The New Arrival

GI Joe's photo op with Barbie gets silly.

It was a red-letter day for Joe, Greg and Skip. Disappointed about not being able to keep the model I'd borrowed for my story (see "The Desk"), they'd been occupying themselves by being wise guys and making a general mess of my desk; dismantling my stapler, playing "52 pick-up" with my Rolodex, and cutting up my pencils for lumber to build a hutch for the dust bunnies lying around. Well, they cheered up considerably when she appeared.

At first, they were content to watch eagerly from the sidelines as I took a few shots of Barbie in her display box. Then Joe (a little star-struck, I guess) insisted I take a few pictures of him standing next to her. I agreed, but before I could get things set up Joe had pulled off the box lid and crawled inside, wedging himself beside her. And once Joe had his turn, Skip and Greg had to have theirs, too. At that point, it pretty much became a competition to see how many of them could cram themselves into the frame at once. Barbie was the consummate professional, not letting on at all that this was physically uncomfortable, and more than a bit ridiculous. Actually, it was almost eerie how she never once lost her poise. I just assumed she was accustomed to that kind of attention.

Then she explained. She's a reproduction of Barbie in 1964 (as advertised in the upper right-hand corner of the package), which was the very same year GI Joe made his debut. The guys just wanted to reminisce, and she didn't want to spoil it for them. Welcome aboard, Barbie.

The Desk

Damien Wright's model of "Harry's Desk".

Greg places the objet d'art just so.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been working on a story exploring the role of sketching in the process of design. The editor was eager for me to include a discussion of the work of at least a couple of Australians, and I decided to collect some remarks from my friend Damien Wright, a craftsman who makes furniture from native Australian wood. Damien draws a lot of working sketches, but he gets more mileage from the scale models he builds. The other night, he dropped off one of those models with a couple of his sketchbooks for me to look over, to see what might be useful in illustrating the article. I took a few shots of the tiny desk using my tabletop cyc. He calls this one "Harry's Desk."

Inspecting the joinery.

I refused to caption this one.

I took a short break for lunch, and by the time I came back, Joe and Greg had discovered the desk and decided they wanted to keep it for their office. It's a little small, but they complained they don't have anything to write on at the moment, and they thought their Hovitos idol (a trophy from a mission to Peru) looked good on it. I explained they could borrow it for a few days, but that Damien is getting it back. Thus ensued some further inspection and horsing around, until I'd had enough and put the model away.