February 20, 2008

Greetings and Felictations!

Another year has rolled by. This holiday letter seems to be almost on time, so it should be shorter and easier-to-follow than last year’s was (which covered two whole years!). Let’s see… what happened in 2007?

It started off, I’m sorry to say, with some very sad news. Lily’s father passed away suddenly on 18 January 2007. His family has been recovering from their loss, but it most certainly has not been easy.

Less emotionally tragic but unfortunate nonetheless was the sudden downturn our sales took at Philadelphia International Airport. We expected a bit of a sales slump from January until April; but things did not recover. It turned out that the flights were reorganized so that instead of getting a wide variety of people passing through the terminal, we were getting only the ones who rarely if ever buy anything.

Scan of the little card printed up for the

memorial service.

Although we analyzed the problem and, with other vendors, petitioned airport management for help, the situation did not change. We saw several kiosks go out of business before we closed up shop at the beginning of October.

We didn’t just fold without a back-up plan, however. In the months before October, Preston scouted out locations in Greenwich Village, New York City. We applied for several storefronts, and ultimately landed one at 215 Thompson Street. We spent a week or two fixing the place up, and now it looks very nice. Sales were appallingly slow at first, for a variety of reasons (a stagehand strike on Broadway that cancelled many shows, bad weather, the fact that it was a new store, confusion over what we sold, etc.). But we did see a steady increase in revenue as the weeks progressed, and about halfway into December we finally made our quota. I was a bit worried that holiday shopping might have been responsible for that (which would mean that we wouldn’t do as well after the holiday) – but in the week after 25 December, we almost made our quota again. (The shortfall was due to the holiday.)

Our little store! Its appearance changes frequently. After I took this photograph, Preston painted the front bright red.

The name of the store is Nick and Preston’s Imaginarium and Gift Shop. We carry lots of T-shirts, New York-themed souvenirs, humorous gifts, and a few toys and scientific novelties as well as our books and a number of comic books. I also advertise my portrait-drawing service there. We’re right on Thompson Street between Bleecker and 3^rd, and we’re usually open from 11:00 AM to 10:00 PM. I’m in on weekends; Preston is there all week long.

Meanwhile, I’m still teaching. Also, thanks to a website called Guru.com, I’m able to apply for various art-related jobs. These are usually one-shot assignments, but some could be ongoing.

During the summer, I finally got back to work on the Frannie & Pickles DVD. I composed a Scott Joplin-style ragtime score for the soundtrack, then re-recorded the narration. A fun little project! We sold a few of these DVDs from the cart at the airport before October. I expect that the music for the Sailor and the Sea Witch DVD will be really interesting, as it is more of a story and is more dramatic. However, the DVDs aren’t selling well enough to make them much of a priority just now, and I’m busy with other projects.

My novel Jenna of Erdovon was published in August. It sells pretty well! I’ve done a few book-signings already, and there may be a few school-visits ahead. I’ve gotten some delightful fan mail! Although the two-page spreads were color paintings, they had to be printed in black-and-white for economic reasons. However, I found out how to make high-resolution scans on my equipment, so here are a few of the pictures – in color and without those little seams and exposure problems that were visible in earlier scans – for you to enjoy.

The Museum of Magic unfolds.

Don’t mess with Jenna.

Over the brink, and Granny Jenna uses the Ævum Stone.

Armagan’s dream.

The Philosopher’s Egg.

Dragon battle.

Leah witnesses Magic.

I made a little more progress with Preston’s manga Honshirabe, but it still has a long way to go. Here’s a page that I applied half-tones to and even “colorized” in order to show a comic publisher in India what I could do. (Honshirabe is in black-and-white.)

I still need to apply gray tones to this, but it looks pretty good already. The windowpanes become TV screens at the touch of a button, resulting in this unintentionally funny “giant window-washer” effect. (The gray tones should make it more obvious that a single windowpane has been altered. Honshirabe still has no face, as we haven’t finalized one for her.

I prepared my Arabian Nights book for publication, but Malibu Books needs to recover financially from the difficulties of 2007 before tackling that assignment. The interior of the book will have to be in black-and-white, too… sigh… but, again, here are some nice, clean color scans for everyone to enjoy.

A happy ending!

Mermaids.

Turning into stone.

But enough about me. What’s been happening in the lives of some of my favorite people? Lily, like most of her immediate family, has spent much of the year learning to cope with her father’s death. She’s doing quite well. Since the end of our engagement, she’s had her ups and downs – it was difficult for both of us to adjust during the first few months – but overall she seems to be less worried about things. Sometimes she misses me (and sometimes I miss her), but we both feel that marriage would probably not have resolved her “issues.” At least, being single again, her “issues” are causing her less stress. She has resumed tutoring, and continues to host events for the Cancer Education Early Detection (CEED) Program. She feels that her life is slowly but surely getting back to normal (or as close to normal as it can get!) J

On Sunday, May 20, my brother Jordan and Cathy Finegan were married! The wedding ceremony was a lot of fun, with his friend Marcel as best man and some live music from Stefan. Here’s a link to their website, where you can see a zillion other photos: http://www.finegandollak.com/photos/index.htm

Jordan & Cathy catch their breath after the ceremony. Obi-Wan and Queen Padmé adorn the cake.

My nieces Tanith Queen and Meghan Joelle are both growing so big! Stefan, Heather and T.Q. were too busy to visit us from Arizona this Christmas, but Heather’s parents send my parents videos of T.Q.’s antics. She does a lot of talking, singing, drawing and playing with Duplos (oversized Legos). In one video from Christmas 2006, she’s running in a tight circle singing “Jingle Bells” for about five minutes!

“Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all way! Oh, what fun… hmm, hmm… open sleigh – HEY!”

In September or so, M.J. and her mother Joelle flew out to Arizona to meet Stefan & his family. It looks like T.Q. and M.J. had a good time together. (I refer to this as their first “cartoon crossover,” because they’re both such characters!) Later, I got some neat photographs from Stefan of T.Q. building Duplo™ sculptures of “Auntie O.L. (Joelle) and Baby M.J.. Impressive!

Splish, splash… A couple of chillun just chillin’.

Later, T.Q. reminiscences with Duplo.™ 8 February 2008: M.J. announces “I stuck” after a wardrobe malfunction.

M.J. figured out how to walk a little after her first birthday, and instantly decided it was the only way to travel. Now she walks all over the place on her sturdy little legs. She doesn’t say much around me yet, but she understands a lot of words and occasionally gets vocal when something interests her.

Meanwhile, in Poland, my pen-pal Ewa continued to work hard on that Ph.D. at the University of Warsaw. I thought she was “on the cusp” of getting her big degree, but apparently it’s a lengthier process than I’d anticipated. Her major thesis papers were published, and she sent me copies as a token of appreciation. (I had the honor of proofreading them.) For those who want to look them up, one publication is the international (German-based) scientific journal Zeitschrift für Säugetierkunde (Magazine of Mammalogy), published by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Säugetierkunde (German Society of Mammalogy. Alta Vista’s intrepid BabelFish translation program interpreted it as “German Society for mammal customer.” And before I went back and put the umlauts over the “u” and the “a,” it had translated it as “German Society fur sucking mammal customer.” Eew… sounds like a weird insult.) Anyway, her thesis is called “Evolution and Systematics of the Feliform Carnivora,” and the citation is as follows: Barycka, E., Evolution and systematics of the feliform Carnivora, Mamm. Biol. (2007), doi:10.1016/j.mambio.2006.10.011 The other thesis is “Morphology and ontogeny of the humerus of the Triassic temnospondyl amphibian Metoposaurus diagnosticus,” and it’s in the online scientific journal N. Jb. Geol. Paläont. Abh. (Not being fluent in German, I don’t know what the shorter abbreviations stand for; but I think the “Jb.” tells us that it is an annual publication) 2007, vol. 243/3, p. 351-361. Both theses contain graphs, but the latter has illustrations by Ewa of specimens of humeri from various temnospondyls (giant prehistoric amphibians).

A pair of Metoposaurus diagnosticus humeri, drawn by Ewa, as printed in her article. On the right is an illustration I made of M. diagnosticus for a prehistoric life coloring-book. Ewa pointed out to me that the presence of webbing between their toes is uncertain at this time. Fur-sucking mammal customers would not appear in the fossil record for another 130 million years. J

Unfortunately, all this work may have taxed her health, it would seem. No sooner did she complete her course work for the semester than she had to go to a hospital in Wrocław (Pronounced “VRO-tswav”), about 100 km from her home in Opole (o-POL-eh) to be treated for leukemia. She began her treatments in late October. She was able to go home for Christmas, but then had to return for more treatments. These were not sufficient, and in mid-January she began to receive a bone-marrow transplant, with tissue donated by her brother Piter. This is the most aggressive part of the operation, and leaves the patient with no immune system until the body rebuilds it from the donated marrow. For several weeks, the patient is too weak to even watch TV, and must be isolated to prevent infection from the germs most of us brush off without even breaking a fever.

Because she did not have access to her computer during this time, we communicated by text-messaging each other with our cellular phones. Amazing little gadgets!

Sadly, on Friday the first of February 2008, at 5:00 PM in Poland, Ewa lost her struggle. The text-message her brother sent me in the wee hours of the morning phrased it most poetically: “… Eva gone to sky.” (In Polish, the words for “sky,” “Heaven” and “blue” all have the same root.) My dear friend is now an angel. She was 28 years old.

I miss Ewa terribly. We had planned so many things together, and because of our many shared interests nearly everything reminds me of her. Her scientific sense of wonder delighted me, her honest faith in God moved me, and she was there for me when Lily and I broke up. She was one of the most determined people I know, forging ahead with her plans with a refreshing energy and enthusiasm. I hope that I was of some comfort to her during her brave struggle.

Photo that accompanied Ewa’s obituary.

She shares a death-day with another eminent Pole, King Augustus II “The Strong” (1670-1733). He was kind of a sub-par politician, actually, even if he could break horseshoes with his bare hands. Ewa may never have ruled a country or snapped a horseshoe, but I am more impressed with her bravery, humor, and love of life. (Besides, at least she can’t be blamed for getting the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth embroiled in a war with Russia.)

More screen shots of Ewa from her dance tournament DVD.

So, there’s the holiday letter. I wish there was more good news to report, or that at least the bad news wasn’t so tragic, but often that’s just the way things are. In the immortal words of Admiral James T. Kirk: “How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life.” (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) Although I’m still emotionally grappling with the

unfairness of it all, I am still thankful that Ewa and I had each other for those seven years. And I can take some comfort that, my own beliefs notwithstanding, she accepted without question the existence of Heaven. If there is a Heaven, Ewa is there now. And it’s got dinosaurs too! It wouldn’t be Heaven without ’em.

To paraphrase Dr. McCoy at the end of the same Star Trek movie: “She’s really not dead, as long as we remember her.”

Here’s hoping that 2008 sees us enjoying peace, prosperity, happiness and hope!