Picture This: Malcolm London

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Bee Whalen

“Bert the Potato Man,” by Malcolm London.

“One day, I was really bored in class. And I drew a weird blob. And I thought, ‘oh, okay, maybe I could turn that into a face and then I added a lot of wrinkles.’ And then I thought, ‘I don’t really want to draw a body for this face,’ so I put legs on the face, like Mr. Potato Head and big ears and a Santa hat. And I thought, ‘okay, but it’s missing something right?’ So I put a stick through his ears with a marshmallow on it. I thought ‘but, of course he’s toasting the marshmallow,’ so I added a fire. So it’s a mystery. It’s an old wrinkly Mr. Potatohead with a Santa hat,a stick through his ears, little stubby legs and he’s roasting a marshmallow. I think he’s a creation of my subconscious. He’s a manifestation of everything good in the world.”