Judging by the chilly rain that’s suddenly arrived, the rapidly diminishing daylight and the maples that are already starting to turn, summer is officially over. But maybe it’s all those years I spent going to the Minnesota State Fair, because the end of summer has always got me dreaming of still-hot days and fried food on a stick—and I find myself handing out metaphorical blue and red ribbons to the winners of nonexistent competitions.

Take, for example, yesterday morning, when I had to return some library books to the Kitsap Regional Library. Since I could visit any library in the system to do it, I picked one in a town I had never yet visited: Poulsbo (pronounced “Paul’s Boh”).

To kill a few minutes before the library opened, I parked the car next to a waterfront park, and took a stroll along the boardwalk that extended toward the center of town. I have no idea what I was expecting to find at the end of the boardwalk—

but it certainly wasn’t anything quite this adorable.

Tucked away on a fjordy arm of the Sound, Poulsbo was settled in the 1880s by Scandinavian immigrants (the ones who didn’t stay in Minnesota to start up the State Fair, that is).

And it’s been a little piece of Norway ever since. In fact, Norwegian was the primary language here until World War II; and even yesterday, I swear on my own grave that I overheard a conversation in Norwegian. Hey, I didn’t live in both Minnesota and North Dakota for nothing—my friend Bridget would be proud of me for picking out all the “jeg“s and ”er“s and ”av“s she taught me long ago.

So Poulsbo gets a blue ribbon for charm and gratuitous outdoor use of Norsk.

Eventually I remembered what I was there for in the first place—and then, when I laid eyes on the carved pillars and intricate paneling, I had to make sure I had written down the correct address.

So obviously, Poulsbo has also netted the Most Beautiful Library ribbon—

aaaand another blue for Cutest-as-a-Button church steeple.

Before I headed for home, I walked the rest of Front Street—and stopped dead when I saw this sign. I don’t have a drop of Norwegian blood in my veins, but I do know my way around a Norse bakery.

Lefse wasn’t on the menu that day, but I did find the perfect treat for my State Fair state of mind. Oh, yes. Another blue ribbon.

What can I say? Poulsbo knows the ways to my heart.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who ordered a copy of On a Mission, or spread the word, or said such nice things to us! The Postal Service is sending a flock of oversized flat packages to the four winds—if one has your name on it, it’ll find you soon!

As autumn approaches and the inevitable rainy season knocks at our doors, Jessica and I are dreaming of the sunny skies of Arizona—where the not-so-sunny SB 1070, the state’s contentious new immigration reform bill, was signed into law earlier this year. At every turn, controversy pricks underfoot and looms overhead—with no easy, clear-cut answers in sight. So for our newest Dead Feminist broadside, we decided to challenge the controversy face-to-face-to-hand-to-heart with the words of Tejana activist Adina De Zavala:

There was nothing else for me to do but hold the fort. So I did.

In complete contrast with our last broadside, we had a short n’ sweet quote to work with this time—which gave me every reason and all kinds of room to go completely nuts with the imagery. I think my subconscious had a hand in steering us toward Adina and her quote, because I suddenly had the chance to explore a whole slew of filed-away themes and images that I had never been able to work into a piece before. My brain was swimming with ideas, and I found myself cackling out loud (which probably had Zooey, who’s been back helping out this summer, freaked out a little bit) at the prospect of finally getting the chance to put so many of my favorite things into one crazy illustration. Green skies! Monument Valley! Mexican blackletter! Milagros! Cactus spine patterns based on fractal geometry! Mwa ha ha!

Easy there, tiger. Ahem. I should probably give you the whole nerdy spiel.

On a Mission teems with icons of both the American Southwest and Mexican folk culture. A desert landscape—framed with metallic scrollwork and Crazy Lace agate cabochons— stretches to the horizon, while saguaro sentinels tower over a tangled mess of prickly pears and barrel cacti. That was the easy part—thorny issue? Check.

The hard part was putting in all of our nebulous and conflicted feelings about the Alamo (represented here as an absence of imagery; a silhouette of negative space) and the topic at hand. So for answers I looked to Mexican folk art—so prominent on both sides of the Border, and so beautifully expressive, layered in history and meaning.

