!

Q: As you well know, a genius artist must acquire perseverance and courageousness to make genius art because it takes a lot of perseverance and courage to make genius art. Also, as you well know, a genius artist must perform a sort of self-incarceration to be able to acquire perseverance and courageousness because perseverance is only produced in the prison and courage can only be conceived in a cage. What’s your prison/cage-residence like, then? Do you have enough room in there for me? If you do, can I come live with you? (thanks)

A: Not long ago, the folks I live with and I set out to build ourselves an ice palace, a snow fort, an igloo. It comfortably housed the four of us, but it was cold. We had candles inside—four grown men, building a snow fort, and then hanging out inside, spending the longer half of a Saturday doing so. It was the very fuel I needed to sustain me for no less than three years of tortured productivity. The roof has since caved in, and I think grass is showing through the floor. I think we could work something out in the way of rent there, but it’s gonna cost you a pretty penny. We’ll have to fly snow in daily from the far north to maintain it. The ongoing construction costs will be huge. It might be worth it. Wireless internet is provided.

Q: It’s common knowledge that whenever an animal dies, a fairy comes to take its soul to Animal Elysium. Why do you always leave these fairies out of your illustrations? Do you have something against fairies or something?

A: I like to pursue in my work the suggestion of the fantastical and the metaphysical. I often think more can be said of the spiritual by way of omission, by abstract inference, than by reference…what I mean to say is, I post all of my fairy drawings exclusively on my page at deviantart.com.*

*For those of you who prefer dead animal portraits, visit David’s other webpage, www.davidsankey.net.

Photo by Megan Michelle

I’m a prolific Asthmatic Kitty Sidebar contributor, so I think it will come as a shock to no one when I say that I have a tendency towards mental instability. Manic/depression is a constant battle. The bouts of hypomania are the nice part of my life because they make me feel good and allow me to produce a lot of Pulitzer-prize-winning Sidebar contributions. The bouts of depression, however, are not fun. If I don’t feel I’ve gotten a post just right, a dark fog descends upon my brain; and I become severely melancholic. My world begins to read like a Baudelaire poem, to reek of imbalanced-hormonal regret. I start eyeing the oven in the kitchen, bemoaning the fact that it is electric. It’s awful. Now, most people who struggle with this mental illness are on some sort of medication. Well, I am, too: Carlson’s mercury-free, Norwegian fish oil!

Whenever my mother finds me in one of the aforementioned depressed states, she always says, “Megan Michelle, back away from the oven, and go take your meds.” Being the good, little Sidebar contributor I am, I always obey her and lumber on over to the fridge, take my bottle of Carlson’s mercury-free, Norwegian fish oil out, unscrew the cap, kick my head back, and guzzle down about two, heaping teaspoon-fulls. Every single time I do so, my serotonin and artistic self-confidence levels shoot straight to the sky. Every single time I do so, my life returns to reading like a Browning poem, and all is made right with my world. Because of my bottle of mercury-free, Norwegian fish oil—because of my meds—I know that those mad moments of melancholia have got nothin’ on me, that I’m always just one guzzle away from hormonally-balanced bliss.

Carlson’s fish oil isn’t just for people who are mentally ill, though: It promotes good brain development in a fetus, so it’s great for any woman who’s pregnant. It stops sugar cravings, so it’s great for any woman who isn’t pregnant. It helps give the body muscle definition, so it’s great for any man who looks like a woman. It helps prevent heart attacks, cancer, arthritis, and inflammatory diseases; so it’s great for any man who lives with a woman. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s not a single man or woman out there who wouldn’t benefit from a guzzle of fish oil in some way or another, so if someone’s reading this and is thinking about trying some, do it! If anything, you’ll feel that much more like Megan, which, obviously, is the best feeling in the whole, wide world!

I started Bookcrossing about a month ago and haven’t stopped telling people about it since. Bookcrossing is the act of leaving books in public places for others to pick up, read, and then do likewise. It’s a great way to get people reading, and to share the books that you’ve read or aren’t interested in keeping anymore.

