Caganers

I am not a huge fan of the holidays. Particularly Catholic ones. In fact, due to my upbringing, the latter bring up a mild version of PTSD. Particularly, as I mentioned here before, those in Florida where you run into elderly but aggressively "friendly" Tea Party zealots who greet you at Target or Wal-Mart with a barrage of "MERRY CHRISTMAS" in response to the liberal ecumenical neutral milquetoast p.c. "happy holidays." (which however, may be of offense to atheists or agnostics such as myself)

My earlier post on Christmas in the Bible Belt here:
http://petitemaoiste.blogspot.com/2008/12/merry-christmas.html

There is one holiday custom that is making me reconsider going back to observing the tradition of displaying figurines depicting the scene at the manger with the Holy Family, Three Kings, animals etc. One of my grandfather's sisters (borderline Opus Dei but that is neither here nor there) is very artistic and used to organize a massive creche in her garage in Florida, with the mountainous Holy Land setting made of some kind of cardboard, spray paint, glitter etc. lights, and ceramic figures made by her. The gringos driving past would stop in astonishment (well except for the Italians I guess). In Catalonia, they populate the traditional scene of Christ after his birth with little figures called caganers or shitters to use the vernacular. The best part is that these crappers are usually just local peasants or whatever but at some point they began to make them in the guise of the rich and famous in a typically Spanish irreverent/politically incorrect/subversive/blasphemous manner. Love!

See a little summary in English here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/christmas/8142970/Caganers-figurines-of-defecating-world-leaders-in-Catalan-nativity-scenes.html

Humping USB Dog

HUMPING USB DOG

Thanks to one of the fabulous twitter people I follow, I found this magical product, the Humping USB Dog.

This is how you can order one, too. And you know you want one!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/9c89/

Down Boy!

Harley and Duke are naughty doggies. They won't eat out of their food bowls; they track mud all over the place; they are constantly burying our pens; and they have a peculiar naughtiness whenever they spy a free USB port. They...well...they sort of, kind of, um... "go to town," if you will. And they won't stop until you um...separate them from the source of their affections.

Why are they like this? We have no idea. It doesn't serve any purpose, but it's what they do. They are insatiable. And that's all we really have to say. Harley is brown and Duke is black, and you can take your pick. Oh, and don't worry - if the kids ask what the doggie is doing to your computer, just say, "He's trying to jump over the computer, but he got a little stuck," or "The computer is giving him a piggyback ride." Either will suffice.

Each dog is about 2.25" tall and requires USB power to get turned on. Sorry, we had to.

First Lady Collectible Doll

Thanks to the fabulous JEZEBEL website, I learned about a must-have addition to anyone's political propaganda tchotchke collection, the First Lady doll from Danbury Mint.

http://www.danburymint.com/collectibles/prod/Michelle-Obama-Inaugural-Doll_12568.aspx?tag=D1&manuallinktypeid=2&source=WG03&cm_mmc=google-_-collectibles-_-branded-_-michelle+obama+sitelink

AbEx Stamps

I just ordered my set of AbEx stamps from the US Postal Service. We need to support any instance of public support for arts!! When I lived in Spain, I was astounded at the everyday relevance of museums and fine art. Here, we would never see a report on a National Gallery exhibition on the Evening News with Brian WIlliams but in Spain it is routine to see segments about Prado or other museum shows. There you also have programs featuring nerdy art historians sitting around tables talking about art, in fact, I was featured in one! (as close to my fantasy of being a TV celeb as I ever got, I made the most of the cosmetic technician who was available to powder our shiny noses between takes, who knew those lights are so hot!).

Metrocard Propaganda

Obama Cult of Personality Part ?????

image via Gawker and via Mediabistro

The King

Kehinde Wiley Michael Jackson

The fabulous artist Kehinde Wiley, known for his portraits of African and African-descent men that cite canonical art historical images, has truly outdone himself now: here is his posthumous portrait of Michael Jackson. The blog post below gives interesting information, as does the Art Basel edition of The Art Newspaper, link also below. From watching the Martin Bashir documentary, I learned that Jackson was quite interested in art history, particularly Renaissance, Baroque, and 19th Century Realist art, so it did not surprise me to read that both artists had discussed pictorial precedents for this masterpiece of 21st century royal portraiture. I often wonder why royalty doesn't avail themselves of great painters, for example the Spanish Royal family has few portraits on canvas.

