I can’t go to a restaurant without a sketchbook.

Canada’s National Post ran a little pre-TCAF interview with me:

This is what it costs in my neighborhood.

Well, I was pretty pleased with myself when I managed to post the day after Christmas.  Now I realize that was a month ago and nothing has happened here since then.  Ah, well, I’ll look for validation elsewhere.  I have nothing to post.  But I did change the image at the top of the page. That’s something, right?

Wait, I do have this. On the weekend a guy in a truck comes to my neighborhood to sharpen knives.  He stops, rings a bell and waits.  People emerge from buildings bearing knives, scissors and other bladed household items and he sharpens them while you wait next to his truck.

I love it. It makes me feel like I’m not too late to experience old New York City.  The age of people delivering to our neighborhood is ending. Ice deliveries are long gone, daily newspapers are dying and the U.S. Mail doesn’t matter anymore. But we still have this.  It’s the bell, that’s what makes it so great.

Sorry the photo’s crap, but here it is:

I’ll be there with mini books and comics. I’ll post a map and table number once they figure that all out.  If you’re there, come by and say hi.

I was in Paris a few months ago and this graffiti caught my eye. Any idea what it says? Let me know.

That arrow makes it seem like it has some value. As though the writer had really thought about what he/she was expressing. Of course I could be way off about this.

I was at a printer’s recently and came across this. They are plates used for embossing a book jacket (embossing is what makes the type or art feel 3-D on a jacket). This was hidden on a high shelf in a dusty aisle in the printer’s warehouse. It felt like we found treasure. The plates are a heavy copper or brass. They are pressed down into the jacket to make the embossing, and the white plastic plate (in the photo) is pressed up from the bottom to force the book jacket into the embossing plate. The photo is by my colleague, Sonia Chaghatzbanian.