Scribbler's Cafe

Curiosity

Who is my reader in Asahi, Chiba?

I'd love to know.

posted by Scribbler @ Thursday, September 22, 2005 2 comments

My sister's wedding

My sister was married last week on Hawaii's Kauai Island. The ceremony was simple and beautiful. My sister looked gorgeous. The rain stopped just ten minutes before she walked own the stone steps. Wonderful.


This is my sister's amazing daughter, Evynne. She the most fabulous kid I know. Most of the pictures I took in Hawaii were of either Evynne or Kiomye ot the two of them togther. My camera just could not stop following them around.

More pictures (as always, click to enlarge):

To say that Kiomye was taken with the hula dancers would be an understatement. She thought they were the most wonderful, fantastic thing she'd ever seen. She spent the rest of her stay on the island in her grass skirt, offering free shows to any adoring tourist that happened by.

posted by Scribbler @ Thursday, September 22, 2005 2 comments

Aloha!

In just a few minutes, Kiomye and I are catching our ride to the airport to jet away to my sister's wedding in HAWAII! Ahhh, a long weekend in gorgeous Kauai. Didn't I just get back from a long vacation? Don't you hate us? As I am rather fanatical about my internet access, I will probably find away to check my emai before I return next week. But, if not, forgive my very temporary silence...

posted by Scribbler @ Wednesday, September 14, 2005 0 comments

HAHAHA

I saw this on postsecret and thought it was fabulous.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, September 11, 2005 1 comments

Still on a visual kick

I laid the lines for this at Planet3rd Cafe in America-mura. The more I look at it, the more I like it. This is what it feels like to be a gaijn is a busy Japanese city. Over stimulous is everywhere. I am the only focal of peace and calm, yet I am also empty and alone. The yellow umbrella (besides adding nice contrast) makes me think of how ridulous all this is.

Yet ANOTHER cafe graphic inked at cafe Absinthe (I just can't stay away!). I look at these two latest and think I'm getting the hang of this again. It's amazing how many creative energies are restored after sweeping your life clean of bothersome boys.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, September 11, 2005 1 comments

more SWANKY cool

The initial shaky sketch for this concept was done at a coffee shop on Rokko Island (a Tully's, no less). I love the shape of italian lighting. I think I will revisit that form again and again. Block coloring and text added via Photoshop.

Speaking of revisiting the light form, here are a couple more. I also love the curves on retro chairs. I have a great idea for a while series on these chairs. Again, block coloring, text and fake printer's offset added via photoshop.

I'm certainly on a visual kick these days. It feels safer than writing right now. Not quite so raw and intimate.

Yup.

posted by Scribbler @ Friday, September 09, 2005 0 comments

cOOl . . . . . . . . . . . . Don't lose it.

This is a fantastic demonstration of why I love photoshop. Here is a relatively crappy little doodle I did in my "Ornery" notebook today. Eh. Not so good. I have litle skill with real ink, but I do have a solid conceptual and design sense. Enter the magic of photoshop. Add a little color. Delete the clutter. Enlarge or shrink or instant emphasis. Add (con)text. I'd love to print these four out on large glossy sheet and hang them in a block. I'd call them the "Don't lose it" postcard series.(As always, click to enlarge.) If you haven't noticed, I'm a little into swank these days.

posted by Scribbler @ Tuesday, September 06, 2005 3 comments

Boxers and spurs

Today was my last day of freedom before the start of the school term. I had seven hours all to myself before I needed to pick up Kiomye from school. I thought of contacting friends or getting my errands done – but then said screw it. I won’t be alone again for three months. I claimed this day for me.

I rode the trains to Osaka and hopped the mido-suji subway to the Namba area. I wandered around for a while, soaking in the filth and bustle that is Osaka, and worked my way back towards the Shinshaibashi area. I was searching out Café Blanco, but instead stumbled upon the über-swank Planet3rd Café. I has my cappuccino and fried egg breakfast (truly oishii) and doodled for a good hour. I contemplated opening up my laptop but decided to mosey on over to Café Absinthe to make my office for the afternoon.

