T-shirt #299 - Grendel and the Broken Phone

T-shirt #299 - Grendel and the Broken Phone

Today's entry has more to do with the broken phone shown in the picture than in the actual content of the
comic book portrayed. Grendel is a comic book character created by Matt Wagner, named, obviously, for the "monster" from Beowulf.

I will get to the Grendel content later. But first I went to delve into a subject recently addressed by one of my favorite authors: Warren Ellis.

I have been saving this picture for just such an occasion as when I might have a subject that would relate to a broken phone. The two photos of me with my shattered phone, my HTC Evo, come from 2012.

And now to the content...

WARREN ELLIS AND SILENCE

I have written about the author Warren Ellis enough times that he has his own category in my list.

For those who want their links here for easy clicking. T-shirt #22 featured his excellent Internet comic FreakAngels.  T-shirt #75 featured his ongoing "hobby" podcast called Spektrmodule. Ellis just posted his first Spektrmodule since August HERE. It's good, though one of the drone tracks is a bit difficult to abide, at least I found it so last night and had to shut it off. Usually the podcasts are golden. I updated T-shirt #75 just for you, dear reader. Check it out.

I shared Warren Ellis' Twitter "lecture" (rant? tirade?) about whisky and whiskey via (fittingly) a t-shirt about Cerebus the Dictator in T-shirt #82. I did not reprint the whisky lecture in my post for the DOCTOR WHISKY T-shirt #284, mainly because I like to try to increase readership of previous posts in my sneaky, link-referencing way, much like I am doing here.

Also, (and I just caught and corrected this oversight), I reviewed Ellis' novel Gun Machine in the post for T-shirt #138, which I have now added to the Ellis category.

Have I mentioned that Warren Ellis would be at my Dinner Party? See the Dinner Party category. One of these days I am going to have to make the guest list and keep it updated, but not today. Also, one of these days, I am going to have to reference Judy Chicago's Dinner Party, which surely influenced my writing about this fantasy Dinner Party populated by the people I would most like to talk with and would like to observe talking with each other. And so I just did reference Judy Chicago. Linked and referenced.

I am very grateful for Warren Ellis. Planetary is one of the best things I have ever read ever in comics in fiction in anything.

I shared Warren's photo (seen here) about coffee in T-shirt #286, which I have added to the Warren Ellis category, but I think the photo deserves another go here. I am nothing if not repetitious to make sure all that needs to be seen, gets seen. So, there you go (above and left).

Warren Ellis has started a newsletter. I am going to present nearly the ENTIRE contents of the most recent one on my blog today. I am hoping Warren will be okay with this if he happens to find out. I am giving him full credit for the following text, so I don't see pasting his newsletter to my blog as much different than sharing it on Facebook as a link. Warren maintained an email newsletter recently to promote his book Gun Machine, but it died when there was some dust up with the publisher. He had some other newsletters deeper in Net history and has actually published many of these ramblings as small books or spine bound "comic" books (text books by comic publishers in comic-sized formats). I like to keep up with what Warren is on about as it fuels my own imagination and my own quests to be going on and daydreaming about my own things.

Warren's most recent email missive struck me as a subject worth more exploration. I would say that when Warren is in full-band broadcast mode from his sea fort in England, he lives more in what he calls "the flow" than I do. I am often stepping back from the flow of media to get work done. In fact, as I type this, I am taking a one hour break from work to make some progress in the blog while also checking email and Facebook, and then I will shut back down to barrel through work.

I am not a natural multi-tasker. What Warren refers to as the silence is in disconnecting from the social media flow, the techno-flow, the churn of the machine. I find that I have been more adrift in the flow this year as I have devoted myself daily to blog content and to just enough social media attention to feel like a participant. But I find that I cannot easily split my attention forty ways. Often Twitter is too much. I control in a miserly way the number (a small number) of messages that I allow through to my phone. I have disabled the phone's squawk when a message comes over the prow. I often ignore Facebook, and I do not even delve daily into the vast wilderness that is the Twitter feed let alone Tumblr or Instagram as I would be lost. This blog alone is enough of a sink hole for my attention and effort.

