Eric Hanson

Friday

Eric Hanson

You seriously expect me to pick one favorite bar?

I was born in Wisconsin and I’ve learned a curious thing traversing it. There appears to be a state law requiring at least one bar at every intersection of its rural roads. I’ve noticed this most often driving at night: there’ll be a neon sign advertising Old Style or Leinenkugel’s hung in the front window of what looks like a farmhouse living room, and several cars nestled up against the house like sucking pigs. There is something homey about a rural bar. The knotty pine, the “first dollar” framed above the cash register, neighbors ironing out local prejudices and asserting the superiority of the Packers despite any evidence — if anyone’s brave enough to produce some.

bar

Thursday

Eric Hanson

We are failing to curate the present

When I try to write a letter by hand, my hand has forgotten how to do it. I stumble at the end of words. I trip over letters I’ve known since I was five. It’s odd, too, because writing by hand is what I do. I am paid to letter the titles of books and draw offbeat, sophisticated hand-lettering for advertisements. I am a professional handwriter and I am losing my grip. Have I become obsolete or is it the pen? Writing manually has become abnormal. I now think onto my laptop’s screen via an arrangement of letters on a keyboard, an arrangement originally devised to insert a steadying difficulty into the typing sequence to protect the typist from speeds that might be dangerous. At one time it was believed that speed was dangerous, but now speed is the elixir.

artists