Joseph Campbell – A Hundred Houses

While I was drawing this a handsome dark-haired man wearing a dark tee shirt, dark jeans, sunglasses and leading 2 dogs; one small and beige, the other large and dark brown, passed by on the corner and stopped and started up a conversation.
’What are you doing?’ he asked me, ‘You sitting there drawing?’
’Yes,’ I replied, ‘I’ve only just started.’
’Cool,’ he said, ‘I wish I could do that. I can’t draw a thing.’
I laughed but said nothing because this lack-of-talent lament is what I hear from most people, and I don’t care to challenge it.
’So,’ he went on, ‘are you drawing it for the people who live in the house?’
’No,’ I said, ‘it’s for my own project. I’m drawing a hundred houses.’
’Cool,’ he said again, ‘How many do you have?’
’Um,’ I said, ‘this will be 25.’
’Cool,’ he said, nodding his head up and down, ‘awesome.’
’Yeh,’ I said, ‘and while I’m drawing if anyone stops to talk to me I write a story about them, so if no one more interesting than you talks to me today, then you’re it.’
The man laughed.
’Well make sure to tell them I’m reading Joseph Campbell.’ he said, holding up a fat book and waving it all around, which startled his dogs.
’Okay.’ I said, ‘I will.’
’Are you familiar?’ the man asked me, and I said very vaguely, that I might have heard the name.
’Well,’ he said, ‘he’s like this awesome philosopher, totally rad thinker, totally changed the world for me. Like, he talks about how Greek mythology, like Daphne and Zeus and all those Gods, they’re totally about us, and like how we don’t want to grow up, and that’s like why the planet’s like totally fucked up.’
’Is he a conspiracy theorist?’ I asked him, thinking he’s some YouTube crackpot.
’No,’ said the handsome chap, ‘he’s more like a philosopher, and like, you know, a psychologist, you know.’
’Okay,’ I said, ‘well, I will check him out.’
’Yeh, right on!’ the man said
And then he said okay, that he was going to keep on walking and I said okay, and that he could stop by on his way back if he liked.
’I might just do that.’ he called out, waving and leading his dogs away, ‘If we walk back this way later on.’