I'm really disappointed with the new Arkansas quarter. I wasn't expecting much out of Arkansas anyway, but this is really a letdown. Look, you guys: Alabama put out a really decent -- if silly, see below -- coin, and Maine's design was inspired. But then Missouri gave us a terrible quarter that not only wasted space on the ultra-bland-and-meaningless slogan "Corps of Discovery," but also showed the 1804-1806 Lewis and Clark expedition rowing toward the Gateway Arch, which wasn't built until 1965. Anyway, Arkansas, we didn't need a home run out of you guys, just a good, solid effort to regain some momentum. And this is what we get -- rice stalks, a diamond, and a duck flying over a lake, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Bad state quarters mostly share the same fault: they cram too many of their precious state icons into a space measuring 0.8 square inches, resulting in cluttered compositions and barely identifiable images the size of Dick Cheney's conscience. Inexplicably, many designers of bad quarters get the odd urge to include the outline of their state as a design element. Look, Pennsylvania, I know perfectly well what your state looks like. Just because you got held back a grade doesn't mean the rest of us need a geography lesson every time we buy a gumball.

Good quarters, by contrast, eschew state outlines and concentrate on a single concept: The Charter Oak, the Wright Brothers' first flight, Washington crossing the Delaware, or a boy drawing sap from a maple tree. These are coherent designs that succeed through simplicity and allow for larger elements with clear details.

What's that? You're wondering what's so silly about the Alabama quarter? "I don't think it's silly at all, not one bit," you are saying. "That quarter has a beautiful portrait of the heroic Helen Keller, whose courage continues to inspire abled and disabled Americans alike to this very day. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. And quit picking your nose!"

First of all... this is my blog, and I'll pick my nose if I feel like it. Second, I'm not trying to make fun of Helen Keller. The designers of the Alabama quarter, in a well-intended stab at inclusiveness, put Helen Keller's name in both English and Braille on the reverse. The silly part is that the Braille dots are way, way too tiny to be read by touch, rendering them useless to actual blind people.

Okay, Michigan, you're up. Show us what you've got.

+posted by Lawrence @ 8/23/2003 11:04:00 PM