1 Little Otsu Presents a Book to Help You Plan and Organize Your Life for the Next 18 Months Starting Now! or Later or Whenever You Want. By Chris Duncan
2006 Calendar Roundup
Organize your life with these fabulous and functional calendars and planners
By Caralyn Green
Published: January 4th, 2006 | 12:49pm
When a single day in the life includes two 15-page papers, a meeting with your advisor, an eight-hour shift pushing lattes, band practice at 11, and laundry that you’ve been meaning to get to for, oh, the past month, your calendar had better be good. A functional and stylish calendar is a must for anyone whose life is as fabulously frantic and over-scheduled as yours, so Venus did the work and tracked down those that’ll help you organize your day, week, month, and year with clarity, beauty, and humor.
The Ditty Bops Bicycle Bikini Calendar
We all know Venus readers love the Ditty Bops – you voted the vaudevillesque folk-pop duo as your number 3 “best band” in the 2005 readers’ poll – tied with Tegan and Sara, that is. So if you’re sick of waiting for a follow-up to the swinging band’s 2004 debut, you finally have something to tide you over in the form of the Ditty Bops Bicycle Bikini Calendar (don’t worry, a new album is promised for this spring). The 12-month, 11-by-11 inch wall calendar features colorful, kitschy photos of the bicycle-lovin’, bikini-clad Abby DeWald and Amanda Barrett, who play guitar and mandolin, respectively. “We wanted to make a calendar to celebrate bicycles and inspire folks to ride,” says Amanda, who got hooked to cycling through Abby. “We also wanted to poke fun at tits-and-ass hot rod calendars.” The calendar, photographed all in one day by the Bops’ friend Rick Whitmore, features equally stunning and hilarious photos of the ladies bonding with their bikes – in bat-shaped pasties and a witch hat for October, under the sea as mermaids for June, in white marabou and reindeer antlers for December, and my personal favorite: chugging beer and wolfing down burgers on the stationary bike for August. With all the (ironic) flesh, I wondered how folks have been reacting to the Bicycle Bikini Calendar. “Some bike shops have started carrying the calendar, which is really cool, [but] others have been too afraid that it will offend their customers with the bikinis and all. That cracks me up. I was almost flattered that it would be considered objectionable,” says Amanda, who promises the Ditty Bops are already working on ideas for a 2007 calendar. “But for now, it’s all about bikes and bikinis.”
Find it: At thedittybops.com.
JD’s Lesbian Utopia
After the awesome success of 2003’s JD’s Lesbian Calendar, my favorite butch electro-popster is back with JD’s Lesbian Utopia. In the summer of 2005, Le Tigre’s JD Samson road-tripped across southern America in an RV with a posse of lez pals, stopping at GLBT campgrounds along the way from New York City to Los Angeles. The 10-day backwoods tour resulted in some 2000 photos, 26 hours of video tape, an installation and photography exhibit, and this, the photo travelogue wall calendar that’s packed with Cass Bird’s luminous photos of JD being the stud she is. There’s also tons of intelligent and comical commentary that touches on everything from Scrabble to gender socialization, from Hurricane Katrina to making your own utopia.
Find it: Available on Le Tigre’s Web store at letigreworld.com.
Little Otsu Presents a Book to Help You Plan and Organize Your Life for the Next 18 Months Starting Now! or Later or Whenever You Want. By Chris Duncan
Quite a long title for such a succinct, tightly organized dayplanner. Basically, this is an extremely open-ended 18-month dayplanner that is way efficient, nice on to look at, and at a super-slim, spiral-bound 8ish-by-6.5 inches, it will fit easily into your tote bag or even that little clutch you like to take to shows. Seriously – at not even half an inch thick, this dayplanner packs a whole lot of organization into an exceptionally practical size. It works like this: you fill in the dates on each page’s empty template, so your year can start whenever you need it to. There’s also a page for your name, phone and e-mail address, a page for your key info (such as doctor, dentist, vet and auto), two pages for “important dates”, two pages for addresses, and quite possibly the coolest part of the calendar – two pages for you to fill in lists headlined “see,” “hear,” “read,” “want,” “give” and “need.” Brilliant. Then there’s the aesthetics. Chris Duncan’s delicate birds and bold geometric shapes are so vibrant I had no idea they were printed in soy-based ink on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. So, practical, pretty and good for the environment? Sweet.
Find it: At buyolympia.com, or at veganmart.com.
The Next 1000 Years: 2006 Calendar by Nikki McClure
Ever-popular Olympia, Washington-based artist, designer, and Kill Rock Stars recording artist Nikki McClure is back with yet another striking wall calendar, made – like the majority of her art – with paper and an x-acto knife. This year’s calendar seems majorly influenced by motherhood – lots of images and words about living life to best ensure our planet’s and our children’s futures and lots of depictions of family and nature, in shades of neutrals and blues and greens… January is titled “Tend,” February is “Commune,” October is “Conserve.” August’s baby-centric “Surrender” design is so subtly tender it almost makes me teary. The calendar (printed with soy ink on acid-free, recycled paper) is visually stunning, and functions much better as a piece of inspiring wall-art than as a means to organize your daily activities, as each day is represented by a free-floating number, rather than as a blank grid box inviting wearying to-do lists.
Find it: The calendar is sold out (wow!) at buyolympia.com, but the ever-accommodating site says they’re working on getting more, and if you’re interested in being informed when the new calendars come in, go ahead and e-mail them. If you can’t wait, veganmart.com seems to still be in stock.
Issue #24
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