Wipe up the crumbs,
Brush them away,
But once they’re gone, Mom,
Know our patrons won’t stay.
They come for the mess,
With their long walks they pay,
Knowing the good stuff’s
Here all night and all day.
Mom, you want a clean floor,
You beg and you pray,
But a clean floor will shut down
Our 24-Hour
Ant Buffet.
STICKY TILE SMILES: On last night’s fumbled dinner pea munches this morning’s satisfied customer at The 24-Hour Ant Buffet. (Illustration by Jane)
Bring something to the table
in all of life’s dealings
unless that something’s squealing.
“What’s it look like, Dad?”
“Well, that all depends…
On the side you decide
To make the end.”
An Igloo in Candyland
A Hockey Stick Rainbow
A Woodstock Watermelon
The Ultimate Warrior
“So see what you see
When you turn things around…
There’s no telling what’s
Waiting to be found.”
The assist on the 2010 card goes to Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up author J.M. Barrie, who is credited with the quotation featured on the front.
Of a world devoid of violence
he could only dream
as the Peace-Loving Chef
beat eggs and whipped cream.
From the sketchbook, circa February 2015.
My fuzzy gloves that are fingerless
Send me palms over knuckles with digital bliss
On the winter days I’m earwax picking,
Scratching backs, guitar licking,
Pinching jacks, popping pimples,
Cleaning braces, poking dimples,
Tying laces, tickling bellies,
Needle threading, tasting jellies,
Rabbit foot petting, booger flicking,
Yo-yo twirling, paper football kicking,
Portraying a Shadow-Squirrel, snatching a donut hole,
Lapping cookie dough trails from Mom’s mixing bowl.
But when it’s really cold outside and time to shovel snow,
Mittens that cover my fingers are what I wish I had in tow.
There are dentists everywhere
But not the kind I’d like to be,
That’s the kind who earns a living
Mending broken zipper teeth.
‘Cause as far as I can tell
Right now there’s no doc you can see
Who can take a fly or jacket that
Won’t move and set it free.
So the Earth’s first zipper dentist
Is what I would like it to be:
The foremost expert on the planet’s
Mechanical metal teeth.
Dad had many sayings:
By George!
By Jove!
Great Scott!
and
No matter what you think,
There is a lid for every pot!
But we knew we’d really boiled
His patience into jelly
When with wide eyes he whispered,
By Roosevelt’s horse’s belly!
We don’t know where it came from
We don’t know what it meant
Except it was time for our
Misbehaving to relent.
T.R., I bet, would dig the line
Most likely, too, his horse.
His horse’s belly would think it
Poetry, of course
Even better than the classic
One-worder of Ted’s, “Bully!”,
Its cousin, Dad’s much longer fave,
“By Roosevelt’s horse’s belly!”
On July 3
We celebrate C,
Among the letters
None is better.
FOR MORE from the Tweed Typewriter’s Twisted Tour of Alphabetowne, click here.
My latest collaboration with the acclaimed graphic arts team at DeLeo Design is this newly imagined logo for one of our family’s favorite gathering spots, Angelina’s Kitchen.
The color scheme spoofery is an homage chosen to salute the sheer volume of visitors whose tummies and spirits Angelina’s has pleased over the years, an innumerable group said to be rivaled in size only by the crowds at that place Ol’ Man Kroc dreamed up. The name of it escapes me.
Thanks to everyone at Angelina’s for all the good times, and to Gina DeLeo-Kennedy for the typically outstanding design work — transforming my cocktail-napkin sketch into a technicolor dream coat.
It could be the space at the back of a car
It could be the spine of a tree,
It could contain a clog of elephant snot
or treasure lost under the sea.
Which proves that descriptions sometimes
Are all we have to not be sunk
Because on highways, in forests, in jungles, ‘neath oceans
A trunk’s not a trunk’s not a trunk.
SO WHICH IS IT: Monster Shadow or Shadow Monster? (Photo – PaC)
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(Poster by PaC – Fall, 2016)
Click on the image below to view a Steller Story featuring re-colorized renditions of 9 Pro Football Hall of Famers and 1 Heisman Trophy Winner. Can you name them?
UPDATED: APRIL 9, 2020 – I L’Oeuf NY, V_2.0
New to me are these regional spins on the iconic I HEART NY logo. I saw them for the first time just recently, alongside even more takes in which the red image between the I and NY represented other aspects of the Empire State.
Though they obviously don’t use the words BUFFALO
or SARATOGA,
![FullSizeRender[1]](https://tweedtypewriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/fullsizerender11.jpg?w=489&h=139)
to my mind these two renditions can’t help but explicitly represent those cities, and as such, they had me dreaming of an “explicitly” Albany version that would feature the profile of the Capital City’s most iconic building, The Egg.
Apologies to the New York State Tourism Bureau if this was already present somewhere on the very billboard where I saw the official buffalo and horse images above. And if it wasn’t: get cracking on production of the “I Egg NY” merch! FOOTNOTE to THE EGG: I can’t put a number on how many times I saw this building in my life before the day I stood before it on assignment to direct a short film about a football player from Albany. That day, for the first time ever to me, The Egg looked like a football: virtually the top of the Lombardi Trophy itself, tipped slightly and blown up a lot.
In all that I-Hearting I came across this fabulous story of the original logo, the remarkable designer who created it, and the interesting life that both man and art have led. Definitely worth a read and/or listen, via the podcast 99% Invisible.
A simple good wish and an even simpler pencil drawing of a globe-spanning dinner table (what?!?), were the ingredients in my first ever Christmas Card, created in 2002.
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