And yet, when I mu blog year is over, I will cease daily operational capacity. What T-shirts remain will be parceled out at a slower pace or at least that is what I say to myself now. And though I cannot claim that I am showered with daily feedback from readers, I do receive enough feedback that stepping back from the transmission and reception cycle may prove as jarring as breaking one's phone and being unreachable by the portable device until a new one is procured. (Did you wonder how I was going to bring this back to the broken phone thing?) And I am not even as much of a phone junkie as others. I rely on it mostly for communication and as a way to pass time when I am not in my office. I especially like the ability to read and archive email while waiting in line for a prescription or at the grocery checkout.

I am hatching my plans for when I enter the silence and stop the daily broadcasts. I plan to transition to fiction work, which I plan to transmit, though not on a daily basis. However, the satisfaction of just a little attention from the blog cycle may compel me to try some kind of daily updating. As I wrote, I am hatching my plans. The plans are not fully hatched yet.

And yet, I envy the true "silence" that Warren writes about in stepping out of the world and into a cocoon as he has done and as Gaiman is reportedly doing in order to write. Ellis has THOUSANDS of readers. I was searching for the number as I could swear he reported it in an Orbital Operations, and I want to say it was 10,000, but I am not sure. With Twitter and other social media outlets, authors and various artists can broadcast daily and build a following in new and ever more powerful ways. To "go dark," as Warren calls it, must be difficult and require great self-control and yet it must be very necessary for creation and productivity, as he explains in the following.

I am still "unpacking" this idea (as Warren likes to say). After all, it was Eco (who Warren quotes) that said that all cultural phenomena can be studied as communication. And so I am contemplating my own upcoming silence and how it will serve as a transition for new broadcasts and new information.

I hope you enjoy reading Warren Ellis' writing that follows. It's all set apart in a white box, so it is all clearly marked as his. If you are inspired to subscribe to his newsletter, then please use the link that follows. If by some completely CRAZY coincidence and a rare treat YOU ARE WARREN ELLIS, I hope it's okay that I re-transmitted your transmission.

ORBITAL OPERATIONS SUBSCRIBE LINK

++ ORBITAL OPERATIONS (BY Warren Ellis)

“I would say that one of the ethical problems we face today is how to return to silence. And one of the semiotic problems we might consider is the closer study of the function of silence in various aspects of communication, to examine a semiotics of silence: it may be a semiotics of reticence, a semiotics of silence in theater, a semiotics of silence in politics, a semiotics of silence in political debate—in other words, the long pause, silence as creation of suspense, silence as threat, silence as agreement, silence as denial, silence in music.”

This is from Umberto Eco’s INVENTING THE ENEMY, which I finally started reading on a plane a couple of months ago. The quote is found in a lecture he gave some years ago, but it seems to speak directly to some of the talk about internet and social media over the last year. And while some of that talk has been sourced in privilege and an intent (conscious or otherwise) to assert social-media silence as a new badge of exclusivity (remember the business cards that didn’t have phone numbers on them, because if you didn’t know how to contact the bearer of the card then you weren’t worth their time?)...

...well, I’ve gone internet-dark for extended periods over the last couple of years. Silence is restorative. Neil Gaiman’s off to write for six months, because his process requires quiet. Silence, frankly, has cultural utility. Remember how everyone thought David Bowie had gone away?

And silence on social media -- particularly performative social media --

Warren Ellis @warrenellis

I have just seen someone use the phrase "bad doge syntax" and I am therefore now on the side of the NSA and drone strikes

8:45AM 23 Dec 2013 Reply Favorite

-- reserves keystrokes and “thoughts” for pursuits perhaps more productive.

(If you’re minded to, you can see the majority of social media use amongst the creative clade as performance, process/transparency, community-building and curation.)

