Saturday, January 27, 2007

Chronologifragilisticexpealidocious

While winter winds blow snowy through the dawning of the year (it's January - it counts), a young(ish) procrastinator's fancy turns to matters calendrical. As in the careful selection of a piece of wall furniture that illuminates the furthest reaches of the soul; that encompasses the shy hopes and dreams of the coming year. Or at least doesn't bring on allergic reactions to the calendar's subject matter by mid-July when the only alternative is the dreaded leatherette-and-gilt corporate promotional calendar:

Monthly Data Storage Solutions! - featuring Mr. November's technician coyly peeking out from behind a server, or perhaps discreetly concealing his manly attributes behind an extra-large memory stick?

After all, it's not every year that a person gets a copy of Dieux du Stade, «Un jour de match», or can stumble upon a tiny shop in the backstreets of Venice and pick up a few discount copies of Seminarian of the Month.

The variety is endless. The decision, vital. This year, I've opted for "Antique Maps" thereby cunningly alluding to my fondness for antique maps. Also vellum.

But how to choose when there are so many?

Tropical Islands.
Half-Naked Air-Brushed Women.
Half-Naked Air-Brushed Women on Tropical Islands.
Half-Naked Air-Brushed Women In Waters Near Tropical Islands
Half-Naked Air-Brushed Women In Temperate Oceans.
Completely Naked with Strategically Hair-Brushed Women.
Cartoons.
Great Art.
Bad Art.
Scary Art.
For the Love of Shih Tsus.
Many, many, many Animals. Some uglier than others.
Many, many, many Famous People. Ditto.
Hot Buns.
Hot Cross Buns.
Hot Mildly Annoyed Buns.
A Very Tiny Paper Aeroplane A Day.
Staplers of the World!
(Could this be the most desperate exclamation mark ever?)
Beer.
More Beer.
Houses.
Doors.
Windows.
Houses Without Doors Or Windows.
(Or houses, for that matter)
Castles. (Some of these were once houses)
Prague.
Foggy Prague.
Luminous Glittery Technicolour Sunsets of Prague
(Some editing and castles).

But the calendar that really says it all for this year? The calendar that I shall regret passing over in times to come? The calendar that speaks to generations and gives deeper meaning to the modern obsession with carving the banana of time into ever-more-precise slices and then mooshing it up with a fork and eating it on toast with butter and brown sugar (yum)?

Fruit. In Motion.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Reminds me the Sledgehammer video.. any chance of posting a picture?

Kate said...

No link for the fruits? The one link you did provide led me to this picture of a rugby ball:
http://tinyurl.com/2oaq5d

I'm going to be goggling and laughing and leering for a while, I think.

I vote for hot cross bunnies calendar ("what do you get when you pour hot water down a rabbit hole?")

Anonymous said...

I am oddly comforted by the knowledge that even though you are halfway around the world from where I sit, you apparently have exactly the same calendar selection. The only difference is that here we also have a large variety of tacky calendars with various new-agey themes as well.

Esther said...

I like the Despair, Inc. calendars... they really put things in perspective. And there's even a page for procrastinators:

Procrastination: Hard work often pays off over time, but laziness always pays off now.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/posters/8aec/

Bob & Muffintop said...

LOL- I love calendars. This year is Alphonse Mucha. Although the hot cross bunnies sounds funny too.

Anonymous said...

You've just described my month. I still don't have a calendar for 2007. I go through this each and every year: trolling websites and bookstores and stores devoted to calendars.

I can never find the one. The one I won't mind looking at for a full year. The one that says a little something about my personality that I'm not embarassed to let friends and acquaintances see. The one that combines the perfect pictures with the perfect size for the space where it needs to hang.

Consequently, sometime around Groundhogs Day each year I end up purchasing the last calendar on the rack at the only store that still has one. It inevitably features 365 days of hairless kittens or has the fold out, extra large (bonus!) picture of Bon Jovi attached to the month of June.

I wonder what my friends and acquaintances think when they see each year's selection?

The Richard said...

For shame, I do actually have the Dieux du Stade on my (bedroom) wall and have for some years. This year is the most explicit and (almost bizarre considering they're all supposedly straight) homoerotic ever.

Hurrah!

EvilAuntiePeril said...

Mel and kate r, hello. Alas, t'interweb appears to have a glaring, fruit-in-motion-shaped hole, and I can find no pictures or links. I'll try to sort something out over the weekend. And thank you for the lovely link, kate.

sallyacious, I'm not sure, but perhaps the czechs drink too much beer for the new age? In that vein, there's only the hare krishna bakery, and they don't do calendars.

Hi esther, thanks for the recommendation & quote, which just suits my life right now.

bookwormom, thanks so much for bringing up Mucha and upping the czech quotient of the post. nice pictures too.

fiveandfour, *snicker* Bon Jovi. Never have I plummeted to those depths of calendar desperation. *whistlesinnocently* Nor the one where Celine Dion poses with babies dressed up like ickle baby animals.

rpc, the fact that it's the French National Rugby team who feature makes me grin all the wider about this. I think the "...And Friends" bit helps, too. And lovely wall-candy.