I love Café Absinthe. All those artist type and that cool green glow. One Hemmingway please (absinthe and champagne, a sugar cube burned over the glass). Mmm. Humus and more cappuccino. The crowd is friendly and interesting. This boxer was “parked” outside, where he whimpered and shot his owner puppy eyes until he finally untied him and took him home. Every single Japanese businessman that walked by the café would utter “kowai” and step off the sidewalk to leave a good ten feet between them and the dog. Very amusing. The cutie-girls in their high heels, short ripped denim skirts and bleached hair would all stop and pat the dog’s head. He’d lick his chocks and turn his pitiful look to them. Sweet.

The owner of the cafe was wearing a t-shirt with a spur graphic that I found very interesting. I had to steal the idea. The words are my own. I would love to edit them, but such is the permanence of ink. Here's my photoshopped enhancement.

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, September 05, 2005 1 comments

New Doodles - click to englarge

(explainations soon to come)

posted by Scribbler @ Monday, September 05, 2005 0 comments

Scans, Scandal and (de)Spite

Yesterday I "walked in on" in the most horrible way possible. One night after that particular shaky trauma, the boy who told me to believe in fate decided, rightly so, that my life is too complicated for him to be a part of. So today I play uplifting songs on my ipod, wander alone down winding city rivers and start a healing journal labeled "O" for ornery.


Her friend said to her, "Be your own white knight. Didn't you always have fantasies of being the hero?"
Yes, but...


Thank God for Jenny. She provides the through line of love and strength in my "complicated" life. She tells me that if they tell say "I love you" and then also want to sleep with me, I should worry and run run run

I laugh outloud. Laughter of absurdity. OK, I'll try it. Say you love me - and it means you don't. Take off you pants and watch how fast I can run.

Down with love.
Up with me.




I think of my life in design terms and suddenly it makes sense. White space. Don't forget to leave white space. Too many focal points, no matter how strong, gorgeous or dynamic, crowd and confuse the scene. Beauty and overall strength is muddled and lost. My life is crammed full of dynamic focals. I forgot to leave white space. I'm long overdue. Now is the time to drench myself in white space, drown in the expanse, compound the crucial nothing to counteract the voluminous density of love and men and lusty exaltation.

TANGENTS:
Last night, in order to not think about anything, I watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, molded to my daughter's drowsy body on the couch and drinking too much akka wine. I thought of the term step-parent, and realized that it will apply to the man I finally choose. I watched Dick van Dyke on the screen, how he faces failures and creative set-backs, yet still finds joy in his gorgeous children and time to tell a fantastic story about pirates. I want to be a parent like that. I want all of life to be a beautiful game. I think of laying with my daughter in her bed and telling her about the novelist Kundera's laughing game. This is what we do: first we fake laugh - as loud as we can. Snorting is encouraged. It's important that we look at each other as we do this, so as to realize the absurdity and fulfill the complete comic effect. Then true laughter will follow, building and building until we are crying and exhausted. Of course, all I will say to her is "Laugh with mommy."

Laugh with mommy.

The night before all this (new) drama, I laid on the balcony in my hammock with a glass of iced tea, a book of laughter and forgetting, and all the twinkling lights of Osaka. The late hour and resumed life in this forgien land weighted my eyelids and soon I abandoned my literary pursuits to a drowsy sway. I actually thought of this blog. I thought about how I wanted to write of parked cars and secrets, fate proclimations drenched in absinthe, Iron Chef French restuarants, and old loves that fall to the ranks of the shallow legions. Yet the audiences for those stories are separate and jealous. I imagined that my little experiment public self-obsession was finally over. There is no story I can safely tell.

Yet still I find myself writing despite. Despite.

posted by Scribbler @ Friday, September 02, 2005 3 comments