It has occurred to me in the past, that it says a lot about who you are, and the real state of your self, to ponder the art that emanates from you. By this, I mean, first, what symbols dominate your attraction and attention? I never took it as a particularly GOOD thing, that my ex-wife used to ride around with a little plush Ursula in her car (in case you've forgotten, or just never were that into kids movies, Ursula was the sea-witch in Disney's The Little Mermaid.) She also had several of the Hallmark "Maxine" items, including a couple little Maxine plushes; more women, I'm sure, know about Maxine, Hallmark's promotional crabby old broad. Me? well, my heroes have always been cowboys......ooops, wrong script! Yeah, okay, shoot me, I saw The Electric Horseman a few times! Actually, they might as well have been, although I gravitated more towards Indiana Jones; the adventure and intellect appealed to me greatly. I'm also a great fan of Lance Armstrong. Yeah, I know, the divorce was bad press, and he's not a very spiritual guy, but he's explained himself, if you look, to understand why. He credits overcoming cancer to drive, commitment and will to win more than spirituality, because one of his stepfathers claimed to be a Christian and cheated on his mother. I've seen people go through tragedy and then have a hard time being spiritual, if the expectation is that God is gonna do all the work for you! He's not going to! But if you're doin the leg work, and you have faith in Him, He will back you up! Actually the line in "It's not about the bike" that I really identified with myself, was when he talked about the real bottom-line reason why he rides; He felt that with all the trouble he ever experienced as a child (his mom was a young mother, lots of stepfathers and other men around, mom out trying to work and make a decent living, etc,) "if I rode far enough, and fast enough, maybe my problems would all just go away." and I can relate to that. I tried that tactic, and it has been of benefit to my body, even to this day, at age 40. My mind? well, runnin away never solves much. It creates a lot of issues.
Getting back to what I was saying about symbols, well, I have what has characterized as a "jukebox soul." The songs that emanate from me have a lot to do with the state of my being. I worried greatly at being unable to get Squeeze's "Tempted" out of repeat mode a while back; In the end, I think it was more like my subconscious lashing out at my ex-wife, and the unknowns of the relationship it percieved as real. This morning, I woke up humming The Doors' "Moonlight Drive," which I actually take as good, if you hear the words; Lets swim to the moon, unh huh/Let's climb to the tide/Penetrate the evenin that our city seeks to hide/Lets swim out tonight love, it's our time to fly/Park beside the ocean on our moonlight drive. The hope for peace and aspiration in words like that are simply moving. As for any other symbols in my own life, in my car, for a while, I had a Winnie the Pooh Deda Mraz, or Grandfather Frost, essentially Winnie the Pooh as a Yugoslavian Santa Claus. I lost him in one of the many instances over the years where my cars have died, and been towed. Anyone knowing where I might be able to find a replacement, please, let me know. This year, though, I did manage to find a Santa figure in the proper spirit, one that's Croatian-proper, with his bell, lantern, and evergreen bough. My Croatian heritage matters to me, too, and I suppose that's like hands reaching across time, to connect with something that both is, and is not, yourself. Lighthouses, I suppose, symbolize more of my solitary, romantic nature. Would I have ever cut it as a lighthouse keeper, or a cowboy? I guess I'll never really know, but I think so. The other great quote I heard about automobile design is that it is the ultimate act of rebellion, which I suppose is true. When you design a car, particularly in America, you enforce your thoughts about the nature of what is important upon the motoring populace; upon everyone in the country who ever gets in a car, or gets put in a car.
And apart from the aforementioned Talbot-Lago, which I suppose typifies my whole being simply by having seating for only two, an achingly sensuous shape, and, especially upon hearing it last summer at Cranbrook, a musical exhaust note, my favorites amongst cars....well....the designs of the French and Italians I usually find to be beautiful. Italians, particularly typified by Marcello Gandini, who designed one of my other senchal, lust-list faves, the Lamborghini Muira.
And if you talk to a lot of people, you find that they associate Lamborghini with a white, bloated, bespoilered, Vegas-Elvis Countach. Trust me, if you saw the very first Countach, created in 1971, it is smooth, sleek, and utterly athletic; cursed with very poor seats, but nice none the less.
Among the French, mostly I'm talking about the old-world, couturier coachbuilders, like Figoni et Falaschi, who did the Talbot-Lago and others, and Sauotchik, who did many for Delahaye and other "old world" manufacturers. You get the idea. Presence matters, and it matters that you make your mark in the right way. Beauty without the ability to perform is pointless. And the reality about cars, in many cases, is that they aren't genuinely timeless, simply for the fact that they get surpassed in performance. They serve as art, as a reminder of the times and desires in our lives. Nothing got that across to me more strikingly than driving a mid-50s MG-TD, property of one of the dealer owners I worked for. At freeway speed, which in the case of this poor thing was about 55mph, the engine was screaming at close to 5500 rpm, sounding like it wanted to self-destruct, and every time a truck went by, the feeling was essentially a side-to-side, rowboat-in-a-storm pitching. EEK. A mid-70s Corvette with a 454 cubic inch engine was a similar experience; it was almost impossible to keep it reined under 80mph, and the steering had a "dead spot" in the very middle of its travel that made me contemplate the state of its front-end components until I drove a similar 1982 model, that gave the same feel. None the less, your mind is still going, "that's it, I'm dead!"
And, ultimately, among cars, and all other things, life matters. Nothing made that clearer to me than being probably hours away from dying after ignoring what turned out to be a ruptured appendix for 10 days or so. So, perhaps someday, when my daughters are grown, and comfortably well-off, by then I hope to be, also, I will go out to my garage, perhaps even take a MIG welder in hand, beat some aluminum for a body, and express my ultimate self, however that comes out.