Jeff Seiler: Dave Sim & Me

JEFF SEILER:

Sequentially reprinting Dave Sim's letters and faxed correspondence to me, with occasional annotation from me...

Today’s entry is an even odder (or harder to recall) one. I am including my brief message to Dave, which refers to something I got by email, which is not in my archive, but which, apparently, caused some consternation and which may have been remotely connected to Rick S., from last week’s letter entry. As you all may have figured out by reading some of Dave’s writings about these matters, archival material is sometimes, if not often, difficult to figure out or piece back together.

Nevertheless, I think that the third paragraph of Dave’s response applies as well today as it did eight years ago. He’s dancing as fast as he can, guys. [Ed: For those of you who may not know, “Bedlam” refers to the Bedlam Hospital of London of the 1800’s, where people with mental disorders, or who had been judged criminally insane, or whose husbands wanted rid of them, or who just generally didn’t fit into society, were locked up and “treated” for their “disorders”. It was NOT a pleasant place; basically, if you weren’t insane when you were sent there, you soon would be.]

Paragraph four refers to Dave’s interest, at the time, in doing something along the lines of Chester Brown’s comic books that were based on the Bible book of Matthew (IIRC), but Dave’s efforts were more along the lines of writing about the Gospels. He would go on to point out that he believed that only the book of John was true to the beliefs and teachings of Jesus, if I recall correctly. That was an interesting time. I would still love to read those commentaries. It was around this time that Dave did, or had done, public Bible readings, from the Gospels (IIRC), at his own expense (for renting the public space), including one reading during the gathering at SPACE. It was an interesting (and I mean that in the true sense of the word) time.

Paragraph five, I think, also holds up well, across the ensuing eight years.

08/26/2008

Hi Dave:

I got this in my morning email. And, FYI, I haven’t sent you anything for at least a week. I was waiting to hear from Rick before responding to your last fax.

Best, and hoping it was an electronic glitch, rather than Marxist sabotage,

Jeff

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi Jeff:

In either case, I’m getting really tired of it always happening right in the middle of my very reasoned arguments about feminism.

I suspect it’s a “next level up” thing, rather than electronics or Marxism (in the here and now sense, that is). When I think that the entities who have, theoretically, been delegated to govern our affairs might be bogged down in this form of childishness. . .

Scrooge’s “I’ll retire to Bedlam” is a recurrent thought, lately.

I’ve finished my commentaries on Matthew, Mark AND Luke (500 handwritten pages on the latter) and, instead of actively looking for volunteers interested in helping with the inputting, my reaction is, “Forget it. It’s a waste of time.”

I’m not unmindful that that might be the motivation behind the last 48 hours of pointless irritants.

Best,

Dave