Rants

Dead Elvis: Another Milestone Birthday

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Elvis Presley: alive for 42 years, dead for 33 years, and tourist attraction for nearly as long. His tributes grow more fabulous with the passage of time, and he remains one of the few celebrities who can be recognized without his head.

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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