No Commercial Potential: Another such victory and I am undone.

Notes from the Field10 September 2007

Parading the Baron

If you got here by way of the front door today, you probably could be forgiven for thinking I spent a fair amount of time at the Lincoln Square German American Fest this weekend. Because I did. I’m not so huge a fan of parades that I’ll go too far out of my way, but seeing as the Von Steuben Day Parade practically runs through my back yard and features the finest headgear in the area, hell yeah I’m getting the camera out. Furthermore, having lived for a few years in Lincoln Square, German American Fest has become as important a marker for the end of summer as the Equinox and it features beer and brats.

How accurate a marker for the onset of autumn are we talking about? Today: barely got over 70, with chill winds and rain. Goddamn I love Fall. Bring it.

Another parade note, or rather question. You’ll recall of course the famous scene from Ferris Beuller’s Day Off of the title character twisting and shouting downtown in the midst of a distinctly German-themed parade running through downtown Chicago. Yes? Of course you do. My question is, did the Von Steuben Day parade ever actually run downtown? Or was it simply a convenient conceit for the film? It’s important for me to know this for some reason.

An Important Video Message About Sexy and Money

Brenda is currently attempting to win a video contest put on by Apartments.com. You will locate her video here. In her video you will see a very small part of her very large collection of vintage and vintage-inspired pinups and pinup-related stuff. The video is very nicely done and the collection is quite lovely (altho, tragically, somewhat censored) and everyone but everyone loves pinup art.

Here’s why I’m telling you this:

1. Official voting has not yet begun, but until it does Brenda could do well to collect as many fawning comments and stars as possible. Especially considering that she does not have the retarded, lurching power of MySpace powering her bid.
2. At stake is 20,000 American Dollars. And it would be far preferable for a deserving soul like Brenda to take possession of that bag of money, rather than, say, this person who would obviously only use it to continue to abuse prescription medications.
3. If she wins there will be a big party and you will be invited.
4. While you’re poking around on the site (and after you have left adoration and stars for Brenda) you can watch this or this or this and you will feel so much better about every aspect of your entire life.
5. Thank you for your cooperation. You’d best believe I will be bringing this up again when actual voting begins. Go now, please.

Notes Fielded

It is a point of sadness for me that I fail to sketch as often as I once did. (Reasons for this in no particular order: steady work, digital cable, girlfriend) but I am still a dork for sketchbooks of all sorts and I still buy them knowing that they will be added to the queue of empty books I won’t get to for years. So it goes.

As such, I had to bite when Coudal and the DDC partnered to begin distributing Field Notes Brand notebooks. These are sweet little 3½ inch x 5½ inch softcover, graph-lined books. Attractive enough to catch the eye, but not so fancy that you’d be loathe to stuff one in your back pocket on the way out the door. Just the obsessively amusing details printed on the inside back cover (give it up for Futura!) were almost worth the price of admission for me.

I am hoping to be better about keeping one of these, or one of my many other books on me from now on. It’s important to write important things down. It’s important to sketch. But today it was important to break in my first Field Notes volume with a grid squid.

(Anything left within my reach long enough is going to end up with something tentacled on it sooner or later. Best to just get it over with.)

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