Easter Eggs

From the Dave Barry blog, is a great example of American Tax dollars at work.  The White House 2007 State Easter Egg Collection. 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/easter/2007/eggsbystate/# is the link.  Since it is technically a day off for many of us to reflect on the crucifixion of Jesus and load up on as much chocolate as we can tolerate until we drop into a sugar-induced coma, (He would have wanted it that way, I know it) I’ve looked this site up and toured the offerings. 

All fifty states have submitted colored Easter Eggs, some highly decorated in the tradition of the Ukrainian psyanky with shell cutouts and examples of the highest decorative arts.  The American Egg Board is kindly managing the collection for the White House.  Awfully nice of them.  The level of craft is very high, with a few exceptions, and each submission is earnest and done with a pure heart.  For that, the craftspersons should be thanked for their time. 

Of the dozen or so images of each State Egg that I viewed, perhaps the most joyous is Rhode Island.  Imagine a David Lee Roth hairstyle, with a gilded proscenium, featuring a red rooster mounted in the niche to call to mind the Rhode Island Red rooster, the Official Poultry of Rhode Island. 

California presented a hinged egg in the Faberge style, featuring a miniature glittered redwood with what looks suspiciously like a spotted owl in one of the trees.  Illinois offered a stirring portrait of Abraham Lincoln rendered in beige, while Vermont offered a blue, beige and black tribal motif.  If your tribe is the LSD-Eating Ken Kesey tribe, this tribal coloration recalls the fondest days of hallucinating at the the aquarium store.

The same tribal motif holds true for Indiana, part Gwi’chan Coast Indian, interbred with an Amish quilt-maker, while swapping big hits off the bong.  Wyoming, home state of Shotgun Dick Cheney, offered something that was done on the bus ride to the While House with a blue Sharpie marker, some green crayon and a line drawing of a potato with skis.

New Jersey, the home state of Tony Soprano, offered a wonderfully illuminated Easter Egg of pumpkins and garden motifs, with an illustration of Tony shooting Big Pussy within the elaborately carved niche. 

Neighboring state New York, offered a gilt Lady Liberty emerging Botticelli-like from an egg covered in either real pearls and 24 karat gold leaf, or silver cake decorations (the ubiquitous ‘jimmies’) and gold cigarette foil burnished on by someone with hooks for hands and late stage Parkinson’s.

Louisiana presented a diorama of Emeril Lagasse, with miniature red fish, a Tabasco bottle and Zatarains Creole Seasoning, outlined with gold mountings and amber and turquoise stones.  I suspect the whole thing was funded by FEMA who overruled the original design of a family of nine living in a trailer in a muddy field.

Tennessee wins however, with a Faberge style egg, crowned and limned with gold and rhinestones, featuring a portrait of Elvis, circa 1965.  No Tennessee Walking Horses, or circular references to being the Volunteer State, just a glammed out Young Elvis.

We looked so you don’t have to.  Have a reasonable Easter.