So how does it work? First you go to the Bookcrossing site (www.bookcrossing.com ), set up an account, and register the book you wish to set free. You’ll be given an ID number; you then write a  journal entry on your profile about the book. On the inside cover of the book you can either print out a label from the site, or hand-write a note which will tell the reader that the book is free, and that if they register the ID they can write about what they thought of the book once they have read it.  When they are done reading, they can once again set it out into the world to be picked up and read by another person.  Books can be tracked by journal entries all over your city and in some cases the world.

There are two different ways to release a book: wild releases where you leave books in designated places in the city for people to pick up, and controlled releases where you recycle a read by giving the book to a person, or group of people you know.

Bookcrossing was started in America by Ron Hornbaker in the spring of 2001. He was inspired by two community-driven and public-motivated schemes; first the Amsterdam bike system, where the public are encouraged to get around their city using bikes which are available to them at different pick-up and drop-off spots around town, and secondly by the “Where’s George? & Where’s Willy?”  money-tracking projects that were set up to trace US and Canadian dollar bills as they move around the country.

The Bookcrossing site has created an international network, a place that allows you to track books all over the world.

In Canada we just came to the end of the country’s annual Freedom to Read Week (Feb 21^st-27^th), a week that encourages Canadians to think about intellectual freedom. Bookcrossing along with the Freedom of Expression Committee saw this week as a great time to ask people to share books that are considered to be challenged books.

By registering challenged books such as To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and sending them out into the world, these organizations  hope to  make others aware of books that have been in some cases blacklisted within schools and libraries across the country. What a great idea! There are many challenged books that I have read over the years that I could pass onto others via the Bookcrossing site, maybe you should check it out too!

In early February 2009, I received an email about a woman who had contacted my church asking for help. She had lived in the same apartment for 24 years (might have been more), and was suddenly forced to move because the landlord wanted to remodel the home and put it up for sale.

Monica was still recovering from a back injury sustained when one of the rotten floor boards of the porch gave out under her, and basically lived on her own, so she needed a lot of help. Not to mention she had two greyhounds, some cats, 40+ rescued pigeons upstairs, and 24 years worth of accumulation.

It looked like World War II. Piles and piles of stuff everywhere. It was impossible to distinguish garbage from non-garbage. She was completely overwhelmed. I would have been too if it weren’t for the fact that Monica was an incredibly interesting woman.

Whenever I had the chance, I asked her about her past. She was always glad to share and told me about her catering business in the ’80s, how she got to hang out with tons of bands and entertainers, which included her touring with Heart for several years.

Toward the end of the day, Monica took my friend Alex and I upstairs where we met her 40+ pigeons and doves that she had rescued over the years. A bell went off in my head and I asked her if she minded if I ran home to get my camera. She didn’t mind at all.

This is a portrait of Monica and her birds at the time of her move.  I hope you experience it.

Place of Incident: South Main Street, Pennington, NJ. Date and Time of Death: Between the hours of 7 and 9 a.m., October 13, 2009. Cause: Contact with a motor vehicle or cyclist.

Notes: Both feet were flattened, one partially severed. At present we are led to believe that it was not the immediate impact of the vehicle that proved fatal to the frog, as his vitals appeared to be intact. More likely, trauma or perhaps even eventual starvation as a result of immobility ended the fellow’s life.

It’s interesting to me what we consider important enough to keep in our backpacks and bags. What are our motivations? How much of it is superstitious–or even talismanic? Where does our subconscious think we’re going? What are we preparing for–and what are we prepared for?

I like inanimate objects that tell stories and what we choose to carry with us can tell us who we are, our sum and measure. (It can also be totally meaningless. Depends on the case.)

For the first part in a new series here at the Asthmatic Kitty Sidebar, this is my travel bag. It’s an old mini Samsonite, one strap, dark blue fake leather, about a foot and a half tall and a foot wide. I have no idea where it came from but I know I didn’t buy it in a store.

If you look close enough you’ll see “ADAM GNADE” written in all-caps Sharpie and, closer still, a drawing of a charm for warding off demons that I found in a book on symbology.

This bag has been all over the country, coast to coast. It’s been on a lot of train trips and a lot of tours and it has crossed a lot of borders.