The text itself helped us get right to the point about that. The typography is influenced both by the American Old West and modern-day Mexico—particularly the latter. Mexico’s strong tradition of hand-lettering survives today, particularly in the form of hand-painted signs and advertisements. Inspiration ranged from the fluid folksiness of drop-shadowed cursive—

—to the proud refinement of blackletter, a hold-out of the early Spanish colonial printers that has evolved to attain near-sacred importance in Mexican and Mexican-American popular culture. As we were conscious of our desire to “reclaim” some of the connotations behind the Alamo, blackletter provided the perfect weight and cultural twist to the phrase “Hold the fort.”

And then there’s my favorite part of the whole project: strewn all over the lower half of the illustration is a collection of milagros. Literally translated to “miracles,” milagros are small, stamped-metal votives that are typically hung in the shrines and churches of many Catholic countries—offered up in thanks for prayers answered and blessings received.

On my lifetime list of All-around Best Things Ever, milagros are very near the top—as evidenced by the growing collection in my studio. When I lived in Rome (where they are called ex votos), I used to pick them up on Sunday-mornings at the Porta Portese flea market for next to nothing.

Those little disembodied limbs and organs been marinating in my head ever since, but until now they’ve only ever made one cameo appearance in my work—a page, and a poem, in my artist book A Riddler’s Compass.

Well, now they get to be the stars of the show. If the Alamo were still the mission I picture in my head, the walls would be covered, floor to ceiling, with milagros. And since Adina herself has become a bit of a legend for her place in the Alamo’s history, illustrated devotionals adorn her name and portrait like pinned hopes.

It may seem strange to get so giddily excited about illustrating such a serious topic, but somewhere along the way I realized that it’s that excitement over the positive that has given me perspective on the issue at hand. That what we think of as the “American” Southwest is so iconic and so dear to us because of the peoples with whom we share it. That the Southwest wouldn’t be what it is without its link to hundreds of years of both native and newcomer culture—just as America wouldn’t be America without immigration and cultural diversity. That keeping our multicultural vibrance alive is what makes us whole.

So in that spirit, a portion of the proceeds from On a Mission will be donated to the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting justice and legal rights for immigrants and refugees from more than 100 countries around the world.

I don’t know if any of this stuff crossed Adina De Zavala’s mind while she camped out inside the Alamo. She was just an individual who fought to keep an old, rotting building standing—and the place was a controversial symbol, even then (it certainly still is today). But she knew that the controversy was part of the legend of the place, and part of our heritage. And she knew the value of preserving that heritage for everyone’s benefit, without exception—so she held the fort. I think she deserves a few milagros on our wall for that.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

On a Mission: No. 9 in the (Dead) Feminist Broadside series
Edition size: 175
Poster size: 10 x 18 inches

Printed on an antique Vandercook Universal One press, on archival, 100% rag paper. Each piece is hand-colored and signed by both artists.

Colophon reads:
As a young Tejana teacher, Adina Emilia De Zavala (1861 – 1955) shared her love of Texas history and legends in her classroom, and spent time outside of school soliciting building supplies to repair San Antonio’s missions. In honor of her Mexican grandfather, the Republic’s first Vice President, she founded the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DRT) in order to preserve the Mission San Antonio de Valero. The compound was built in 1718 by the Spanish to evangelize local Native Americans, then later—as the Alamo—housed the Mexican Army. De Zavala was especially focused on restoring the long barracks, which she believed was the site of the 1836 Battle of the Alamo. In 1905, days before the Alamo lease would expire and rumors spread of imminent conversion to a hotel, De Zavala locked herself in the rat-infested structure without food, demanding that the entire compound be preserved. “If people—especially children—can actually see the door through which some noble man or woman passed,” she said, “they’ll be impressed; they’ll remember.” After three days, De Zavala was released as the Governor took possession, then returned control to the DRT. Thanks to De Zavala’s persistence and the DRT’s ongoing stewardship, the legendary Alamo is preserved as a museum and National Historic Landmark, open to all people.

Illustrated by Chandler O’Leary and printed by Jessica Spring, as thorny issues arise and tear at our shared history and heritage: a multicultural miracle that demands tolerance even in the most trying times. 175 copies were printed by hand, with heart, at Springtide Press in Tacoma. August 2010

Price: $35

Available now in the shop!

A few copies of End of the Line, The Curie Cure and Just Desserts are also still available, as are reproduction postcards of the first eight broadsides.

One more thing: thanks to all of your amazing support, we have now reached our subscription capacity for the Dead Feminists series. But while we’re no longer able to take new subscribers, the series is still going strong because of the critical mass of subscribers who have had faith in us since the very beginning, and who have committed to stick by us until the end. So thanks, everyone.

