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

Eye Camera

It was really only a matter of time till someone developed this eye camera and in my opinion, it won't be long before it reaches a broader consumer base.

Imagine when spies and paparazzi get their eyeballs implanted/replaced with these? Or teenagers? Peeping Toms? Creeps on the subway? I'm having a hard time focusing on the positive benefits here.

Happy Birthday to You

I'm not a fan of Ms. Biel here, but I'm nothing if not caring. So this is for a certain birthday boy. I hope he appreciates how many pics I had to flip through to find this one. Have gorgeous day.

I don't know who the photographer is, but I found this photo at this fan site.

The Magic Pudding links

The Magic Pudding is listed on my profile as one of my favourite books, and I've blogged about it before.

Today I clicked it on my profile and saw a list of other bloggers who also claim it as one of their faves.

One of those people is named Tot Vogel and has a blog called Naked Photographs. It does not contain naked photographs, or rather, photographs of anything naked. It appears to be a memoir.

His first post, The Spoon is quite well-written and compelling - especially with the accompanying print. I googled to see if he was a published writer and found his fascinating Flickr photostream instead - all black and white and many from the '80s.

The fun of the internet lies in creeping around other people's artifacts.

Cate Blanchett in Vanity Fair

Cate Blanchett has another Vanity Fair cover coming out, and it's spectacular.

My friend told me earlier tonight that I should go see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. She said it was very sad, which made me hesitate, but then she said that the sets and costumes for 1930s and '40s New York were breathtaking, and that Cate Blanchett is in a scene in a red dress that I must see - and that pretty much made up my mind.

I do intend to see Waltz with Bashir too, so maybe if I get any writing done tonight/tomorrow, I'll reward myself with both movies. Positive reinforcements all the way!

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In other news, it's a good thing that clementine season coincides with the chocolate holiday season, or my Ferrero Rocher diet would have resulted in scurvy already.