Transatlantic Super Vote!

Ever since I joined SF0 a couple of months ago, The Villain has caught my attention. Very few people have embraced the concept of "you may be your character, but your character need not be you" so successfully. He is our cyberspace highwayman. And a dashing figure he cuts, too.

I think I speak on behalf of many of us when I say that his creativity and ingenuity reached new heights with his answer to "What is Advertising?" - He has had dozens of players waiting with baited breath and obsessively checking his praxis. And he has made our day, time and again. He has had us all in the palm of his villainous hand.

I wanted to make him a Super Vote to say thank you. Not just for his drawing of me, which I love, but on behalf of everyone who has raised a smile at his glorious tasking.

Problem: How to make the Super Vote appropriately thoughtful and symbolic? After all, each of his drawings of us has been painstakingly researched and personalised. The Super Vote needed to reflect that. So I hopped onto the Internet to see what I could find out about our favourite mustachioed foe, A.K.A. Dax Tran-Caffee.

Wow. The man's an inspiration. He's not just an artist, he's a musician, a model, a pirate radio personality, a puppeteer...

This last vocation gave me an idea. My Super Vote would pay tribute to The Villain with a nod to the film Being John Malkovich. Why? Because...

a) It's a great, creative and ingenious film.

b) It stars a puppeteer, and carries a theme of puppetry. (Dax is currently doing an internship with Blair Thomas Puppet Co.)

c) Above all, it encapsulates the thrill of becoming a character to help pursue your trajectory of desire.

So, to work! First, I scanned my old video sleeve of Being John Malkovich. (You can see much less grainy full-resolution versions of these pictures at the bottom of this proof.)



Then - in the true spirit of EquivalenZ - I spent (way) too long Photoshopping it until it represented a fitting homage to The Villain's work.



Next, I wrote him a message and found him an appropriate gift. I chose a telephone box pencil sharpener - which has the dual benefits of representing London (this is, after all, a transatlantic Super Vote) and also having a practical use, especially for an artist that occasionally works with coloured pencils.



I put the sleeve into an empty video box...



...and placed the message and the gift into the box along with a few decorations. (You can just about see that I printed the original Being John Malkovich cover onto the back of the label.)



Finally, I packaged it all up and wandered down to the post office.

Thank you, Mr. Villain!

Enjoy your Super Vote!