The Power of boingboing: we got over 6000 hits on our website for our septic systems book from this mention on boingboing by By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb. 23, 2010:
“The late Peter Aschwanden was best known for his extremely detailed and humorous illustrations for John Muir’s 1969 book, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot. His cover illustration for The Septic System Owner’s Manual almost makes me wish I had a septic tank.”
At Peter’s website, you can order books, posters, and T-shirts. His “Exploded Bug” poster (above) is amazing! https://www.peteraschwanden.com
Tuesday I left around 6AM to meet someone in Berkeley. The rain started as I left home, and when I was driving around the lagoon, under big Eucalyptus trees. It was coming down in sheets. A half hour later as I came down the road into Mill Valley, rain pounding, it felt like I was in a speedboat on a river. Every once in a while – like then – I’m amazed that I can be warm and dry in a heavy rainstorm and moving through space in my truck.
I grew up in San Francisco, so I think of myself as a city boy. But I’ve lived in the country since age 17, so I’m a country boy too. I get totally excited each time I go into the city for a day. So much going on. I generally do a 3-county circumnambulation: Berkeley/Oakland; S.F.; and Marin County. I get home with days’ worth of inspiration.
Graffiti just off either Howard or Mission in S.F.
From last week
Just ran across this again. No clue as to where it’s from. Looks like it’s signed “MS.”
This is exactly what happened when we got our first Mac in the late ’80s. Michael Rafferty, who was working for Shelter then, started doing everything on the Mac, while I was still using my Adler portable typewriter, and laying out pages with X-Actos and glue. Took me years to migrate over…
(Actually I still do initial layout manually.)
Josh Churchman is a Northern California fisherman and potter. He makes lots of little ceramic frogs, which people put in their gardens. Each one is different.
Oakland is tough and real and got soul. This shot two days ago at Foothill and 46th…
The Zentner Collection is a retail outlet in the San Francisco Bay Area (5757 Horton Street, Emeryville). Here’s how they describe themselves: “The Zentner Collection has been dealing in Asian antiques for more than 30 years with a special emphasis on fine Japanese antiques. We offer one of the largest tansu collections in the world offering rare examples of Karuma, Fune, Choba, Gyosho, and Kaidon Tansu from the Edo thru Meiji Periods.”
We went there on our Berkeley trip last week to look at tantsus. This is a beautiful (if pricey) collection of all kinds of Japanese antiques.
–https://www.zentnercollection.com/
Image from Images from The Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume I. The Shepheardes Calendar. Designed and engraved on wood by Hilda Quick, based on the woodcuts in the original editions printed in quarto by Hugh Singleton in 1579.
–https://www.fromoldbooks.org/Renwick-Spenser/
“The late Peter Aschwanden was best known for his extremely detailed and humorous illustrations for John Muir’s 1969 book, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive: A Manual of Step-by-Step Procedures for the Compleat Idiot. His cover illustration for The Septic System Owner’s Manual almost makes me wish I had a septic tank.”