I myself am looking forward to shutting down social media for four or five weeks after I get to LA. Not ORBITAL OPERATIONS, though. ORBITAL OPERATIONS continue regardless of location because I am orbiting you constantly like a satellite of love.

I still skim some things when I’m on silent running, because I have Twitter tuned as a news feed -- I personally still believe that the realtime news stream is what made Twitter great -- and because Instagram is pretty.

(My favourite thing is actually Instagram.)

I’m not good with the quiet. I need to feel the flow of the world. But I find that, to a large extent, going dark allows me to go back to books. I’ve gotten terrible at sustained reading, and it’s entirely possible that living with my head in the flow for a couple of decades has done something to (some aspect of) my attention span. I am not going to subject you to the unread-books list on my Kindle. Which I make worse for myself by using the Send To Kindle extension for Chrome, which turns Kindle into my Instapaper. I’ve got to tell you, Send To Kindle has buried itself in my workflow now. I mean, sure, death to the Stacks and all that, but that extension is genuinely bloody useful.

“The Stacks” is a Sterlingism. 

HERE'S GOOD COVERAGE OF WHERE IT CAME FROM.

The Stacks are Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. Or, it did in 2012. You can probably add Twitter to that, though I understand that to be arguable. And The Stacks are part of the reason that people are considering going dark. Things like Send To Kindle are becoming the exception. Interoperability is not what it used to be. Functionality is not what it used to be. People have been talking about IndieWeb again, pulling back to personal websites from company-owned streams, but some of those same companies own your web browser, and shit could get weird, and, yes, I’m completely aware that I’ve been talking just a paragraph ago about two of those Stacks collaborating to my benefit. WHICH IS HOW THEY GET YOU (PARANOID GLITTER IN EYES, TAKES OFF CLOTHES, PRODUCES KNIFE FROM BEARD)

FOLLOW UP ON ELLIS BY ME

Okay, back to me. Isn't it interesting how Ellis relates Eco's comments to his own work process and I did the same thing? Maybe not interesting. I read Warren's newsletter before writing my own comments. But whereas a writer can step back to get the silence she needs to produce work, Eco is also ruminating on the ethical dilemma of silence by political leaders in the 24-hour news cycle, which is quite a different animal.

When Warren Ellis is in full broadcast mode, he transmits multiple messages, and up to five hit his web page on average in a normal day when he's had enough coffee, whiskey, and bull semen. Others I follow, such as John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow manage at least one post a day in their own feed (Cory is more active on average than Scalzi but then Cory helps run Boing Boing!). They have audiences. People rely on them for a constant stream of entertainment. But writing books is a thing that for many of us (I must be in the same boat with Gaiman and Ellis) requires SILENCE. I am on Day 299 of my blog (tomorrow is the big 300), and I have mental time for my fiction but not much typing time. What I have learned is that I can find the time to produce LARGE VOLUMES of text for this blog, so, ipso facto, one would assume I could convert that time to fiction at the end of the blog year. Somehow I do not think it will be that easy, but I am keen to try.

On another note, I have no idea how Cory Doctorow does all that he does. I think he has Cory robots to help him.

SIDENOTE: I love that Google has started remembering my recent searches, so when I search again, I hit "Grendel Comic" first. Brilliant. Thanks again Google. It's a little creepy, but it's bloody useful (as Warren says).
SIDESIDENOTE: I am very afraid of the "send to Kindle" thing that Warren was on about. not sure I am ready to load that app in the browser. Damn. I am still transferring links via email and assembling them in text files that I will probably never look at again. Besides my Kindle is an early gen unit and not so handy with web stuff.

GRENDEL CONTENT

Oh yeah, so today's actual shirt subject is the Grendel comic book character created by Matt Wagner. The original Grendel, Hunter Rose, as depicted on the shirt, ran as back up stories in the earliest Mage comics as published by Comico. I have featured Mage three times, but I am not inclined to paste the links. You will find them all in the comic books category, but then there around 90 posts in the comic book category.

