harrison withers and his 26 cats

there's a painter named willy schlossbach who has a studio at 447, where i work. he mostly paints the houses and buildings around cambridge--i recognize the scenes on each friendly canvas. he wears buttery-soft old leather loafers (at least, they look buttery-soft--i've never actually walked up to him and rubbed his shoes, you know). he has an excellently weathered nose, and i wish more than anything that he would paint a self-portrait.

he sure is a funny man. more or less everything that comes out of his mouth is quiet, calm sarcasm, said with a dead-serious facial expression. he'll poke his head into our studio while ann and i are caught up in a conversation and say, "i don't pay you to talk. come on. mmph, it's hard work running a sweatshop." i can never help laughing, but ann always plays along gravely. "you're tough on us, willy," she'll say earnestly.

his studio is just across the hall from ours, and ann walked past it today on her way to the storage room.
"hey, annie," i heard willy call out (to her, not me).
"hey, how are you, willy?" she asked.
"i'm good," he said; "how're you?"
"i'm good too," she replied. there was a short pause.
"hm. i guess we're both good, then," he said.

i don't exactly know why it was so funny to me, but i sat there, alone in our studio, laughing really hard (the silent kind of hard).

i sure do like willy schlossbach. his paintings always leap into my eyes, too. i mean they really leap. they don't just hang on the wall--they're not passive paintings. he has a way of making sunlight bounce off roofs and walls and windows in just such a way as to suggest that this familiar architecture is very much alive, and grinning right at you.

(photo by david harp)