Posted on 11/12/2005 2:43:19 PM PST by Lorianne
A bear with a prominent grease spot on his little beige nose spends his days wedged behind the bumper guard of an ironworker's pickup in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn. A fuzzy rabbit and a clown, garroted by a bungee cord, slump from the front of a Dodge van in Park Slope. Stewie, the evil baby from "Family Guy," scowls from the grille of a Pepperidge Farm delivery truck in Brooklyn Heights, mold occasionally sprouting from his forehead.
All are soldiers in the tattered, scattered army of the stuffed: mostly discarded toys plucked from the trash and given new if punishing lives on the prows of large motor vehicles, their fluffy white guts flapping from burst seams and going gray in the soot-stream of a thousand exhaust pipes.
Grille-mounted stuffed animals form a compelling yet little-studied aspect of the urban streetscape, a traveling gallery of baldly transgressive public art. The time has come not just to praise them but to ask the big question. Why?
That is, why do a small percentage of trucks and vans have filthy plush toys lashed to their fronts, like prisoners at the mast? Are they someone's idea of a joke? Parking aids? Talismans against summonses?
Interviews with half a dozen truckers as well as folklorists, art historians and anthropologists revealed the grille-mounted plush toy to be a product of a tangle of physical circumstance, proximate and indirect influence, ethnic tradition, occupational mindset and Jungian archetype.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
You win. |
My son came home tonight, and informed me that a car was down the road from here with a black bear he hit laying dead in the road.
the car is also dead.
I'll assume you knit/crochet - and that's your handy work.
I love it!
;-)
DD
"Damn you, vile woman! Hang up and drive!"
...mold occasionally sprouting from his forehead.
"And for the love of God, can somebody cleanse me of this filth?"
Wow...they interviewed a whole half dozen truckers before writing this story...two or three times the number of sources for one of their "racism in America" stories.
Reminds me of "Buck on a Bike" by Patrick McManus.
Dang that's the second time this week.
Now I'm going to have to check out the book it is in to read it again since I can't find the story online anymore.
I think I once posted the whole thing on a Testing/Ignore this thread.
LOL!
Not to mention "go ugly early"!
Well, where else would you transport a damn cat?
You sure as hell don't want him in the cab with you...
That car bit my sister once.
Cats travel in cars quite well. They will settle down once they have found a comfortable place.
Usually it is on top of your head with their claws dug securely into your scalp.
Or, under the brake pedal.
I have a sticker that says, "Keep your distance, I chew redman", and one that says,"If it weren't for flashbacks,
I'd have no memory at all!", and "I've been to Dreamland!".
The one on the door says," Caution, driver only carries
$20 worth of ammunition.".
Greetings from the Humungous! They Ayotoallah of Rock and Rollah, and a Jungian Archetype!
R O F L
Very clever optical illusion there.
There appears to be a Jeep in the photo.
Jeep? I didn't see no steenkin jeep.
She has a face?
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