The Meaning of Fuzzy Dice

 

 

 

     George Orwell’s memorable essay “The Art of Donald McGill” proved to me that the most vulgar of visions repays sympathetic interpretation. 

 

     Americans identify with their cars.  For some it is a matter of wealth: to drive a Cadillac or a Lexus or a Tesla may be a sign of having succeeded.  Many a pickup truck driver never has need to haul anything heavier than a bit of machismo.  For some an electric vehicle demonstrates a commitment to sustainability, while a sports car suggests youth and élan to others.  VW vans and even Beetles bore such an insistent meaning in the late ‘sixties that drivers often saluted each other in passing. 

     I fancy, though, that one sees far fewer symbolic doodads on today’s cars.  Political bumper stickers, maybe, on some vehicles and product logos like STP on others, a few vestigial pine air fresheners poison or sweeten the air, but many decorations and accessories common in my childhood have become rare birds today.  Yet each represented a kind of defiant populist symbolic magic, generally signifying traditionally masculine traits, much like tattoos once did before they became sufficiently universal as to be meaningless. 

     Car ownership is now close to universal in America, but there was a time when possession of wheels was a distinguishing sign both of economic well-being and of a certain sense of youth and adventure.  Drivers wished to call attention to themselves.  The old klaxon horns with their loud and distinctive sound, served this purpose well.  Invented in the early twentieth century as a safety improvement over quieter squeeze bulbs, by the 1920s they had become standard on many American cars.  When, in the ‘thirties, less abrasive electric horns were substituted, the klaxon became a style choice, characteristic of hot rodders and teens with jalopies more broken down than souped up until its sound finally filtered down to 1950s elementary school students calling out ah-oo-gah in the schoolyard in an effort to seem mildly disruptive.  Their fathers may as teenagers have summoned a date from the street outside her house with a horn so satisfying in assertiveness that it was guaranteed to annoy her father.  Old rattletraps that ought by rights be hiding in a shed instead called attention to themselves viva voce, for irrepressible is the spirit of youth and many adolescent males have no hesitation at calling attention to themselves by whatever means may be available.

     The Brodie knob, a doorknob-shaped handle attached to the steering wheel, was perhaps of some utility in the days before power steering – indeed, it is still functional on semi-trailer trucks, earth-moving equipment, and tractors.   Brodie knobs were symbolic as well, and, like the klaxon, they have survived in ornamental usage.  Invented in the ‘thirties, the name derived from Steve Brodie, a practitioner of daredevil stunts like jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge who had no connection to automobiles, and its symbolic use today suggests a thrill-seeking driver.  The knob’s association with tempting fate lingers, as examples on sale now feature imagery such as dice, skulls, eight balls, and spiders as well as aggressively patriotic imagery such as the line “don’t tread on me.”  This accessory had a further significance.  Known sometimes as a “necker,” it allowed the driver to steer with one hand while enwrapping his date with another.  

     Likewise implying a risky and exhibitionist driver are the familiar amulet of the oversize fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.  The lineage of this fetish originated among WWII pilots and their crews whose odds of dying were greater than of surviving and who, not surprisingly, welcomed magic charms.  These aviators often hung dice above their instruments for luck or simply to acknowledge their helplessness before a capricious fate.  Upon the war’s end, some continued courting danger by racing and driving stunts.  They sometimes retained the dice that had served them during combat and, as their ornamental value was foregrounded, the dice grew in size, blossomed with bright colors, and, of all things, grew furry.  Whether a car were a hot rod or not, the dice conveyed a sense of dash and adventure washed with a vague sense of heroism.

     The practice of hanging a raccoon tail on the radio antenna clearly began with rural youth stopping and taking the ornament from an animal that had been hit by a car.  While raccoon was most common, a fox tail was more highly prized and a squirrel tail considered juvenile.  Before radio antennas were standard, such tails were sometimes hung from the radiator cap.  This decoration had the double value of seeming somewhat gross to susceptible sensibilities while appealing to an exceedingly archaic sense of the male driver’s self-image as a hunter, displaying a trophy he had killed, rather like the residents of Çatalhöyük had featured interior decoration with ox heads nine thousand years ago. 

     But even the bold young hunter may become a husband and father, proud less of risk-taking than of supporting a family, providing not just necessities but also such luxuries as leisure travel.  Among the goods sold at souvenir shops travelers might visit on long road trips in the past were cups and ash trays featuring the destination, pennants, and snow globes, but the most commonly offered merchandise was probably postcards and decals, each a simple boast that one had indeed made the trip, like a snapshot in front of the state capitol.  Electronic communication has brought obsolescence to the trade in postcards, but the tourism decals had faded even earlier.  One used sometimes to see a car with a back side window magnificently crowded with decals of the Statue of Liberty, Grand Canyon, Coit Tower, the Black Hills, and a variety of other scenes, testifying to the owner’s at least modest affluence and sophistication (though, like the other items considered here, such decals were decidedly vulgar and would seem out of place on expensive cars).  The decals were yet another way for working class people to assert the richness of their lives under the leadership of an indefatigable pater familias who could drive for hours over the nation’s meandering two-lane roads and the new superhighways.

     Since the accessories noted here, other trends have supervened.  “Gas, grass, or ass” bumper stickers appeared in the late sixties, truck testicles about twenty years later, followed closely by the representations of Bill Watterson’s Calvin pissing, unauthorized, of course, because the whole idea is to project a playfully transgressive outlaw sensibility.  The human mind is adept at symbolic manipulation.  Like all codes, the language of such symbolic accessories is always changing, and what seems emphatically “the lastest” tends always to become passé fastest.  The bird of paradise will continue its ever-effective old courtship dances, and the prairie dog will assume outlandish postures to impress potential mates, while every generation of people devises new and whimsical representations of its erotic boasts to accompany the old repertory of significant tones, tender glances, and posturing.  We humans have a weakness for art, and daily perform for each other, using a semiotic vocabulary in part inherited and in part devised.  For Americans the passenger car is a vehicle not only for transportation, but for self-expression as well.