My holographic altnernative option

A few weeks ago my friends and bosses at work, Donna and Heidi, travelled to D.C. for a long weekend of modern art museum visiting. They returned with volumes of photographs of "installations," books of modern "works" and all sort of excited feelings and inspirations about their own artistic endeavors. The morning of the first day of work after their trip, Donna, Heidi, Rachel and I gathered in Donna and Heidi's kitchen. Donna was quite excited to share her photographs of the art with Rachel and I while Heidi was doing some dishes. I tried to engage myself in the excitement and explanations Donna was dishing out, but after a couple minutes I discovered myself more engaged and interested in Heidi's plastic ziplock bag washing technique over in the sink than the art. I was busted of course and laughed at of course, and I just said, "I don't understand a lot of art. I just don't get it." And that is the truth. It's like poetry- most of the time I don't really understand what is going on. With a lot of art I can't understand why someone would spend so much time doing that because what the heck is the purpose?

Later that week, Rachel and I were waiting at the mulch yard to get loaded up (with mulch in the truck that is), and I decided to duck into Gail's Variety and Mattress Shop, which is directly next door to the mulch yard's office. I had always wanted to go into that place. I told Rachel, "I'm just gonna peek in there- I'll be out in 2 minutes." The minute I stepped in the door I felt like a kid walking into a candy shop. There were ugly trinkets, redneck pride tee shirts and little weird shit items everywhere. A paited resin cross-eyed fairy riding a unicorn, a box of tiny plastic pegasuses for $1 each, a tee shirt that reads "Body Piercing Saved my Life" with a picture of Christ's bloody hands nailed to the cross, baskets of plastic flower arrangements. Half of the store was a weird low-tech showroom of mattresses with hand made signs writted in magic marker ink. There was a lady behind the counter who semi-jovially answered the phone, "Good morning. Gail's Variety and Mattress Shop. Can I help you?" I guessed that most likely about 99% of the people who called were all family. 20 minutes later Rachel came in the store to gently tell me it was time to leave, and I realized I was really jacked up. I wanted to show her this and that and then some more this and more that. I had tagged about 10 tee-shirts to show her and of course the fairy and pegasus what-nots. I seriously almost bought multiple items in there, but I stopped myself at the last moment telling myself to think about it and if I still wanted the stuff tomorrow, I would probably be back at the mulch yard and could make the purchase then.
On the way back to the truck, Rachel looked at me and giggled. "What's so funny?" I demanded. Rachel chuckled and said, "That Variety and Mattress shop- That's your art gallery." It was true- that weird little hole in time and space jazzed me up enough to rival Donna's enthusiam for what I call confusing "modern art."

But wait a minute. Surely that's not it. Pointless Chinese-made crap strangely displayed in a failing American small business surely can't be all that lights my creative fire (although when I was in China a year ago I did fore-go shop after shop of beautiful bone and wood and jade carved antiques and go crazy about a booth of gaudy vinyl holographic portraits of Chinese nature and deities to the shock and confusion of my mother and friend who had been happily purchasing items of real value all day...)

I was able to blissfully identify another source of creative inspiration last weekend, when I was invited to a live Nativity Christmas party in which the guests were to dress as characters from the nativity story. At first I thought, 'That sounds good,' and I reckoned I could be the donkey or mother Mary. But on the day of the party, I realized that I had a much more appropriate option. I went to the party as Els Unicornilius, who is a unicorn. I vamped out my unicorn helmet in plastic poinsettias, wore all white with blue rain boots, and used a blue green sparkly scarf as a tail. It felt so good to be wearing the unicorn helmet again, and it got me in the spirit to have great conversations with other party goers about god and meaningful seasonal tradition (and our American lack there-of), the transient nature of our culture and all that is lost, the value of repetition in spirituality, and such. A few people asked me to remind them of the unicorn in the nativity story, to which I replied, "The unicorn is the unmentioned beast of the Nativity." A few days later when I was relaying the details of the party to Donna the art appreciator, she was laughing and laughing. She said it was performance art. I told her that the traditional Nativity story with all its traditional characters and portrayals is only one view of a holographic image. If you tilt the picture ever so slighty to catch the light a different way, you will see a completely different scenario all together. This is where you will find the unicorn. Donna laughed and laughed.

I suppose I have always loved holographic images and all things with a hidden option. Those cheap vinyl landscape set me on fire in China. As a kid I used to love those dolls that you could flip upside down and it would become a completely different doll. Little Red Riding Hood flipped upside down became the bid bad wolf. I am fascinated with the contrary meanings of Tarot cards you get when you pull a card upside down.

Tonight I get to go to a Solstice Yule Goat party, which celebrates some historical tradition of some Yule Goat. Anyone who comes to the party as a yule goat gets a prize. Guess who will be arriving as a Yul-icorn? I hope my prize is as subversive as my appreciation for art.