Okay, so I'm sure everyone tells her they've been reading about Marlys ever since yadda yadda yadda but I have been! Ernie Pook's Comeek was ugly as hell, I remember thinking as a middle school kid, but also kinda weird and funny and besides it was next to the Life in Hell comic by Groening which I read every week too because I loved the bunny and especially loved Akbar and Jeff the fez-wearing twin gay lovers. This was before the LA Weekly was just an excuse to advertise for vaginal reconstruction and liposuction, and also during the reign of Rocky Horroscope, the astrologer who helped me make sense of perpetual teen turmoil (RIP, Rocky and thanks). And I've had some fun teaching One! Thousand! Demons! University of Hawaii, but I didn't tell Barry that. She did confide to us that Marlys is half-Filipina, but we already knew that. When Barry asked if C and I are Filipina, and we said "yup" she almost immediately confided that she herself did not have a happy childhood, implying that this is connected to her Filipina mom, but we already knew that too. What we did not know is that she can do a pretty darn good Filipino accent, AND a Wisconsin accent (which sort of sounds Swedish) and she can do party tricks and entertain a packed bookstore in a manic yet endearing way. Oh and she is currently into this "phantom limb" thing that somehow involve Ram Dass. In any case, I have been inspired to take up drawing again, as making art feels like my own phantom limb (I used to make lots of art and now, not so much). So far I have drawn one portrait of my dog, Ono. Thanks for an awesome night, Lynda Barry.
