HBM136: Jacob's Lost Biography

Here Be Monsters

Here Be Monsters Podcast

Science, Society & Culture, Social Sciences, Personal Journals, Documentary

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 April 2020

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2012, Jacob Lemanski started writing his autobiography a few words at a time when he signed his name on the digital card readers at the grocery store. He read somewhere that the credit card companies keep the signatures on file for seven years. He thought he might report his card stolen in 2019 so that some grunt at Mastercard would find the story of his life...or…more likely he thought it was a project destined to evaporate and never be seen by anyone.

His inspiration came from an email forward containing a certain Kurt Vonnegut quote about making art for the sake of making art—whether it’s singing in the shower or writing bad poems. Vonnegut argued that art is one way to make the soul grow.

Jacob considered turning this into a lifelong project. At the time that he and HBM producer Jeff Emtman first talked, he was four entries into the project. On this episode, Jeff checks back with Jacob about his grocery store autobiography.

Jacob is a longtime guest on HBM and is a retired ant farmer living in Boulder Colorado.

Also on this episode, voicemails from listeners, who share stories about their bodies, sounds from the world around them, and the things that make them feel guilty. Call us anytime (765) 374-5263

Producer: Jeff Emtman

Editor: Bethany Denton

Music: The Black Spot, August Friis

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From KCRW, this is here be monsters.
0:07.0	Can you tell me about that email that you caught a while back?
0:15.0	The email was from my friend Carol and there was a quote.
0:21.0	I don't remember the guy's name, he wrote Slaughterhouse 5 he was that author
0:25.6	Kurt Vonnegut. Kurt yeah and basically the quote was that whether you're an artist or not you should try to create art and try to create something because
0:37.5	when you're done you have created something and that's
0:42.0	That's good.
0:44.0	I'm something to be happy about. I actually have it up on my computer right here if you want to read it.
0:49.0	Yeah I can read it to you.
0:51.0	Go into the arts, I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very
0:56.9	human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art no matter how well or badly is a way to
1:02.1	make your soul grow.
1:03.7	For heaven's sake, sing in the shower, dance to the radio, tell stories, write a poem to a friend,
1:09.5	even a lousy poem.
1:11.1	Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You have
1:15.1	created something. Kurt Vonnegut. How did he sign his name?
1:20.6	He has a profile of a face with a mustache, also has his names in there. And the
1:28.0	signature got me thinking that I should have a better signature of my own to something more stylish than the simple
1:37.0	JL that I initial everywhere.
1:40.0	And I was thinking that the only time I actually signed my name is when I signed credit card receipts,
1:47.0	mostly at the grocery store on the digital keypad.
1:51.0	And from there I was thinking instead of signing my name I should write something
	...

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