The only good ones are by Hernan Cortes (yes, his real name) and there was a to-die-for campy society painter called Ricardo Macarron who depicted the family in a manner that I can only describe as painted as if your grandma's Coty powder puff had been dipped in oil and laid on in a thick impasto. Of course, we have photography and my favorite purveyor of official royal imagery: HOLA! which has its own section on this blog. (this will be a subject of an article if and when I get tenure and can "go wild" with my art history). Queen Elizabeth did have Lucien Freud paint her, so we can give them props for that brave act.

Ricardo Macarron King Juan Carlos I of Spain

Lucien Freud Queen Elizabeth II

Blog Post on painting:

http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/art_basel_design_miami/spotted_at_art_basel_miami_michael_jackson_on_horseback_144826.asp

Art Newspaper link:
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/The-work-the-King-of-Pop-commissioned-but-never-saw/19815

60th Anniversary of the PRC - Oct. 1, 2009

This is a fantastic article from The New York Times:


October 1, 2009
Mao: The Great Helmsman of Kitsch?

By EMILY RAUHALA
HONG KONG — If you want to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China on Thursday, look no further than zazzle.com, an American Web site that specializes in custom-made gifts. There, for $18.95, you can buy a white T-shirt emblazoned with a portrait of Mao Zedong and the words “Chairman Mao is my homeboy.”

The shirt is sold in 62 varieties, including an infant-size bodysuit in organic cotton for $22.95. If that does not please you, there is a mouse pad ($10.95) or a Chairman Meow mug ($14.95).

Mao memorabilia are a big business and the 60th birthday of the People’s Republic is expected to give it a further lift. While no one keeps track of how much Mao material is sold annually, vendors and dealers report a recent uptick in interest. The Chinese state media predicted this summer that there would be a spike in sales. In Hunan, Mao’s home province, officials recently announced new regulations to ensure that factories that produce souvenirs with his likeness maintained quality as they met demand.

“He is more popular than ever,” said John Li, who sells Mao memorabilia from a small shop in Hong Kong. “The chairman is like Giorgio Armani.”

Mao, who led the Communists to victory in the Chinese Civil War, remains a deeply divisive figure. He is praised for helping China throw off foreign powers and despised for ill-conceived policies that left tens of millions of Chinese dead. There are many who find the idea of Mao kitsch offensive.

Yet it is this ambivalence about Mao’s life and legacy that, in some ways, makes him marketable — the Great Helmsman, as he was called, means something different to everyone, so he appeals to many people, in different ways.

According to Jennifer Hubbert, an anthropologist at Lewis & Clark College, in Oregon, Mao badges were first created in the late 1930s, or early 1940s to celebrate revolutionary victories and recognize service to the socialist cause.

During the Cultural Revolution, in the 1960s and 1970s, Mao iconography was produced by the state as part of efforts to personalize political culture. People in China used the badges to signify their zeal for the cause. Some went so far as to pin them directly to their skin.

As the personality cult widened, production peaked. Badges were distributed by work units, given as prizes or traded. Ceramic statues were exported to ethnic Chinese communities overseas and slowly made their way around the world.

When Mao died in 1976, there were literally billions of badges — as well as books, posters and other Mao-related knickknacks — in existence. As China adopted market overhauls and came to grips with the grimmer parts of the Mao legacy, most of these relics disappeared, though some were kept.

It was not until the 1990s that the market for all things Mao re-emerged. Spurred by the Chinese consumer revolution and the 100th anniversary of his birth, in 1893, a new strain of “Mao fever” spread. College students — the children of the Red Guard generation — began wearing Mao badges as a comment on China’s slide from socialist ideals. The communist revolutionary became a consumer-driven fad.

Recognizing Mao’s moneymaking potential, dealers set up shop in major Chinese markets. In the cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou, rows of factory workers started turning out a new generation of Mao memorabilia — laptop cooling pads, musical refrigerator magnets and key chains — as communist trinkets became a must-have for tourists.

But there are still originals to be found. Victoria Edison, for instance, runs 1930shanghai.com, a California-based online shop that specializes in selling authentic pieces to a predominantly American and European clientele.

