Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

__

- This week we learned that Abu Dhabi Investment Council has made an $800 million bid to purchase a 75% stake in the Chrysler Building in New York. This iconic building may go out of the hands of American owners and give a Saudi Arabian firm a primary holding in the heart of the city.

Similar events happened in the 1980′s when Japanese investors bought into Rockefeller Center. The feeling back then was doom and gloom as we saw Radio City Music Hall fall out of the hands of local investors. Yet, not too much has really been affected (from the pedestrian’s point of view) as a result of that sale.

__

Somehow this sale feels a bit personal in that I have an absolute love for this building. I often feel compelled to photograph it for no good reason and have compiled dozens of shots that look identical to all of the other shots I’ve taken of the building. However, this recent news event brought lots of interesting published photos of the site that are particularly interesting. Many of them aerial shots.

There was a period when the film, Bonfires of the Vanities, was in release. That movie centered a lot of its imagery around the Chrysler Building, and it was a bit like heaven. Closeups of those steel gargoyles filled the movie screen as did many other usually unnoticed bits of the building. To me, the second unit photography WAS the show.

___________(Of course, all photos enlarge by click them.)

- There’s always a surprise at Madison Square Park when you walk through it in the early morning. On Thursday, I’d seen a bunch of tractors and large vehicles, basically immobile at 7am. Not much else
On Friday, Tents had been built all over the park. Many of them. I took some photos to chronicle whatever was coming.

These little tents meant and event of some sort was to take place this coming weekend.
I saw no signs throughout the park to advertise what it was that’d be coming._


The tents circled all around the large lawn._


The sculptures – some of them – had fences constructed around them.
I snapped my photos and continued on through and off to work._


I returned Saturday to see that work had been done on the tents.
Signs had been attached to show that things would be sold.
Other signs asked people to watch what they did with the food._


There weren’t a lot of people in the tents, working on them.
Everything had been prepared by 7am. _
I asked a sweeper near the dog-walk what was happening. She told me that “The Big Apple Bar B-Q would take place Saturday and Sunday.

I decided to return to see.

Saturday night presented a completely different picture.

Throngs of people greeted us at 5pm. 26th Street (the back of the park where
we entered) was almost unmoveable. Crowds were lining up to buy BBQ.

The circular reflecting ponds was less busy but still crowded, and the
oval lawn was filled with people picnicking.

The gated sculptures were just part of the background.
I don’t think too many people were giving these objects much mind.

The back 1/4 of the park was jammed to the point of uncomfortable.
This is where they were selling beer, and alcohol couldn’t be removed from this area.

There was also a bandshell erected with loud music. Oddly the music
was louder back on 26th Street than it was here, at 23rd Street.

Getting out of this area was all we wanted. It was too crowded.
It was also gated and near impossible to find an exit once we were in.
Finally out of it, we found a lot of people cueing up to buy pulled pork.

They’d set up some picnic tables where people ate the hard won meal.
Leaving we saw several blocks of trucks supplying ice and other materials for the event.

We headed for the not-too-far-away Rodeo Bar. They served BBQ food, but we weren’t hungry. A beer sounded good though. Since the temperature was in the 90′s, being outdoors was more of a trial than necessary. The air conditioned bar was a pleasant respite.

– On Monday night, there was a presentation at the Museum of Modern Art of a number of Hubley short films that highlighted their JAZZ SCORES series. The program was well organized by film curator, Josh Siegel.

Emily Hubley presented the films at the start and had a couple of words about her parents’ work. She was joined in the audience by her sister, Georgia Hubley, and her brother, Ray Hubley. Their families were also present. Only Mark Hubley wasn’t able to make it down for the show. ________________________________Emily talking in front of the auditorium

The films were presented in clusters of composer.
Tender Game, with music by Ella Fitzgerald and the Oscar Peterson trio, led off the program. With a newly constructed print the colors dazzled with depth and beauty. You could see the texture of the paper in the backgrounds and the beautiful brush strokes. The art couldn’t have looked more stunning.

Three Dizzy Gillespie shorts followed:
The Hat has an improvised voice track with Dudley Moore and Dizzy Gillespie. They also did the score – Dudley on piano, Dizzy on trumpet.
Date with Dizzy is a live action piece that promotes the “Storyboard” ads. A live action director, “Don Babbitt,” tries to get Dizzy and his group to perform a score to their animated ad. The ad was drawn and animated by R.O. Blechman.
____The Hat played on the big screen______Voyage to Next features Maureen Stapleton
_____________________________________and Dizzy Gillespie. Dizzy did the score with Dee Dee Bridgewater singing. (I did a lot of work on this one. I have a lot of Bill Littlejohn’s drawings, and I’ll show them off sometime soon.)

