I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1999. I moved here because of a job, but I stay for the weather. In this part of the country, it never gets colder than about 45 °F, and that’s usually in the winter months. Imagine my surprise when, on our first night in Brooklyn, the temperature dropped to 34. It was near the end of April, and it never occurred to us to bring gloves or scarves or heavy coats. I don’t even own a winter coat anymore, and the 15 block walk down Court Street, from Caputo’s Bakery to our hotel, constituted the coldest 20 minutes I’ve experienced in a very long time. The man in this drawing was one of several locals we passed on the way, and his knit cap and down jacket reminded me that once, many years ago, I too knew how to dress properly for winter weather.
I ran into this guy at a Duane Reade drugstore, right around the corner from the Brooklyn Historical Society. He wanted to know why I was carrying a file box. He asked, “What you got in that box?” I told him I had lots of pens and pencils and a few notebooks. He seemed a little disappointed. I wish I’d made up a more exciting response. Perhaps I could have told him I was carrying nuclear waste or a shrunken head or some evidence of alien life.
At the 42nd Street-Times Square transit station, New York, New York.
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The massive transit complex at Times Square-42nd St. is a little intimidating. The signs are actually quite clear, and if you simply pay attention to where you’re being directed, it’s pretty hard to get on the wrong train. Still, the experience of being underground, with so very many people, in a complex of stations whose various levels of track seem to extend more and more deeply into the earth can only be described as unsettling.
At the same time, passing through this station was also kind of amazing. There were so many Black people everywhere I looked, and I wanted to do portraits of so many of the men around me. It’s been a while since I’ve experienced so much ethnic diversity within the Black population of a single region, and I can’t wait to go back with more pens and more paper and a lot more time.
There were not that many African American tablers at the Brooklyn Zine Fest, but there were somewhat more Black attendees. Brooklyn’s fest is not unique in this way; I have yet to attend a zine festival or expo that has significant Black participation. Still, Brooklyn’s organizers are keenly aware of the importance of greater diversity among the festival’s participants, and I am very excited about the possibilities for the future.
This attendee was a really nice guy, and he was intrigued by the idea of a series of drawings of Black men. I sketched him as he browsed at other tables on my aisle, after first giving him a heads-up that he would be likely to see himself in a coming post.
Don’t you just lovelovelove his schoolboy scarf and matching beanie?
