Years ago there was a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon about not just seize the day, seize the day and throttle it. I don’t think it’s this one is exactly – rather than Calvin in the tub, I think it had Hobbes all tattered & torn.
I went to the Willy Street Fair on Sunday morning, and think I did a pretty good job of seizing & throttling.
I was there for about two hours. I biked, so got exercise. I went for the parade. My friend Dorla lives on the corner of Paterson & Williamson, upstairs from her printshop, Screen Door Studios – that used to be Survival Graphics, an artists’ collective, that I was a member of, too. Regardless of what printing operation is in the building, Dorla’s driveway is the perfect spot for parade-watching. The people come down Willy, and then the vehicles join on Paterson.
So, I got to parade-watch with Dorla & Clare & Eileen and a few other people. Then I walked up Williamson, partly on my own, partly with Dorla & Eileen. I got to hear about 1 1/2 Yid Vicious tunes – a klezmer band with an Irish fiddler, a librarian on guitar, a couple of music teachers & children’s museum employees, and of course, Carson’s dad on reeds. I walked back down, ate bacon on a stick, made a date to go see the WI Triennial with a friend, and was back home by 12:30.
Probably the best thing about it was talking to Dorla – talking about School Woods meals, and cooking projects – made me feel enormously better about myself. I guess I am still a creative person – I like to think that I still have an artist’s perspective on life, even if I have been a librarian for over 20 years.
A longer stay would’ve only meant diminishing returns.
Kind of a shitty picture, but the kind of stuff I made at Survival – family photos, printed on cloth, patchworked, stuffed, and in boxes
