Toilet Neptune

Guerneville, California

The scrap metal character sculptures of artist Patrick Amiot, which magnificently infest the town of Sebastopol, also turn up scattered in surrounding towns. This strange rendition of the Roman water god Neptune clutches his trident and holds aloft a miniature toilet. He stands at the business location of River Plumbing, and a specific professional plumber may be the subject of the caricature -- in overalls, with misaligned bald head, gray beard, one eye an old valve handle and the other a tail light.

Neptune is taking a hiatus as far as we could tell (possibly battered off a higher perch by a storm), now more of a corner-of-the-eye sighting along busy River Road, where he stands in front of a shed, behind a parked pick-up truck, and next to a pile of plumbing job cast-offs. His toilet appears to have exploded.