Jonny: I wanted to say when I was a a teenager I ordered What I Know (1987). But I remember [the book cover] was like a keyhole with an eyeball through it. And by just seeing [Apotropaic Beatnik Graffiti] opened up. It’s two eyes looking at the reader. Just like What I Know, I can’t help but think it’s you, observing the world, recording, looking at us. Mark: You know, eyes have always been an issue with me. It’s a tossup, whether it was beneficial or mostly worked against me. I couldn’t see further than 6 inches of the big E on an eye chart. I got all the way through first and second grade, without anybody realizing that. And everybody just thought something was wrong with me. There was, because I couldn’t see anything. People take their vision for granted. About a month before second grade was over I walked out of an optometrist’s office and he had given me glasses that made everything in focus. I mean it was shocking. Between walking out of this place and my dad driving to my parents’ house, in that 10 minutes I saw things I’d never seen in my whole life. I saw the roof of a house. I saw smoke coming out of a chimney. I saw clouds. I saw the sun. I saw birds flying. I’d never seen that. I only knew the part of a tree that was down where I was and I’d run into it when I was playing in the yard. But I never saw what a tree looked like with leaves. It was mind-blowing. I was so happy and so amazed that I just started drawing things I had seen for the first time. And I remember this teacher who didn’t know what to do with me, she was at wit’s ends because she would say, “Alright Mark, add up the numbers on the blackboard.” And I go, “What’s a blackboard?” And all the kids would laugh. Then she go, “Alright smart guy, go stand in the corner.” How do they know the right answer to that question? I was just totally made to be confused and I had no idea how kids knew what to say. The next day I’m back in school and I’m drawing a tree, because I had just seen trees, and [that teacher] was standing behind me, Mrs. Savory. She said, “Mark, you draw trees better than me.” And it was the first nice thing, positive thing any school teacher had ever said to me. It was the first time somebody wasn’t saying, sit up or shut up or write this, add this up or read that or do this, and they’d be mad. I know about wearing a dunce cap and getting spanked in front of the other kids as an example of how not to behave. So I got these glasses, it was so awesome. She said this and I went home that night and dreamt I was gonna be an artist. I knew when I was in second grade that’s what I was gonna be when I grew up. But the trade-off was that back in the 1950s, what you got for a pair of glasses to cure incredible myopia was basically two Coca-Cola bottoms and you looked like you had some space age goggles on. And I was like one of the littlest kids in the whole class, and I remember this girl in second grade said to me, “Why is your head shaped like a light bulb?” And I went, “What?!” and ran to the bathroom and looked in the mirror and I was like, Oh my God! My head IS shaped like a light bulb! Because I had a giant head and a tiny body. I just always felt like a space alien after that, but I got these glasses and adding that to having this big egg head, it was just like having a kickme-sign attached to you. So I fought with teachers and all of the other students my whole kindergarten through 12th grade. That was just my lot in life. And it wasn’t until I got to college that I became invisible. There was like 10,000 people at Kent State and I just blended in. I was just an anonymous person and that was so great. And I got to study art there. It was a total fluke. And that was a very happy time of my life. But eyes have always been important to me because of the early days of my life. And it was kind of weird, when we were putting together Apotropaic Beatnik Graffiti, I remember thinking, I wonder if I put a hex on myself when 11 I did all these eyes? Because when I got COVID, they didn’t know what else to do, they didn’t have medicine as it was the very early days, so as they were putting me on a ventilator— [He was hit in the eye causing him to lose vision in that eye]. But I came to the conclusion that no, maybe things would have been worse if I wouldn’t have done this book. Because I think even while I was in intensive care, these red books that were on shelves back in my warehouse were like watching out for me. They kept me from getting any worse. So when we started putting this book together, I thought, These pages could be useful to people too. Somebody could say, “I don’t like the way somebody's energy is going towards me,” and take a page and pull it out of the book and tuck it inside their shirt. Or put it in their wallet and carry it around with them. Krysti: You were mentioning how because it’s non-linear, it’s meant to just be opened it up randomly. The first thing that came to mind was that it’s kind of like a Bible in a sense, or one of those poetry or even self-help books that you’re meant to just open and find these nuggets of wisdom. And you we were saying it’s meant to be interacted with, to have pages even taken out. I love that concept. It’s not just a book, it’s a tangible— S. Putnik: Functional. Krysti: Yeah! And it ties back to your love of tangible art, like your postcards. Mark: You know, maybe I can get you guys to help me talk to a couple of the bigger hotel chains about letting us replace the Gideon Bible with Apotropaic Beatnik Graffiti. (laughs) Krysti: (laughs) It’s like a tool you can use. And I love that because we make Birdy for that reason. Mark: Quite honestly, I imagine there’s probably 1,500 people that’ll like this book. So I'm hoping they’re the ones that buy it. (laughing). S. Putnik: My dad will. Jonny: We love it. Mark: And I like people that like to experiment in this medium, because books are at a weird time right now where they’re both endangered, and open for reinterpretation on what a book is. I hope people like this. SELF-PORTRAIT, FIRST PAIR OF GLASSES (2015)
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