Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor’s Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with a common-law wife, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.
Normally, the sign for a driving school isn’t the sort of thing that haunts your mind, drawing you deeper and deeper into its depths, trying to puzzle out a narrative from its teasingly specific set of clues. A muffler shop, maybe, but not a driving school.
Except this one, on Venice Blvd. in Los Angeles. I’m not sure of the name, or really anything about the driving school, except that they have a wonderfully bizzare mural:
So let’s look at what we have here: two figures in a car that resembles a Goggomobil Dart, license plate reading “K.D.S.”, which I think must stand for Ksomething Driving School. The passenger, based on his careful rendering, is likely the owner of the school, and is pointing a solid-looking hand forward. The other hand clutches a burning torch, the property of Lady Liberty, taking time off from her wretched refuse welcoming duties to come down to LA and learn how to drive. The pair of Asian entrepeneur and colossal bronze woman are speeding down on what appears to be a giant French flag that curves in from beyond the horizon. The beach is to one side, both Hollywood and the World Trade Center (?) recede behind them, and on the ochre highway next to them, Uncle Sam waves a hapless wave from a convertible, vainly trying to keep up. The treatment of the car’s headlights also suggest a possible mechanical Sentience.
Hot damn. That’s a mural.