I rolled into the New York State Fair grounds in Syracuse Thursday evening just ahead of strident winter storm warning broadcasts on NPR. I deployed most of the booth, then retired to the Best Western down the road where they not only tolerated cats but offered the Turner Classic Movie Channel as well. It was a pleasant evening of chips and lettuce on the king sized bed.

The Syracuse show was mostly kitchy crafty work, I was definitely the front runner for the envelop pusher award. Just down the aisle was a fellow who carved bears with a chainsaw, Bruce. He turned out to be the angel of the show, perhaps the reason I came to Syracuse. His work is kooky and slightly dark, humorous and even bizarre. In other words, Bruce is doing something interesting and making a good living at it. He provided me with pragmatic advice about my presentation and kept the show from becoming an absolute slog fest. I moved a bunch of postcards and a small print of "Hot Shower", blowing away all previous sales records. Reports from the other booths indicated that sales were pretty slow. The economy ain't roaring just yet.

The highlight of the show - a young woman came up to me while I was lounging on one of Bruce's tongue benches and told me that I should do a nude paintings of myself, because that would be a big seller. I took her suggestion very professionally and told her that I was something of a nudist and that I thought she a good idea and thanks. I told her to take one of my cards so she could commission me to do a nude of myself. She smiled and walked away and Bruce said, "Those who snooze, loose!" I asked him what he meant and he said, "That girl just told you she wanted a nude picture of you and you let her walk away." Uh, duh! Well to make a long story short, I found her again later and asked her what her plans were later, she said she was with her mom and now that I think of it maybe she was only like 16, but hey - I gave her my phone number anyway! I never heard from her so I guess she was just an art lover after all.

Monday morning I left Syracuse for Kingston and the Loeding ranch, where I plan to billet my remaining cats while pulling an extended Manhattan foray.