Thursday, April 29, 2010

Is there no hope for this poor Cooperette?

I'm not gonna lie, or mince words. I listen to awesome music. I'm not the only one who thinks so. This is largely because, back when I was twelve, my favorite karate instructor played Hey Stoopid by Alice Cooper in the car on our way to a tournament. I was blown away by the song "Wind-up Toy." I asked for a copy of the tape and listened to it non-stop until one day my dad presented me with a brand new copy of the CD. I treasure this still to this day. I feel all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it. Prior to this, I had not heard rock music.I grew up in the 90s, when the airwaves were flooded with shiny pop music. Alice introduced me to the macabre and I have never looked back. After I saw my first concert (in a tiny club) I swore never to attend an arena concert. I loved the freedom of not being restricted to a seat. I lamented that this would mean I'd never get to see my beloved Alice Cooper live, but just yesterday I decided that I should go see him while I still have the chance. So I checked his site and... no Texas stops. How is that even possible? The nearest stops are in Kansas and Missouri next month. I'm willing to go that far to see him, but the person I would normally ask to accompany me has made it abundantly clear that she does not like Alice Cooper. So I am at a loss, what should I do?

Well, moving on to today's topic...
Today's topic is very special. It is the first day that I am showing a non-vintage collection. Collections rarely, if ever, start with intent. More often than not, one item is purchased or received and that is when you begin to pay attention to that type of object and the more you see, the more you want, and a collection is born. This is a collection that I never intended to start, it began very much by accident.

In 2005, I spent a little over half of my senior year of high school living in Japan as an exchange student. This marked not only my first trip out of the US, but also my first flight ever! I remember that during winter, Japan becomes dark very early--we're talking 5pm early and I often bought a Coke or Aquarius (if you don't know what this is, you're missing out!) while I waited for my bus after club ended. In the vending machines, you had the choice of 150ml can bottles, 500ml PET bottles and sometimes 450ml can bottles.

This is the medium size. I bought it from the machine across from my host school and I thought that it was cool the way that it has Coca-Cola in different languages. So, on a whim, I decided to keep it. I think that the can bottle is a little piece of genius. It keeps the beverage cold longer like a can and reseals like a bottle--best of both worlds!

Then, in 2008, I went to Italy with my Cottey class. We were only there for a week so my internal clock never switched over to Italy time. My friends and I always would get hungry and find that all of the restaurants  were already closed! Even at 7pm, everywhere except the little pizza place across from our hotel. I think we ate there for almost all of our meals in Rome! Our first lunch in Rome, when we ate there, I got this Coke can. I don't know what this movie is that they were advertising, but I found it bizarre/amusing enough to keep. It's very tall, and skinny.

This was the one that made me decide to actively collect foreign coke cans. I visited Japan for the second time in 2008 and, for the first time, found regular cans instead of can bottles. As you can imagine, I was pretty disappointed. But there was one thing that amused me enough to keep me from being too upset:
It has instructions on how to open it! How epic is that? Once this style of can becomes more widespread, I'm sure there will no longer be a need to have instructions on the cans. But at least I'll always have this to remember it by.

Unlike my other collections, I do not accept foreign coke cans as gifts from others. As you can see, I still remember exactly where I was when I purchased each can (the last came from a vending machine in between Shizuoka JR Station/Parche and my hotel, which were right next door to each other) and each has a memory. This makes this a very special collection for me.

No comments:

Post a Comment