what?

On friday I took my Father to get a tattoo, which came out really well. It's beautiful. But this isn't about the tattoo, it's about the loons that wander in and out of the shop all day. The shop is in an odd little part of town and there are always guys with varying degrees of sketchiness roaming around.

I'm sitting there chatting with Paul and then I notice some guy shuffling around.
His shirt read "WILL WORK FOR RABIES."

I don't have any idea what that means.

Meat!

I love these paintings....




visit http://www.mikegeno.com to see more. He paints other things too, but these meat portraits are really really neat.

Really good movie, really bad poster...

"No Country for Old Men" was a really really good movie. I've mentioned before that I love a good movie poster. Too bad the poster for this fantastic movie is so horrid....

It's so obvious. See, it's a chase/pursuit film. The poster stinks. There's no need for the looming face of "Anton Chigurh" to appear anywhere on the poster. We get it. That guy is chasing that other guy. Jesus. I think it would be more powerful if he wasn't revealed until you saw the movie. When "Seven" first came out in theaters, no one revealed the killer in any ad or review prior to the movie's release and it was a really neat element to the film. "Anton Chigurh" is such a powerful and creepy character that it would have been great to bring that little element of surprise to him as well.

Here, I fixed it...


You still get the idea that it's a pursuit film, but the "so-obvious-it's-not-at-all-symbolic" element is removed.

Why so serious?

I love this one-sheet for "The Dark Knight."


It's so creepy and stark. The design of everything related to this movie is fantastic. I love a good movie poster.

Did I mention how excited I am for this movie? Geek!

The Winter is winning...

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Wipe-Out!

Yesterday I had my first Three Stooges moment of this year's ice and snow season.

It happened as I was getting out of my car at the supermarket. I opened the door and stepped out. My feet instantly went out from under me like those fawns that are first learning how to walk. My knees went smashing into the icy cement, and now my kneecaps look like two shiny purple plums. Also, for some reason I tried to break my fall with the TOP of my left hand. I ended up splitting my knuckle open on the ground. AH!

The funny thing is, I was going to the supermarket to pick up some rock salt for my own icy driveway.

As I was checking out, I asked the cashier if she had any papertowels or something so I could clean up my knuckle a bit. She asked what happened and I told her. The manager was called over and craziness enveloped me... "Where did it happen? Did you hurt your neck? Don't Sue. Are you sure you're ok? Please don't sue. Show me where in the parking lot you were. Don't sue. Please don't sue."

Obviously, I'm not suing. The thought never even entered my mind. I simply wanted to clean up my hand so I didn't bleed all over my steering wheel!

Snow me.

Yesterday was the first substantial snowfall of the Winter. When I got home from work I had to shovel my driveway before I could park. Normally when it snows, I try and gun it up and over the snowbank into my driveway. There was just too much snow for that to work. I tried anyway, but stopped once I smelled the burning rubber of my tires spinning pointlessly in the snow.

The sidewalk in front of my house is home to a fire hydrant, so the first thing I do when shoveling is dig out around the hydrant and make a path from it to the street. Safety first!

Anyway, I'm digging around out there and my jerk neighbor comes outside and starts up his snowblower. He then notices me shoveling, stops his snowblower and goes back inside. What the hell. I didn't ask him to snowblow my sidewalk or anything, and I don't expect him to. Is he really that spineless that he feels guilty for not offering help and therefore has to hide inside his damn house until I'm out of site?

All my other neighbors were helping each other dig cars out, salting sidewalks, taking turns sledding down the street and generally having a good time, despite the winter mess. It was great.

I finished shoveling and went inside my house. As soon as my front door slammed shut, that tool came back outside, started up his snowblower and started his driveway.

What a jerk.

POW! KA-BANG!

I'm so geekishly excited for this movie. I love the darkness of the Christopher Nolan Batman movies. Much much better than the cartoony nosedive the other Batman movies took.

Also, the viral marketing campaign for this movie is insane... clown cakes with cell phones in them, Gotham newspapers handed out in airports, skywriters, odd phone calls, not to mention several websites for Gotham City businesses.

Books and more books...

This weekend I went to the New England Mobile Book Fair with Myk and Allison. I hadn't been there before, and it was overwhelming. The place is huge and choking with books. A lot of the shelves have books BEHIND other books. Everything is discounted, which is great for cheapskates like myself. They have current titles there as well as lots of great out of print stuff. I saw a neat Robert Crumb collection sitting in the stacks, but I didn't adopt it because I already had a half dozen books in my arms.

It's not really all that organized, which means you have to hunt around to find things, but that just makes it all the more interesting. I could have spent several hours there, but forced myself to leave lest I bought too much.

I really can't express how amazing this place is. It really just needs to be visited to understand.

Hatch Show Print

Last night I saw Jim Sherraden speak about the history of Hatch Show Print. I've been a fan of the work they do over there in Nashville since college, so it was fantastic to finally meet the man who helped bring Hatch Show Print back to life.

I really really think that what Jim is doing is important, not only for design, but history in general. He's not allowing any new typefaces to be brought into the shop. So, jobs that are printed there now use the same type blocks that were used back in the early 1900s. Those letter sets in the trays have so much history behind them...posters for political campaigns, traveling variety shows, pharmacy ads, posters for musical acts coming to town...it's amazing.

After the lecture, there are print re-strikes for sale. I am the proud owner of these two prints...


Great, two more prints to add to my pile of things I need to have framed!

Here's a nice video about Hatch Show Print, snatched from youtube...


Here is a short little Video of Jim working in the shop. Again snagged this off youtube...

Extra! Extra!

An article was recently published about Bag Lunch. Visit the Bag Lunch Press blog to read it...
http://baglunchpress.blogspot.com