Dave's Blog

This Man aka Geoff Lupo

I just watched a short documentary on IFC called "Have You Seen This Man?" It's about an artist/businessman named Geoff Lupo who sells small objects, things like a single cracker or a thumbtack or a pen cap. He does this by posting, on lamp posts and bulletin boards and such, Xeroxed signs with a hand-drawn sketch, a price (15 or 35 cents or whatever) and those little tear-off phone number slips at the bottom. He delivers the objects to the callers' homes for free.

The people who buy these things (this is in New York) are typically just curious about whether this is a gag or performance art or some kind of political statement, and most of them transact business with straight faces only slightly tensioned with waiting for a punch line, which Lupo doesn't really offer until pressed. And in fact, he's sort of waiting for the punch line too... he's curious just like they are, about things like commerce and consumerism and perceived value and human interaction and chutzpah and art, not to mention the cultural significance of the folk medium of For Sale signs with tear-off phone numbers. Like all great artists, he's making work that's exploring and asking questions. And sparking discussion on many levels, starting with the conversations that must be happening when people see these signs on the street, to the one-to-one direct sales transactions, all the way up to the mass-audience-broadcast of the film (and then, of course, people blogging about it!).

Being a businessman and artist, I was laughing my head off, mostly at myself, I think. And now my head is reeling a little bit.

City Planning?

Driving through Burnsville, a suburb of the Twin Cities, I noticed these
signs, and many more like them. To me, they send a message: the people who built this place just didn't care. This was about slapping up houses and
making money. They didn't have time for frivolous details like original
street and cul-de-sac names.

Surely city planners must have pride of place somewhere on their list of
things they are trying to build into their communities. How are people
supposed to feel proud about their neighborhood as they give someone
directions to their condo near the intersection of Portland Av and Portland
Pl, or get nostalgic about their childhood home on the 14402-14448
cul-de-sac off of Portland Av?

Here's a suggestion for next time, guys: Open up a world atlas, close your
eyes, and put your finger anywhere on the map. Here, I'll do it: Villena.
That's a place in eastern Spain. So, instead of 14402-14448 (street?) you
now have Villena Circle. And let's drop one of the Portlands, and make it
Sala. That's a city in Sweden (I'll bet there's even a few Swedes in this
neighborhood!). Sala Place... now that sounds like a nice place to live.

The Pugsley

I test rode a prototype bike made by a local company, Surly, called the
Pugsley (what a great name!). It's built especially to accommodate
super-large (3.7" wide) tires, for riding in snow or loose sand... or just
bouncing on down the road. The real version, which will come out this
summer, will have all-black tires.

I want one!

I predict this is going to become the cyclists' guilt-free version of the
Hummer.

New York

Just back from New York again, this time it was Toy Fair, the last one ever
in New York. Someone told me it's going to Dallas, which, if true, would
make me very sad. Sure, New York is expensive and hyper and grimy and
selfish and annoyed, but for some reason it feels like home, even to a
small-town Midwestern boy like me. It's the heart and soul of this country,
maybe of the whole world. Dallas... well, I've been there and I've been to
Houston, and I honestly can't recall which one is which in my memories.
Smiley-faced greeters at the airport wearing white cowboy hats, rental cars,
freeways, parking lots, glass hotels, convention centers, Olive Gardens.
Nice weather. Lots of cars, shiny new cars.

In New York, you walk- yeah, walk!- enveloped in the warm safety of human
multitudes down the street and feel alive in the moment, in history. You
find yourself in verbal exchanges with strangers. You (intentionally or not)
eavesdrop snippets of conversation. Your thoughts wander dreamlike in the
cacophony. You look up and see something like this, a funky old slab of the
past hanging out with the slick young big shots, telling them not to get too
big for their britches, inviting them in for a beer.

Question: Is there a crumbling old, cool part of Dallas? With bong shops and
gay bars and panhandlers and buskers with facial piercings? Maybe I'd come
to love it if I saw that part.