…spent the afternoon watching Bonanza re-runs with my dad…

Ajuan Mance

About two months ago, I saw this incredibly dapper group of African American men at Zocalo Cafe in San Leandro. They were all dressed in slacks, jackets and jaunty caps and fedoras.  Their clothing had a distinctly retro-feel, like the men just stepped out of the 1940s. This drawing is a tribute to their impeccable style.

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…a holiday shopper at the Bay Street Mall, Emeryville.

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At least 6 feet tall, but no more than 15 years old, the young brother in this picture was slim in that way that only teenage boys can be. Placid and contemplative in his demeanor, he seemed to be at that stage when his bulk hadn’t quite caught up with his height; but his broad shoulders gave me the distinct feeling that he was going to get not only taller, but also a lot thicker. I saw him strolling down Telegraph Avenue near the Benjamin Moore paint store, accompanied by several other teenage boys of varying heights. From the looks of their shorts and shoes, they were probably coming home from an after school basketball practice. Of all the kids in this group, the young brother in this drawing looked the most like someone for whom college hoops might be a possibility. If he was truly as young as he looked, he might have as many as 10 more years of growing left to do. A young Shaq or LeBron in the making? Only time will tell, but it would be an awful lot of fun if 5 years down the road I caught sight of him playing in a March Madness game and remembered he and his group of aspiring hoopsters, laughing and joking with each other as they headed for home (?) on a chilly mid-December afternoon.

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I am always drawn to a cool pair of glasses, especially if it has big, brightly-colored frames. The glasses on this guy indicated that he made no apologies for needing corrective lenses. These are the kind of glasses a man wears who has never bothered with contact lenses. As someone who has worn glasses for 36 years and has never in all of that time ever even considered contact lenses, I’ve got to appreciate that kind of conviction.

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I once said that Michael’s (the craft superstore) is the women’s Home Depot. During the holiday season, Michael’s is like Home Depot, Woodstock, and a giant game of dodge ball all rolled into one. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Michael’s goes from a mild-mannered craft supply shop to complete and total bedlam. This is especially true of the Michael’s in San Leandro, which is entirely too small to fit both its inventory and its shoppers comfortably. This young man looked to be somewhere between 12 and 15, and he was waiting patiently in line as his mother sorted through a curiously eclectic selection of plastic flowers. He seemed to have transported himself to some sort of remote dreamspace in which nothing could disturb him, not even the cart-wielding scrapbookers, knitters, and decoupage artists who bustled around and bumped into him.

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Last weekend I had the wonderful experience of being part of the First Fridays downtown art walk in Oakland (California, for those who might not know where I am based). I was showing several of my newest pieces at Uptown Body and Fender. Many thanks to the proprietors there for letting artists invade your space on a regular basis. One thing I really like about Oakland is the diversity of the arts community, and there were a number of interestingly coiffed and stylishly clad Black men and women who passed through and said hello. The man in this drawing didn’t actually come to my particular table, but he stopped near where I was stationed, to chat with some of his friends. He was there long enough for me to get a good look at his expertly trimmed facial hair, which I found impressive. I can’t really imagine what it would be like to have a beard, but it seems like it would require an awful lot of unpleasant and time-consuming maintenance. Kudos to the men who are willing to put in the work. There is certainly a place for the Grizzly Adams-type free-for-all beard, but that doesn’t work on every guy, nor is it appropriate for every setting (perfect for the Alaska wilderness, not so great for the U.S. Naval Academy). For this drawing, I have taken this well chin-coiffed figure and place him on a stool, mostly just because I saw a cool picture in a magazine of I guy sort of sit-leaning on a stool. And, for the record, the subject in question was brown, not green, but green goes so well with purple, and I really wanted to do a light purple background.

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Brooks Brothers, San Francisco, November 2011

Every few years, someone in the world of fashion punditry proclaims that the bow tie is back. For those who don’t have my nerdy fixation with ultra-preppy menswear, I should probably explain that these proclamations seem to happen every couple years, at least since the 1980s (when I started paying attention). So far, I haven’t seen a run on bow ties at Brooks Brothers, J. Press, or anywhere else; and God bless the women at Southern Proper, but I just don’t think that their cute but (uncomfortably) Confederate-friendly designs have transformed the fashion sensibilities of young college men for whom their designs were intended.

Maybe, though, that is really as it should be. If the bow tie became as common an accessory as the standard neck tie, it would lose some of its impact as the witty exclamation point of style, conveying both vanity and the ability to find humor in one’s own affectations.

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Had dinner with an old friend this evening, and we were speaking about the Occupy Oakland activism that has been taking place in our city. Our conversation brought up the question of the similarities and dissimilarities between the civil disobedience and arrests that took place during the Civil Rights Movement and the civil disobedience and resulting arrests at the Occupy encampments and marches. The comparisons merits much consideration, I think, as 21st-century Americans try to figure out a path to social change, using lessons and examples from the past and linking them with new technologies and other contemporary tools and approaches. I think we’ll all have to stay tuned as the Occupy movement develops…

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