I've got a new apartment, baby

OK, you can tell me if this is just normal, but I feel it to be a somewhat tragically abnormal series of coincidences and ... dunno, paths crossing type occurrences. It's very late and I've had a big weekend so it won't be written well.

My magazine features an a guy in the upcoming issue who makes pictures out of liquid nails. He wanted to get into the Archibald Prize so he made some liquid nails portraits of his favourite band, the Go-Betweens. He wrote this frank and amusing piece about meeting them, about his working process and his snubbing by the Art Establishment, man. It's my favourite piece in the magazine. It's insightful and accessible and self-deprecating. We liked the works themselves so much we decided to put them on the cover. So.

I've got a new job at a gallery. We have casual preparators who come and help us hang the shows every month. The first day i met our regular guy (who is an excellent person and a good preparator to boot) I asked him if he was an artist (many of the preps are). He said he used to be, but now he was a musician. I didn't ask him who he played with because I (stupidly) assumed I wouldn't know them and that that might be embarassing. Then I spend the next few days taking sideways glances at him to try and work out why he looks so familiar ("could he be ... no ... MAYbe ... should I ask him? nah ..."). So my boss tells me at lunch later that he's a drummer. For the Go-Betweens. Huh. Funny coincidence. I go home and look said preparator up and find out I've actually seen him play a number of gigs in one of my old favourite bands. (Custard! He was in Custard! hence the unplaceable familiarity). Then of course I am too star-struck to say anything about it, and lo, the working week is done and we see our casual preparator no more. Flukily, I had been listening to Custard and the Titanics that week in my car, after having not listened to them for years.

Today i've been designing the fliers for the launch party for our new issue, featuring the Go-Betweens images (they're so great!). I'm looking at the boggle-eyed head of Grant McLennan as rendered in bright orange paint and liquid nails all evening. My flatmate comes home, goes to the Herald online and announces Grant McLennan died in his sleep last night.

And we're about to put out a magazine with his portrait on the cover.

Poor preparator. I'm not sure if I know him well enough for a condolences email (or maybe that's the best way to offer condolences to someone you don't know). And do we, as publishers, become exploiters of the sentimental response to this poor man's premature death? Is it wrong to feel happy that we have this great work about him, that's somehow made weighty now, and sort of more important? Or that a death can make you feel, even superficially, more connected?

The net seems to expand all the time. I think if you were immortal, you could eventually have a connection to each person on this earth. Assuming you had good social skills. I do feel uncomfortable though. It's pretty pathetic to feel connected to famous people. That's how stalkers get started.

Anyway. My condolences, world. I'm exhausted and must sleep.