Following this, Benny Carter‘s widow, Hilma Carter, and Ed Berger, Carter’s biographer, introduced shorts that Carter scored.
Adventures of an * was the featured piece with a newly reconstructed print (I wrote about this here) and an out-of-this-world art exhibit of many backgrounds and cel paintings. (Actually cels weren’t used. The characters were colored on paper with crayon and wax and blackened all around their shape. This was then double-exposed into the backgrounds.)

Finally, Of Men and Demons, finished the night. This film was scored by the brilliant Quincy Jones, and the score is a major strong point. There is no dialogue, hence there are no voices heard. Tissa David animated a lot of this film and re-worked a lot of Art Babbitt‘s scenes in this film. Bill Littlejohn did much of the demons.

Tissa sat to my left along with her close friend Ruth Mane, who was a first class inker and checker in NY’s animation story. We worked closely at Raggedy Ann.

____Emily Hubley, Josh Siegel and Tissa David in the lobby of MOMA.
____I met them there when I arrived.

__A crowd after the screening.
__Left to right: John Canemaker, me, Ed Berger, Hilma Carter, Ron Magliozzi (Assistant
__Curator, Research and Collections, MoMA), Emily Hubley, Ray Hubley, Georgia Hubley,
__Josh Siegel (Assistant Curator, Department of Film, MOMA).

The screening was pretty much full, but I wouldn’t say the animation community was well represented. I saw a couple of young animators there including Tim Rauch and Emmett Goodman. Ray Kosarin, just back from viewing some 1700 films at Hiroshima’s prejudging, was also there and seemed charged by the Hubley films.

The museum had a dinner for some of the guests including John and me, Amid Amidi, the Hubleys and their families, as well as Hilma Carter and Ed Berger. Tissa had to leave right after the screening. It was a real treat of an evening.

- Back in Jan 2007, I posted these photos from the animation production of Woman of the Year. I think these are interesting enough that they’re worth revisiting. So here, again, is that post:

___________________

– To recap:
Woman of the Year was a project that came to me in the very start of my studio’s life – 1981.
Tony Walton, the enormously talented and fine designer, had gone to Richard Williams in search of a potential animator for WOTY (as we got to call the name of the show.) Dick recommended me. But before doing WOTY, there were some title segments needed for Prince of the City, a Sidney Lumet film. (I’ll discuss that film work some other day.)

Tony Walton designed the character, Katz, which would be the alter-ego of the show’s cartoonist hero, played by Harry Guardino. Through Katz, we’d learn about the problems of a relationship with a media star, played by Lauren Bacall.

It turned out to be a very intense production. Three minutes of animation turned into twelve as each segment was more successful than the last. ___________(All images enlarge by clicking.)
There was no time for pencil tests. I had to run
to Boston weekly, where the show was in try-outs, to project different segments; these went into the show that night – usually Wednesdays. I’d rush to the lab to get the dailies, speed to the editor, Sy Fried, to synch them up to a click track that was pre-recorded, then race to the airport to fly to the show for my first screening. Any animation blips would have to be corrected on Thursdays.

There was a small crew working out of a tiny east 32nd Street apartment. This was Dick Williams’ apartment in NY. He was rarely here, and when he did stay in NY, he didn’t stay at the apartment. He asked me to use it as my studio and to make sure the rent was paid on time and the mail was collected. Since we had to work crazy hours, it was a surprise one Saturday morning to find that I’d awakened elderly Jazz great, Max Kaminsky, who Dick had also loaned the apartment. Embarrassed, I ultimately moved to a larger studio – my own – shortly thereafter.

Here are a couple of photos of some of us working:

Tony Charmoli was the show’s choreographer. He worked with me in plotting out the big dance number – a duet between Harry Guardino and our cartoon character. I think this is the only time on Broadway that a cartoon character spoke and sang with a live actor on stage. John Canemaker is taking this photograph and Phillip Schopper is setting up the 16mm camera.

Here Tony Charmoli shows us how to do a dance step. Phillip Schopper, who is filming Tony, figures out how to set up his camera. We used Tony’s dancing as reference, but our animation moves were too broad for anyone to have thought they might have been rotoscoped.