“There are not a lot of Chinese people, especially people over 40, who are interested in this stuff,” said Ms. Edison, whose parents and grandparents survived the Cultural Revolution. “For them, it is a sore reminder of two lost generations.”

But for Ms. Edison, who left China as a young woman, collecting Mao memorabilia is — for better or for worse — a link to the past. “It is all part of understanding a lost world, rediscovering something that is gone,” she said.


Copyright 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/01/world/asia/01iht-mao.html?ref=asia

Mariquita Perez Dolls

According to Wikipedia, the Mariquita Perez doll was produced in Spain from 1938-1976.

I don't believe I ever owned one of these sinister figures, but she is clearly the height of ideal Francoist girlhood. I guess she was a bit like the American Girl dolls now, but more of a Fascist Girl doll. Spanish readers, please enlighten me about this phenomenon, because I have heard of her, but I was a Nancy fan. ( For Nancy, see link below)

http://petitemaoiste.blogspot.com/2008/10/nancy-doll-my-childhood-style-icon.html

Above is my personal favorite, a Mariquita in Goyesque garb, to imitate a famous portrait of the Duchess of Alba.

Here she is taking her First Communion

There are more pictures of her in the blog below:

http://www.amavib.com/amavib/momentosmariquita_archivos/momentosmariquita.htm

When Worlds Collide -Venice Biennial Edition

During my recent trip to Venice for the opening of the Biennale, I couldn't help but notice the trashy tchotchkes on sale all over the city. As chic black-clad Eurotrash and artworld biennialistas jumped on and off of vaporettos, tottering in high heels, chatting on global cell phones, they did not seem to notice how their elite world of art intersected with mass marketed canonical art history. The iconic David, conflated with the cultural stereotype of the well-endowed, hypermasculine, predatory, womanizing Italian Casanova was peddled from carts selling shorts (and a few aprons, perhaps riffing on the popularity of Italian cuisine) including a telling detail of the sculpture.

Obama Cult of Personality Part ?????

This was posted by a CNN reporter on his Twitter feed and is the shirt that Anderson Cooper gave to Pres. Obama (who laughed) during their interview in Ghana a couple of nights ago. It matches a dress I had made from fabric I purchased on 125th Street. In fact, I rocked the dress last night, drawing friendly looks and even smiles from normally hardened New Yorkers on the G and L train! The dress was also a big hit at the Venice Biennial, when passing Eurotrash, wealthy biennialistas, and other artworld luminaries stopped to chat in several languages and took my picture. LoL

Zapatista Tchochkes

This is a post from a fantastic blog about material culture, museums, art, and anthropology called Material World. Since it has to do with my interest in Collecting Shlock, I add it here.

SOURCE: MATERIAL WORLD BLOG
Zapatista Tchochkes
Miriam Basilio, Assistant Prof. of Art History and Museum Studies, NYU

I recently visited San Cristobal de las Casas, in Chiapas, Mexico to take part in an academic workshop, and, although I had read and heard about the traffic in Zapatista souvenirs, knick-knacks, or tchotchkes there, was overwhelmed by their variety and number. The complex political motives that led to the Zapatista movement are not my subject here rather I am interested in the ways in which popular representations of this movement for self-determination circulate as objects for tourist consumption. What is our role as consumers? What does it mean to buy these objects? Just prior to my visit, the New York Times’ Frugal Traveler column published a piece promoting San Cristobal de las Casas as an ideal travel destination. Of course, this feeds this place into a cycle whereby those of us with relative wealth travel seeking this particular bargain, which then makes the place less inexpensive, more crowded, and less seemingly remote, and the new cheap and undiscovered place is…elsewhere.

One particular feature of this city, which the reporter underscored, is its proximity to a network of autonomous communities governed by the Zapatista movement. (For the account of a visit to one such community see: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/in-the-village-of-the-zapatistas/) That even a few years ago, the US State Department warned US citizens against going there lends the region a seductive hint of danger for some travelers. Other Americans, sympathetic to the Zapatista cause, travel there to see for themselves the revolutionary changes being made on behalf of the Mexican people. But most of us are not experts on the political situation there, and our role is more ambiguous. Are we seeking the thrill of the supposedly off the beaten track? Romanticizing revolution? Empathetically yet somewhat voyeuristically witnessing others’ struggles, only to safely return to our lives of privilege? How do we negotiate these at times intersecting positions?