I have a Grendel mask, but I am not sure where it is. If it resurfaces, I may add to this item. I also own the pin seen on the Grendel Cycle cover below. I own several of the comics shown, such as Devil by the Deed, but I could not find them.

The story of Grendel is well told via the following links, especially HUNTER ROSE - COMIC VINE for the character as depicted on the shirt. But the books I am seen reading in the photos concern other characters who are "possessed" (and possessed may not be the right word) of the Grendel spirit.

USEFUL LINKS

GRENDEL WIKI

GRENDEL COMIC VINE - CHARACTER

GRENDEL COMIC VINE - VOLUME

HUNTER ROSE - COMIC VINE

MATT WAGNER SITE

For kicks, today's cover gallery will follow the sign off. Cheers!

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 66 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1401.14 - 19:28

GRENDEL art and COVER GALLERY

T-shirt #298 - Sectionals 2001 - the Yellow Calvin

T-shirt #298 - Sectionals 2001 - the Yellow Calvin

Yes, I know. Second Ultimate shirt in a row. Sue me. I want some easy stuff to catch up and get back ahead.

I created a new category today for "Shirts I Made." I included in this category shirts I designed or had some part in the design, print, and/or creation process, which includes ALL OF THE KUDL SHIRTS. It also includes shirts from my days running the CENTRALS tournament and as the Ultimate Player Association's Sectionals Coordinator for Michigan. I had the most input in the various Centrals and Sectionals shirts that I conceived and fully guided the design as well as making sure they were printed and then selling them at the tournament.

I got good at this enterprise since I could not sell shirts AND play in the tournament, so I would hire people to sit and sell stuff and help me set up and tear down. The proceeds from the shirts were used as seed money for the next tournament and to keep tournament costs low. It was not a perfect system. Granted, my participation in some of the KUDL shirts was not as fully invested as in the shirts I played a larger role at shepherding from design to sale for the tournaments I hosted, but I figured for the category's sake, I would include all the shirts that I worked on in some way.

I have just a few more things to say about this subject and then I am done with it. The Calvin and Hobbes art on this shirt and T-shirt #141 were drawn by my friend Neil Southwell. However, in 2001, we could not find a skin tone for Calvin, and for some bizarre reason, we went with yellow. I think I made this unfortunate decision, hence how I refer to this shirt as the "Yellow Calvin" shirt. Please no terrible Asian remarks. We got Calvin right in the T-shirt for Centrals 2002, which was near the tail end of my time running these tournaments. I abandoned the work shortly after the 2002 shirt featured in T-shirt #141. The tournaments had become more trouble than they were worth, and I had very little help (that I was not paying for). Sure, people would help the day of, sometimes, but generally people would just sit around and drink beer, which is what I wanted to do. We had started to grow a good group of teams in the Michigan section and that would attend Centrals. We started to get teams to Centrals from as far as New Jersey. But, eventually, it proved too much for me to run on my own. Later, when KUDL became successful, I flirted with the idea of starting the tournaments back up because suddenly we had a team of people willing to put some effort toward something for Ultimate. But for now, running the league is enough.

I liked this shirt especially because it included the text from the UPA rules for the Spirit of the Game. I was proud of this shirt despite the yellow of Calvin's face.

That's all for now. T-shirt Blogger Man is trying to get ahead now that he is caught up.

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 67 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1401.13 - 19:36

T-shirt #297 - Centrals 1991

T-shirt #297 - Centrals 1991

Hello. Thanks for stopping by. Mr. T-shirt blogger man was in catch up mode, and so this one as originally conceived has very little text. However, I am happy to report that the T-shirt blog is current and there are no longer incomplete entries on the blog roll.

Hurrah!! Ding Dong! And so it goes. Same as it ever was.