John Canemaker is working with Sy Fried, our editor. John did principal animation with me on the big number. Here they’re working with the click track and the live footage of Tony Charmoli to plot out the moves.

Steve Parton supervised the ink and paint. To get the sharpest lines, we inked on cels and didn’t color the drawings. It was B&W with a bright red bowtie. A spotlight matte over the character, bottom-lit on camera by Gary Becker.

5 6
5. Steve Parton works with painter Barbara Samuels
6. Joey Epstein paints with fire in her eyes.

Joey Epstein paints “Katz.”

8 9
8. Harry Guardino on stage with the creation of “Tessie Kat” developing on screen behind him. This was Harry’s first big solo.
9. John Canemaker gets to see some of his animation with Sy Fried, editor.

One of my quick stops from the lab on the way to Boston? No, I think this is a posed photo.

The success of the animation (including good reviews) posed a small problem for me. The rest of the show was ripped over the coals. When I started using some quotes about me in industrial ads, the producers came down on me for gloating over the others who’d gotten negative reviews.

All the same, it was a real learning experience in a big Broadway kinda way.

- I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I love silent films. I particularly am a fan of D.W.Griffith’s work. I think I’ve read just about every book about the man’s career and biography.

If you’re looking for a great one, read Adventures with D.W. Griffith by Karl Brown, who was an apprentice on Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. I thinnk often enough about Brown’s story about his daily walks with D.W. It seems that they both lived near 14th Street, and their studio was on 125th St. when they worked in NY. They’d walk together to the studio in the morning and walk home at night. The young Karl Brown would use the opportunity to learn as much as he could from the master. He tells how Griffith, at one time, pulled out a big six shooter which surprised Brown. That’s when he realized that most people carried guns. It was protection from criminals. ______Griffith filming Birth of a Nation.
I’m sure it was also protection from the patent
holders group who would beat up anyone making a film without paying for the use of a camera, whose operation was patented and owned by Thomas Edison.

Billy Bitzer, Griffith’s brilliant camerman, reconstructed their camera so that it was different from the patent rights’ group’s cameras – therefore not in violation of the patent. This didn’t stop the constant attacks on Griffith’s sets.

I have a book by Kevin Brownlow that I love. Photographs from the sets of silent films. Hollywood, the Pioneers is a companion book to a series he produced. The photos are outstanding. Here are a few:

Billy Bitzer on the front of a train filming the movement
for a pre-Griffith film, a Hales Tour film.

This is how the Hales tour films were screened. It’s a duplicate of a railroad car, and you ride facing the screen where you got to watch the movement, as if you were on a train. Future director, Byron Haskin, talked about spending whole days in a theater
watching these tours since they were so spellbinding.

Here’s a shot of the skeleton to the set of Babylonia in the film, Intolerance.
This film was shot in California. Film makers ran to the west coast
as much to escape the patent holders as to find all sun all the time.

This is what the final set looked like for the film. (Those are
real people and elephants inhabiting the set, not computerized creations.)

This is closer shot of one of the elephants that lined the walls. The care that was put into these films was amazing. Griffith loved recreating famous paintings and etchings that illustrated the stories he was filming. Quite often, the intertitle would tell you that you were watching such a recreation and show you the painting.

After the film was completed, the set remained standing for many years. If Roger Corman had been around at the time, there would have been another dozen films featuring it.

There’s also a wonderful Italian film by the Taviani brothers called, Good Morning, Babylon. It’s about two architect brothers who emigrate to the US and get work helping to build the set. It’s worth hunting down for a look.

The Griffith film led to bigger and bigger sets.
This is Ernst Lubitsch’s German film, Loves of a Pharoah.

Douglas Fairbanks got even larger with his set for The Thief of Baghdad.

Years later, after a number of films had failed for him, Griffith tried to make one more special film. He bought some land in Mamaroneck, NY and built his own studio. There he had constructed Paris. This would be the set for Orphans of the Storm.

It was a film that featured the sisters, Dorothy and Lillian Gish. The girls are separated in the period melodrama. here, Dorothy, playing the blind sister, is searching the streets for her sister.

She isn’t very successful and sinks lower and lower into the depths of revolutionary France. Needless to say, there’s eventually a reunion.

Lillian took a very big part in the making of these films. During Intolerance she actually was an uncredited editor. Since she had a small role in the film, she would spend the days assemblilng footage to view with D.W. in the evenings and would rework the film to Griffith’s instructions on the next day.

