There is a new pet food store at Olympic & La Brea:
This raw food pet diet thing
may be getting out of hand.
Last tango in Atwater
There is a very fine tooth on Glendale Boulevard who appears to be an expert in latin dance.
I believe this move is called arrastre. Or is it gancho?
A block away there is a tooth who appears to be not such an expert; it seems he has broken his leg.
Keep practicing, tooth. You’ll be enjoying a merengue in no time.
Sweet tooth
Today we honor Saint Valentine, who was beaten and beheaded on February 14th for performing illegal marriages in third century Rome. Happy day of torture.
I would like to celebrate the day by expressing my gratitude for a number of failed loves. For one thing, if that handmade valentine with a drawing of a black widow had done its magic back in preschool, I could be married to a concrete salesman today. Really. I looked that guy up on the internet.
Beloved tooth photo by walknboston on Flickr
’round the corner, fudge is made
One thing I find a little troublesome about Manhattan is that because there are so many trained artists around, there is precious little storefront art. It’s hard to get your cousin to paint a crude picture of a diaper box on the side of your market when there are ten MFAs willing to do a version in the style of your choice in exchange for a couple of Lotto tickets.
I did, however, meet some really nice folks in Coney Island. There was the dapper Mr. Shrimp:
He had quite a sense of humor, that Mr. Shrimp. I’m still wondering about that lemonade he gave me.
Then there was Chiefito and his sister Chiefita:
So sweet. So fluffy. And of course I’ll never forget the nice folks at the clam bar:
Was that a clam-flavored ice cream cone? They weren’t much for talking, so I never found out. There were these other guys at the next table, though, who offered me a really big hot dog.
I think they were in some sort of big-hat/double-entendre gang with Mr. Shrimp. Ha ha, big-hat guys. Anyway, nice to meet you all. I hope we can get together again soon.
Suck it, Snuggle
My friend Jenny Torpedo recently found an example of storefront art from the School of Copertor. The photo she sent me was a little blurry, however, so I went to Jumbo Bargain on Sunset myself to get another shot. I took about four photos, and they all came out somewhat blurry as well.
I’m starting to think it’s not the photographs that are blurry.
Drink the water
I really like my dentist. My dentist is an older lady who lets her poor little crippled dog sit on my lap during the examination if I want it to. One of the things that I like about my dentist, besides her poor little crippled dog, is her confounding wall art.
I guess at this point I should make the distinction that I like my dentist for having this wall art, but I do not like this wall art. And that is what is confounding about it. I do not even want to call this art. It seems so cheap and dumb, and it pisses me off that it’s so cheap and dumb and yet this guy is numbering the prints because they are a limited edition. Do the fact that this is pissing me off make it art? Confounding.
Anyway, this dentifrice panorama features:
- a raccoon
- a bear
- a bird
- a turtle (perhaps a tortoise?)
and this might lead one to believe that this will be some Pogo-esque biting satire. No. What this will be is just some more confounding crap. A tooth playing jump rope.
And this tooth has one tooth. If my teeth are going to have teeth, I want each of them to have a full set of teeth, not a single tooth. This is not a good advertisement for a dentist. Nor would it be a good advertisement for an optometrist, but that’s neither here nor there. We’re talking about dentists. And I like mine.
Rose, c’est la vie
I am starting to think that I could make a new sub-category in the store front art category just dedicated to nail salon claw art. I’m not sure I want to do that yet. When you start looking for something, it suddenly starts showing up everywhere. And I don’t think I want to start seeing claws everywhere.
But look – blue leaves!
Refleshing
These pieces of storefront art have been eluding me for a few weeks.
I was even starting to think they were a mirage I had seen on my way to work one day. “That baby… and the coffee…”. Much as I tried to find them on subsequent days, they were nowhere in sight. And then, they reappeared.
The coffee.
And the baby.
Actually, that’s another baby, though a pretty good one at that. This is the baby that had been haunting me:
I’m so glad I found you again, baby. I think I will call you Copertor.
A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight
This tooth (spotted in Arleta) isn’t merely a Good Tooth; he’s a magic tooth, with a magic wand. I love this guy.
Does his magicalness make him a Tooth Fairy, I wonder?
Storefront art, mobile edition
I’m not even sure this counts as storefront art. I saw it on a truck this morning:
and while the truck is definitely still in service as some sort of workman’s vehicle, all information regarding the warehouse equipment dealership that used to own this truck has been removed (see the ghost of “SALE/RENT”?):
I don’t care; that forklift is gorgeous. This belongs here.
