Rants

The Urge To Burj

Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

Burj Dubai, the world’s tallest building, is set to open to the public on December 2, 2009. This titan of towers is the centerpiece of a 20 billion dollar development project that is bizarrely ambitious and ostentatious even by Dubai standards. Other record-setting features of this enormous undertaking include Dubai Mall (”the world’s largest shopping [...]

Don’t Diss The Kiss

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Sarasota, Florida has finally embraced the 26-foot-high, painted fiberglass sculpture “Unconditional Surrender,” which depicts a sailor enthusiastically planting a smoocherooni (as they called it in liberated villages) on the lips of a loose-limbed nurse on V-J Day in Times Square. After a combative public hearing, city commissioners decided to accept a donation of the $500,000 [...]

Nude For Thought

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

We’re constantly coming across reports of public protest over nude statuary. Townships are always abuzz over art au natural. Three recent undressed uproars demonstrate that demands for modesty are often directed at the least sexy of sculptures.

No Longer Controversial: David, Sioux Falls, SD.
Take “Journey To The New” in Delray Beach, Florida. This serious and spindly [...]

Lincoln’s Nose: Power Vacuum?

Sunday, August 9th, 2009

The Journal-Times of Racine, Wisconsin, reports that the city’s statue of Abe and Mary Todd Lincoln has had one of its noses snapped off, “for at least the fourth time.” This honker-hacking is treated as an instance of senseless vandalism — much as the recent dino decapitation in Durham, North Carolina.
But experience has taught us [...]

Mind Your Mini-Golf

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

The New York Hall of Science in Queens, New York, recently launched a new astro-attraction: Rocket Park Mini Golf, a valiant educational effort that attempts to teach kids about physics through the joy of amateur putting (And we don’t mean discovering how time seems to stretch out into infinity when stuck behind slowpokes trying to [...]

Turn Off, Tune In, Drop By

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

Luckenbach, Texas was never a bustling metropolis. In 1904, its population peaked at a far-from-astounding 492. And by the 1960’s, Luckenbach was three citizens short of being a complete ghost town. Then, in 1970, a group of friends (Hondo Crouch, Guich Koock, and the normal-named Kathy Morgan) bought the entire kit and kaboodle for $30,000 [...]

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