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debating whether I was going to a metal guy to get the thing fixed, and I was just like, it’s such an uncomfortable chair anyway, but I don’t want to get rid of it, so I just made a little red sign that says “Don’t” with a magnetic back. Um, but yeah, so the chair just a red plaque on it now, so now I don’t have to try to stop someone, and, although people still try to sit in it, which I think is kind of funny, but it’s, I mean there’s definitely an idea there. I mean the reason I have the chair to begin with is because it looks cool, not because it’s comfortable to sit in, so the fact that it’s broken really doesn’t change my relationship with it any. Also, it’s a way to procrastinate forever. I never have to make that phone call. I get satisfaction from making something like that or doing something like that. And it’s just, like, it gets back to that original reason, that stated reason for doing this stuff, which is to make your ideas happen, even if they’re hair-brained and only funny to you. [laughs] Which that one definitely is. [laughs] This here, speaking of these types of things, is a collection of sticks that Sid has collected from different places. So I’ve just labeled them with the date. There is Rockaway Beach, Ditch Plains, and Central Park.

Gelman: And how many sticks to you have?

Paul: I don’t know. Probably thirty. Thirty sticks.

Gelman: 30 sticks?

Paul: I started to put them up there, but that wall is made of concrete, and, I was planning on really putting them all up, but I just haven’t gotten around to it. That’s another thing I just haven’t gotten around to. But again, there’s no other reason for doing that. It’s just for me.

Gelman: Do you collect any other weird things? Or not-weird things?

Paul: Nothing I can think of offhand. Maybe weird old books.

Gelman: Who’s that?

Paul: Frank? Yeah, I caught him here.

Gelman: Frank?

Paul: Yeah. Frank the Mouse. Because of the Dunkin Donuts downstairs, this place is pretty much overrun with mice. So I’ve been catching them, and trying to take them out, put them in the park or something.

Gelman: The mice?

Paul: Yeah. [laughs] It’s a little-

Gelman: Crazy. [laughs]

Paul: Yeah. It’s a little nutty. I’ve been taking them to Brooklyn, because the park here has rat traps, and they kill them all.

Gelman: Why don’t you just kill them?

Paul: They’re, I don’t know, they’re just- they’re cute little guys.

Gelman: Are you vegetarian?

Paul: Yeah, well, I eat fish, but I don’t eat meat. [laughs] But they’re cute little guys, man! But, yeah, if you leave mice without anything to stop them from breeding it can get crazy pretty quick. He was the last one I caught, then they all disappeared, so I think Dunkin Donuts did a mass [throat-slashing sound] thing. Yeah, I have these little traps that have trap doors, and you just catch them.

Gelman: They’re humane.

Paul: Humane traps. [laughs]

Gelman: I remember, when you came to New York it was before the dot-com revolution. A lot was going on. Interesting things. And then when the dot-com boom began, you went to making web-sites, and got involved in that. After that you experimented with Doyle, and then things changed dramatically. What’s your take on what was happening, and what’s going on now?

Paul: I’m still trying to figure out what happened there. Yeah, I had students at that time, you know, in the middle of the boom, coming to me, really worried that there was no way to be a graphic designer and still do print any more. Like, "What are we gonna do, we don’t like the internet." [laughs] But you know, the funny thing is, with all that, you didn’t even think the print places existed anymore. That’s all that exists anymore. The ad agencies, forget it. They’re not hiring anyone. In fact, they’re still letting people go still. And it’s just a weird time, especially here. But as far as, not the profession, but just where the art form is going, I feel there’s a backlash to the new media stuff now that is just as over-exaggerated as the stuff that was going on during the boom. And I know there aren’t too many people being paid to do that stuff these days, but I think that’s definitely going to be an avenue for graphic designers in the future. I have done some interactive stuff, some new media stuff, and I find it interesting, but it’s not something that I’m really that sad that I’m not doing these days.

Gelman: You don’t do any of that stuff at all?

Paul: No, it’s probably been at least a year and a half since I’ve done anything. Any new media stuff at all. And that’s fine with me.

Gelman: Where's your web site, by the way?

Paul: I don’t have it anymore.

Gelman: Why?

Paul: I don’t have a web site. I used to have one, but I took it down, yeah. I don’t know, it’s just this internal struggle that stops me from probably making any money. I was very uncomfortable about having my work that accessible in a media that I really didn’t have anything to do with, if that makes any sense. So I took it down. I took it down. I didn’t find that many people using it, I gotta say. I mean, you know, normally, when someone will call for a portfolio or to see my work, I was always trying to get them to "Go look online" and no one ever wanted to.

Gelman: Really?