Originally, I delayed this post to see if I had content to add, but then in a lazy day with the puppy, which involved comic books, Shwarma leftovers, and comic books as it often does, I published what I had (which is more or less this much) to the blog from my tablet, only updating the published date I keep in text (as opposed to the one generated by Blogger) before sending through the post.

I had the Panthers to win or beat a 1 1/2 point spread, so that was a bust. But I did have the Chargers to beat a ten point spread against the Broncos, and that happened. Hurrah again.

Not much to add to today's content. I have a lot of Ultimate shirts. This is an old one! It will be 23 years old this May. I wondered how my life would be now if I had conceived a child in this year rather than buying a shirt. Boggles my mind.

TODAY'S SHIRT: This is the shirt from the Centrals Ultimate tournament held in East Lansing in 1991.

The shirt I am actually wearing today: I originally featured this shirt in T-shirt #21, aptly titled "shirts you will never see on me in public." However, after an additional 276 days of T-shirt blogging, buying, and wearing, though I would not wear this shirt on a date with my wife or to teach a class or to meet a friend, it is possible to see me wearing it at other times. I was wearing it (though it was under my coat) last night when I went to pick up my Shwarma King.

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 68 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1401.12 - 19:20

T-shirt #296 - Madman in Space

T-shirt #296 - Madman in Space

Mr. T-shirt Blogger Man is still behind the eight ball, and I do not mean Daniel Clowes' Eightball. Though I am happy to see Shia LaBeouf skywrite to apologize for plagiarizing Daniel Clowes.


LaBeouf Retiring

See, now I have will have to leave this "under construction" note because I generated real content.

Blog man will catch up. But this will posted complete or close enough.

I do appreciate your patience, dear readers.

Meanwhile, here's Madman by Mike Allred.

This is a great comic book in all its various iterations and with its various publishers.

Recently, Mike Allred has been drawing FF for Marvel Comics, which is the story of the heroes filling in for the Fantastic Four while they are in space. It is one of the best comics Marvel publishes. Though it had dropped in my stack, and though I often prioritize others over it, the comic leaped up based on the excellence of recent issues when I cleared my back log. It's a wonderful comic that captures the spirit of Mike's work with Madman and Atomics as well his previous Marvel work with X-Statix as well as more standard super-hero fare as written by Matt Fraction.

I have read every single issue of Madman and Atomics created by Mike Allred as well as his other projects, such as Red Rocket 7, which further proves that Mike Allred  is in line with me as a massive DAVID BOWIE fan as also evidenced by the image directly to the left.

Madman Comics started during the renaissance of creator-owned books published by Dark Horse Comics in 1996 that gave birth to things like Concrete, Rusty the Boy Robot and the Big Guy, and Sin City.

I followed Allred's Madman as he jumped to Oni Press and then Image Comics before closed up shop on these characters and their stories in 2009 (see a link below).


Mike's wife Laura often works as his colorist. It also appears that someone else (Mike's son?) did work in the most recent issue of FF for Marvel Comics.

 Mike's work is difficult to explain. His style merges many styles and influences from early 20th century pulps to EC comics to POP art of the 1950s-1960s to a myriad of popular culture influences.

It's "ginchy" as Madman would say. Or even "jinky," borrowing a word from Scooby Doo cartoons.

I may have to revise my list of comics for non-comic book readers because I am not sure I included Madman, and I should have if I didn't.

Okay, I updated the list to be found at T-shirt #160 to make Madman Comics an honorable mention.

Mike Allred's Madman is difficult to describe. He absorbed the styles of other "alternative" creators, such Daniel Clowes, Peter Bagge, and Charles Burns but with his own spin.

MIKE EXPLAINS HIMSELF - AAAPOP COMICS FAQ

Michael 'Doc' Allred grew up in the 60's and 70's and was surrounded with the best in pop culture and a steady diet of music, movies and comic books including the three B's: Beatles, Bond and Batman to the point of obsession.

