Guess and Check

On my way home Saturday evening on the 1 train, there was an old man sitting on the right side of the car sketching a man sitting across from him. This isn’t the first time I’d seen someone doing this, and while we watched him, my friend Kenny commented that he’d seen it before too. I also noticed that the entire half of the car in view of the man was watching him sketch, almost like a tennis match, looking at his sketch, looking at the man, back and forth, back and forth. For a while I debated whether or not the drawee was aware of the drawer, but later on it became apparent he was. The drawee eventually arrived at his stop and hurried off, quickly pausing to let the man rip off the drawing and hand it to him.

At this point, due to people exiting the train and seat shuffling, the seat three to the left of the man was vacant and I took it, so now it was left to right: woman, me, Aimée (another friend), vacant seat, and then the drawing man. I was talking to (still-standing) Kenny, trying not to draw obvious attention to myself, but also knowing it would be cool to be chosen as a subject of the man’s next drawing. I soon became aware that I was in fact chosen and tried to act normal, failing only every so often as the man would catch me glancing at him and both of us would grin sheepishly.

Eventually, the man finished and handed me the very nice drawing. I was prepared and gave him ten bucks in return. He then gave me a blank sheet of paper to cover it so it didn’t get messed up on the rest of the way home. He then drew Aimée before she got off. Then he packed up his things and got off at Houston St.

I’ve included appropriate photos below, including a reference photo I took when I got home so you’d know what he was trying to capture in the sketch. And there’s nothing I could have done about it, but I’m a little bit angry that I got my hair cut that very morning, otherwise we’d be looking at a bit cooler and poofier sketch.

I recently finished my latest cross-stitch project. It was a gift for my old boss Patrick (you may remember him having a sense of humor) regarding a joke a comedian once made regarding what we did (work in a university housing office).

I made the pattern myself using KXStitch. It’s inspired by patterns from Julie Jackson’s amazing Subversive Cross Stitch. The font is Jason Kottke‘s always useful Silkscreen.

See? I’m cool.