Here’s what’s inside…

Copy of The New Yorker (latest issue, from subscription)

Composition notebook with “Property of GLENN DANZIG” written on it in all-caps

Pentacle hardback writing notebook

American Scholar Steno Book notebook, green tint, gregg-ruled

Slingshot organizer with “ADAM GNADE” sticker left over from tour merch box

Paperback copy of Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Card-stock Dutch Boy paint sample (saved because the color is inexplicably called “Go Away”)

No-name tape walkman with headphones (bought at truckstop in Utah)

Two Will Oldham mix cassettes made for me by Dan Bryant and Connor Kirkwood the night I left Portland

Postcard from my grandparents in La Selva Beach

Unused bar of Dr. Bonner’s Magic Soap (lavender)

Knife with a sailing ship on the handle (bought at Texas roadstop, first US tour)

Unused postcard with Dusty Springfield on the front

Various scraps of paper, notes to self, half piece of paper with unfinished song lyrics–song title, “The Wild Homesick”

Create, Scheme, Remember notebook (made by 1984 Press) used for writing down dialog for stories

Wallet, camouflage, canvas, Velcro with Microcosm Publishing company credit card, three BOA debit cards, Dillion’s Plus Shopper’s Card card, AAA card, expired California driver’s license, keys to storage space in Portland, key to Hard 50 farmhouse, unknown gold key, Chinese money (yi yuan), fortune cookie fortune reading, “Keep your courage up and it will keep you up.”

Battery charger with two AA batteries

Two-prong-to-three-prong plug adapter

Various stolen pens (Ramada Hotel, Hampton Inn, Greyhound/NW Trailways)

Small temperature gauge

Small, round compact mirror (merch from the band The Locust) given away by the band at Locust show/film premier of John Waters’ Cecil B. Demented, Hillcrest Landmark Theater, San Diego

Gloves (gray cotton with skull print)

US passport

Photo by Megan Michelle

The modern world we live in is a dangerous one. We eat, sleep, and breathe deadly toxins—poisonous pesticides, harmful herbicides, cancer-causing chemical compounds. Our bodies are constantly battling lethal, unseen enemies. Having experienced one too many near-death toxic exposures for myself, I’ve come to learn that these enemies must be taken seriously. Having overcome one too many near-death toxic exposures all by myself, I’ve also come to learn that some of the best weapons one can use to fight against them are a bottle of raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar, a shot glass, and a very open mind.

For millenia apple cider vinegar has been known for its myriad of healing properties—Hippocrates used it as an energizing tonic and a healing elixir. Only recently, though, has humanity figured out why apple cider vinegar is the superhero of supplements. Only recently have we discovered that toxins are acidic substances, that destroying them requires a neutralization, an onslaught of alkalinity. Only recently have we come to understand that apple cider vinegar is able to vanquish those acidic, unseen enemies because it is an alkaline substance, because it balances out the body’s pH level.

To keep those evil toxins at bay, then, I consume at least two tablespoons of Bragg’s apple cider vinegar a day. Every evening at around eight o’ clock, I grab a shot glass and a bottle of Bragg’s, pour myself a dose, and down that thing in one rapid, melodramatic swig. My eyes water; my throat burns; and my mind seriously questions the state/point of my existence. But within seconds that storm of physical and mental discomfort passes. Within seconds my mind, body, and spirit become balanced, once again. I bask in the effervescent feeling of healthy-pH-level-ness the apple cider vinegar bestows upon me, and I know, full well, that you can overcome acidic Evil with alkaline Good.

For more information on the incredibleness of raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar, google it.

Having grown up just miles from the beach in Southern California, every once in a while it is necessary to visit the ocean (whichever one happens to be closest) to give a respectful hello to the expanse of beauty that is both concrete and abstract. After moving to Portland, Oregon after a hot NYC summer in 2008,  a trip to the Pacific Northwest coast was in order to greet the famous shores.

The coastline is the backdrop to many films and television shows, from 1980s classics like The Goonies (1985)  and Short Circuit (1986) both shot in Astoria, Oregon to The X-Files television series which was shot in Vancouver, British Columbia for the bulk of its nine seasons (plus a multitude of other things). Along with its diverse terrain–cliffs, forests, sand dunes–there is also a cool quiet magic that perfectly speaks to the strength and grandeur of the ocean. These are some shots I took while visiting Astoria and Fort Stevens State Park, Oregon.

