We encountered this old style pay-and-park machine opposite a gallery in, appropriately enough, Old Town Pasadena.

No tickets/receipts issued.

Just a uniformed man armed with a scanner who shows up once or twice a day in a car and opens the box to see if you’ve stuffed 5 x one dollar bills into the slot that matches the number on your parking bay.

The thingy on the length of braided picture wire is used for poking the folded dollar bills thru’ the slot.

Plus you have to fold each dollar bill three times along its length to make it narrow enough to pass through the slot entry.

Discover the difference indeed!  Hereafter to be knows as origami parking…

Michael Thomas

Betsy Dorfman

FINE ART SHIPPING is currently accepting applications for the position of Customer Service Representative. In addition to the normal palette of office and computer skills, the job requires the following more specialized abilities:

 ++ Estimate the packed dimensions of objects contained in email attachments that can’t be opened

++ Return urgent phone calls left by gallery assistants named Kristin who forget at the end of their message to leave their gallery name or phone number

++ Determine precise street addresses based on zip codes and the nearest Starbucks location

++ Overbook by mistake and then outperform on purpose, especially on Fridays

++ Accurately translate two dimensions into three

++ Determine the weights of large sculptures made in Brazil from exotic equatorial woods, including the pests contained therein

++ Increase the cubic volume capacity of our trucks at will, based on client demand

++ Create a spreadsheet for finding artist studios in unmarked buildings with no doorbells

++ Construct a “taxes and duties” computation game of chance

++ Explain our customers’ all risk fine arts insurance coverage in a tweet

++ Turn five-part carbonless paper bills of lading into chardonnay

If this sounds like your cup of tea please give me a call to schedule an appointment at my earliest convenience.

Betsy Dorfman