I have some sad news to pass on.
Accomplished mail and stamp artist, painter, zine publisher, and friend of mine for over 16 years, John Rininger, died a few days ago at the age of 45.
We collaborated on numerous projects over the years, including the notorious magazine, Even Paranoiacs Can Have Enemies. He taught me most of what I know about zine publishing and introduced me to a lot of interesting people. He also fed me a lot of books that have had a huge impact on me, including the works of Max Stirner, Emil Cioran, and Eric Gill. He could be a very challenging and exasperating guy to deal with, but he was a big part of my life, and I'm going to miss him.
Goodbye, John R.
(The headline of this post is a translation of a Latin palindrome used in one of John's last zines, Catalyst Komics 807, published just a couple months ago.)
5 comments:
This is really sad. Sorry to hear about your loss. Thanks for putting up the link to his writing.
Thank you, FM. I'm glad that you clicked thru to that bio. The Audrey he refers to, by the way, is Audrey ("The Time Traveler's Wife") Niffenegger. Now I'm name dropping, for John. And, by proxy, me. Which is doubly fucked. Geez. Anyway. Their exquisite corpse rendering is available online, too, if you google "John Rininger" in the "images" burgoo of the Google. Which will also, as a bonus, bring you into some remarkable images of other Riningerian-ness. Oh god, now I have to type in the "Word Verification" bullshit.
In re: additional trivia, he referes obliquely throughout the bio about a 1200 foot scroll he made, which was his masterwork. The unraveling of the scroll, to the soundtrack of Karlheinz Stockhausen, was recorded on video, and a copy of that tape is one of my prized possessions. The scroll lived in my closet for about a year and a half, during John's rock-bottomest time, during his rehab stint and year in a YMCA room in Lakeview. When I called my friend Kirby to tell him the sad news of John's death, he asked me, "What's going to happen to the scroll?"
kjykywti
Hi, I came here from King Cat.
Thanks so much for posting a tribute to John. He was very precious to me.
The scroll is safe, its in Ohio right now with John's family.
Its so nice to know that so many people cared about him. He was a beautiful soul and a gifted artist.
Thanks again.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909088772155271382
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