METAPHOR: A tightly fitting suit of metal, generally tin, which entirely encloses the wearer, both impeding free movement and preventing emotional expression and/or social contact.
The whole experience reminded me of my own 'old lady' phase that I went through in high school while I was reading Somerset Maugham... The embroidered sweaters, the costume jewelry... I remember genuinely WANTING to be old then, to act as if the business of my life was already all but over, and that I was preternaturally wise because of it... God, the stupid things you'll do to try and meet boys...
Every couple of years or so, when Daniel Clowes releases a new book, one can almost sense the rectal contraction across the collective seat of our humble profession.
Conveniently then he can forget it all exists. And, after a time only a general notion will remain in his mind, that there are places where he doesn't belong, and those where he seems to fall right in.
It's somehow more comforting to imagine that one's suffering is unique, and to measure against what one doesn't know, rather than against what one does.
Unlike prose writing, the strange process of writing with pictures encourages associations and recollections to accumulate literally in front of your eyes; people, places, and events appear out of nowhere. Doors open into rooms remembered from childhood, faces form into dead relatives, and distant loves appear, almost magically, on the page- all deceptively manageable, visceral, the combinations sometimes even revelatory.
The sound of One Lung filling with water drowned out by wave after wave of a million buzzing insects an invisible chorus that only knows how to sing the last letter of the alphabet.