Dick

Timing is Everything

This miniature Richard Nixon Second Presidential Inauguration plaque (1973) was issued shortly before he resigned. As a result, it’s rare, but one of those rarities that might go untouched and unwanted for years on the shelf of a vintage shop in Austin, Texas.

It remained unwanted until a man who remembered (yawn) Watergate from headlines and Doonesbury comic strips during his elementary school tenure happened by. This same boy’s grandfather carried a picture of himself with Nixon on the golf course. He showed it to the boy in the summer of ’73. It was a Polaroid, taken by a Secret Service agent.

Repetition is Everything

Who knew Nixon’s habits would be magnified in future presidencies?

Woodward and Bernstein, who were in contact with Dick’s Deep Throat and blew the scandal wide open, published a 40-year retrospective of the Nixon years in the Washington Post, June 8, 2012. They detailed Nixon’s 5 wars.

1. The war against the antiwar movement
2. The war on the news media
3. The war against the Democrats
4. The war on justice
5. The war on history

See Woodward and Bernstein: 40 years after Watergate, Nixon was far worse than we thought.

You’re invited to consider how these wars may be alive and well in the current administration.

Presentation is Everything

This fine commemorative is mounted to a yellow polka-dotted blood-orange MDF base with a single nail driven directly through into the wall. Tricky Dick’s golden visage obscures the majority of the underlying embossed paper and appears parallel to the base. This is accomplished by a hidden miniature Sony cassette tape.

That’s right, totally nailed because of secret tapes.

Base: Acrylic on MDF with embossed paper created as a sample for a mixed media class by unwitting collaborator Margaret Craig.