¡Les agradecemos a todos por su apoyo!

(The next Dead Feminist Broadside will be released a smidge early, on November 6, 2010—just in time for Studio Tour. We’ll be back to our every-three-months schedule after that.)

At the Wayzgoose on Saturday (thanks to the hundreds of folks who showed up!), Jessica and I had a little teaser for the next Dead Feminist set up at our table—I figured it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t also share it online.

I’m not going to say much, so as not to spoil the surprise, but I thought I’d drop a few clues by way of my messy drawings—

warts and all. As you can see by all the smudges and arrows, doin’ it by hand is hardly a perfect process,

but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

On a Mission is on press as I speak, inching closer to the finish line every moment. Look for it here on Friday—see you then!

Jessica and I are waist-deep in the new Dead Feminist print (look for it here next week), so I’m just popping in to wave hello—and to warn you, in badly-dubbed English, about the giant goose climbing the Space Needle.

Just kidding … but they will be sending in the steamrollers. This Saturday, in the Needle’s mighty shadow, is Seattle’s biggest letterpress party of the year: Wayzgoose. The weather is supposed to be perfect, so come on over and say hi to scads of letterpress artists, print your very own keepsake in the studios, and referee the Steamroller Smackdown outside. Jessica and I won’t be steamrolling this time, but we will have a table in the marketplace—so don’t be a stranger!

Here’s the skinny:

9th Annual Seattle Wayzgoose
Saturday, August 28, 2010
1 to 6 pm
Free!
School of Visual Concepts
500 Aurora Avenue North, Seattle
More information and RSVP here

The lovely ‘Goose wranglers at SVC asked me to design this year’s postcard; I think I was watching too many Japanese monster movies at the time. But monsters and letterpress seem to go well together; the postcard is lovingly letterpress printed by the talented titans at Evolution Press.

I have a small stack of postcards left—if you’d like one, just leave a comment here and/or email your snail mail address to me at chandler [at] anagram-press [dot] com. So if your travel plans don’t include winging to Seattle this weekend, I’ll be sending little feathers of Seattle winging out to you.

Update: all gone! For those of you who asked for one, check your mailboxes!

Since I posted this drawing and some others this summer, people have been asking me what’s with the stamps in my sketchbook. I guess the short answer is that each one is a little piece of personal tradition.

But you know I don’t really do short answers.

The long one, then.

I grew up in a nomadic family. Between the moves required by Dad’s job in the Air Force and a fierce wanderlust that runs in all the O’Leary veins, we had a lot of reasons to travel. Dad and I, especially, would spend hours poring over our dog-eared Rand McNally road atlas, plotting routes over the back-est of back roads (the squigglier the line on the map, the more scenic it could be depended upon to be) and stops at as many points of interests as we could cram into a journey from A to B.

When I was ten, we made a circuit of our then home state of Colorado, and devoted our time to exploring every national park and monument we could reach along the loop. At each park’s visitor center, we noticed a rubber stamp and ink pad stationed at the front desk. When we finally asked a ranger what they were for, she handed us a small blue notebook and proceeded to explain about the National Park Service’s Passport program.

A stamp to collect at every NPS property in the country, and a tidy little book to hold them all? I was hooked.

Dad and I found ways to sneak a national monument or two into every road trip and relocation—and even took impromptu vacations just to add a new park to the list. My favorite memory is when I was in high school, and Dad popped his head into my room:

“Have any plans this weekend?”

“Uh, no…”

“Wanna go to Montana?”

So we jumped in the car and drove 600 miles just to flip General Custer the bird at his place of death (I had just read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, so he wasn’t exactly stirring me to patriotism). I mean, if you’re going to do it, you might as well go all out, after all. And we had the stamp to commemorate the moment.

The Passport program also includes collectible paper stamps, which can be purchased from afar (as opposed to the ink cancellations, which are free but can only be obtained in person). I’m pretty lukewarm about these, though; by the time I jumped on the bandwagon they had already phased out the super-cool  two-piece design pictured in the lower left corner above, in favor of the cheaper, lower-quality one-piece stamp in the upper right. Since those have been revamped yet again into a pressure-adhesive sticker—and who knows what heinously non-archival chemicals might be in the glue—I’m even less of a completist about them now.

