While we were getting JAM TODAY ready for press last year, right after the first galleys went out, my friend Hercules Bellville died. The last time I’d heard his voice was on my message machine, when I called into it from the Denver airport. I was on the way back from my first meeting with our lovely distributor, Consortium, in Minneapolis; before that I’d been with Alex, who was shooting REPO CHICK in Los Angeles. I hadn’t been home in weeks. I had no idea how long that message had sat there, on my machine.

But it was so odd for Hercules to call. He usually waited for us to call him, announcing an imminent arrival in London, which would mean a lunch somewhere, where he would eye the single sitting at the next table, and stage whisper that he loathed ‘lone diners.’ If it ever looked as if the poor man (for it was always a man, I now realize; Hercules kept his greatest tenderness, his uncompetitive side, for us women) was at all interested in our conversation, he would turn and glare at him, and say loudly, “Thank you very much!”

And it would mean dinner, for the first few years we knew each other always a tussle since Herc inevitably insisted on going out somewhere expensive and chic, and always insisted on paying. There was no stopping him. Even if one of us got up in the middle of dinner and silently went to the manager to try to forestall this, it always turned out that Herc had gotten there, mysteriously, first. I only managed to beat him once.  For his birthday, at the River Cafe.
The manager, Charles, let me arrange to pay over the phone before any of us even got there. And since we all knew that whatever beer Herc would inevitably order, he would inevitably send back, insisting it wasn’t cold enough, Charles and I arranged to have a beer frozen in a block of ice, surrounded by birthday candles, to be ready for the exchange.

I was rather proud of that one.

In later years, it was so crystal clear that what the three of us preferred was dining at his house, on the couch, with the telly on, that I don’t think we dined out once–unless it was at a restaurant particularly known for its food, which he thought I’d enjoy. He was so thoughtful that way. As in so many other ways. As long as he didn’t think you’d caught on.

Anyway, something about there being a message from him alarmed me. There was an undercurrent of tenderness in his voice, too, which was usually reserved for very special occasions indeed. So I called him back from the airport, got his machine, told him we’d both try to call him later. We did, but we never got through.  Of course I know now that he probably never got any of the messages; he went into the hospital before I even picked up his, and, shortly after, too quickly for us to fly over and say good bye, he died.

So I added a piece about him to the finished JAM TODAY, really, just for myself, just to make myself feel a little better. It was my secret favorite part of the book. Then not so secret, since when I read from the book, I inevitably chose that piece. Sometimes I’d serve the eggplant caviar mentioned in it alongside. To my great delight, in Los Angeles, at Skylight Books, a woman, a fellow writer, came up to me afterwards and said, “Was that Hercules Bellville you were reading about? I thought so. I’m good friends with his goddaughter.”

That was lovely.

Then Alex filmed the talk and put it up on You Tube, and asked if there were any tags I wanted put with it, and I said, “Put Herc’s name.” Because I had a kind of fantasy that someday, another one of Herc’s friends would be idly Googling him, and find it, and maybe get in touch. He had so many friends, Hercules. He was gifted that way.

And it happened just that way. Today I got a letter, beautiful handwriting on beautiful paper, from just such a person, in London. A friend of Herc’s, thanking me for the book, saying the part about Hercules made her cry, and now she loves eggplant.

I’ll write her back. And when I go to London, I’ll ask her out for tea. We can have a good laugh, or a good cry, or both, together, which is a very good thing indeed.

So that made me think that the world being a small place is not a bad thing at all.

Kind of overwhelming, planning the launches of THE SUPERGIRLS and JAM TODAY for September, right around when they hit the stores on September 15.  Like having wrapped candies thrown at you from all directions–which way do you turn?  How do you collect them and pass them out?  How do you say thank you to all those invisible hands throwing them?

We’re going to launch THE SUPERGIRLS at the absolute perfect venue for it, in my opinion–the Cartoon Art Museum, in San Francisco.  They’ve been completely swell about it (”Love to support local authors”), and it’s set for Thursday, September 10, at 7 pm, in case you’re out and about and around there that night and want to see Mike finally get his revenge on me for not letting him fill his book with illustrations from the comics (”are you crazy? do you know how much DC and Marvel CHARGE for rights?”),  you should come on over.  We’re planning to have a little wine, a little cheese, and a lot of artwork from the comics, all the stuff that Mike loves–and he wants to ask everyone which superheroines THEY love.  Because, as he says, “I don’t like just talking.  I’m more the interactive type.” Which someday we’ll figure out how to work in the books, too–it’s coming, it’s coming.

Then JAM TODAY is also going to the perfect venue:  Powell’s Hawthorne store, in Portland.  This makes me particularly happy, since Powell’s is the ur-independent bookstore of all independent bookstores, and since Portland, in its laid back, young, progressive style is everything EAP wistfully wants to hang with.  I’ll be there, on Sunday, September 13, at 4, and since I’M interactive, too (and am always terrifically curious to know what everyone else is eating), it’ll probably be about what you all have in your kitchens, how many people you have to feed, and what you’re going to do about it.  My motto being: “If you can get control of your refrigerator, you can get control of your life!”  And not a bad motto, either.

After that, we’re planning on showing up at University Bookstore, in Seattle; Pilot Bookstore, also in Seattle (an adorably tiny space, our ace Seattle intern Jessica Johnson informs me); Omnivore Books, in San Francisco (thanks, Celia, for being so kind even after discovering there is no jam recipe in Jam Today); Golden Apple Comics; in Los Angeles…and I’m working on Vroman’s in Pasadena, Capitola Book Cafe, in Capitola of course!…Skylight…Kepler’s…Booksmith…ah, yikes!  Here it all comes…

And then, on a less concretely practical note (and if you get bored by philosophy, skip this bit), I was thinking again about the point of EAP books, and the point of getting them out there, and the main point we want to explore and extend a discussion on.  This morning, my Beloved Husband and I were having our usual amiable argument about some public figure or other (Elliot Spitzer, this time, I believe), and I said, “The thing is, our interest in this kind of thing is different.  Comes from a different angle.  What you’re primarily interested in, when you look at public events and at history, is how the rich and powerful oppress those beneath them.  And this is very sensible.  But my primary interest is how we all connive with the forces of oppression and repression ourselves–why we don’t just walk out the door and set ourselves free.”  That’s the question EAP wants to explore.  It may look odd, our first two books being about comic book superheroines and about food, but it’s always been serenely obvious to me: we’re trapped in a certain way of looking at things, a certain way of telling stories, and that leaves us limited options of how to act, and how to visualize ourselves and our potentialities.  Why not look at the entertainment we consume in a different way? Why not wonder why superheroines are always treated differently from superheroes, rather than just taking it for granted, or even just assuming that it’s the oppression of patriarchy? (I mean, it might be, but is that all?)

And why not think that the best way to start with changing the world is to make sure that ourselves and our loved ones are healthy and happy, and then work out from there? Why not start by making sure everyone is well fed, in a sensible, pleasurable way? Why not think today the kitchen, tomorrow the world!?

That was what I was thinking about this morning…but I’m kinda dying to get out and about and see what other people think about the same kind of things…so I hope I see you at one of those places above (dates and times to come…)…