So it should come as no surprise that he keeps a hand in film and music (He's the lead singer and guitarist for The Gear), but comic books have always been a seminal source of joy for Mike and that joy remains the main ingredient in most of his work.

Allred first tasted success in the comics field with his wildly popular MADMAN series, which is currently being developed for a live action film with filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. His earlier work from GRAFIK MUZIK was turned into the cult hit movie G-Men from Hell directed by Christopher Coppola (featuring Robert Goulet as the Devil). Other work includes Red Rocket 7, his history of Rock and Roll told in the context of a sci-fi adventure storyl the Madman spin-off THE ATOMICS and his magnum opus, THE GOLDEN PLATES, where he's illustrating the entire Book of Mormon.

Mike counts the secret to his success to be his wife, and creative partner, Laura Allred, who is is considered to be one of the best colorists in the business

This is a good selection of Mike Allred and Madman resources. Of course, I have another Madman shirt, so I can expand in that post.

I have many comic reviews I want to include, but in the interest of catching up, this is all for today.

CCC09 Mike Allred On His Biggest Influences

Mike Allred Interview

GOOD LINKS

Madman Wikipedia

Madman Character Comic Vine

Madman Volume One Comic Vine

Allred Art Blog

MIKE ALLRED CLOSES OUT ATOMIC COMICS/MADMAN COMICS - 2009

Mike And Laura Allred – Making A Monster Out Of Madman

MIKE ALLRED CELEBRATES 20 YEARS OF A MAD, MAD, MADMAN WORLD

Locked In A Room With A ‘Madman’ – Interview With Comic Artist Mike Allred

COVER GALLERY

COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 69 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1401.11 - 19:03

T-shirt # 295 - Simple Elements ... Hard to Understand

T-shirt # 295 - Simple Elements ... Hard to Understand

"Il n'y a qu'un bonheur dans la vie, c'est d'aimer et d'être aimé."
- George Sand
(There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.)

Five years ago today, my wife Liesel and I went on our first date. I wish to share the story of our meeting, re-meeting, and falling in love.

I shared about marrying my wife in T-shirt #279, in which I reproduced our wedding ceremony script and included some choice pictures from our wedding. At that time, I wanted to relate the story of how we met, re-met, started dating, and fell in love, but the post had already grown quite long, so I decided to save that story for today, the anniversary of our first date.

Liesel and I originally met in 1990. She was dating a friend of mine, John Kasdorf. I was the host of a thing I called Cafe, which was an open mike night music and poetry (mostly poetry) wine and cheeser that I held in the English Department's lounge in Brown Hall at Western Michigan University. Around the time that John brought Liesel to some of these Cafe events my relationship at the time was ending, and I was giving up hosting the Cafe events, being replaced by the very man my girlfriend left me for, which I find a bit ironic (and not just in an Alanis Morrissette way).

Liesel developed quite a crush on me and kept an eye out for what I was doing in the years that followed. Now, Liesel does not believe the next part, but it's true. I had a little bit of a crush on her, too. I remember feeling the same thing I felt when I re-met her as when I met her originally. I thought to myself: "she's perfect for me. How come John got to meet her and date her first? Why couldn't I meet her first?" Unlike Liesel, my crush was less memorable. I did not remember her name. But from time to time over the years, I would wonder what happened to John's hot Hawaiian girlfriend who seemed so perfect for me. Heck, for years, I wondered what happened to John Kasdorf as we had lost touch.

text reads: sun, moon, earth, water, mountain
man & woman
Simple elements... hard to understand

Liesel reminded me of a hug we exchanged during one of these Cafes. I did not remember it until she recalled it for me, but I did recall it once she described it. I remembered where in the hall it took place and had a sense of what she was wearing, though I am not sure I could describe it. I felt her energy, which was a strong feeling and felt a connection with her. I also believe that may have been the moment that I thought most strongly how perfect for me she was and how disappointed I was that she was "off-limits" as she was dating and living with my friend John. In discussions about our history, we may have figured out which night this hug took place. I believe it happened after my break-up with my then girlfriend, at a time when I was either no longer host of the Cafe or in my last hosting, when I had written a story called "600 Cows" about a couple getting a divorce, drawing on my experiences with my recent break-up. I was a bit drunk that night, which may have heightened all my emotions. Whether the hug with Liesel took place that night or not, she had her crush from back then, and I had my feeling that she was perfect for me, though I forgot her name and only thought of her from time to time as that woman who seemed so perfect for me who was lost in time.

