One of My Favorites

This is one of my most favorite of the Playmobil Special Series - the Postman. It's a newer one which has designs on the outfit. Previously the figurines were all in plain solid colors.

There is something magical about this German toy, Playmobil (pronounced "play-mo-beel" says on the box). It seems like they needn't have to try very hard to deliver this unique quality in their designs.

Designs and products like these, which carry a lot of pride and integrity, make me want to work in the companies that make them. I think it should be very fun going to work there everyday.

The Walks of Life

Things happen in the walks we take.

On hindsight, I think some of the influences for the making of "Stripe on 69th" are feelings and memories from experiences of walking in the streets, parks, quiet alleys, suburbs and flea-markets.

When you go to a different place, walking allows you to experience the everyday life more than if you were sitting in a tour bus or riding in a cab. You don't miss the details. The sight, the smell and the touch - don't they totally get you right there?

Yes, different strokes for different folks. I get totally blissed out by these simple things.

Not Bitchy, Just Very Observant

Sometimes when you just want to read to relax, you want something entertaining that talks to you.

I'm not a big fan of Andy Warhol's art but I enjoy the way he thinks and says what he thinks. I have read this book many times over and I admit to subscribing to some of his personal takes on the little things in life.

This book was written in 1975 but most of its context is still largely relevant.

Here are a few of my favorite paragraphs :

On Beauty - When I did my self-portrait, I left all the pimples out because you always should. Pimples are a temporary condition and they don't have anything to do with what you really look like. Always omit the blemishes - they're not part of the good picture you want.

On Time - I really do live for the future, because when I'm eating a box of candy, I can't wait to taste the last piece. I don't even taste any of the other pieces, I just want to finish and throw the box away and not have to have it on my mind any more.

On Love - People's fantasies are what give them problems. If you didn't have fantasies you wouldn't have problems because you'd just take whatever was there. But then you wouldn't have romance, because romance is finding your fantasy in people who don't have it. A friend of mine always says "Women love me for the man I'm not."

On Drags - Among other things, drag queens are living testimony to the way women used to want to be, the way some people still want them to be, and the way some women still actually want to be. Drags are ambulatory archives of idea moviestar womanhood.

The Everyday People

I remember watching a clay animation, when I was a kid, of a little town filled with friendly people going about their everyday life. It was quite mundane without much action. The biggest conflict in the story would only be about a mother thinking her baby had measles when they were in fact specks of paint. A painter was painting a wall when the mother had pushed the pram past him.

But the characters were very adorable. A lot like this butcher doll I bought from the Great Western Antique Market in Bath. And also because the story was set in the everyday life - the area in which I'm most interested.

To me, the everyday life is the most profound, intricate and conflicting place to be.

Mumbo Jumbo

Do you think our minds would look like this if we were to put them on paper - a mumbo-jumbo of all sorts of things ?

The Nonsense in My Life

This is why I find pleasure in collecting nonsense - I like to see things out of their original context. Things, especially the small ones, that are usually lost in a sea of other things - when you pick them out and give them space, you give them individuality and dignity.

Somehow I feel collecting needs fate and chemistry. There must be a reason why you fall in love with some things and decide to include them in your life. Why they are junks to others but keepers to you. Or maybe there is something connecting you with the previous owners?

I found this little (I don't know what to call it) thing in Bermondsey Market in London. It now sits on a shelf together with all the other strange little things I've collected over the years.

Take a Bath

The first time I heard of Bath I was curious why it had a name like that. I was ignorant. I found out later it was a former Roman city in UK, which owes its origin and ultimately its name to the springs. It was also home to Jane Austen.

The people in Bath are a lot nicer and warmer than those in London. They even bother to cross the road to check if you needed help, when you look silly lost holding a map. The B&Bs are usually run by friendly old nannas who wrap their little tea pots with crocheted warmers and greet you with "Good morning DEAR!" with a chirpy manner that reminds you of storybooks you read. And they feed you really well - English breakfast is one of the best things in life.

I visited Bath twice but it was such a long time ago. I'd love to go there again and see what the Great Western Antique Market (see below) is like now.

*To get to Bath you go to London's Paddington Station (famous for its Paddington Bear story) to take a 2-hour ride train.

Quintessentially Quaint

I enjoy little things and places with a quiet character. They're unassuming and pique your curiosity without even trying.

These small little things and places inspire you in a subtle way. They don't necessarily immediately translate into something you do; they just sit in corners of your deepest thoughts and quietly nurture them.

Which eventually affect the things you do and the way you do them.

This is a picture of the Great Western Antique Centre in Bath, UK.

A Place Full of Character

If you like quaint and character places too ...

The last time I heard, this authentic toy museum was near to closing down due to leasing issues. But I guess it's still around for now.

It's a very unique toy museum, though not exactly the kind modern day kids would flock to. It has a strange atmosphere about it. The vintage dolls hidden deep in one of the rooms looked like they could come alive when no one's watching.

You could read about it at www.pollockstoymuseum.com. Better to see the real thing when you happen to be in London.

The Little Things Make You Happy

Little shop like this reminds me of the ones I saw in the old children's books. Very kind, simple and wholesome - no worries about not doing enough business to sustain, no inflation, no competition, no looters, no nasty customers...

I remember I used to like drawing little shops like this, decorating them with shelves and groceries, and imagining the ringing of cash register.