There was no script when they started this film. Griffith wrote it all and kept it in his head as he shot the film. This was quite a feat since it’s four separate stories that are interwoven. (The first time this was done on film.)
Anita Loos was employed, early in her career, after the fact to help write the intertitles and offer suggested changes to the footage.

In 1917, during WW I, Griffith actually went to the French front to film his movie,
Hearts of the World. The film was financed with British money as
early propaganda. The footage shot in France wasn’t all he’d hoped for,
so some of it was recreated back in the US when he returned.

- Some of you may remember that I gave some attention to some steel sculptured trees that were placed in Madison Square Park last year. They stood there for almost a year and became part of my daily trek through this city park.

This past week some objects started to appear on the large, Oval Lawn, and I started to photograph the setup.

It turns out to be a number
___________ (Click any image to enlarge.) ________________of ceramic works by
____________________________________________________Richard Deacon, a British sculptor. He has his own website. Oddly, his artwork doesn’t seem to be reproduced large in any of the photos on his site or others I visited.

_
A tent was set up to protect the materials from the rain, and the
not-very-large sculptures were drawn out of wooden boxes.

There was the one tent on the side of the great lawn, and another tent
was set up over on a sandy side bar (about 100 yards away.)
The tents obviously protected the sculpture from the rain, and
it was raining while I shot some of these stills.

This was done off on the side. I’m not sure how the actual sculptures
were moved to the Oval Lawn. I don’t even know if they’re heavy,
though one assumes they must be to survive the weather.

_
Things came together quickly. At the end, there were a couple of
vehicles left standing about. There’s a truck in the background
of the photo on the left, and another is almost hidden
in the background of the photo on the right.

Finally everything seemed to be in place, and
the sculptures were all centrally located on the big lawn.

_

Here you can see the children’s playground in the background.
The sculptures almost seem to be part of it.

_
At the moment, the lawn is closed to pedestrians.
Once the public performance events begin to happen, it’ll be curious to see
how the public intermingles with these sculptures.

The art pieces do blend well with each other, though.
Something new to view on my walks.

After all the construction vehicles had disappeared, I noticed
a tool box off to the side. At least, I think it was a toolbox.

Just today, I noticed that they’ve added little markers in front of each piece to identify and give information about the art. The Oval Lawn is shut off to the public, so it’s not possible, at the moment, to read the markers.

I didn’t have my camera with me this morning. I’ll get photos of the final setups and post them on another day.

____________________________Happy Mother’s Day
-

________________________________

- Lyle, Lyle Crocodile was one of my favorite experiences since forming my own company. I’d like to revisit two posts of photos that I posted back in October, 2006.

This is the group in 1987 on Lyle Lyle Crocodile: the House on East 88th St. that worked in house. The studio at the time was located between Fifth & Sixth Aves, and I was there from 1985 thru 1988.

These are, Back row L to R : Lisa Crafts – animator, Tom Repasky – coloring, Susan Tremblay – coloring, Madeline Fan (full pic w/T-shirt) coloring, Caroline Skaife (leaning on Madeline) – coloring, Mark Baldo (w/puppet Lyle) coloring, Doug Vitarelli (leaning on Caroline) runner, Theresa Smythe – asst. animator.

Front row, sitting, L to R: Caroline Zegart – coloring, Steven Dovas – animator, John Schnall – Prod. Coordinator/Animator, Ray Kosarin – Asst. Animator/coloring, Michael Zodorozny – Layout, Bridget Thorne – Art Director/Bgs.

Some of the others who worked in the studio and not pictured in the group are: Elizabeth Seidman – ran the rendering and supervised the production, Greg Perler – editor, Kit Hawkins – studio coordinator, and me.

Working out of the studio on the artwork were: Tissa David – animator, John Dilworth – animator, John Canemaker – animator. Of course there were also actors, musicians, camera guys, and engineers.

1 2
(Click on any image to enlarge.)

1) Lisa Crafts animating at her desk. Steve Dovas behind her.
2) Me at my desk with Mark Sottnick a producer of Santa Bear. Theresa Smythe on the right.

The studio was a good one. It was just over a music rehearsal studio where Tito Puente’s group practiced every afternoon. All we could hear was the endless bass line over and over and over and over and over and over. At one point, late night, we heard Bob Dylan and Mark Knopfler rehearsing the new album they’d just done.

3 4

Unfortunately, the large skylight made it easy for people to break in. It happened three times in one month, and all that was stolen were walkman radios from the crew. Ultimately, I gave up, and we moved downtown.

