Etching Lesson / Tennis Lesson

and The Universe of Pain

It’s the early 2000’s and capri pants are back. Mom is overjoyed. She buys several pairs and tells me that finally her chicken legs are in style. She walks all over town.

I’m at a party. I’m a tennis player. My legs are hardened brown trunks. I’m stretched on the floor and my friend looks at me. We played on cement, concrete and clay. We were good, but there was always someone better, and Jennings took it hard. After a big loss he walked the neighborhood by himself. I tried to walk too but he wouldn’t have it.

Nope.

Hey.

I wanna show you something. C’mere.

Ruined Moonrock Scribbles

Cool, right? They’re cave paintings from the moon. But they're no good, trust me. Mud. I’ve tried to work with them but that’s all I get. Mud. These plates are a cautionary tale, and you don’t wanna end up like me.

I’m back on the court after a multi year hiatus. Nothing feels right. So I set my phone up and film myself to see what’s going wrong. My legs are stiff. My legs are killing me, actually. Tongues of holy fire coursing up and down my hamstrings.

I’m weak.

Zinc Plate and Etched and Inked mini plates

Welcome to Il Bisonte, a historic printmaking studio. This is a wonderful place that smells like oil and solvent. It smells like school. Grab your metal plate. We’re using zinc cuz it’s cheaper than copper. Hold it up to your face. It’s dull, right? Well we don’t want that, so let’s polish it. Use fine sandpaper and go up and down, side to side, then diagonal too. You’re gonna be here awhile, I mean, this takes time. You wanna hold the plate up to your face and see yourself like a mirror.

You gotta see yourself.

Let’s clean it with degreaser. Let’s dry it. Let’s put plastic film on the backside to protect from the acid. Let’s place it on the big hotplate in the studio. Let’s warm it up a bit. Now, see this tiny jar? This is soft ground- it’s a varnish. Yeah let’s put a dollop on the plate and wait for it to warm up. The heat will melt it then take one of these rubber things and roll it across the plate. Just like that. Now it’s gold and sticky.

The plate’s memory foam, it remembers everything it touches.

Mom and I saw Jennings moping around the block and scuffing the sidewalk. She rolled down the window and said she’d take him home. I tugged at her shirt cuz I knew it pointless. He was in the universe of pain, couldn’t she see? It was just a game, she said, as we drove off leaving him in shadow. How could I explain? The universe of pain is always there but some people can’t see it. To them it’s invisible. But not to me. It’s a line of black trees thick as broccoli.

OK, you’ve got paper cutouts. You get one shot at this so do it right. Drape them over the plate like clothes. Just so. Good. Now lay the plate on the press bed. Cover it with thin paper, then felt, and set the tension high. Now run it through.

Where’s Jennings now, you might be wondering. We moved away from the neighborhood. I went to high school in a different state and didn’t see him again. I remember his white outfits. He looked good with red clay streaks on his shorts. He was a strong player but there’s always someone better. I googled him and found stuff about his Dad. He was popular I reckon cuz there’s articles about him. The Dad I mean. There’s an obituary, details about his funeral, that kind of thing. People wrote personal remembrances. I kept digging until I found a linkedin page for Jennings. I didn’t click it cuz I didn’t want him to see. It’s been a long time, it would be strange.

…

I click the page.

Turns out Jennings is a field geologist.

A geologist.

He practically stared a hole into the earth’s crust so really it all makes sense. A whole lotta sense.

In Greek mythology, Hercules wrestled the giant Antaeus, and every time Hercules flung him down he kept getting up. Hercules couldn’t figure it out cuz he threw the guy down a dozen times but he kept getting back to his feet stronger than ever. Well, turns out Mother Earth was Antaeus’s real Mom, and every time he hit the ground she’d charge him up like a battery. Hercules needed a plan. What does he do? He lifts Antaeus off the ground and holds him there. With no contact to his power source Antaeus dies in the air, just inches above his own mother.

I wonder if Jennings thinks about tennis. Maybe he doesn’t think about it at all.

Maybe Jennings is happy now. Maybe Jennings misses the universe of pain. In a sea of thousands of American tennis players we were nothing, but in the universe of pain Jennings was a god.

Pick up that spray paint and shake it.

Make sure it’s got varnish in it. Good, spray the whole plate and cover it good. Now, wait for it to dry, but not too long. Peel off the paper cutouts before they get stuck. See? You’ve exposed soft ground shapes in the negative space. Let it dry. Use the weaker acid bath cuz that way you pick out more detail. It’s less aggressive. Now, slide it it in the acid and wait.

Yeah now we wait.

I play with my legs deep in the clay. I twist and whack my forehand. It feels good and I don’t want to ruin the moment. Whip whip whip. But it’s inevitable. It won’t last. I can feel the the universe of pain, a familiar black line of trees in my peripheral vision. Fire shoots up my legs. I spoon a forehand into the net and slip on the clay. I stumble after a drop shot and the fire moves into my calves and heels. The universe of pain is close, the trees tilting and waggling in the wind.

Fuck it.

I walk across the threshold.

I smash my racket against the trees. The trees vibrate and the branches shake. More, they say… more!

So I let ‘em have it. I kick a trunk and scrabble my fingernails on the bark and stamp a pile of acorns. There’s a vacuum in the universe of pain and I live here like a god. Cuss and break shit and totally lose it. Scream until I’m hoarse!

But I picture the guy across the net, Lorenzo- and I think about my wife, and I think about my rabbits, and I think about the people in my life and how uncomfortable they’d be if they saw me like this. So I hesitate.

-

It’s just.

I miss days without pain.

Rinse the acid off the plate. Clean the spray paint off with solvent. Degrease it again. Dry it.

Now.

Come.

See what you made?

Some Etchings and Monoprints

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Steven Aquino of Curb Cuts writes about Noggin and my relationship to Vimeo. There’s a stirring quote from Meghan Oretsky, lead curator at Vimeo below-

“It’s so relatable, but it’s also such a creative way of expressing what it’s like to be in his brain. Whenever an artist expresses themselves in their own way, [the audience is] always walking through the grooves of their brain. But when you’re watching Case’s films, it feels like you’re being led through a playground or a safari, and there are these Easter eggs you find every time you watch it. His films are never a one-time watch. They’re such a joy to experience, even when he’s sharing tough times suffering with his relapses with MS.”

Adam Schatz of Landlady has released new music with a full album on the way. His curiosity and fearlessness inspire me.

We saw lovely portraits, drawings, and large multi-figure compositions by Louis Fratino at Centro Pecci in Prato. This is an astonishing museum and the show of Louis’s work is grand in scope but lovingly curated.

For anyone interested in independent film, the Slamdance Podcast is fantastic. Numa Perrier talks about an abandoned scene in her film, Jezebel. A funeral. She shot the bus ride of her characters on the way to the funeral and realized, that’s enough. The transition scene was better than the original idea because it left space for the imagination.