In 2007, I attended the MusicNow festival in Cincinnati. I hadn’t yet fallen in love with the Dessner brothers’ work with The National, hadn’t met the owners of Asthmatic Kitty, or known Shara well for more than a year. I went because I was tired of a long Buffalo winter. I was lucky enough to attend all three days of the festival–Clogs premiered the songs that finally this year are being released on their new album, and Sufjan played some songs that have yet to be released… so in some ways, it’s not so long ago, but the experience is contained in my mind inside a fine gauze like mold, preserved in embryonic purity like a mosquito in amber or a baby boot in metal. The buildings in that part of Cinci seemed half-drowned. Those that boxed in Washington Park were coated to the top of the first floor windows with some sterile light-blue heavy-grade paint. Probably to cover graffiti marks. The store-fronts were all empty, and I had the impression that the blue line was a watermark, like in the Erie Canal locks near my hometown–the water lowers to meet the level of the lock below, accepts a passenger, and then closes and raises to meet the level of the next lock. The walls when they drain spit and gurgle with zebra mussels deposited in the locks by passing boats. The shells of the mussels are sharp, so you don’t touch them. It was all I could think as I was walking up the long front steps to the music hall. In my memory, those front steps ascended to the tree tops and the building peeked over them, a pantheon dome, a buoy, a great cement pig belly floating in the spume. The whole three days of music was rich. Almost to illness. Three nights of feasting after near starvation for a year. On the final night, husband and wife duo Irena Havlová and Vojtěch Havel performed a tremendously tender piece culminating with a functional embrace as they worked out a piano ostinato together–she holding the inner octaves, and he reaching the highs and lows around her. This only after a full 40 minutes of minimal scrapes and drones on their cellos. In the balcony next to me, a young man stowed a can of PBR under his coat and complained about the monotonous music until that final few minutes in which all the agitation and confusion of the young audience was transformed into a camera draw.

I drove home through a blizzard — an eruption of white and wind through Cleveland. Some angels somewhere are responsible for keeping me awake during the drive. I couldn’t see more than 10 feet ahead of the hood, and the road was entirely white. I rode the rumble strip all the way through Ohio. I was exhausted and I kept the driver’s side window open so that wind would keep me awake. Three times I came in visual contact with the angel itself: first in the form of a sunfish swimming towards me through a squall just north of Dayton, about the size of a bicycle tire. The second it was in the form of a snake with antlers and it scuttled along the rumble strip in front of me. The third time it formed out of a heap of fast food trash, a fox lying on its side. It looked hurt and so I started to pull over to get a better look at it, but as I slowed to a stop, a wind picked up and I was again completely enveloped in the squall. When the winds died down, a squad of snow removal behemoths came up from behind, slow and laboring into view. I followed them out of Ohio and up over the Appalachian ridge of Pennsylvania and into New York State.

The muse is like the scent of a meal being prepared–more intense the closer you get to the source, but the muse isn’t the source itself. I wake up each morning to the smells of food being prepared a floor below me in a soup shop that shares our building. Sometimes I become so accustomed to the smells that I don’t notice them until I’ve left the house or returned from somewhere else.

When I initially began writing the book, I was living in Virginia behind an off-limits nature preserve that I would sneak into every day. This second shot was taken alongside a saltwater lagoon in the preserve after the daily monsoon of a thunderstorm came (3pm, like clockwork.) The giant, ancient tree that I’m in grew out over the water and I would climb it, walk along the sidewalk of its massive horizontal trunk, and sit in the V and watch the turtles rise up in the murk. The air after the rain was always hot and wet and rich. By dusk the fireflies would lift up out of the long grass. I was so incredibly depressed.

In the photo it looks like I’m falling out of the tree. It’s not a good photo, but I like the deception of the angle and how it’s hazy and shot up into the light. I like it because that was how the summer in Virginia felt—like a deception, a hideaway disguised as an exile, every day hot and washed-out by sun. Here’s to the good long summer to come and me and you being around for it…