Open dream interpretation

I dreamed that 42nd Street was a river (a small one, more a creek, really), and I had decided to cross it on foot instead of just taking the subway over it. (Surrealism bonus: The subway was underground when you were riding it, but elevated when you looked at at from the outside.) I had to get through a milling crowd of surly teamsters to get to the river, and then while crossing it I saw a live trilobite and was attacked by a baby hippopotamus.

What’s it mean?

Drawing

During my train trip home my eyes were for some reason refusing to stay pointed at my copy of Accelerando — I’m enjoying the heck out of it, but I just wasn’t in a reading mood — so I pulled out the old modded Winsor Newton pocket sketch journal and the .005 Pigma Micron I keep clipped inside the cover flap and sketched a woman who was napping a couple seats over. Used a Pentel Pocket Brush for the blacks.

Pretty good for a quick-and-dirty shaky train sketch. I need to do this more often.

Hey, I just realized something. Remember those drawings from college that I scanned and posted four years ago? I’m much more skilled now. Sure, duh, I’m twenty years older, but I don’t think I realized that four years ago. I was much more energetic and imaginative in college, but I’m more perceptive now, and have a better repertoire of marks and tools, and know more anatomy. Damn. If I can get that energy and imagination going, I’ll be in great shape.

Some old links I had lyin’ around

• I wanna get this t-shirt and send it back through time to myself fifteen years ago.
• That post I wrote back in March about the infinite-bladed razors? It’s still getting comments.
• Hey, remember Macintosh System 1.0? I love that old all-in-one Control Panel, designed by Susan Kare. (Yes, Jordin Kare’s sister.)
• Time breakdown of modern web design, as a pie chart.
• Malcolm Gladwell on food design and the marketing histories of ketchup and mustard.
• George Seurat’s “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte” recreated in photography.
• Here’s why the Internet was invented: The Fat Wonder Woman Blog! (And you thought it was the Cats That Look Like Hitler blog. Man, what were you thinking?)