Fast forward 18 years. December third 2008. I am in Sawall health food store, and I am wearing my suit. I had just helped Chris Dilley give a presentation to the Kiwanis to raise awareness about the good work of the People's Food Co-Op. I was on the board at the time, and I was helping to gain more owners as part of our ownership drive to lead up to the PFC's expansion. I had met my friend Ryan Walters after the Kiwanis thing, and we were enroute to his place to hang out and talk comics. I had planned to change out of my suit there as I had a PFC meeting to attend in a few hours. But first, we stopped at Sawall because he worked there and needed his pay check, and I needed to buy a few things.

Liesel 2008

As I walked the aisles, I saw this BEAUTIFUL woman, and she smiled at me. I guessed she was a college student shopping with her roommate though really it was Liesel shopping with her thirteen year old daughter Piper. She looked almost exactly like she looks in the picture to the left, which I took from Facebook, printed, and carried around to show people this amazing woman I had met.

As I saw her shopping, I thought the exact thing I had thought when I met her all those years ago during the Cafe hostings: "She's perfect for me. Why can't I be dating her or someone like her?" Kicking myself all the time in the store, I bought my purchases and was waiting for Walters when she bought her purchases and prepared to leave. I was kicking myself because I knew she was about to walk out the door, and I would never see her again. I wanted to go up to her and say "Excuse me, you are absolutely perfect for me. I can tell. I have a feeling that we will be madly in love and I would like to take you out to dinner." But how do you tell someone something like that? I knew I wouldn't even have the courage to speak to her let alone try to make the kind of contact that would be useful (like an exchange of emails or phone numbers or even NAMES).

another picture of Liesel
and her kids circa 2008

So, I am standing by the door, when she is about to exit, and I hear her say: "you're Chris Tower." Not a question. A statement. SHE KNOWS ME!!! If my heart had wings, at that moment, it would have sprouted them, burst from my chest cavity, and soared to the sun and back. I felt such elation. I can't even properly describe it. With Piper averting her eyes and clearly radiating intense embarrassment over her mother talking to a man in a grocery store, Liesel explained who she was and how she knew me (see previous text). She introduced her daughter. I am not sure if she mentioned that she was divorced, though I left the store knowing she was single. She mentioned that she was back in touch with John, and I was unsure if she meant as friends or something more, so I remember feeling some doubt and worry that she and John were "together," which turned out to be the case. The conversation ended with us both discussing that we were on Facebook and could get in touch there. Piper really did an "Oh geez, Mom" when she mentioned being on Facebook, and we both laughed at the angsty thirteen-year-old.

this is Liesel with her mom

I went flying out of Sawall and flew through the rest of my day. I was high as a kite. I was heels over head in love at first sight. Ryan Walters can attest to this fact as I could talk of little else when we left the store. Later in the day, the entire board of the PFC, especially my good friends Chris Dilley and Hether Frayer saw me coming out of my skin with joy and excitement. I wrote my best friend Tom Meyers soon after who will relate that I was completely nuts about this woman I met in Sawall. Luckily for me, I had bumped into John Kasdorf outside Fanfare sometime that year, and we had become Facebook friends. I searched all his friends for a Liselle or a Liesel or actually any woman whose name was close to that spelling. Nothing. It took Liesel 26 hours to send me a friend request via Facebook. Meanwhile, I am dying in agony every second. What if she never makes contact on Facebook? How will I find her? Do I ask John? Are they dating? I was not even sure how to spell her name.

