Crafty

Julia told me last night about this magical park in Brooklyn that was hosting the Renegade Craft Fair, so I dutifully headed up there this afternoon to see what was up with what seemed to be the largest gathering of indie and cutting-edge graphics that I was likely to see anytime soon. As it turns out, totally worth it. I got my sister's birthday present, along with a few other little things. The place was totally addictive - if there was one every week, I'd have to go soak in all the hipster art and eventually join their ranks in appreciation for those arts both retro and new. Typewriter key jewelry is really in right now, and that should give you a fairly accurate idea of the kind of people here. I am continually amazed by the variance and quality of tattoos in the Brooklyn area, although Williamsburg (hipster capitol, if I'm not mistaken?) seems to have the highest concentration of really unique, beautiful tattoos.

Point of interest about Williamsburg, and one which I think could say a lot about the people living there: it's basically detached from the rest of Brooklyn. I mean that very literally - to get to Williamsburg from the part of Brooklyn I live in, you have to cross into Manhattan, go to Union Square, and catch the special train (that must have been built expressly for this purpose) to cross back over. Google showed this park to be a 15 minute drive from where I live, but fully an hour commute by subway. The area definitely exhibits a cooler-than-thou persona, although in some respects it's justified in that belief. The magical sandwich Julia brought in the other day was from a butcher near the park, so I went and got easily one of the best sandwiches I've ever had. Then I walked next door to the Beaner Bar (a coffee shop owned by a Mexican family), got some cold-brewed coffee, and sat out front to unwrap my sandwich from the butcher paper and scarf it down. Then I walked one more door down and admired the kittens in a little pet shop where the employee knew the names of the dogs that walked in the door. I've never been cooler in my entire life than sitting on that front porch area eating my Williamsburg sandwich.

I have a slight revision to make after my post yesterday: nobody defaces True Blood advertisements. Literally everything else I've seen has been mangled in some way except for the True Blood posters. Because really, who doesn't love a show that can boast serial killers, orgies, religious cults and smokin' hot vampires? In other news, season 3 premiere in one week . . .

Spatial relations are one of the most interesting aspects of subway people-watching. I'll probably want to think more on this one more later, but watching the distance people position themselves in relation to one another is really fascinating for me. There are so many factors involved in both the initial positioning and the conclusions you can draw by watching the positioning - age, gender, all the visual indicators of their socioeconomic status. I guess more than anything, I enjoy writing stories in my head about the people I see, but to some extent, I like to think that a better scientist than me could see a snapshot of two people sitting side by side in a train, and know whether they knew each other, how well they knew each other, so on and so forth.

Last thing: I want Si Scott to design a back piece as my next tattoo. Coming in 2014 or something like that, when I'm rich and can afford that kind of ink.