A Letter to America

Dear America,

I love your "service with a smile". I love your twang... most of the time. I love your artists, your bluster, your swagger, your grand buildings with the names of philanthropists on the front. Your optimism, even when your economy sucks.

I love your absurd portion sizes, your ridiculous menu creations (donut french toast? whipped cream on everything?), your retro diners, your retro grocery packaging, the way you say "uh-huh" instead of "you're welcome". I love your opinionated self. I love your free refills, and the fact that you still have dollar bills, so that holding three of them feels like money and not change.

I (have grown to) love (even though it drives me CRAZY) the perverse dedicated way that ALL the gardeners in LA absolutely refuse to dead-head their roses, leaving overblown, blousy roses outside all the buildings, like aging starlets in faded summer dresses (scheming to hide the new blooms).

I love Broadway, and paying the U.S. price on things, even though there's the exchange rate to factor in. I love that I can justify this blog entry by pretending that it's an assignment for "The List as Post-Narrative Structure". I love that your sale prices are actually a bargain and not just marked-down mark-ups.

I know we don't agree on everything, and that I could make a list just as long with negative things, but I won't, 'cause that's not what love is about.

Female Mechanics Calendar

In the past four years, my father has encouraged me to learn a trade as the haphazard quality of my writing "career" makes him nervous for my future financial stability. As he is a creative man, he has come up with several ideas:

1) Property Manager - "you just sit in an office in a building - you'll have time to write"
2) Teacher - "you get the summers off - you'll have time to write"
3) Securities course or study/play the stock market - "manage your money - you'll have time to write"
4) Plumber - "something to fall back on, they make $70 an hour - you'll have time to write"
5) Auto mechanic - see above
Though I have no special affinity for machines (or property management or money management for that matter), auto mechanics sounds cool, so I looked into it. I drive, and it wouldn't hurt to know how to speak "mechanic" when I take the car in for service.

I found some local automotive training courses, but I was more excited to find the super cool Female Mechanics Calendar by photographer and writer Sarah Lyon. Her photos made the prospect of mechanic training far more appealing. Here were women who had already taken a career turn into mechanics and seemed quite happy (and renumerated) for it.
From 2007 to 2009, Sarah Lyon photographed women mechanics (or mechanics who happen to be women, however you prefer to slice it), documented their stories, and put together a calendar. She says it best herself:

This unique and dynamic calendar includes automobile, motorcycle, hot rod, hybrid, marine, jet aircraft, bicycle, and race car mechanics. The project challenges stereotypes of the typical tool-girl, pin-up calendar by showing real women mechanics working in their shop environments.

I asked Lyon permission to use some photos from her calendar and she very graciously sent me a hard copy of the calendar too. It's fantastic. Never mind that we're halfway through April, this calendar is fresh and inspirational and nice to look at. One of the mechanics, Tess Gape (in the first photo), is even from Toronto and now works "on a Ferrari GT2 Team with the American Le Mans Series".

Some of the women grew up around car fixer-uppers or rode motorcycles and wanted to be able to fix them, but one started off with a journalism degree and another graduated with an English degree. As in any field, each woman took a different route to get to where she is now, but the calendar proves that the despite being a male-dominated field, there is (as usual) room for hard-working professional women. Order one calendar for yourself and one for a young woman you know. This calendar would also look great on the wall of your child's classroom. It goes till February 2010, so you'll still get 12 months worth of calendar, and a serious amount of cool.

While you're at it, check out Sarah Lyon's beautiful Journey photography too, of her solo 8,900 mile motorcycle ride.


All photos copyright Sarah Lyon

Inaugural Balls... and Bats and Dolls and So Much More!

Today I received emails from two separate people on a very similar topic:

The merchandising of Barack Obama.

Not the marketing of the man (and now President) himself, but the merchandising opportunities that his likeness seems to inspire.

One was a link to a commemorative "pop-art" portrait of Obama by a company called Paint Your Life. Mind you, that link might expire 'cause the offer is only good for three days. (!) However, if you can't see the Obama art, you can look at their other "pop-art" examples and imagine just how good the Obama one looked. Art ostensibly in the style of Andy Warhol, but done by handy whore-alls. (Thank you, I'll be here all week.)

The other email notified me that Obama rubber masks - with no discernible likeness to Obama at all - are selling like hotcakes (or mochi?) in Japan.

Which all makes me wonder if I am not missing this amazing opportunity. For change. Small change. Big bucks.

What other completely unappealing products will people be willing to buy to commemorate this presidency? Oh.

But perhaps those are not really gaudy enough? Where are genuine Swarovski crystals?

The artist "14" at Gallery of the Absurd created spoof Obama & McCain dolls during the election, but maybe it's time for one of her Thomas Kinkade/Bradford Exchange spoofs. How about a White House of Light, Obama Family Commemorative 2009 Snowglobe? It would have to have 22K gold accents, real twinkling lights, and red, white and blue parade confetti in a gleaming orb with a solid mahogany-like base!

Who knows? Maybe collectibles will save the economy. You keep buying them (stimulus), you don't throw them away (thrift and ecology), and you show them to your fellow collectors (community-building).

Now, before you get mad, please know that I do have a special place in my heart for all some that is tacky, and I do love the US of A. I just have my limits.

Unfortunately. If I didn't, I could start a tidy little business right about now.