New Orleans jazz wafts through the air as my pen scratches an image into the page of my trusty sketchbook. I’m finishing a drawing that I started earlier, over lunch, of a young girl who was engaged in conversation with an older gentleman. At one point, I remember he asked if she knew what the Manhattan Project was; a long pause ensued followed by a very stern look. Unbeknownst to her, I was recording her features as I ate the Indian food that we had picked up at the Davis Co-op. Later, after watching the new documentary, Inequality For All, we walked over to Mishka’s café, a favorite haunt of mine whenever in Davis.
The scene at Mishka’s is one I’ve seen a hundred times: a sea of laptops and university students glued to their computer screens as they complete assignments that demand their immediate and complete attention. There’s a guy sitting near me fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube – in thirty minutes, he’s solved it like twenty times. I’d be lucky if I could solve it in my lifetime. OK, time to get back to drawing.
