Category: Bummers

Patrick Dougherty sculpture de-installed

A few weeks ago, I was shocked when driving through Collegetown to see that Patrick Dougherty’s sculptures had been ‘de-installed’ apparently while I was away in Florida back in early May. I was hoping to get a few pieces as keepsakes, or maybe enough to build something. Patrick told me that the remenants of his sculptures made good material for funky little fences or wattles because they dried into interesting shapes.  The only image I have is courtesy of Elly’s co-worker Aaron Birkland, who happened by with his cellphone camera during the mayhem.

Oh well.

sculpture coming down

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Goats vs. Kudzu

I’ve always been an advocate of using animals to manage vegetation. In this morning’s NY Times: In Tennessee, Goats Eat the ‘Vine That Ate the South’

Chattanooga’s goats have become unofficial city mascots since the Public Works Department decided last year to let them roam a city-owned section of the ridge to nibble the kudzu, the fast-growing vine that throttles the Southern landscape.

The Missionary Ridge goats and the project’s tragicomic turns have created headlines, inspired a folk ballad and invoked more than their share of goat-themed chuckles.

“Usually, in dealing with this, you’ve got to get people past the laugh factor,” said Jerry Jeansonne, a city forestry inspector and the program’s self-described “goat dude.”

Despite the humorous overtones to the city’s methods, the program represents an environmentally friendly effort to grapple with a real problem in Chattanooga and the South.

Read the whole article.

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Honey, does this peplos make my butt look fat?

Venus KallipygosMuch discussion of sex and antiquities over at GardenRant this week.

Hank comments “Everything is sex. Either overt or covert. All sex. All the time.” (What, you can’t liveblog from Sweden Hank? They have ‘the internets’ over there I think. Or did you run into the Swedish Bikini Team?)

If I could afford it, I would buy classic statuary for my (less than formal) garden. But when I see Venus Kallipygos, I don’t feel a connection with the ancients based on sex. All I can hear is the most feared question a man is ever asked:

Honey, does this peplos make my butt look fat?

You can buy classic statues if you’ve got the bucks. (Page down. I have no clue why the golfer sorts to the top of that gallery. Ironic.) No thanks. I’m stuck with a pink flamingo (the kind with the spinning wings) and a bowling ball on a piece of rebar.

saronged statuaryI was searching for some images of the tacky modern nude garden statue crap that I remember gracing ads in gardening mags. You know the ones — a hybrid of Hustler and Gary Lee Price. Instead, I ran into this USAToday article Garden Center covers nude statues with velvet sarong.

Ummmm… Leave it to a Bible Belt nursery to make classic statues even more erotic in a tacky twins-in-bondage sort of way. (Yes. Sales increased and customers were caught peaking peeking.) Reminds me of John Ashcroft screening Lady Liberty.

In a perfect world, I’d have sculpture in my garden like what Nicole posted about in More Buddha Park. (She’s got another great slideshow of Asian garden sculpture and much more worth exploring over at her blog, A Carribean Garden.)

Lots more to blog about and lots of pent up pix to purge. But I’ve got to go make hay while the sun shines — or at least it’s not raining.

Update: Keeping with the classical them, Bill Kirchen (formerly of Commander Cody) is coming to town. His latest is ‘Hammer of the Honky Tonk Gods’ — a tribute to a Fender or one of those other classic guitars. I’m clueless, but I get his point:

It was born at the junction
Or form and function
It’s the hammer of the honky tonk gods.

Here’s a taste.

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Timing is everything

Current conditions, 1:10 p.m.

Ithaca, N.Y.:
81 °F / 27 °C
Clear

Jacksonville, Fla.:
69.1 °F / 20.6 °C
Light Rain Smoke

Guess where I am, visiting my son and his girlfriend?

I have no idea what Light Rain Smoke is. (Elly just told me there’s a huge forest fire somewhere down here. And come to think of it, the air has that old campsite aroma to it.) But I’ll be damned if it is going to keep me from walking on the beach this afternoon.

Update: Bad news first: … Areas of smoke continue to drift southeast from wildfires across
northeast Florida… . But the good news is this should put it out: … a tropical storm watch has been issued from the Altamaha Sound Georgia south to Flagler Beach. …
stuck inside

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Britney Spears in the garden

bayou britI think it was on the Stephanie Miller Show this morning that I heard about the topless photos of Britney Spears in a botanical garden. Didn’t want those images lingering in my work machine cache. So I summoned the discipline to wait until I got home to google ‘britney spears botanic garden’.

One of the top hits? A two-year old tribute to magnolias posted by Julie at the Human Flower Project. (Warning guys: You’ll have to scroll past a Georgia O’Keefe to get to the post.)

Julie writes:

In the U.S., magnolia is an emblem of the Deep South. Dominatrix of the Plantation, the creamy blossom symbolizes Southern womanhood in its grandeur, lushness and sinister force. No surprise that Britney Spears, a native of Louisiana, would try to bottle that power. Her perfume Curious is said to contain “Louisiana magnolia.” Here she is looking bayou born, predatory and Gone, with or without the Wind, a pose designed for a non-differentiated audience.

So I stole that picture from Julie. I couldn’t bring myself to actually insert topless pictures of Britney with strategically placed flowers into my own blog. How tacky would that be? Plus, it borders on violating the one of the points in the blogger code of ethics: Show good taste. Avoid pandering to lurid curiosity.

I just hope that Britney finds some peace in the garden, though maybe she could get her hands dirty instead of just harvesting floral pasties.

So Hank, despite using the word pasties, this post (up to this point, minus Julie’s quote) scored only about 60 percent male on the Gender Genie. Julie’s post about Magnolias in full was a little less male, but still more male than female.

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