If I lose my pen for my ink I can't do anything, like when the Tin Man gets rained on. My desk is to messy to find it, but it also might be in my leather bag or laptop bag or backpack or WWII grenade bag (which is often called a “man purse” until I explain that it is a “grenade bad, see, you put the grenades in it and swing it like this over your head like in young Indiana Jones.” After that explanation it is still often called a purse, despite the serial number and the fact that it came with a little tin full of gadgets that were once useful and maybe even life-saving, but now to our eyes – just 60 years later these little disks, vials, and metal tools are completely unidentifiable, probably to the Swiss even... who invented the “Swiss Army Knife”, which might have replaced the “Swiss Grenade Bag Tin”... Or my backpack.
and the pen... (is it called a fountain pen? It is just a sharp piece of metal at the end of an attractively curvy plastic shaft) During lunch I explained to Herr Stark that the ink pen obsession. “Look at the lines! And you can thin the ink with water and it turns gray!” Showing him the pseudo-text-based comic strips I'd jotted in the past few days. The very things my parents complained about having to learn to do in the 50's- dip the pen in the inkwell and make a mess, which really doesn't have to be a mess, and really IS worth it. I've even found dozens of old ink tips in an old desk at home which I assumed were mom and dad's or the grandparents'. Weird. I remember searching my grandfather's desk as a kid, finding those pens and wondering why they were so useless- not thinking that ink COULD or WOULD ever be separate from a pen. Now, lo-and-behold, I'm in love with pen and ink. “It is the quality, the obvious hand-made-ness of it that is the attraction...” The attraction of something imperfect and human... this is a growing desire in us, and nothing new... the more high definition and flawless things appear, I'd guess the more backlash of threadbare and from-scratch original creations may appear,... may... maybe this idea isn't even interesting...
This was apparent in one of the Bumbershoot art shows (I mean, they at least called it out) the use of craft techniques to make fine-art objects. Reminded of the tiny crayola crayon totems, Tofer's eggs... or the huge art installations that awe us with the sheer tedium of their assembly, that Maya Lin mountain of 2 x 4's ... I dunno,... and this is boring me already.

Last night was my very last last artwalk here, which was nice because we closed a bit early and I was able to hop on over to the new Occidental Park renovation dedication and dig on some free corporate handouts and Indiana Jones on a 20-foot tall inflatable screen. Hit-up Platform too, where I pretty much ALWAYS like their shows (which is sad because I only make it there once or twice a year during artwalk), and SOIL which is alawys on the excitng side of boring... caved and got my Timberland's shined- much needed since they still had scars from the lavarock of Iceland... Ieven bumped into Brian Murphy, whom I hadn't seen in awhile and was very happy to happen upon- then Christine Carlson, Elise's sister and even got hollah'd at by Fankick! who was getting harrassed by every drunk a-hole in the neighborhood. Walked/ran to catch a bus and chatted on the ride home with the neon-lace/tutu clad girls... small town, small town. Went home early...