August Kleinzahler has written a short piece in the LRB blog about a movement to replace the image of President Grant on the obverse face of the $50 bill with one of Ronald Reagan. He shows an artist’s impression of what this change might look like. The Republican congressman who is pushing Reagan said, according to Kleinzahler, that “every generation needs its own heroes”. It’s not a bad idea, and I propose reworking the entire US monetary system’s hall of fame, starting with Thelonius Monk on the dollar bill:
He will be replacing George Washington, a man with wooden prosthetic teeth. You can see that Monk had a brilliant smile, and why should spending money be a miserable experience? This change could encourage spending; it might in a small way help the US economy.
A Bad Guide 
Or they could just start using Euros.
US money look uncomfortably like something from a game of Monopoly.
Monopoly is originally an American game. so that’s probably not coincidental. I like that they don’t change it very often. It has a good size and proportion too. What is it: about two-and-a-half to one? During my lifetime British ten- five- and one-pound banknotes have regularly been replaced with smaller and smaller versions. Now the pound note has been demoted to a coin, and no doubt one day it won’t exist at all.
So appropriate that everyone called him Felonious Monk.
His wife referred to his way of playing the piano as melodious thunk.
But at least our bills are still different sizes thus aiding expenditure by the visually impaired. US uniformity is very confusing.
That’s true, I’d forgotten. How do blind Americans keep control of their money?
Folding.
In Canada we have different colours and designs for 5, 10 and 20 dollar bills (same with larger denominations but they are not used much). For smaller amounts it is all coins, from 5 cents to the loonie (1 dollar, with a loon on the obverse) and the toonie (2 dollars, a fancy coin with an outer ring of a different colour). We like this system, the bills are the same size but instantly recognizable by colour, and the coins are all different sizes and sometimes different colours. Plus the designs they carry are more attractive than the US ones.
When going to the US, using US money is very awkward: all the bills look the same unless you inspect them carefully or sort them out and place them so that the number will show in your billfold, and you end up carrying large numbers of one-dollar bills which take up space while being worth very little. Those one-dollar bills also get very dirty! You almost need gloves just to handle US money.
Well I’ll take a look, but I like the American money, it’s always the same (almost). I think England must have a department of messing about with the money. Its staff could be transferred to the postage stamp department; British stamps are terrific.
Folding.
I was thinking, different sizes isn’t a perfect solution. It still must require experience to be able to judge the difference between a ₤5 and ₤10 note, say.
This is an excellent idea. I too like the unchanging nature of US currency (and thus resent the recent “improvements” that make long-dead presidents look as if they’ve recently had facelifts), but I would love a dollar bill with Monk on it. I nominate Armstrong for the five, Parker for the ten, Ellington for the fifty, and Jelly Roll Morton for the hundred.
So appropriate that everyone called him Felonious Monk.
I have never heard or seen anyone refer to him that way.
Me neither. Google tells me it was the name of an episode of C.S.I. and before that in Discworld.
Perhaps more interestingly, it’s in among a bunch of other groaners in a New York Magazine competition. And was used innocently forty years before Monk was born by Walter Thornbury.
used innocently
That’s an odd coincidence.