Artsplosion, Ideas and Tees, Oh My!

For a person who often feels like I really don't do anything, it sure appears as if I've been very busy! Over the weekend, I was tackling the Amazon rainforest that was my backyard, transforming it from a home to lost 1930s adventurers and junglemen swinging from vines, to a reasonably tame Secret Garden.

I'm pleased with the results-- the evicted anaconda and piranha, less so. Plus, George Challenger's served me with cease and desist papers and Tarzan's been picketing. So there's that to deal with.

But, while I was scything back the underbrush, it gave me plenty of time to think about scenes for the last book in my There Goes the Galaxy trilogy, Tryfling Matters. I'm about 100 manuscript pages in and I know where I want it to end, but I'm plotting out the structure for a strong, fun middle. You know the kind; if it were a person, it would be a middle with good abs.

In the evenings, to help keep the creativity going, I've been doing a lot of drawing. Some have been illustrations from scenes from my first two books. And some of it has been whatever's popped in mind. 

You can see above, I attempted David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor of Doctor Who last night. I thought he turned out pretty Tennanty, but I've since been informed that he looks like: 1.) Harrison Ford 2.) both Japanese AND Korean 3.) His nose is wibbly-wobbly. (I imagine that last one is because it's half-stuck in another dimension. The TARDIS is clearly rough on the sinuses.)

So I'm glad I was set straight on all that. :)

I also decided to try my hand at ol' Captain Jack Sparrow.

I had to try to draw one of my favorite superheroes from childhood, Batgirl...

(The book she's reading is "Work-Life Balance.")

I did another couple of doodles based on There Goes the Galaxy characters... Bertram and Rollie in the Shop-o-Drome on Golgi-Beta from the first book...

And a Charlie's Angels spoof of Tseethe, Fess and Rollie, all characters from my Intergalactic Underworld. There's no slight intended in making Kate Jackson's character a squidoid, by the way. That's just Fess. :)

I did a few Alice in Wonderland doodles using a steampunk theme. This is Alice searching for the Jabberwock with her Vorpal Sword...

And her companion, the Cheshire Clock, all by himself in a paper umbrella tree.

I tried a more traditional Alice down the rabbit hole, really testing out that gravity...

And one of my favorites, the White Rabbit, chillaxing there in his favorite chair...

Here is a different version of the Queen of Hearts I attempted... I wanted her to be less Queen Elizabeth or Queen Victoria influenced and more Scarlett O'Hara, for a change...

And this was followed by a drawing of The White Queen, which turned out kind of creepy and intense. I was going for a little Galadriel and Joan of Arc...

An investment in some monochrome grey markers had me try a little Dorothy in Kansas action...

And I thought I'd do one in color as well.

Because I had some folks on social media forums request it, I've posted a few of these and some other ones as small posters in a Zazzle shop. I have those there along with some t-shirt designs based on the There Goes the Galaxy stories. Folks who have read the books will understand the references. You can check them out here: 

http://www.zazzle.com/jennthorsondesigns*

So that's about it for me right now! This weekend, I plan to finish the rest of my book's metaphorical ab workout, and we'll see what else awaits. I probably should do something about Tarzan and his chimp buddies picketing outside my house. I've explained to him he doesn't have squatter's rights, but it's like talking to a brick wall.

Peter Graves, Booth Scrounge and the Mission Impossible

"Bring me back some Mardi Gras beads. Or a yo-yo. Or food. Or socks. Or a glass of wine."

Those were the marching orders to my colleague, Lars. And as the words escaped my lips and I watched his broad retreating back, I'd realized; only at a tradeshow could you request items of that level of diversity all at the same time.

"How about a stapler?... A golf club?... One of those little hotdogs wrapped in pastry?... An elephant.... A t-shirt reading 'Year 2000 Programmers Do It on Dates?'"

All was equally possible in the bright, shining world of Booth Scrounge.

Yes, for anyone who's ever worked a tradeshow booth, you know how it goes. You can be bitter rivals with another company, fighting it out tooth-and-nail for every lead. Ready to slash tires, kidnap grandmothers and slander favorite pets to get that extra competitive edge.

But when it comes to Booth Scrounge-- giveaway treasures like logo-imprinted stressballs, T-shirts, solar calculators, and bobbleheads-- things you'll take great care stowing in your luggage on the ride home so it can gather dust in your attic for the next decade-- why, the deep primal drive to Hunt and Gather supersedes all company loyalties...

