READIN: Harvey Pekar

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Harvey Pekar

Posts about Harvey Pekar

READIN started out as a place for me to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly) how to design a web site.

There has been some mission drift here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of the main things I write about here are reading books, listening to (and playing) music, and watching the movies. Also I write about the work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.

The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.

See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.

READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

🦋 Two deaths

Harvey Pekar passed away on Monday at the age of 70. I'm sorry he is gone; loved to read his comix. I was never a fan, exactly -- I think I only own one collection of American Splendor, plus The Quitter -- it was always something I read at somebody else's recommendation. Still, worth noting his passing, and pointing out some particularly good memorial writing I've seen around the blogosphere this week:

Roy Edroso remembers Harvey as a professional curmudgeon and a poet.
Scott McLemee remembers Harvey as a comrade.
Jeet Heer remembers Harvey as a working-class Jewish radical, a giant.
Scott Eric Kaufman remembers Harvey as a proto-blogger, as a narrator of his own life; and in another post, expands on the act of narrating one's life.

Another artist who died on Monday (at the age of 86), who did not get as much attention in the subset of blogs that I read but whom I am in mourning for as well, is Tuli Kupferberg of the Fugs. Albert Amateau has written his obituary at The Villager; more write-ups and more links at The Allen Ginsberg Project. (And a fine remembrance of Tuli from Mary Lyn Maiscott at Vanity Fair.) A memorial service for Tuli will be held at St. Mark's church on Saturday, from 12-3 pm, with a reception to follow. There will be no religious element to the service, and Coby, Steve and Ed of the Fugs will be the main speakers. Afterwards, anyone who wants to can talk, sing, recite poetry, or whatever they like.

posted evening of July 14th, 2010: Respond
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Monday, October 12th, 2009

🦋 The Pekar Project

It was Harvey Pekar's 70th birthday last week -- I missed it -- Happy Birthday, Harvey! At MetaFilter, I find a link to his latest project, biweekly web comix at Smith Magazine's Pekar Project, working with four illustrators. Great stuff, go take a look. To celebrate his birthday, the site inaugurated a gallery of Harvey Heads drawn by different artists; also you can watch video of Pekar's February NYC appearance on the Josh McCutchen Show.

posted evening of October 12th, 2009: Respond

Thursday, April second, 2009

🦋 The latest thing from Harvey Pekar

MacMillan has just published Harvey Pekar's history of the Beat generation. Illustrated by a number of different comix artists, and there are a few other authors besides Pekar as well. (Including Tuli Kupferberg!)

Gerald Nicosia's review in SFGate starts out a bit hostile about factual mistakes and about Pekar's insufficiently respectful treatment of Kerouac, but ends up quite taken with Pekar's portrayal of the lesser-known Beats and with the other contributors.

posted evening of April second, 2009: 2 responses

Thursday, August 17th, 2006

🦋 Shared Experience

Ok, 2 answers for my shared experience question:

I would like everyone to know the music of Mississippi John Hurt. It's a little silly but I get hassled by the fact that whenever the Blues comes up in conversation, people think about electric music recorded in the 70s and later, or possibly about electric music recorded in the 50s. Plus I want everyone to know this music because it's so good.
I would like everyone to know American Splendor by Harvey Pekar, and the graphic art of R. Crumb. I think productive conversations would be possible if I could just refer to Crumb's vision of sexual inadequacy and everybody knew what I was talking about without any explication. This also goes for Pekar's work ethic.

I want to tag Roy Edroso and Dave Feldman.

posted evening of August 17th, 2006: Respond
➳ More posts about R. Crumb

Thursday, March 30th, 2006

🦋 Quitter

Yesterday I read The Quitter, Harvey Pekar's new book about his childhood. I've always loved American Splendor and this book is a fine addition. (It actually reminded me quite a bit of the AS movie -- Pekar as a kid in the main story, and Pekar as an old man stepping in occationally to comment.) Lovely art, moving story. Definitely recommended to the Mineshaft crowd, who I think will identify.

posted morning of March 30th, 2006: Respond
➳ More posts about The Quitter

Thursday, October second, 2003

I saw from an interview in last week's Onion that Harvey Pekar has a blog -- Check it out! This will be short-lived; the company that produced his film is paying him to keep a journal online, he didn't sound likely to continue it after that ends. It is fun to read, and features contributions from his wife and Danielle, the girl of whom Harvey and Joyce are guardians.

posted afternoon of October second, 2003: Respond

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