Yet another year where the idea occurred to me months in advance, but it didn't seem right at the time. Nothing like a deadline to make a bad idea into an acceptable one. I played with a few different jeers: "You Miserable Vomitous Mass" and "You Wharthog-Faced Buffoon", two of my favorites from "The Princess Bride" (made all the more poignant with the recent passing of Rob Reiner); "Your Mother Was a Hamster and Your Father Smelt of Elderberries" and "You Empty-Headed Animal Food Trough Wiper" from Monty Python; and the quote I settled on in the image above. I really wanted to use one from The Princess Bride, but in an attempt to make the rude jeer as palatable as possible for a postcard you receive by mail, I went with the Empire quote.
Early last year, I made a stop-motion video with the same Trader Joe's alphabet cookies for a friend who turned 50. Had I not made that video, I'm not sure this idea would have occurred to me, which just goes to show: action breeds ideas? Motion is lotion? Play reveals purpose?
Also worth noting: this is my 25th card! This project has been going on since 1997 which (counts on fingers) means it has been 30 years since I began the tradition. The reason why it hasn't been 30 cards is because I skipped a few years (2011, 2012, 2015, 2016, 2019), made two cards one year (one tamer than the other - different friends received different cards according to their perceived tolerance level) and in 2021 to commemorate a 20-card run, I sent a pack of the 20 reprinted cards to everyone and didn't make a new card that year.
If there's a lesson here, it is twofold: 1) a recurring deadline is a good thing (for me) and 2) there is beauty in constraints. Maybe beauty is the wrong word. Maybe it is more "constraints breed creativity." Without the artificial constraints (must rhyme with Happy New Year, can't repeat words), I'm certain I would never have made these images nor combined these elements.
I'm not sure I have 25 more of these in me, but I probably have 5. Here's to 30!