May 26, 2005
It's Carole Glenn's birthday today and I asked her to join me for my meeting with The Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard down in Phoenix today. We met at the Armstrong-Prior Art Studio at 18th St. and McDowell to discuss the printing of the BBB commissioned artwork "The White Hat." After a tasty lunch in their studio kitchen, we looked at the various printmaking techniques and decided on a combination of etching, serigraph-chine collet and monograph. We pencilled in two days in June to do the work and I'm very excited and honored and nervous. I want to do a good job for Terry and do him proud.

Carole and I also stopped at Dan Harshbeger's studio off Seventh Ave. below Dunlap and talked at length about our problems with the August cover package layouts. I looked at his opening spread with some concern. I had initially initiated a layout sketch that was too in-your-face, and even Dan balked at it. Ultimately, I have faith he will pull it off. This morning Kathy came up with an analogy that applies to this as we discussed the love and hate polarity regarding the show Deadwood (we watched the final episode of the season last night). She commented that Fox is the number one network now and on shows like The House (I’ve never seen it) they had a plotline where a 12-year-old girl needed to get an abortion but she couldn't tell her parents. The conservative plot point angle made Kathy somewhat irritated (she once proudly worked for Planned Parenthood). She didn’t like their politics. On the other hand, she said, "The cussing on HBO doesn’t bother me at all." From there she made the leap that sometimes I want to go a little bit too HBO when my readers are more Fox. Interesting analogy. Do you buy it?

"A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lesson from the past, but he also is prematurely disappointed in the future."
—Sydney Harrise