Liesel and Piper - 1998?

With Facebook contact initiated, flirting began. The courtship began. But there was a snag. She WAS dating John Kasdorf, again. Ten days later, I attended a KAPOW event, John's improv group: Some Kind of Pretty Woman at the Whole Art Theater. Liesel said she would attend as well but could not go out after. I had several other friends in the audience, one of whom knew what was going on with Liesel. I showed up with her and a crew of her friends because I did not want to walk in and sit alone. The other was just someone I had not seen in some time, who actually was brought on stage for the improv. Aftewards, the other friends bailed, and I was left chatting with Liesel and John. Liesel agreed to go out, but she had to take her daughter home first and make sure Ivan was all right. We all agreed to meet at the London Grille. John made it clear that when Liesel showed up that she would want to sit next to him, which did not happen. However, despite a nice time of drinking and laughing and conversation with a bunch of folks from the improv group, it was clear that Liesel and John were "together." I felt like a third wheel when they invited me to go with them as they moved the party to Sushiya, which stayed open later than the Grille. I excused myself and went home. Oddly, as I walked back to my car, I saw my friend Chris Dilley in Old Burdicks. I was feeling dejected and low. Once again, years later, this woman who was perfect for me in every way (I was more convinced of this than ever) was dating someone else, and it was THE SAME GUY.

In a weird twist of fate, I actually started dating someone else, thinking that I had lost out with Liesel. However, the Facebook communication continued. Flirting continued. And eventually there was some discussion of getting together for drinks. I could not figure out this woman, who was supposedly dating a friend of mine, and yet still paying attention to me. I was not committed to the woman I was dating, so Liesel and I made plans and had our first date on January 10th 2009. We mat at Fandango. It was a Saturday. On the way to meet Liesel, I had a conversation with my friend Elizabeth Hughey, who can also attest to how out of my mind excited I was. I did not realize that people could pre-drink before a date. When Liesel stopped at two glasses of wine, I wondered if she was a light-weight, as I wanted a third glass. I did not know she had drank before the date. Just one of the many things I learned from this amazing woman.

To say that the date went fabulously would be an understatement. I had fantasized that I might kiss her that evening, knowing that first dates did not usually go this way. I will not disclose all the details of that first night, but let's just say that my fantasies were more than realized. She was no longer dating John Kasdorf. She was free. We had a wonderful time.

I was completely and madly in love with her from the very start, really from the time I first set eyes on her. Liesel doesn't believe me, but it's true. I tried to safeguard my heart at first. I confessed to love much later only because I was afraid of being hurt. Though in this story "much later" is only ELEVEN days after that first date.

On March 11th, we decide to get married. On April 4th, I ask her to marry me, officially proposing. On October 3rd, 2009, we get married.

Now, I cannot imagine my life without her. Liesel is the love of my life and confirms every day that she is and always has been (and always will be) the perfect person for me to spend the rest of my life with.


I chose this shirt for today because I wanted something that would embody our spiritual connection. From the start, we felt a spiritual bond with each other, which is something we shared about at our wedding. It has to do with AKA CORDS, which is a concept of HUNA mysticism (see link).

If anything has changed, it is only that I love Liesel even more today than I did at first sight or when we got married.

Our spiritual connection has grown and strengthened, cultivating a deeper and richer experience with each passing day.

AND not only is John Kasdorf still a friend of ours, each of us, but he played drums in our wedding! Thanks John!

Here's a very select and small gallery of photos, mostly from 2009.

Liesel and I on St. Patrick's Day 2009

Liesel and I at her step-dad's wedding 2009

Liesel and I on Halloween 2009

Liesel and I at a wedding Dec. 2012

Liesel and I outside
Olde Penninsula
1312.17

COUNTDOWN TO END OF THE BLOG YEAR - 70 shirts remaining

- chris tower - first published - 1401.10 - 17:34
final publication - 1401.12 - 11:59