A shot of the whole studio from the door. (Things were tight.)
In the BG from L to R: Mark Baldo, Steve Dovas, Lisa Crafts, Ray Kosarin.
At the center table L to R: Susan Tremblay, Madeline Fan, Doug Vitarelli, John Schnall – behind Doug and Liz Seidman (in pink).

__________________

_
- Here are two more corners of the room in this 38th Street studio, back in 1988.

Greg Perler had a particularly crowded corner of the studio where he edited all of the films we were producing. You’ll note that he was using an upright movieola. (I prized those two uprights and have kept them to this day, though they’re used predominantly for holding things upright.)

Greg, at the time of these photos, was editing Abel’s Island. There was a hurried rush for the mix which was fast approaching, and I was encroaching on his day to take these snaps.

Greg left NY to go to LA. He started as the Asst. Editor on Beauty & The Beast and became top dog on Tarzan. Currently, he’s editing The Love Guru for Mike Myers.
_
(Click any image to enlarge.)

1 2
1. Greg’s corner from another angle
2. Greg and Ray Kosarin, an assistant in the studio. who worked with Greg in assisting him in the rush to the mix.

3 4
3. Ray Kosarin drawing on Abel’s Island.
4. Bridget Thorne‘s corner – diagonally across the studio from Greg’s – where she did backgrounds. Bridget, Greg and Ray.

5 6
5. HBO threw a party to screen Lyle Lyle Crocodile. Pictured here L to R: me, Liz Callaway (the singing voice of Mrs. Primm), Bernard Waber (the author, illustrator of the book), and Arnold Stang (the voice of a parrot – he was also the voice of Top Cat among hundreds of voices he’s done over the years.)
6. Pictured L to R: Rick Parks (multiple voices), me, Arnold Stang, Bernard Waber, Carole Rosen (an Exec from HBO with whom I did many films), and someone dressed as Lyle.
We’re about to cut a cake shaped to look like Lyle, the crocodile. The knife was given to Bernard Waber who said he couldn’t cut into his own creation. We had the costumed Lyle cut himself – the cake, I mean. (The head went first!)

- Last night, ASIFA East held its 39th annual Festival at the New School. There were over two hours of award winners, and it was one of the better shows of the past few years. I’m not going to report on any of the award winners or titles, but I did take a bunch of amateur photos. To find out the winning films go to the ASIFA East website; they’ll post titles today or tomorrow._____________________________________________(Click images to enlarge.)

Here are the pics and apologies to all for the slapdash quality.

1 2
Shooting from the back of the house, I wasn’t able to get the best shots of award winners. Here are two of the less fuzzy pics.
(1) Dave Levy looks on as Mike and Tim Rauch receive the award for their film, Germans In The Woods.
(2) Bill Plympton thanks all the people who helped him make Hot Dog.

This is the room before it packs up with people. The food table stretched the length of the room.

Here are ASIFA East’s last two Presidents: Linda Simensky and David Levy.

Candy Kugel, Heidi Stallings and Marie Dovas

Tim Rauch who won a prize for Germans In The Woods enjoys the party while Bill Plympton crosses in the background.

Mike Rauch with fiancee, Emily, enjoy their film’s success.

Adrian Urquidez, ASIFA East’s “webmaster,” and Masako Kanayama are in deep conversation.

Doug Vitarelli enjoys the party with Amid Amidi.

Jimmy Picker keeps Biljana Labovic laughing.

Lev Polyakov flanks John Schnall (left) and Howard Beckerman (right)

Bill Plympton with some fans and friends.

Heidi Stallings and Debra Solomon.

- Drivers around the country are used to the site of the traffic cone. Those orange, rubber cones guide us in our cars from one lane to the next or blockade protected areas from our drivers. Somehow, I’ve always associated the orange cone with the automobile.

Recently, I”ve noticed that New York City use these cones for everything under the sun, and I was surprised to see so many of them on the short walk I take daily. __________________(Click any image to enlarge.)
Lately, I’ve been walking about
half a mile to an express subway stop.That’s about 10 city blocks (which pulls me through and across Madison Square Park), and I came to realize that NY uses the cone as much for the ambulator as the automobile.

I took all these snaps Sunday morning on my walk.

These three cones sit in the middle of a sidewalk just outside
a fenced construction area. I don’t know what use they are
in the center of the sidewalk, but there they are every day.