Anyway, I’ve burned through most of the regional sections in my Passport,

and every inch of overflow space.

So I’ve branched out a bit.

What I didn’t know as a kid was that my Passport helped me develop my interest in nearly everything I love most: traveling, design, archiving, printmaking, history, typography, bookmaking, and so on.

At some point along the way, I realized that what I really mattered to me (beyond the travel itself) was the act of adding to an ongoing work—and then looking back to see what I had accomplished. That what I had been doing all along, by compiling this little individual history, is creating some form of artist book. And that my frustrations over an imperfect format were really a desire to create my own.

So now all of my sketchbooks are Passports, each custom-tailored—

each infinitely flexible, ready for whatever adventures wait to be documented.

Here it is, nearly twenty years later, and I’m as eager as ever. Moreover, it’s my goal to collect every last cancellation within the entire National Park System before I stamp the big passport book in the sky. I’m about a quarter of the way there.

And I’ll probably have to build a library for all the sketchbooks I’ll fill between now and then.

Earlier this month, my best friend Elizabeth flew in for a visit. Each time she’s come to town I’ve taken her to see a different part of the state—and since we’re in the middle of fruit season, this time we headed for the Yakima Valley.

At this time of year, the roadsides are piled high with apple crates,

ready for the harvest that will begin in a few weeks.

The pears seem to be a little closer—

they’re ripening quite nicely.

Right now, though, it’s peach season. The Tailor sent us on an errand for as much preserve-ready fruit as we could get our hands on—so I took him literally and brought home fifty pounds of Regina peaches,

another fifty of Rival apricots,

and a handful of beautiful donuts for a snack.

Once he got over his shock at the trunk full of fruit, and set aside a few peaches for the pie I had been begging for,

the Tailor canned up an impressive array of preserves. From top left forward: peach jam; ginger-peach chutney (a collaboration with Jessica); sliced peaches in medium syrup; apricot jam; apricot sauce.

My favorite, and the one I can’t wait to taste with a little kugel:

Apricot Jam
(yield: about 10 half-pint jars)

– 2 quarts (8 cups) crushed, peeled apricots
– 6 cups sugar

Now, I’m not going to go into great detail about the whys and wherefores of home canning now, but if canning’s your thing, this will be old hat for you anyway. If not, and you’d like more specific instructions, I’d suggest our favorite resource: Putting Food By.

Anyway. Wash your jars in hot water (most books will tell you to sterilize them, but that’s what the hot water bath at the end is for). Keep the jars hot in a low oven (if you pour hot jam into cold jars, the glass can shatter), and the lids sterile in boiling water until ready to use.

Combine the apricots and sugar in a large stock pot. Slowly bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Cook at a rapid boil until thick (when the mixture reaches about 220° F, depending on your preference), about an hour, stirring frequently to prevent sticking or scorching.

When the mixture jells, pour it into the hot jars, leaving a 1/4-inch headspace in each. Wipe the jar rims with a clean cloth (any jam left on the rim will prevent the jar from sealing), attach lids, and tighten ring bands. Process in a boiling water bath for 5 minutes (longer if you live at high altitude).

Let cool for 12 hours before removing the ring bands. Store in a dark, dry, cool place.

Or, if you just can’t wait, pop open a jar and have some toast ready.

I’ve been sitting on this post for months now—it’s just that after spending so much time hunched over this project, I needed some time off from even thinking about it. But now I’m ready to talk birds again.

From left: Cedar Waxwing; Steller’s Jay; American Avocet; Purple Martin; Tufted Puffin

Eighteen months, twenty-five birds, six hundred twenty-five individual prints and ten box sets later, my little Flock is finished.

Mountain Quail; American Bittern; Long-billed Curlew; Hooded Merganser;
Laysan Albatross

Barn Owl; American Kestrel; Eurasian Coot; Anna’s Hummingbird; Herring Gull

It’s a little crazy to see these all together, like, well, birds on a wire. Each one has been broken down into its own little assembly line for so long that I forget sometimes to see them as a set.

Western Tanager; Lazuli Bunting; Northern Flicker; Bullock’s Oriole; Belted Kingfisher

Common Loon; Marbled Murrelet; Northern Shoveler; Harlequin Duck; Brown Pelican

As you can see, what’s represented here is a pretty broad cross-section of Washington birds. There are so many bird species ’round these parts, in fact, that I almost didn’t know where to start—and narrowing the choices down to twenty-five was by far the most difficult task.

