These quick sketches are terrible but they're good enough to make the point that I have in mind, which is that most people draw the wrong thing when they go out sketchbooking.
If you draw people as individuals you'll end up as often as not with cliches: the middle-aged guy with a gut, the fat woman wearing tight clothes, the guy nodding off while he tries to read his newspaper, etc. That's because ordinary people people look pathetic when you draw them in isolation. They're glazed over from shopping or working. Your catching them at their worst.
Where people come alive is in conversation. That's where they become psychological and fleshed out. Take the fat woman. When she's talking she's no longer just a stereotype, she's a human being with a point to get across. She's more interesting.
Now the problem with this is that but people don't stay still when they talk. You have to draw your memory of what they looked like, which is hard, and an instant later you're diverted by the next pose. It's not a good way to turn out pretty drawings, but if you're lucky you might capture an interesting moment.
I'm embarrassed to say that I don't know who took these pictures. Anybody here know? They're all serious, seemingly 0ff-the cuff pictures of literary people from the 50s. Maybe the John Houston picture above was taken a little earlier, I'm not sure. Click to enlarge.
It's funny that the intellectuals of that era preferred raggedy, hazy, snapshot-type pictures like this one (above) of Sartre . My guess is that a formal picture, taken with a view camera and lights, was considered bourgeois. I think it still is some circles. I like both kinds myself.
Here's a picture of Edith Piaff who's one of my favorite singers. She has a tragic face which is appropriate for someone who sings so often about love gone awry.
But love gone awry or no, intellectuals were expected to have tragic faces. My guess is that they wanted to convey how difficult it was to live in a society dominated by the man. The fact that they lived in a liberal democracy with universal education and a standard of living unmatched in history made no difference. Their job was to convey great suffering and inner anguish.
This (above) is Becket, a playwright that I find unreadable. I forgive him though because his face is a gift to caricaturists everywhere. 
Today I'm going to pay a visit to the Halloween stores in my neighborhood. I can't wait! For me Halloween is the time of year when the rest of the country agrees with me about what's important. I see it as a time to stock up on things I'll need the rest of the year.
Mostly I like funny masks but I also like the kid art that people put up in their windows. Here's a sample above. Come to think of it, maybe these were done by adults trying to pass as kids. 
We marveled at how many Superfly accessories you could buy in those days: afro salt shakers, afro lamps, clippers to give your dog an afro...you could put an afro on anything and people would buy it! To make the point John drew some accessories of his own on his napkin, starting with the afro faucet (above). 
Then there's the afro pubic hair drawing which, in case kids are reading, I'll reproduce tiny. Anyway, John proved his point...anything can be embellished with an afro.