As Americans in particular, and at a time when we are being urged to consume as our patriotic duty, we shop. Is it out of a desire to support the revolution in Chiapas, to help locals in one of the poorest areas in Mexico to make a living, regardless of where the proceeds end up, or, buying souvenirs motivated by the basic tourist drive to return home and say “Look, I was there.” Despite the New York Times reporter’s breathless account of his trip to view a Zapatista community (easily accessible and cheap public transport) and his detailed description of the group’s self-presentation and scripted tour of their community, I was shocked by the “Zapatista tourism” infrastructure that existed in San Cristobal. Large bus tours were advertised, and private taxis may be hired as well.

Seemingly hard to access, yet openly advertised, the prospect of visiting such communities was thus paradoxically tantalizingly possible, and mysteriously remote. Goods produced to publicly assert sympathy for the Zapatistas, however, were openly sold everywhere. Ubiquitous at the local market beside Santo Domingo church were T-shirts in myriad designs: black star logos, the EZLN initials, women with bandanas tied across their faces, hair worn in braids, with slogans calling for women’s dignity, others featured male freedom fighters, faces covered in ski masks. Male and female dolls made of yarn wore indigenous garb from the region, with the ski masks, and carried tiny cardboard rifles. Handmade revolutionary Barbies and Kens, they also are sold as Lilliputian key chains. Cotton handkerchiefs had slogans praising Subcomandante Marcos and his portrait all hand embroidered. Small change purses and pouches were similarly embellished. I purchased a tote bag large enough to carry my MacBook, featuring a female freedom fighter and the slogan: Las mujeres con la dignidad rebelde (Women with rebel dignity) for myself.

There were a few stores in town that advertised themselves as cooperatives that sold the goods for the benefit of Zapatista communities, so I tried to buy most of my gifts there. However, I also felt torn and bought a few things from local women at the market. The coop stores had the greatest variety of products, posters, postcards with photos of Zapatista communities, often featuring the beautiful murals painted on many of their walls and buildings, and locally produced textiles or coffee. I regret not asking the people selling these things at both places where they were made, did they also keep them in their homes, who else was buying them, what did they think about them, when did they start to sell these objects, and more. But someone should.

Posted by Haidy L Geismar on April 17, 2009 9:23 PM
| Permalink | Posted to Notes from the Field | Objects and visual analyses

El Vergatario

In the annals of Dictator Tchotchkes, nothing can equal Hugo Chavez's VERGATARIO the first cell phone produced wholly in the People's Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. As the article below indicates, Chavez's name for the product plays with a slang term for a penis. In the video below, the porcine demagogue shows off his spokesmodel talents, making none-too-subtle puns on size and width as he shows off the tacky little device. He has managed to perform an amazing feat, which is unseating the Glow-in-the-dark plastic busts of Mao as best/worst dictator produced chucheria.





Chavez launches $15 mobile phone with a name to make his mother blush
Venezuelan president predicts the Vergatario will be a bestseller worldwide
Rory Carroll in Caracas
guardian.co.uk, Monday 11 May 2009 17.15 BST
Article history

It is perhaps the world's cheapest mobile phone. It is the latest offering from Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution. And its name is derived from a slang word for penis. Behold the Vergatorio.

Venezuela's president launched the handset on his TV show with a Mother's Day call to his mum and predicted it would conquer all rivals. "This telephone will be the biggest seller not only in Venezuela but the world," he said. "Whoever doesn't have a Vergatario is nothing," he joked.

Priced just $15 (nearly £10), the phone has a camera, WAP internet access, FM radio and MP3 and MP4 players for music and videos. And it has that name.

Why the president chose it remains unclear, but he enunciates each syllable with a grin. Some laugh, others are affronted.

Verga is slang for penis and vergatario is a newly minted word which signifies excellent but retains connotations from its root.

The word verga, and variations of it, are associated with Venezuela's second city, Maracaibo. Residents are famous for swearing and using Spanish verbal constructions uncommon in the rest of Venezuela.

"It's gross. I can't believe they named it something so vulgar," said Leonor Diaz, 52, a cleaner. Others however consider the name playful and harmless.

The newspaper El Universal issued readers a challenge. "Say Vergatario in front of a mirror. Pronounce this obscenity syllable by syllable, slowly, and note the expression on your face."