The most frequent sighting of the orange cones is usually around construction sites
and fencing. Here, on the right, they use a cone-extender. Something new.

Turning the corner, there’s the long stretch of street that’s been completely coned off.
It’s a movie. This Sunday, four blocks were completely coned off. It’s a big movie.
The standing poles have sheets of paper which tell you what film they’re going to shoot.
The movie is Duplicity, Julia Roberts’ next film. It costars Clive Owen
and is directed by Tony Gilroy, who did Michael Clayton, last year.

The cones usually block off an area, and they film on the following day. Cars replace the cones overnight, and trailers move in early morning to set up.

I’m not quite sure what purpose the cone serves on top of the car,
but this is a common site on these movie preps.

Here, I guess this construction site is using the cone to prevent anyone
from going behind the red door. It stops me.

I pass this cone daily. It sits outside an outdoor parking lot. Up close, you can see that
the cone covers and protects a stand pipe (check the top of the cone) and doesn’t move.

My favorite, on this trip, is the pile of three cones at the local bodega.
The attached wire, I guess, protects anyone from stealing them, and
prevents anyone from tripping over the basement grating.

- The thing about New York is that there are an awfully large number of Gypsy fortune tellers. They seem to be nicely hidden, part of the fabric of their street front locations. Oftentimes, they occupy store front locations, but sometimes they take up space on the second floor of buildings.

It’s hard to tell how they make enough cash to pay the somewhat high rents they have to cover. I’d always assumed that it had something to do with illegitimate betting or drugs or something. Then I read a New Yorker article several years ago which revealed the answer – crystals.

I decided to photograph all that I saw on my walk from home to the studio. The first thing I came upon, on Park Avenue and 29th Street, was this posterboard for an out-of-sight store. I looked, somewhat cursorily but couldn’t immediately locate it.
______(Click any image to enlarge.)_________They turned out to be hidden behind
______________________________._________some construction. The shop was on the
_second floor of a small building undergoing a face lift. No wonder they felt the need for a _street placard, half a block away.

___
_They were forced to use the construction work to advertise their business. This has to be _hard for them.
_
___
_This space is located between Lexington & Third Avenues on 29th Street. It sits adjacent _to an excellent Thai restaurant.
_
___
_Farther west, on the corner of 29th Street and Sixth Avenue, there’s one on the third floor.
_A business with plenty of neon advertising; you could mistake it for a nail salon if you
_weren’t looking for it.
_
___
_This space was on 21st Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. The pharoah head seems
_to be a familiar that appears in seveal of the windows. It obviously means something I _don’t understand. “Mummies welcome.”
_
___
On Sixth Avenue just off 14th Street there’s this second floor shop. They’re closed this morning, consequently it’s hard to tell if they have neon lighting as well. The windows, this morning seem to be closed off; they’re probably still asleep. (Of course, the “fortune tellers” usually live in these spaces.)
_
___
_A block away from the studio, on Houston and Bedford Streets, there’s this
_space just above the “Quick Deli.” The awnings are the only announcement of their _location. It’s a one-floor walkup.
_
_____
____This storefront sits just above my studio. It helps me identify where the studio is.
____I just tell people to walk down the stairs just beneath the “Psychic.”
_
___
_These are the artifacts to be found in the window of the “Psychic” storefront above me.
_As I said, the New Yorker article suggested that they sold crstals. If they found two or
_three customers a year who would come back regularly for new and more helpful crystals,
_it would cover the year’s rent. It’s an alien world to me. I can’t imagine even walking
_into the stores.
_
___
_I’ve also noticed three or four used cars irregularly parked on the street. They all have the
_“For Sale” signed painted on the rear windows. The seller is this store’s operator.
_When I moved in, four years ago, my landlord told me that he was paid every month, on
_time, in cash. Those crystals must be selling.
_
_____
_____This, of course, is the entrance to the walkway to my studio. Très discrete.
_____I’m supposed to have exclusive use of the wrought iron fence for signage, but
_____as soon as I put something up, their placard arrived. Why argue? For some
_____reason everyone notices my sign, and some curious visitors have turned into
_____clients. Usually it’s someone wanting to know what an animation studio does
_____or they’re looking to buy a cel. (Maybe I should sell them.)

These were the shops most obvious to me. I’m sure I walked past others without noticing. There are many, many more of these store front places. I don’t think they wander much beyond the second floor, since they have to be there for the curious person looking to have their fortune told, tarot done, or buy those crystals.