Roughly a Scrupulum

A scrupulum is roughly 1.14 grams for everyone playing along at home.

I accidentally googled the ‘#’ symbol aka the Number Symbol which more commonly referred to as the Hashtag and ended up reading about its origins. It started life in the abbreviation ‘lb’ for Libra Pondo which means Pound Weight. Its interesting that the abbreviation of Libra Pondo as lb, which means Pound to anyone still using Imperial measurements, doesn’t contain any trace of the pondo bit, and just means weight. A crossbar was added to the l of the lb to avoid it being confused for a capital I and from that lazy penmanship created the #.

Of course this lead to me reading about Ancient Roman measurements of weight which is where I discovered the Scrupulum. It means a small sharp stone, and is used to mean a measurement of weight around the same as a small sharp stone. The English word Scruple, which is synonymous with ones conscience or moral beliefs, has its origins with the same small sharp stone as the philosopher Cicero compared the feeling of guilt and worry that stops us from doing devious things as being like a stone in the shoe.

Hello, my name is Nick Gonzo. Welcome to my Newsletter.

I am part way through writing a follow up to my Title Cards post leaning more into comics and books, but I haven’t had the time to properly research and write it up. I am not going to half arse this. So instead you get an update on what I’ve been up to, what I’ve been listening to, and all that jazz.

Gonna do my shout outs

Please allow me to be self congratulatory for a second and praise myself for completing the Leeds 10k two weeks ago. I ran the course, which was by a long shot the most hilly race I’ve taken part in, in 54 minutes and 9 seconds which was only 20 seconds behind my best time I achieved at the thorough flat Abbey Dash. This bodes well for October when I run the Abbey Dash again and absolutely smash it. It was a ludicrously hot day, I got so winded going up a hill I couldn’t swallow the water they were handing out, and I got overtaken by both a Minion and a Penguin. A good time had by all.

I will be raising money for Age UK in the lead up to my running of the Abbey Dash in October, so this is most definitely not the last you’ll be hearing of it.

A big thank you to everyone at Coco Comic Con Lancaster for a very well organised comic con. I had a wonderful time, sold a diverse range of comics and drew some very special sketches for the very special people. Its fun really to take note of which books sell best at different shows, and my more personal books of art sold well here. A discerning audience, obviously. It was also really nice to spend some time talking to other people who make comics. I got to have a heart to heart with my friend Dave Cook the writer of Killtopia, a high quality cyber-punk comic about the gameification of wholesale robot slaughter. Dave really is one of those writers that effortlessly tells you a story. He doesn’t need to convince you that his world is cool, or that you need to invest in his world, because the web of interconnected details is so perfectly woven you just fall into the worlds he creates. I read the first issue of Killtopia the day after the Thought Bubble I launched Black Dragon and scissor kicked myself in the face for doing anti-capitalist science fiction when Dave is doing it for me. Another great person is Anna Readman who in my opinion is one of the super stars of comics at the moment and the true torchbearer of the Crumb/Clowes/Tomaine dynasty. we drove up together and schemed about what we can do to improve the comic culture of Leeds. It was a thoroughly nourishing experience considering I’ve felt excluded from the conversation surrounding comics recently. Since leaving Twitter like a rat fleeing a torpedoed Nazi U-boat, and not getting into Thought Bubble it convinced me that I wasn’t really a valid part of the UK comics scene. Last weekend very much showed me otherwise.

I also cannot understate how much fun it was talking to my old friend Tom Ward, writer of Merrick; the Sensational Elephantman. Merrick is a pulpy, occult adventure comic about the crime fighting John Merrick aka, the Elephantman. A lazy comparison would be to call it the UK’s answer to Hellboy, but it has enough of its own personality and charm that comparisons are redundant. Either way, Tom is a brilliant person to spend time with and really helped me get my head straight comics wise.

Subsequently I’ve really hit the ground running with more Black Dragon and I am hoping to have something to share with you soon about that.

As a heads up, if you are in the area of Kendal, I will be at the Kendal Zine Festival on the 29th of July. Whilst I’ll be selling my comics at the fair element, I will also be presenting an hour long talk on the history of Zines as a form of self expression and radical publishing. Its my first talk like this outside of a University or school, so whilst I’m not going to increase the foul language, I am certainly going to increase the tangential stories and anecdotes to an obnoxious level. So please come by, it’ll be great, and tickets are available…

HERE

Been to any Gigs recently?

I have been very busy as of late, even for me. Since we last spoke I went to see an array of bands of different shapes and sizes, and as a result have some piping hot music recommendations. The above photograph, which is giving me very strong renaissance painting vibes, was from a Lambrini Girls gig at the Brudenell Social Club last month. Whilst the headliners were excellent and entertained the room masterfully (including getting us to all lie down on the floor at one point, and giving a brief but powerful lecture on holding our communities accountable when it comes to sexual abusers), the true winners of the night were the extremely political, extremely queer punk two-piece Pink Suits. I took great pleasure from their performance, especially the drummer who managed to rock a cowbell out whilst singing. They’re on all your streaming sites, so check them out in advance of their next album Dystopian Hellscape.

I managed to fulfil a long time dream recently by seeing the surf rock band Guantanamo Bay Watch, the band that inspired me to decide to buy a drum kit in my thirties and give it a try. They’re one of my favourite bands and I am extremely evangelical when it comes to sharing their music. I hung around the merch table hoping to pick up one of their vinyl which are not very commonly found in the UK, and got to meet the band which delightfully natural. I fear meeting people I like in non-casual capacities. I’m not a huge fan of signings or meet and greets, because I’d much rather meet the people I like as a person rather than a fan, which comes with its own loaded dynamic. The band talked to me and my friend about the X-men quite a while, then moved onto plastic potted plants, and the Osees.

Who I also got to see. They were supported by an American Noise rock super group called Psychic Graveyard, who I strongly recommend. Their stand out songs for me are Building You a Rainbow and I’m Not Going to You Seance. If you’re a fan of intense synths and poetry, I’d get on that.

I could, and probably will, dedicate a whole blog post to Colin Stetson and the pursuit of experimental art, but before I find time to do that I want to mention how great he was at the Howard Assembly Rooms here in Leeds. Colin is an experimental jazz musician who plays the saxophone and via carefully places microphones all over his body and instrument plays continuous, textural music. Its a unique experience. There’s no live looping, just circular breathing that creates tidal waves of sound that build and crash over one another. You might have heard him doing soundtrack work on films like The Menu and Hereditary, but his solo work is really where he plays around with what he can do and the new album released last month is really worth listening to.

This is becoming me showing off a bit about all the cool shit I get up to now, so I’ll leave it there. I have a blog post in me talking about diary comics, a genre I have been really diving into in preparation for my Phd later in the year. But its safe to say I’ve been readying a bunch of them, focusing on Autobiographical comics like Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco. I am taking a copy of Don DeLillo’s White Noise and Baxter Dury’s memoir Chaise Lounge on holiday with me in two weeks. I am excited for a bit of a change as I seem to have been reading things specifically to analyse them recently.

As Always, if you enjoyed this newsletter please tell a friend about it. Do a Tweet. Post on the Instant Graham. Write on a Facebook Wall. Do the things people do to help grow the membership. I do not take my readership for granted, it is a privilege to write things knowing people will read them. For that I say thank you.

Good Night

Nick