Paul: Yeah. They were always like, "Ehh, yeah, can you send it?" I was like, sure. So, yeah, that’s the reason why I don’t have anything up right now. Again, I think that’s something you really have to be motivated to do and produce, and for some reason, I’m just really not that interested in it right now. I don’t know why. But I feel like it’s going to be a very vital avenue for graphic designers down the road. I just think there’s this crazy, exaggerated backlash against it, and it’s just as exaggerated, as I said, as the high points of it. Like how important it was going to be. Um, but yeah, I mean my main problem with it is that it just doesn’t exist, you know what I mean? You know, it’s interesting for five minutes, and then it’s not interesting any more, and you need this thing you have to plug in to look at it. I guess you still need your eyes to look at something printed, but at least it’s still there, you know? You can put your hands on it. You can feel it, you can touch it.

Gelman: I think we argued about this once. I can argue with you and tell you that what’s important is the experience: you look at it, then it’s gone, and what’s left is the experience.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.

Gelman: No, it makes sense, what you’re saying, it makes sense.

Paul: Even the pollution issue; if the whole world has computers, we are fucked. I mean, they’re always on, you know, we’re talking about natural resources that you don’t see here, through the electricity. But, like if the whole world is wired, it’s impossible. It can’t happen. There’s just no way. There just aren’t resources to produce that much power. I’m over exaggerating a point here—

Gelman: Well, they're becoming more advanced and need less and less power.

Paul: Well, that’s true. But I definitely feel it’s interesting, and when you see it done well, it’s just like, "Wow". But it’s like, again, what interests you, there is something a little more physical about what I’m interested in. But you know, of the other side of it, as far as like where-we’re in a weird spot right now. As far as what is happening and what people are doing, I think. I don’t know it. It’s totally just influenced by the market.

Gelman: How do you see the difference, teaching, with students at school?

Paul: Well, they’re freaked, right now. They’re worried about getting a job. And they should be worried about getting a job.

Gelman: Do you feel like they’re more serious about completing their assignments?

Paul: You know, no. [laughs] No. You’d think they would be. They’re not, though. You know when they were? Right after 9/11. That whole year after, they were unbelievable. You would not believe how into it they were. All of a sudden, everything was important. But that’s kind of gone away now.

Gelman: Interesting. Were you giving them any political assignments?

Paul: No, no, no. I totally avoided that. Oh god, no. It’s too raw, it’s too here. Like, actually, I use that piece that you did for the Times as an example of what I just couldn’t get myself to do anytime after that whole thing, because it was just too close.

Gelman: Actually Dave [Heasty] did that. It was the only piece we ever did about September 11th.

Paul: Really? Wow. Interesting. And it was done the same day it happened, because it came out the next day, right? But yeah, I was just like wow, that’s amazing that they were able to pull that off. I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I just couldn’t. For months after, Peter was calling me, you know "Hey, you wanna...", and I was just like, no, I can’t. When I finally took a crack at it, I think it was one of the hardest things I ever did. Everybody else was like underneath a desk somewhere, you guys were working. Although, you know what? I was working that day, and the whole rest of that week. Yeah, I had this Japanese client I was doing something for, I was up all that night. That night, the night after I was up here all night, and then the next two days in was in here up until like 11:00 at night. It was real weird.

Gelman: Did you have the Internet working at that time?

Paul: Yeah, everything was working. Almost right after.

Gelman: Well, you are just above 14th Street.

Paul: It was weird. Right here, everything closed off. Right down here became the entrance to the city. Right down here at this corner.

Gelman: We’re below 14th.

Paul: Yeah. Well then you couldn’t even get in there. How were your working then?

Gelman: I wasn’t in New York.

Paul: Oh, you weren't here?

Gelman: Dave and Karin worked.

Paul: Interesting. Well how did they get in down there?

Gelman: I don’t know, because they—

Paul: Well you guys are right near it, right?

Gelman: Not right near it. Near Bleecker Street.

Paul: I thought you were in, I thought, okay. I thought you were saying that you were in-

Gelman: You couldn’t cross Canal. Canal was the-

Paul: Yeah, yeah, yeah. For some reason I thought you were in the Woolworth building. I had that confused. I though that’s where Neil’s office was. No.

Gelman: Neil Powell? He's in my building now.

Paul: I’m confused, then. Either way, I was pretty close.

Gelman: I think Duffy was there.

Paul: Oh, right, all right, that’s where I was confused. But no, teaching is awesome. Teaching is so great. I love teaching. I’m doing a little bit too much of it this semester, but I just feel like I get, kind of a free class, you know? Like I just feel like I’m always learning and I always try to experiment with it and push it.

Gelman: Which school do you prefer, Parsons or SVA?

Paul: Well, right at this moment, SVA, because I have kind of a weird class going on at Parsons right now.

Gelman: Why? Lazy students?

