Dragon*Con and Recovery

Yesterday, Dragon*Con 2017 (henceforth to be called DC, so I don't go insane looking for that asterisk all the time) ended.

DC is four days of nerdy, geekiness, science and pop culture held every year on Labor Day weekend in Atlanta, Georgia with 80,000 of my closest friends.  Some friends, like Rob Levy and Mara Malovany, travel from afar (St.Louis and New York, respectively).  Other friends are new.  Some I see only once a year, and some I missed seeing.  To all of these, thanks for involvement in my yearly vacation.

Registration was a breeze.  I picked up my badge on Thursday, and there was literally no line.  That has never happened before.

I attended four panels:

Wonder Woman

DC's Legends of Tomorrow (moderated by Rob)

NASA Under the New Administration

Project Espresso

The panel I found most fascinating was the NASA panel.  This was a presentation (more of a talk, really) by Nicholas Eftimiades on the approaches of different administrations on space and priorities for each of these.  There are much better explanations out there, but I was surprised by how different administrations approached space.  Nixon, for example, was a proponent of space exploration, and asked the NASA for their top three priorities (a moonrise, the space shuttle, or a space station) and then offered to back one of them.  The space shuttle won out.

I also had my introduction to the "Space Force", a US military presence in space.  There are apparently competing movements in the House and Senate for moving the US space industry out of the Air Force (where it apparently languishes) and making it another branch of the military (the House's proposal) or putting it directly under the control of the Department of Defence.  I found all of this fascinating.

Regarding more mundane matters, though, I learned that the Lindbergh station is a great place to park and MARTA downtown.  The Peachtree Center MARTA station exits right outside the Hyatt, and I don't have to change trains anywhere.

I commissioned a sketch from Chris Schweizer, a golden age Wonder Woman.  I love it!

I also took an extra day off, astutely termed a "recovery day" by my friend, Alex.  What a perfect term for that intellectually squishy transition from the assault on the senses that DC can present to a return to the world of the Normals.  Believe it or not, some adjustment is required, at least by my brain.

Tomorrow, it's back to work and routine.

The Perfect Sketchbook

Last September, I bought the perfect sketchbook.

Ever since I started keeping running sketchbooks encompassing both my work and personal lives, every time I buy a new sketch book, I resolve to fill it with ideas and sketches and poetry.  I did one drawing and filled three pages with mixed media, watercolor and pen sketches of abstract jellyfish.  Last week I forced myself to sit at my favorite park and sketch a tree.  It is a capable sketch.  The remaining ninety five pages are filled with work-related to-do lists and project notes.  Nary a verse of poetry has touched this sketchbook.

I have been through numerous sketchbooks since then.  From Moleskin notebooks to sketchbooks that were presents to whatever promotional, logoed sketchbook I got from a vender.

But, last September, I bought the perfect sketchbook.

The sketchbook is a handsome, black, hardcover volume, 9 x 12, with acid-free pages suitable for archiving.  When I bought the sketchbook, I resolved that I had found the perfect vehicle for my work and art, but mostly for my art.  I would buy only this sketchbook until I died (or until Binders stopped carrying it).  The sketchbook cost me twenty seven dollars.  It was worth it, because I would never have to think about what sketchbook to buy next.

Because, as I said before, last September, I bought the perfect sketchbook.

I went sketchbook shopping today.  My next sketchbook is a softcover volume.  Though the pages are acid free, the texture of the paper is completely different from my previous sketchbook.  My next sketchbook is small, half the size of my perfect sketchbook.

Last September, I bought the perfect sketchbook.  Today, I bought my next sketchbook.

Mid-Century Modern

Why Won't Midcentury Die?

Here's an interesting, if brief, article from the New York Times on the lasting appeal of midcentury design.  While confessing a weakness for some of the motifs of the time, my most significant appreciation of it has more to do with the midcentury approach toward design.  One of Charles and Ray Eames's most beautiful artifacts was the splint they designed in the 1940s.

This molded plywood splint was designed to fit the contours of the leg, and its details serve this function, giving beauty to use.

Sit in an Eames chair and you know instantly that it was made for sitting.   This may sound trivial, but how many chairs have you sat in that just make you want to stand up and move away?  In my experience the latter happens much more often than the former.

Hard Work

I love working with my hands.

It's true.  Every (well almost every) Saturday, I get up way too early.  I stop at the Quik Trip to pick up coffee and breakfast.  I see handfuls of laborers getting their morning pick-me-up.  Plumbers, drywallers, electricians.  People who work with their hands.  Work hard.

I work hard, too.  I build houses.  Although I do this only once a week, these guys do it every day.  They work hard.  I work hard once a week.  I work hard because I want to.  These guys I see every Saturday; they work hard because they have to.   They work hard because they want a better future, for themselves and for their families.  They toil in the blistering hot sun.  They work in the dead of winter.  And I have a world of respect for them.

I love working with my hands.  I love getting dirty.  I love working so hard and sweating so much I smell so bad even my mom would have a hard time letting me into the house.  I do it because it's fun. I learn.  I work out my aggressions.  It's my gym, what little of it I attend.  And when I get home, I relish the feeling of exhaustion I have worked up that day.  On Sunday I rest.  On Monday I return to my office job.  My air conditioned office job.  With a chair.

But these laborers I see at the Quik trip every Saturday morning?  On Monday, they just go back to the exhausting work I do for fun, one day a week.  They do it every day.  These laborers literally build our country.  I have a world of respect for them.  You should, too.

http://www.atlantahabitat.org

Swedish Apartment Building - Love the use of wood.

How Does This make You Feel?

The image isn't the best, but I could live here.

How Does This Make You Feel?