Chavez, a decade in power, is a shrewd communicator who often uses salty expressions to mark himself out as a man of the people. He called George Bush a "pendejo", a term derived from pubic hair which can be translated as asshole or jerk.

A government subsidy which cut the retail price to a quarter of the manufacturing cost is likely to make the Vergatario an immediate hit. There is a waiting list for the first 10,000 units expected to be released this week.

Production this year has been set at 600,000, rising to 2m in 2011, when the government hopes to export the model to the Caribbean and then further afield.

Parts are imported from China and assembled in a factory in western Venezuela run by a new company, Vetelca, 85% owned by the Venezuelan state and 15% by the Chinese company ZTE.

The government, facing a financial crunch and labour unrest over tumbling oil revenues, said the investment would boost the country's "technological independence".

Chavez turned a segment of his weekly TV show into a promotion. "Has your Vergatorio arrived?" he asked his mother. "This is the first call I've made with my Vergatorio."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/11/chavez-venezuela-mobile-phone-vergatorio

Colonial Currency

I have been absent from here because of the mid-semester administrative crunch (see the Conference of Nerds and Keeping Cool posts), fall-0ut catching-up after my travels, and a Spring Break odyssey to a lovely far-away location for study and relaxation (less of the latter than the former) that culminated in a debilitating illness that I brought back as an unwelcome souvenir. The trip was so enlightening, inspiring, and fabulous that being sick for almost two weeks was worth it! And I did bring back gorgeous souvenirs including clothes, jewelry, textiles, and political propaganda tchochkes - (Zapatista Barbies - these deserve their own post, sometime) some of my favorite things. 

The US government has been issuing quarters commemorating the 50 states - my dad has a special case fitted out to display them -collect them all! But I never expected to have the US's forgotten or unknown (to most citizens) territories represented, including my birthplace, Puerto Rico. The NY Daily News article (link below) has a fabulous title: Puerto Rico Gets Some Change. I hope that the writer is being ironic, pointing to the fact that we never do get the change we need. Rather, we are mired in a constant colonial dilemma, where the US always wins: divide and conquer, so the political parties on the Island battle each other, while the country remains under US control. Change has not come, despite this being Obama's slogan. And "change" is equivalent to the aid from the US government, whose policies decimate the Island's economy. Many people I meet don't fully understand Puerto Rico's status vis-a-vis the US, even educated Latin Americans, and the circulation of this silly bit of demagogic coinage will only confuse the matter more. Still, I will try to get one, it will go nicely with my vintage colonial tchotchke collection (see my post under "Collecting Schlock) including salt and pepper shakers, ashtrays, and the fabulous tablecloth with the map of Puerto Rico including various stages of Spanish and then US military invasion and occupation of the island.

http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/2009/04/03/2009-04-03_puerto_rico_gets_some_change_us_mint_unv.html

Obama Cult of Personality 4: You know you must rock this

This is globalization, ladies and gentlemen. Barack Hussein Obama, half Kenyan, half US American man, by way of Hawaii, Indonesia, and Chicago, is the new President of the United States. Cut to 125th Street, where gentlemen from Senegal are selling Dutch wax cloth fabric (allegedly) fabricated in Mali, with a pattern depicting our new leader. Complete with US flags, "yes we can" slogans, and a lovely photograph of the photogenic President, several options for patterns are on view. A dress according to the shopkeeper imitating Michelle Obama's ball gown, is out front. (above) It adapted the Grecian style of the single-strapped gown designed by Taiwanese New York-based Jason Wu, to West African ladies' wear, critiquing or at least commenting on, the pattern of the original. The fabric was also incorporated into the Western t-shirt, as well as into an African man's shirt. Of course, I bought 3 yards and plan to rock my Western-style Barack Obama wax cloth dress this Summer.

Sometimes a cigar is....just a cigar?

Sometimes, when I look at certain products, I really understand that no one but a man could have invented them, even though my late 1980s-early 1990s generational academic training makes me break out in hives at the thought of any "given," "pre-ordained," "natural," "essential," "innate," qualities. Yes, un PC as it is, I am not sure that I can imagine a woman inventing the Wonder Boner.*



*And here is a big shout out to one of my most faithful readers, for sending me this hilarious made for TV ad. To all my fans out there, all three of you, thanks for sharing any items that fit in with my perverse sensibility, help me cope with academentia, and laugh at the fact that my life is sometimes a telenovela.