Wait. I take that back. The hardest part was keeping the glue off of the pricey imported Japanese book cloth (glue plus cloth equals death—or at least wailing, gnashing of teeth, and starting all over from the beginning).

You see, it seemed silly to have a set of prints with nothing to house it. My inner book artist took over (thanks to Jessica’s tricksy enabling), and insisted on encasing the first ten sets of the edition in handmade clamshell boxes.

Even though the results are always worth it, I don’t have much love for making boxes—what I do love is printing the colophon, or production notes. A colophon (or in today’s hardbound novels, the “note on the text”) is an essential element in any artist’s book; this is where the artist steps outside the book’s content and talks about the making of the book itself. For this I decided to go back to my letterpress roots, and hand-set the text in metal type.

While I’m rarely able to fit hand-setting into my projects these days (a drawback to all this D.I.Y. lettering I’ve been doing), it’s still my favorite method of getting a block of text onto a page. And this beloved Bembo, cast locally at Stern & Faye, is so beautifully spaced and balanced that it’s a dream to set and a pleasure read.

Here’s what it says:

The sheer variety of avian species here in the Pacific Northwest is staggering. Nurturing a fledgling love of birding was easy; the hard part was winnowing my list of favorites down to a couple dozen portraits. Here, then, is Flock, a motley kettle of songbirds, waterfowl, raptors, and shorebirds. While they’re not exactly birds of a feather, every member of this brood can be found either as a permanent resident or a passing traveler in Washington state—with just a wingtip of artistic license, that is.

Printed from October 2008 to December 2009 on a gaggle of presses, including Vandercook models SP15 and Universal One, a Craftsman 6.5 x 10 platen, and my little Kelsey 3 x 5—at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, Springtide Press in Tacoma, the University of Puget Sound, and here at Anagram Press, respectively. The colophon is hand-set in Bembo, and each hand-carved linocut print is hand-painted with Pelikan watercolor (no pun intended). Of a covey of 25 birds, a tweet of 25 prints each, and a parliament of ten box nests, this is number [2].

Okay, so maybe I went a bit overboard on the avian puns. It’s just that the thought of getting my hands dirty on type drawers again had me all twitterpated.

The ten box “nests” are now sold out, as are several of the individual birds, but about a dozen or so bird designs are still available in the “Flock” section of the shop. And I have a fluttering feeling that there might be even more birds in my future—one of these days, anyway.

My goodness, how time flies.

I know I’ve shown you pretty much nothing this summer except globe-trotting photo posts, but today I’ve got to stick to tradition. As of this moment, I’ve been a Tacoman for exactly two years. Twenty-four months. Seven hundred thirty days. Seventeen thousand five hundred twenty hours.

And counting.

I’m hoping for several million more, because I’ve loved every one—thanks to you T-town folks. Guys, you’re awesome. And generous, to boot—I think I had a stroke or something when I picked up my copy of this week’s Volcano and found my name printed next to “Best Visual Artist.” Holy moley. Thank you for the vote of confidence—you’re inspiring me to git to work!

Speaking of work, which I’m not quite ready to show you yet, evidence of the past two years has been on the front burner lately. Since I first came up with the concept for my Mt. Rainier book, I’ve covered a lot of miles in our fair state—and even a few down south in Oregon. And above all else (well, except maybe Pt. Defiance, my two favorite markets, or Top Pot), what I love about the Pacific Northwest are the contrasts. From oceans to mountains, rain forests to deserts, farm fields to bustling cities—it’s hard sometimes to remember that all of this is close to home.

So before I get back to a little picture-drawin’ next week, I’ve compiled a smattering of photos taken since my last anniversary post to illustrate what I’m talking about.

In two years I’ve amassed nearly thirty thousand digital photos of the Northwest—and that’s just of the relatively small hunk of territory I’ve managed to cover in that time.

Here’s to the next thirty thousand photos, and the next seventeen thousand five hundred twenty hours—I wonder what they’ll bring.

One of the things I used to do with Bampa is visit the colonial graveyards tucked away in every corner of New England. On this trip I only had time to visit a couple, so I picked my two favorites: the Old York Burial Ground in York, Maine;

and the Granary Burying Ground in Boston.

