Marvin Redpost covers for Bloomsbury

New covers commissioned by Bloomsbury for the Marvin Redpost series by Louis Sachar

(why are children's book designers always so keen on drop shadow effects though?!?! )

Guardian All Ears 20th June

Re. tiny dog phenomenon...they seem to have a bit of a thing for tiny dogs in New York but they usually seem to be owned by muscley gay gym bunnies (on Canal Street at least!)

(article by Michael Rosen)
I feel the tiny dog phenomenon to be a puzzling business, but when one of these benighted freaks starts attacking things several times its size I find their mad tenacity a joy to behold. It was precisely such a display of dwarf-dog fury that led to the following exchange between a pair of staggering drunks who had made the mistake of trying to caress one of these hand-held heartbeats and come of second best.

Woman: (getting as angry as you can without spilling your drink) “The fucker bit me!”

Man: (foolishly opting for admonishment over sympathy) “You should never have touched it. They’re not right”

Woman: (detonating) “He said it were alright!”

Man: (voice thick with self-made wisdom) “You can’t trust folk with these dogs. They’ll say ‘owt.”

Woman: “It started off licking me hand. Then it went for me. You heard it.”

Man: “Ask someone what their dog’s like and they’ll tell you it’s great, even while it’s got its jaws on you, they’ll be telling you it’s trying to make friends.”

Woman: (looking for signs of injury to her hand and finding nothing that might merit litigation) “Little bastard.”

Man: (making a huge but somehow valid leap of comparative reason) “It’s like the Krays. Their mum always said they was alright. Different story when they’re breaking your fuckin’ legs with a hammer.”

Woman: “What you on about, hammers?”

Man: “Dogs!”

Woman: (staring at her hand again) “Little bastard.”

Man: “Aye.”

demographic...

...Marc Ribot / Evan Parker improv concert at Meltdown... disturbing how one occasionally realises how close you are to falling into a certain demographic...lots of serious looking men of a certain age...

C-90

geek funfair

Guardian All Ears 14th June

(Article by Michael Holden)
As far as I’m concerned people who are up out of their aircraft seats before the seat belt sign has been turned off are a sub species that ought to be destroyed. Within that though, skulks an even uglier demographic, people who get out of their seats too quickly, and immediately begin to use the phone. If any of these people looked like they had anything urgent waiting for them outside the aircraft, other than their own demented self obsession, it wouldn’t be so bad. Likewise the vocal among them, have nothing to say. This proved itself to be true again last week when I watched a young woman get up and start bleating loudly into her mobile at the end of a long haul flight from California.

Woman: “There were a lot of history, too much history really. It were quite boring. We saw Hollywood and that…yeah…went to Vegas, stayed at the Luxor. It’s like a pyramid, a black pyramid that you go inside of.”

I prayed for her to be admonished by a steward but no one came. And so she continued.

Woman: “I got her a solar-powered key ring, it’s pretty good…and I got him some nails scissors…nail scissors that have ‘California’ written on ‘em…”

The light went off and everyone started standing up.

Woman: (anxious, as though this might be an affront to her unique status) “Everyone’s standing up! Yeah, I’m still on the plane. It’s hot over there. You can get sun burned in an hour. I did…I’ve gone brown now though. Yeah, I got him an ashtray.”

As she moved out of earshot I realised that whoever said travel broadens the mind wasn’t catching many planes.

some days...