MAGNEAT-O!

ALTERNATE TITLE: RIBBON CANDY

There's no way to say it but to say it: while driving, every time I find myself following or passing a car with a magnetic ribbon or ribbons adorning its metal end, I'm struck by an odd combination of emotions-- a wave of mild derision directed at the other vehicle's driver coupled with a shot of loathing directed at myself. I'll explain.

For eight years I generally commuted to and from the office via the 68B, and on most days I'd spend a ride one or both ways talking with friends I'd met largely as a result of those bus rides. Tara and I met several years ago and discovered that we had a lot of the same interests-- film, pop culture and nostalgia for the things of our youth. She's hilarious, too. She works in marketing.

Talking on the bus one day, we realized that we had approximately the same amount of contempt for the magnetic ribbon fad. It's not primarily a politically-motivated matter (though there was some of that, in varying degrees, for each of us) as much as it was rhetorically-motivated. What sort of statement is made about something by attaching something to your car? Nothing coherent or useful. A bumper sticker, at least, has some semblance of a message through words and phrases. A bumper sticker's the Declaration of Independence in comparison to a magnetic ribbon. With its pretty color and refined script and its membership in the Signa Phi Nothing fraternity, ribbons are anathema to any semblance of discourse, and in an age when commentators across the ideological spectrum lament our national ability to say well-reasoned things about the world at large, the last thing we need is the reduction of something so complex to such trite terms.

I don't know exactly when the magnet ribbon craze blew up-- last fall, maybe, or the end of last summer-- but it couldn't possibly have followed a more absurd path to ubiquity. The original yellow magnetic ribbons, with their ties to the yellow ribbons of the '90-'91 Gulf War and hearkening back to the practice and song popularized during World War II, at least had some preceding reference point-- as ribbons. Over the course of the succeeding months to the present day, I've seen the yellow, camouflage and red, white and blue ones devoted to the military and war effort, black ones devoted to POW/MIA, pink ones for breast cancer, purple ones for Down's Syndrome, dalmation-spotted ones for spay/neuter. Uterine cancer. Child abuse. Cystic Fibrosis. Illiteracy. Several I've forgotten and should have written down.

Every malady's got a ribbon, and every ribbon's got a malady.

With so many deserving things to support and memorialize, how can any one person or any one car adequately address them all? Clearly, if you're going to show your sympathy for a significant number of these causes and diseases, you'll need a large automotive ass to display all that solidarity. It is likely that nothing less than a sport utility vehicle will suffice, 'cause Blazer got back.

Magnetic ribbons took a final surreal step locally when an entrepreneur figured out that the yellow of the ribbons was a rough match with the yellow that the Steelers and Pirates wear. A simple change to the artwork to make one of the ribbon ends black and the addition of generic "GO PITTSBURGH" script transformed what was a solemn, yet cheesy reminder of the war effort into a solemn, yet cheesy reminder that we'd like to win that fifth Super Bowl. You won't be surprised to hear that version sold like hotcakes. Maybe that was a clue that any effort to counterpunch the magnetic ribbon message would have fallen short. When we've reached a point where we openly use the same rhetorical devices and precise symbolic language for military support and sports team support, what chance is there of mockery actually getting through?

Still, and while I realize that I'm breaking no new ground in criticizing jingo kitsch (Aside: I have to say I really wasn't satisfied with the death given to Jingo Kitsch in that Star Wars movie. Or am I thinking of Kitsch Jingo?), back in midwinter Tara and I were pretty surprised there hadn't been a more widespread mocking response to ribbon fever. Particularly in light of the proliferation of responses to various bumper sticker and car ornament fads, and the ridiculous cheapness of producing these things, there really should have been an available option for magnetimockery. One doubtlessly cold January day, Tara and I were sitting on the bus, wondering aloud why this was the case. After a pause, one of us turned to the other. I don't remember which of us it was, and I don't know whether a comic book illustrator would have depicted the moment as *light bulb illuminates above head* or *dollar signs where eyes should be*. What I do recall is that over the course of a bus ride, a lunch and a couple of dozen e-mails exchanged, we mapped out a pretty great path toward starting an ironic magentic ribbon business.

Tara's the design and marketing whiz, of course, and she quickly gleaned what sort of startup costs we'd encounter to buy the art software and get them printed. She looked into the e-commerce angle and the website setup. We brainstormed some design concepts. We had two fantastic business names (see top of post). We were pretty fond of one ribbon that might be multi-colored and announce, comprehensively, "I REMEMBER EVERYTHING." Would that be read ironically, or would some ribbon people unwittingly see it as an opportunity to show broad sympathy? Another design would look suspiciously like the genuine article, but upon closer reading, it would say "BUY A CLUE, NOT A RIBBON." Other versions might read "THIS MAGNET SHOWS I CARE" or "UNITE EVERYTHING" or "HERE'S MY EXCUSE TO NOT DO ANYTHING." They practically write themselves.

My part of the startup labor was to come up with a business plan and to think about ways to market them. Then we'd refine our designs, tighten up the text and crank them out. But then I had this important arbitration that tied me up the latter half of January and early February. (Or so I told myself) And then right after that I had to start packing so that we'd be ready for our late-February move. (Or so I told myself) Days and weeks pass and then we moved, which meant no more incidental commuting with Tara, and it became that much easier to procrastinate. It takes several weeks to unpack and get remotely settled-in. (Or so I told myself) Then you realize that it's April and some things have a definite sell-by date, ironic magnetic ribbons being one of them. And maybe we never would have had the time to do it right with our day jobs, and maybe it's for the best that we didn't spend a couple of thousand dollars on this just to get stuck with boxes full of magnets. But, man, wouldn't I like to know whether it would have worked? Wouldn't I love to see the What-If Issue devoted to that fledgling business?

So when a month or so ago I pulled behind a hipster's car and saw a series of puke-colored magnetic ribbons proclaiming, e.g., that he "SUPPORT(S) ROCK AND ROLL" and he "SUPPORT(S) PARTYING," among other things, all I could do was seethe.

When I started this thing, my friend Seema asked whether I really considered myself to be a wastrel. No, not really. Maybe sometimes. Like now. Sorry, Tara.