anotherkindofdrew blog

You may remember me mentioning a month or two ago that I was selected along with a handful of other writers to co-write a new book entitled The Art of Conversation. A title looking at the marketplace and business structure of the 21st century, I finally finished my chapter last night. This morning I am going to edit and hopefully turn it in by “the bell” today. I am rather pleased with what I came up with choosing to talk about the business model and tracing its history from the days of “brick and mortar” business structure to the current “Web 2.0 / Silicon Valley” model.

You can prepurchase the book by clicking on the image to the left or you can wait to pick it up at all major bookstores in August. All proceeds go to Variety, the children’s charity

Just after lunch today I decided to take a walk around a few blocks and do a little exploring. It was actually pretty exciting as I lowered myself from a falling window ledge to what once was the basement of an abandoned building. As I stepped down onto an old beam I could hear a crack and I realized that what I was doing was probably not the smartest thing in the world. It was great fun though as each step I took removed me further and further from my reality and closer to closer to a Peter Pan like existence. I even found myself getting a bit caught up in the thoughts of me as some urban Indiana Jones running through backlots and stopping only to see what my next move would be.

When all was said and done I came home with two bricks, one with the name EMPIRE and one with HENDRICKS, and an old bus rear view mirror. They were a great find and will play well into some of the more “Americana folk art” things I currently have in my apartment.

Upon coming home the geek side of me took over and I decided to do a little research on the two bricks I had excavated, so to speak.

The EMPIRE brick comes from Glasco, Newton Hook and Stockport, NY, where there were 8 machines at Glasco by 1910. George Hutton in The Great Hudson River Brick Industry, states that Empire was forced out of business before 1940 due to exhaustion of clay resources in the Stockport area. The plant had undergone a thorough modernization in 1926 including new overhead cranes to load brick onto river barges.

Not much is known about the HENDRICKS brick other than it comes from Ulster, NY and the Hendricks Brick Co. and was probably cast around 1910.

With paintbrushes cleaned and stored away, boxes discarded and pictures hung and displayed, I settle into my new life. Today is day one of “the normal days”. I guess most think that life in New York is always adventurous and full of celebrity run-ins, red carpet premieres and all-night parties. But, alas, it is not. In fact, today finds me sorting laundry and preparing to go to the laundromat. Once there I will break out my laptop and check email and keep up with business. I might continue reading my “subway book” (thus titled because I read it almost exclusively on the train) and then at some point have my daily brunch (Lean Cuisine meal-in-a-box). I am very proud of what has been accomplished at the apartment and I am excited to finish the pictures and post them. I have to admit that all the waiting is due to one screw that is missing from the couch thereby rendering it useless and nothing more than a stand-up sculpture for now. Once the piece arrives and the couch is operable, the pics will go up. Until then though…I need to sort out the whites for bleaching.