You might like this book too

This is one of my favorite funny books I guess some of you might like too. I find people who are able to laugh at themselves very interesting. Susan Jane Gilman is one such writers. Let me share with you an excerpt from Chapter One -

WHEN I WAS LITTLE, I was so girlie and ambitious, I was practically a drag queen. I wanted to be everything all at once: a prima ballerina, an actress, a model, a famous artist, a nurse, an Ice Capades dancer, and Batgirl. I spent inordinate amounts of time waltzing around our living room with a doily on my head, imagining in great detail my promenade down the runway as the new Miss America, during which time I would also happen to receive a Nobel Prize for coloring.

The one thing I did not want to be was a hippie.

"For Chrissake, you're not a hippie," said my mother, fanning incense around our living room with the sleeves of her dashiki. "You're four years old. You run around in a tutu. You eat TV dinners and complain when the food doesn't look exactly like it does on the packages. Hippies don't do that," she said. "Hippies don't make a big production out of eating their Tater Tots."

"Come to think of it, hippies don't torture their little brother by trying to sell him the silverware, either," she added. "If I were you, I'd worry less about being a hippie and more about being an extortionist."

But even by age four, I was aware of my family's intrinsic grooviness, and it worried me no end. Like most little kids - or anyone, for that matter - I suffered from contradictory desires. While I wanted to be the biggest, brightest star in the universe, I also wanted to be exactly like everybody else.

The blurb says : Based on the belief that there's more to women's lives than just getting a date, Gilman's stories tell of struggling to get a life and a clue - and engaging in some spectacularly demented behavior along the way...

69th Characters - Sleepwalking Baby Bob And Grandma Greenie

Two year-old Baby Bob sleep-walks. He is also short-sighted and very dreamy. Everyday he goes around the house bumping his head on the walls, table legs and his grandma's walking stick.

Grandma Greenie is seriously forgetful and lost in her own world. She thinks her grandson, Baby Bob, is the little kitten she used to have when she was three. So she feeds him with a pet dish.

Apartment 2A on 69th, where Grandma Greenie and Baby Bob live, is a "wander-wonder-land".

Little People

My nephew, Elliot, is only 4, but somehow reminds me of a grown person. Interestingly, Elliot also tells his mommy he can't wait to grow up. I suspect it's got to do with his favorite sports like basketball and bowling - they're all too BIG for him, which makes him really frustrated.

Just a short while ago, he'd announced he wanted to build houses at 16. But by last week, he'd already changed his mind- he wanted to be a gas-station attendant instead. Kids have no reservations about their dreams.

Have you ever been to a kid's birthday party? On Elliot's 4th, I was so amused when I saw the array of friends at his party - there were 3 Angola kids, 1 Swede, 1 Thai, 2 Koreans and a couple of Americans - like a mini United Nation. The house was topsy-turvy, with the different representatives of the UN screaming and fighting for the same toys. Not as if there weren't enough toys to share. Everyone, for some strange reasons, ended up wanting the same thing.

If you want the kids to behave, you bring out the birthday cake and start the birthday song. Civility is conditioned, which we must know by now. The cake and song in a birthday party definitely command a lot more respect; adults are merely waiters and cleaners.

69th Character - Weather Bimbo Lisa

"Weather-Bimbo Lisa", as she's fondly known among us, was created at the last minute, when we decided we needed someone to announce, over the news, that it's going to be "a perfect weather for parachuting, hand-gliding or driving around in a convertible." Basically she acts as a cue for Stripe to know the weather and decide if it's good to test her flying skills. Alison wrote and voiced the lines which added a lot of colors to Lisa's character. You can see here, without further introduction, that Lisa adores fashion. In a big and strange way.

Have We Forgotten How to Tell What Is Real ...

... and What's Just a Dream?

Can you remember some of your interesting dreams? Don't you find them so real sometimes? Which makes me wonder if there is a another version of us living in a different dimension.

When we go to sleep or daydream, we enter that dimension - of the bizarre and unexplained. We find ourselves doing things we don't normally do, or rather, things we cannot do. I remember flying once. Another time, I was among people who have passed on, my old neighbors, ex-colleague and my dad, asking them "How's life over there?".

Most people say those are just day thoughts that are carried into our sleep. I choose to think there is a place for unfinished business and seeing your possibilities.

69th Character - Big Hair Ziggy

As promised, here's more of Ziggy for you. She's quite cute, isn't she? She's one of my most favorite characters too.

But don't let her cool exterior deceive you- it hides a timid and disoriented personality. She finds it very hard to make-up her mind. Perhaps her big hair is weighing too much on her head.

Though she dreams of burning up the catwalk and actually cuts it, she is trapped in her fear of being judged. She also has this big imagination of everything going wrong all the time, wherever she goes.

Characters, drawings and stories copyrighted. 2006 All Rights Reserved.

69th Characters - Not Your Kind of Pet

Pf, here's Macbeth with his pretend-aristocrat master, George.

FYI, Macbeth is equally snooty, which is why his back is against us. He's that kind of dog that huffs and turns his nose the other way when you try and pat him. These two are a perfect match; like master, like dog.

You can't tell its breed because Macbeth is such a pretentious little thing that he constantly hides his true identity.

Have I disappointed you? I know you love animals but maybe not this one?

2006. All drawings, characters and stories are copyrighted.