Monday, June 05, 2006

Coffee with Trevor

We haunted Division yesterday. I told the barista "fully leaded" iced coffee, while she kept asking if I wanted it decafe. I later made small talk about the surrounding artwork (very science fiction, with allusions to trigonometry).

Trevor pointed out later that this girl behind the counter was deaf. He signs for a living, currently for Portland Public. Another point of interest: "deaf" and "decaf" are alot alike and in local dialect (and perhaps elsewhere), the sign for deaf may mean "decafe please" in a coffee shop namespace, with the sign for "hearing" therefore meaning fully leaded (one can't deny the logic of it).

Trevor had a stash of new office supplies, including plastic protectors for his growing Fuller archive: reprints from big name magazines, starting with Fortune back in '46 or so, when his dreams for futuristic housing, post WWII, seemed quite believable to returning GIs. Then came WWIII (the Cold War) and more postponement of the Peace Dividend (WWIV was then enqueued).

I gushed over his collection, saying words like "syllabus" and "university" -- the usual rant. I'm like this guy in a comic book: always the same talk balloons.

Then we wandered over to Powell's on Hawthorne, where comic books were indeed my focus. My daughter has a birthday coming up. I'm so far behind in my reading. What would would Manga Synergetics look like?