Obama Cult of Personality 3: Happy, Determined?

I have seen so many new Obama-related tchochtkes that I cannot begin to enumerate them all, soap on a rope, rings, watches, dildos (You can exclaim as you climax: yes he can, change has come!), you name it.





But the Chia Pet, that icon of 1970s sold on TV novelty gifts, never entered even my imagination as a possibility. Available on Amazon (see link below) for only $20, it comes in HAPPY and DETERMINED versions. 

I am not sure how I feel about the hair, however. The retro natural short Afro evoked by the freely-growing sprouts recalls the bigger hair of his youth, in contrast to the closely cropped style he rocks today. But somehow this makes me uneasy, because of the racialized characteristics of hair and its representations. Yet the hair lends itself to this type of growing sculpture more than the face, so it makes sense. Am I over-analyzing this? That is what I get paid to do! 

And anyway, I have spent years of my life obsessing on my own hair, first thanks to my female family members' fixation with its texture and how to "tame" it, what to "do" with it, then later years of arguing with people at beauty salons that did not "get" it. Thank goodness my current hairdresser does, she compares it to "a cross between Chinese hair and Black hair." Exactly. 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001PKU2OI?ie=UTF8&tag=buzz0f-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001PKU2OI

Obama Cult of Personality Part 3

Now, if you REALLY want to fuse yourself with our new Leader, you can go here -http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/ to transform one of your photos of yourself into one similar to Shepard Fairey's iconic portrait of President Obama.

Obama Cult of Personality Part 2

I love Shepard Fairey's iconic Obama image, but as I discussed in an earlier post, I wonder if he hasn't been looking at propaganda designed to promote sinister charismatic leaders, such as Mussolini, or Mao. 

The trope of leader as the head of the body politic is a classic of dictators' propaganda imagery, you see it in portraits of even lesser known strongmen like the subject of my obsession, jailer and persecuter of my family, Francisco Franco, below.

In his efforts to imitateMussolini, Franco had the benefit of a Fascist propaganda office in his territory, templates were created to quickly spray paint his portrait on the walls of newly-occupied towns and cities. These spray paint templates resemble the Fairey Obama icon quite a bit.  

Here is an image of Franco, and Mussolini, below

Above is a fascinating photomontage where the masses are the black shirt uniform clad torso and the ben-day dots indicating the mechanically reproduced nature of the image echo the visual metaphor of a multiplicity unified in one body. 

And of course, the masters of propaganda, the Maoists, had a way of fusing Mao with emblematic architecture, Tianamen Square, and the masses, just like Shepard Fairey places Obama within our national shrines of political power. 

I still cannot get over the genius of Fairey in playing visually with Obama's bi-racial background, making his face two colors, but also perhaps alluding to his middle of the road be all things to all people persona.

Inauguration Merch

One of my dear friends is in DC and has been describing the myriad T-shirt designs available on sale for the Inauguration. I requested the official Shepard Fairey "Obama with the Capitol behind him" image. However, now I am pondering what other tchotchkes I might buy to add to my political propaganda collection. I have many pins already: Obama's name in Hebrew, two versions of the Latinos for Obama, a Boricua for Obama, an Obama logo pin with the Puerto Rican flag instead of the Stars and Stripes, two of the Shepard Fairey from Philadelphia given to volunteers - one from the get out the vote weekend I participated in, with the word "Vote." 

But the thong below just opens up so many possibilities.....and it's a great way to vet (hypothetical) sex partners for political correctness. Nice. It also goes well with the Che Guevara thong that I commented upon in an earlier Collecting Schlock post.

I am fascinated by the Presidential Barbie doll. I almost got it for my little niece who is now old enough to ask for Barbie instead of Polly Pockets for Christmas. I ended up getting her the traditional White one with a crazy long blonde weave and she seems to like it, but since she was so into Obama that she asked random people to vote for him while running errands with her parents, it could have been a nice motivational feminist PC toy for her. Well, there is always her birthday. 

I might need to by the sneakers below. If only Andy Warhol were alive, not only would he paint a portrait of Obama, but he would probably design and wear these!


SOURCE:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28659874/?pg=1#TDY_ObamaMerchandise