I’m quite a bit obsessed with these places; beyond my usual souvenir sketches and snapshots, these cemeteries keep popping in and out of my body of work. This is an excerpt from an artist book I made seven years ago. That’s not snow—it’s shot with infrared film. I used a lens filter that blocked nearly all of the visible spectrum, so that the film was exposed mostly by ambient infrared radiation. The effect is that inanimate objects like stones read as deepest black,

and living things turn to bright white.

Despite the near-constant crowds (in Boston, at least) and the challenge they present to photographing, each is an oasis, a tranquil island within the bustling town or city.

That’s not what draws me to them, though. Nor is it the haphazard scatter of wonky stones,

nor the romance of crumbling ruins.

(infrared film again)

It’s the art of it all. You can probably guess what my headstone might look like one day, because I’m completely fascinated with the design, the illustration, the typography displayed on colonial headstones. The “Death’s Head” or winged skull motif seems to be the most common,

with many variations within the theme—

Quadruple grave, dated 1666-1671, of children who lived only “dayes” or months apiece

from refined,

grave for a member of the Goose family, founders of the Mother Goose tradition

to folksy,

to somewhat disturbingly lifelike deathlike.

Another popular design is the “Winged Cherub,” which seems to be a more idealized alternative to the bones-n’-feathers motif.

The carvers seemed to take even more artistic license with this theme; I lost count of all the different angel designs.

Skulls and cherubs aside, just as fun for the modern visitor is the engraved text. Typophiles will love all the script faces and lettering conventions (my favorite, below, is a mention of “November” set with “br” as superscript above a larger “Nov”),

but I’m partial to the language—the poetic phrasings, the archaic spellings. Some excerpts, verbatim:

• “Here lyes interred ye body of Mrs. Hannah Sweet, confort of Mr. Joseph Sweet, who died Nov’br ye 15th 1761 in ye 74th year of her age.”
• “On His unfailing promises rely / and all the horrors of the Grave defy”
• “… Jotham Bush of Shrewƒbury, who departed this life with the Small-Pox”
• “In memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Hurd, amiable & virtuous confort of John Hurd, Esq.”
• “Farervell Vain World, I have Enough of thee / and now I’m Careles what thou Say’st of me”

My little artist book has developed an unexpected conceptual element. I created the images by first coating the paper with liquid emulsion, then processing them in a darkroom with the usual chemicals. By doing that, I was veering away from the traditional darkroom process, and adding some interesting variables, risks and imperfections into the mix. Most noticeably, the fixer reacted a little oddly with the emulsion/paper—a fact that irked me greatly at the time.

Over the years, however, the splotches have darkened, creating the illusion of old age and mirroring the weathering, decay and moss growth of the graves themselves.

So despite my perfectionist nature and my usual complex over making everything as archival as possible—I like the book so much better this way.

After all, it’s all the same in four hundred years anyway, isn’t it?

At the end of a whirlwind trip that still hadn’t quite sunk in, I wanted a long, solo walk to clear my head before my flight home. So I got on the 8:57 Downeaster from Dovah …

(wishing there was time to stop in beloved Haverhill on the way)

… to Beantown. With only four hours to spend in town, and a muggy heat index of 100, I stuck to a small radius of old haunts.

After first gaping in stunned shock at the neatly-landscaped evidence that the Big Dig was finally finished,

I took a stroll through my favorite neighborhood, the North End.

Listen, my children, and you shul heeya
Uh the midnight ride of Pawl Reveeya,
Awn the eighteenth of Aprul, in Seventy-Five;
Hahdly a may’n is now alive
Who remembas that famous day un’ yeeya

I tipped my imaginary hat to my Yankee heritage,

and went in search of lunch at a place I knew of nearby that makes a mean lobsta roll.

Connecticut-style, with clarified butta (even if it is a bit of a faux pas this close to Maine), natch.

Then I headed downtown to take up my well-trodden loop.

First I stopped in to visit some old friends,

including Mista Reveeya himself.

Then I trudged past the Statehouse …

… to Beacon Hill, where it was entirely too hot to draw.

(Though you can see where the inspiration for doodles past comes from.)

Next on my circuit was the Public Gahden, where the willows wept,

and both swans and non-swans took to the water to cool off.

By then there was just enough time to walk through the Common to the T,

and then it was back on the train again, off to catch my flight. I love the Blue Line because it doesn’t stop at “AIRPORT,” and because it’s my favorite metaphor for Boston. I don’t mind the traffic, or the grime, or the expense, or the often-lousy weather—because at the end of all of that is Wonderland.