ast week while Kate made the stencil in the last post, I brainstormed an idea for one of my own based on a number (1, 2, 3) of famous Woody Guthrie photographs. I’ve always appreciated the sentiment and thought it could apply to variety of methods of open speech beyond Guthrie’s guitar. I briefly had an iPod with the line engraved in the back. My record player dons the line.

But, in this case, I just thought it could make for a strong visual. So I mocked up a version, cut out a stencil and made a number of prints of my own.

I helped a friend make a stencil yesterday before the show, and I loved it (with apologies to René Magritte).

ast night I had the pure pleasure of seeing the Flaming Lips with some good friends at Edgefield, an amphitheater outside Portland. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect going in, and still I was blown away by the type of show they put on — far and away the most unique I’ve ever seen and very possibly the best. This video clip of the Lips performing their closer, “Do You Realize?”, at a show earlier this summer doesn’t quite do it justice, but gives you a taste. Wayne Coyne seems to to be happiest person on the face of the Earth (I wouldn’t doubt it for a second if he is) and he does his best to evangelize it. In fact, the hand-held smoke machine he wields shoots out pure kindness, at least according to the label on its face. Watch the video and be happy, because I can promise everyone at the show was.

his week’s A&E cover story for The Oregonian advances The Bite of Oregon festival taking place along the waterfront this weekend. I put together the cover illustration for the section using construction paper, posterboard and rubber cement. The idea of taking a literal bite out of the state of Oregon may lack subtlety, but the state is shaped so much like a sandwich it’s hardly obvious. (Much credit must also go to staff photographer Stephanie Yao Long for photographing the finished product and capturing the paper’s depth and texture. She’s awesome.)