Paul: No, not bad students. I guess I’m going to blame myself. We’re just having a bad class for some reason. I had to do an intervention on them. We’re not meeting as a group any more. They all have to come in here and show me their work one-on-one, and I’m just getting in their face now, because they’re not doing work. It’s weird, but I don’t blame them. I don’t know if I totally blame myself either, but I have to take responsibility when something like that is literally just awful. One of the worse classes I’ve ever taught, as far as the work that they’re doing and the level of participation, and whether they give a shit or not. That’s the thing that drives me the most crazy, is if they were doing mediocre work, but if they cared, that’s one thing. When they don’t care, then it’s just like, oh fuck. That’s such a drag, you know? But teaching’s good. Are you teaching now? SVA?

Gelman: Yale.

Paul: Oh Yale. How’s that?

Gelman: I love it!

Paul: Yeah? Do you love the trip?

Gelman: I don’t love the trip, and that’s why I don’t teach the entire year, just one semester.

Paul: Yeah, it’s not easy to do. But it’s worthwhile.

Gelman: Tell me about some of your assignment.

Paul: I give this "cute" assignment, where I have my Parsons students do this cute thing. And of course, one of the big problems with it is they have to do something cute, but it has to be huge. Like 40 inches by 30 inches, or something, and the only criteria is that it’s really, really cute, like anybody could walk in here and have that response, "Awwwwww," to it. So of course, half of them won’t go there. They won’t allow themselves, "Naw, that’s not good, that’s not cool; like, I just don’t do cute." You know? Of course, that’s part of the point. But I surprised them the week it was due by inviting my mom to come and critique it. You know, like a mother is an expert of cute. So she came down-she was such a trooper-she came down from upstate. This was another thing, like I’ve had this idea for-I give this assignment every semester, but I’ve wanted to have my mom come down and critique it forever, and I just hadn’t done it, and then she came down. And I mean, she doesn’t have anything to do with the arts, she’s a retired occupational therapist. It was amazing, it was so fucking good! [laughs] It was really good! I mean, this one kid did this poster of a woman’s ass in a thong, and it was black and white, there was a rubber hand, and it was tattooing the word ³cute² on her ass. And here’s my Mom looking at it. And it was just-he got red in the face and left. [laughs] He’ll never forget that, for the rest of his days. He’ll never forget that! You know? And the interesting thing was that it really created some interesting dialog. That got them talking. A lot of them were pissed that I sprung my Mom on them. And I literally said, "is it cute or not?"

Gelman: How did you come up with this assignment in the first place?

Paul: An artist, Mike Wakowski; it was an assignment he was given by a painting teacher years ago. And, it really brings out some interesting stuff. It brings out some interesting stuff, because of course those students who are like, "Look, I don’t do cute, I’m just not going there," well it’s like, you know we were using the cigarette packaging as an example: I’m not asking you to design a poster for a weapon’s manufacturer, you know? This is cute, here. It’ll never hurt anybody, you know? So to taking a stand here, is a little ridiculous. And two, if you’ve got a blind side as a designer, if your main point is communicating, and you have something, a place you will not go, then you’re just limiting how effective you can be as a communicator. And, you know, the thing that was interesting is that they’re like, "Well, cute is bad." No, cute isn’t bad! Cute is cute! Bad is bad! Cute isn’t bad. You can do something great that’s cute. And I just think it’s also-

Gelman: When I was reviewing portfolios of some of your students, I heard about some of the assignments, especially the ‘Cute’ one and they really enjoyed it. Great work!

Paul: Well, thank you. As I said, that was so gratifying to see those guys do that stuff.

Gelman: Everyone from your last years' SVA class had an amazing work!

Paul: Yeah. Well thanks. They worked really hard. Yeah. They worked extremely hard. But that’s all that we were left with. We started with, I think 20-something, and finished with, I think seven staggered across the finish line at the end of the year. And the people who were left were really into it, and motivated to work harder than I’ve ever seen students work. When you’re a senior, I know I was that way, especially the last semester, I was like, "Oh, come on, let’s get this over already. I’m tired." [laughs] You know, and these guys were making new stuff, and working harder than I’ve ever seen anybody else work, including myself, which is cool.

Gelman: Do they all well now? Do they all have jobs?

Paul: Yeah, all but one. Which is kind of a drag. I mean, she has a job, but she’s not working as a designer right now. That’s another thing‹It’s absolutely nutty, but you know, I mean, you’ve probably had people knocking on your door, and it’s like, there just aren’t the jobs out there, and there are too many people walking around with portfolios. And I think that’s the thing that’s just kind of weird right now. I’ve never seen so many really good people out there looking. You know, normally, you’d say, "If you’re that prepared, you’re going to get a job. It might not be a great job, but you’ll get a job, and then you can start." But you know, when you have really, really good people not finding anything-

Gelman: But your graduates all got jobs. And pretty good jobs too. Well, all except one. That’s pretty good.

Paul: Yeah, yeah.