Carlos Alcala: Dispensing unfiltered art at ARC

Cool, not Kool: The arts office at American River College has a cigarette machine that does not sell cigarettes. It dispenses culture – little works of art. Buy a token in the office, deposit it, pull a lever and clunk! You get a little work of art, packaged to the size of a pack of cigarettes. Prints, cast metal and wrought iron are among the works that slide out. Professor Laura Parker came up with the idea based on something she'd seen and found a machine on the Internet. It was at least 50 years old and had been licensed to sell cigarettes in a barbershop in Tennessee. It needed all kinds of refurbishing. Parker works in metal, so she handled most of the workings. Several local companies helped, and one fellow rigged it so it would take tokens instead of coins. The hard part, though, was buying the machine through the college, even after art department approval. Purchase orders were rejected. "They would go, 'What? You're buying a cigarette machine? You can't have a cigarette machine on campus,' " Parker recalled. Since installation, however, it's been very popular and has helped endow this semester's first awarding of a $300 art scholarship. Unfiltered art, no tar or nicotine. …

For love or money: A display at last week's Sacramento Valley Coin Club show asked, "Who wants to be a millionaire?" But the display's contents suggested you might not want to raise your hand. It included paper currency in denominations of at least a million, issued in countries at times of out-of-control inflation. There was an Argentine million-peso note, a German million-mark bill and a million-drachma note from Greece. But it would be hard to beat the Yugoslavian currency: a 500-billion-dinar bill. Also, for five bucks American, you could get your choice of one of four Iraqi bills with Saddam Hussein's image. "It's a novelty item," said seller Joe Fragner, who admitted they weren't worth what they were fetching. And then there were love tokens, mostly from the 1800s. These were coins that had been smoothed off on one side and engraved with names or elaborate designs for keepsakes. The mostly middle-aged men there were buying and selling, but most were in the trade. Even when they buy something they like, it's only as inventory, said Glenn Holsonbake. "If you (a coin dealer) want to collect something," he said, "you collect movie posters." …

What's going on? We offered to answer questions from readers, but no one asked anything new. Folks are still curious about the big house at Walnut Avenue and Winding Way, and we hope to get to that next week. For now, we'll answer our own question: What's with that flashing sign on Fair Oaks Boulevard near Watt Avenue? The sign warns drivers of the upcoming traffic light. Nothing special, said sheriff's Sgt. Todd Deluca. The department has "message board trailers" and likes to move them around. "We like this intersection because, No. 1, it's a high- volume crash intersection," he said. There is a red-light camera there to tally the scofflaws and use of the sign cuts violations, Deluca said. And not just by a little bit. "It was drastic," he said. Apparently a simple red light isn't enough. …

New-see-um: They're doing some remodeling at Dimple Records on Arden Way. "We are expanding our selection," it said on small signs we saw taped around the store. "Please bare with us while we are under construction." Hm. Isn't the only "bare" that belongs at Dimple the Barenaked Ladies?

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Carlos Alcalá at (916) 321-1987. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/alcala.