Archie Across the Globe

This week the New York Times ran a profile of Ahmad Saeed, a bookseller in Islamabad, Pakistan.

He inherited the business from his father this spring, and one of his first tasks as owner was accepting visits from “elderly men” who had come to apologize for shoplifting in their youth.

According to the Times of New York:

One of the penitent former book thieves who dropped in was Suleman Khan, the vice chancellor of Iqra University, in Islamabad.

“He came to say that when he was a child, 6 years old or so, he stole an Archie comic book and my father saw him,” Mr. Saeed said. “He said he was afraid he was going to get slapped, but my father said: ‘This is good that you like books. So every day you can take a book but keep it in mint condition and return it when you’re done so I can still sell it.’”

And then the vice chancellor said, “Everything that I am now, I owe to your father.”

That story seems remarkable in many ways, not least in how a comic story about teenagers inspired by life in Depression-era Haverhill, Massachusetts, could speak so powerfully to a six-year-old in Islamabad decades ago.

But Dr. Khan clearly isn’t the only Archie fan in that region of the globe. In 2014 a company executive told the Times of India that India was full of loyal readers. Riverdale is now home to characters of South Asian heritage, such as aspiring filmmaker Raj Patel, and Archie visited Mumbai in 2011, falling for Bollywood star Amisha Mehta.

Some Origami

This example of "wet paper" origami art by Michael LaFosse is called "Wilbur the Pig." It's part of an exhibit of origami at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, which I thoroughly enjoyed with my godson and his family last weekend.

Many of the folded-paper sculptures on display were inspired by geometric patterns and by nature, but a surprising number reflect the artists' pleasure in fantasy literature. Among those is Brian Chan's "Attack of the Kraken" (giant squid attacks two-masted sailing ship, all folded out of one piece of paper) and Joseph Wu’s “Grand Dragon,” both visible in the website’s slide show. I recall the exhibit also included a "St. George and the Dragon" and some Tolkien creatures.

In the hands-on room beside the exhibit gallery, I made a butterfly by following the instructional video also available here. Video makes beginning origami so much easier than diagrams! For folks in New England, this exhibit will be at the Peabody Essex only until 8 June 2008, and I highly recommend it.

Bronze Lentil

Hamilton, Ohio, calls itself the "City of Sculpture." Among the many realistic bronze statues in its public spaces is this rendering of Lentil, the harmonica-playing hero of the picture book by native son Robert McCloskey.


The book never names the dog following Lentil, but a town contest came up with the name Harmony. The sculptor, Nancy Schon, also cast the duck family in Boston's Public Garden based on McCloskey's Make Way for Ducklings.

Other sculptures in Hamilton are less inspiring.