My friend, Gabriel Liston is not only an extraordinary artist, he is honestly one of the most interesting people I know.

I recently read on his journal, , that, because of their particular size and feel, he is in ongoing, perpetual need of a steady supply of a very specific edition of some old-school paperback books from like the goddamned 70s or something. You see, in addition to all the larger paintings he does, he has created a marvelous process in which he treats and seals these books in some mystical fashion unknown to plain ol’ trash like me, and once prepared, he uses them as compact canvases for what he calls The Blue Book Tiles. As I understand it, when he originally started working in this medium, he ingeniously employed ink from the humble ball point pen, but now uses a deep blue pigment that creates an image so intense it actually alters my breathing when I look at it. They are absolutely mesmerizing and I have long held the desire to possess one.

If any of you have read the American edition of Bee Lavender’s brilliant, critically-acclaimed memoir, Lessons in Taxidermy, (and as a quick side note, if you haven’t, you need to get that dead ass up right the fuck now and go do so. Go on. I’ll wait right here for you to get back.) you will recognize Gabriel’s very distinctive work from the front cover.

It was actually through a very generous introduction by Ms. Lavender that I was introduced to Gabriel in the first place. So, thank you for that, Miss Bee!

At any rate, one day I was thinking about Gabriel and his blue book tiles and decided, “Hey, I should procure a brace of those little bastard books and send them off to his eccentric ass! It would be one less thing he’d have to think about for awhile, and he could concentrate on whatever brilliant piece of art or upcoming gallery show or adorable baby he was focused on currently, without having to worry about gathering fucking art supplies. Hurray for giving some tiny peace of mind to someone you adore!”

And so, I found some and purchased them. Since he was visiting his awesome, rambling family in Colorado (my rapidly emerging Liston Family Envy is a journal entry all its own, believe you me) and my fatass just couldn’t wait to get them in the post, I sent them on to him there…along with a rather inspired packing material: several fistfuls (okay, a whole lotta fistfuls) of PEZ dispensers for all the cute babies lurking about (one of the benefits of my arrested development is that Crazy Auntie Muffy totally knows what the babies like!)

Well, sir, it made me happy as a fat clam to have done it — and that was that. In the larger scheme of things it was a small trifling, ’tis true, but something he needed…and that is what I live for: delivering up treats to those I love.

However, as I was to discover a few days later, that was not that, after all. My son and I stopped by the post office to retrieve my mail and in between all the zines and New Yorkers and impersonal poetry rejections from The Paris Review (tasteless, elitist bastards!)…there was a large-ish, puffy envelope with a very distinctive handwriting scrawled across the front. I immediately recognized it from all the charming handmade postcards sent to me by Gabriel on a fairly regular basis over the past several years. They always have one of his drawings on the front, and some chatty, amusing update about his life on the flipside. Despite the fact that I have quite a considerable stack of them accruing in a shoebox all their own, each one I receive never fails to thrill me anew. Gabriel is the sort of splendid correspondent they don’t really make much of anymore and I feel privileged to be on the receiving end of his musings, be they about his latest literary acquisition, the comings and goings of his adorable offspring, or just the productive, precarious, present life of a working artist.

So, I tore open one end of the envelope (being very careful, as I save everything he and everybody else sends me in its original, mortal form) and slowly pulled out what was inside — and as I realized what I was holding, I just stood there…and began to cry. My boy — at this point quite used to my copious tears at beer commercials, Russian literature, Sexton poems, and grass growing — was not alarmed, but rather, curious. It took me a full ten minutes before I could properly respond to his questions in complete, cohesive sentences.

In the envelope, I found this:

What left me speechless was not just the fact that I was holding — in my grubby, unworthy Sicilian mitts — one of Gabriel Liston’s infamous Blue Book Tiles…and that it was apparently intended for me (gulp!) — but it was, in fact, that the particular tile I was holding (which is just one, I am sure, of quite a numerous collection) was the one I had been greedily coveting. I just stood there, blinking away tears, trying to figure out how the HELL Gabriel knew which one I had been slavering over. Was he not only an amazingly gifted artist…but a motherfucking clairvoyant, as well?

After I got home, I cruised back through his journal and found that lo and behold, I had at one point left my drool all over it in a previous post of his. So, while he may not necessarily be The Great Listoni — psychic, rogue, and man about town — he certainly is thoughtful enough to have remembered that, as well as generous enough to have gifted it to me in the first place. So, thank you, sweet Gabriel, from the bottom of my heart. It shall occupy a place of great honor in my home for all time — and I shall think of you with great fondness and affection every single time I look at it.

However, with all this lofty talk of your art, please allow me to say that the one creation of yours that I am truly in love with and which far outshines all the others is this one. But then again, you already knew that:

Be still, my bewitched, besotted heart!

Happy Birthday, Gabriel! May all your wishes come true!