And you cheerily approach your sworn enemies in an unspoken détante to exchange brand-emblazed mechanical pencils for magnetic chip clips.

It's an evolutionary need bigger than us. We are incapable of Swag Resistance.

For a number of years, I was the event planner for these shows. My job was to first make sure everything got there and was in its place... Then stand for eight to 12 hours a day straight, smile at people, hand out literature, and pretend I knew what I was talking about.

This meant that while the sales reps were wandering around free-range, meeting folks, making deals and even savoring daylight, I was seeing the back of the same event coordinator's head at the booth perpendicular to mine. As he stood there smiling, handing out literature, and pretending he knew what he was talking about.

It was a unifier between those skilled in my field.

Food sometimes involved brief planned lunches. But usually it involved whatever hors d'ouvres hired booth babes named Autumn and Fawn were out passing around, whatever I could pick-pocket from the promotional bags of potential customers when they weren't looking, and the occasional glass of wine one of our reps would retrieve for me.

Nothing like booth-tending and talking technology you don't quite understand with a couple of glasses of wine sloshing around in an empty stomach, let me tell ya.

"Wwwwwanna hear 'bout the Year Two-Thouuusshhhand problem, missshhter? Do I have some shhhoftware fer you!"

Anyway, my coworker Lars was a friend of mine, and pretty good about bringing me back tokens from the outside world to prove it still existed. So I had been fairly confident that he would, at the very least, retrieve me the wine, some nibblies, and the Mardi Gras beads I'd been coveting from a booth three aisles over.

It seemed like he was gone awhile, but then again, you tend to lose your sense of time when you spend hours on your feet under fluorescent lights staring at the same person's cowlick. Seasons could turn. Wars could start and end. The Pittsburgh Pirates could win the World Series.

Okay, well, not that last one. But those other things. Definitely.

And as summer slipped into fall and I was still standing there, I thought, in my nutrient-deprived brain, that I had started to hear the "Mission Impossible" theme.

Yes, Lalo Schifrin's catchy 60s television tune, ba-da-daaaaa, ba-da-daaaaaa, ba-da-daaaaing it's way into my consciousness.

I wasn't sure it was real or not. Delirium from the past three days had set in. But deciding that it was probably no stranger than the guy dressed as a caveman, passing out caveman's club rock-candy lollipops I saw earlier, I thought little more about it.

Until Lars popped his blond head around a corner, motioning and hissing at me, "Peter Graves, Peter Graves..."

My brain was still stuck on the fact Lars didn't seem to be carrying any Mardi Gras beads or tiny quiches. What had he been doing all this time if it wasn't out pilfering quality tradeshow tat-- Actually selling stuff?

"Huh?"

"Mission Impossible," he said.

"Yes, I heard it."

"Jim Phelps," he told me.

"Is this some sort of booth trivia game?"

"Peter Graves," he insisted, and then vanished around the corner as suddenly as he'd appeared.

Well, there wasn't a single other one of our sales reps around for miles-- they'd vanished like migrating birds the moment they'd landed. And technically, we were not to leave the booth unmanned. (Or unwomaned in my case.)

But after a moment, as I wrenched my mind from the fact Lars still hadn't brought me any food and I was beadless, I decided I had just make the step out of our 10-by-10 and into No Man's Land.

First I saw Lars, standing around in a crowd with others. And before them, sitting on a stool at a booth and brandishing a microphone, was actor Peter Graves of Mission Impossible fame.

He was telling some sort of tale, presumably MI-related and, I imagine, connecting it in some grand metaphor to our competitor's Year 2000 software.

"See?" whispered Lars to me with a self-satisfied nod. "You thought I was making it up."

I hadn't thought, actually. My brainpower had died by hour six on Day Two.

What I did notice, however, was that on a table near the esteemed actor before us were a pile of mardi gras beads, a glass of wine, and a plate of flaky, savory hors d'oevres.

And that's when I realized. "The only Mission Impossible around here is getting something to eat," I whispered back. I shook my head at Lars, at the presentation, at the giant room of freedom and, apparently, a snack bar-- and hastened back to the captivity of our 10X10 where potential clients were now standing, helping themselves to literature and t-shirts.

Salesmen and actors: feh!...

At least the guy dressed as the Caveman had brought candy.

___________________
I was reminded of this tale by the recent unfortunate death of actor Peter Graves. Which is a loss, but at least it probably wasn't brought about by working on the tradeshow circuit without food.