While we were headed upstate last week, Michelle and I stopped at the Plattekill rest stop to eat some road food, which turned out to be the infamous Roy Rogers, along with it's Fixins Bar. Generally I abhor the idea the of a "Fixin's Bar" but we were feeling frisky, and starved to the point of Fixin's. As we sat there, Michelle said,"Is that who I think it is?". I turned to look at a nerdy, but kinda hip dressed guy and thought it must be someone from Pratt. . . some other teacher, or former student. I turned back around thinking no, but then I heard the voice, a birdy thin but emotive voice. And realized it was Ira Glass. I am nerdy enough to consider myself a total NPR Dweeb, and in fact got jumped a year or two ago wearing my pledge drive t-shirt. Whether this was the cause of the beating I will never know, but suffice to say, I was a little blown away by the celebrity sighting. Whenever we see the overblown, fat, Wal-mart saturated world outside the city, we always say one thing - with both love and disdain - "America." And there we were. America. And there was Ira Glass, right where he's supposed to be. So it was fun to hear the
episode which was out last week, all taking place at the rest stop.
As for the picture (by Nancy Updike), I took particular notice of these as well. Never drink from anything bigger than a cat and shaped like a bar-bell.
Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who drew the inflammatory images of the prophet Mohammed a few years ago for Josh Baker at Metaleap for use in Paste Magazine. If you don't know the story, he's a couple of attempts on his life, the last being a Somali guy who tried to break into his house with an axe . . . As if us illustrators and cartoonists don't have it tough enough as is! You'll notice the angry Muslim man on the right side of the sketch did not make it into the final, and I think it was a good edit. I find my flesh to be rather susceptible to axes.
