Ace, you might be interested in my photo comparison. 19th century memorial v. 21st century memorial.

Ah, enough with the humility. Lileks could never stick Cthulu into one of his rants.

And what's with this crap about the "victims" of Flight 93.

Maybe some of them were "victims". Their families grieve. The ones who matter to us -- to all Americans -- are and were heroes.

Mind you, the lead AP wording is classic: "a plane downed". Guess they've been reading CAIR statements...

Can we have a monument to the brave dead of Flight 93 which shows them in cool reflection as they decide to make their attack? Huddled together as they collectively decide to give their lives to spare others?

I was wanting to see the entire interior of the plane, with the women and children, and the fear and the determination on everybody's faces, and the a**holes up front in the cockpit. I wanted some sculptor to capture the expressions so that we could know these people and personalize the experience. And then walk away with a visceral reawakening of how some jerks with a f***ed ideology took these people's lives, and tried to use them to decapitate America.

You know, Murdoch's design just doesn't convey all that.

A statue could have been good.

A handful of men and women huddled banded together, in the midst of plotting their counterattack; one looking over his shoulder, keeping an eye on the unseen jihadists; another with cellphone in hand; and perhaps another pair actually praying (!) before their desperate attack.

Something simple. Something inspiring. Something that actually memorializes those who fell that day in the first defeat of those who would kill or enslave every single one of us who remain.

Something everyone can look at and say "Thank God it wasn't me up there... but if it had been me, would that I had the courage of those men and women to face the evil that showed itself that day."

That's my idea of a memorial.

Whoops... strike the "huddled" from the previous comment -- "s" tags work in comment preview, but not, apparently, in the final product.

As big a fan of H.P. Lovecraft as I might be, does every "public" work of art need to feature strange geometries undream'd of even on planet Yuggoth?

Odd is it not that after of years of bad taste jokes (the edsel for one) you Americans are now style leaders, perhaps the downfall of european taste has somthing to do with the euro habit of keeping ones tounge up an arabs ass? (bad taste pervades) I hope you get some sense out of your memorial to 7-11, it seems to me that it polarised your country, one part now sees terrorism as an evil (that sure fucked the IRA!) and the liberal apologists went off and played with themselves. We are starting to get to that point here (in England) with both islam and Europe.
Keep up the good work

I heard the spokesman for the Flight 93 Memorial say on a radio talkshow yesterday (1210am/Smerconish) the following:

1 - the design was originally submitted to the committee as 'Flight 93 Memorial" by the architect

2 - The COMMITTEE changed the name to 'Crescent of Embrace' as a way to keep track of it among the 1000+ entries.

3 - After winnowing the field down to six, the committee kept the 'Crescent of Embrace' title.

4 - They're now going to change the name back to what it originally was.

Oy.

If you want to see a group of artists fighting the entire modernism hoax check out:

Art Renewal Center.
http://www.artrenewal.org/

Those guys are dedicated to debunking this whole nonsense of modern elitist art that "challenges" the public. The modernists attack and suppress realism with a fury that gives no quarter in their virulent attacks. Just think that Bouguereau and Alma Tadema, two of the most skillful, artists ever, were labeled as "among the worst in history" during the 60s because their subject matter did not fit in with the Jackson Pollock crowd. It's like something I read a while back: If you put a gun to a modern artists head and tell him "draw me a normal human figure or you die." He'll probably choose death.

Also, you may want to read two City Journal articles on what kind or rebuilding and memorial should have been selected for the WTC site. The authors were hoping for architecture that fit in and complimented the city and for symbolic affirmation of the traditional values and culture of Western Civilization. Alas, we have gotten lost on this modernist fuzzy wuzzy crap.

What Should Rise from the Ashes?
http://www.city-journal.org/html/11_4_what_should_rise.html

The Monument They Deserve:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_2_the_monument.html

1) Thanks for the link jmchez - very nice.

2) I feel a nice piece of marble listing the passenger and crew's names, what they did, and a thanks from a grateful nation, would be splendid.

3) Weren't they bulls? I liked them. Baltimore does the same thing every few years with fish and crab sculptures - they are given to schools to decorate, often very cleverly, they sit around a few months, and are auctioned for charity.

Re the decorated statues of animalia, Cincinnati (aka Porkopolis) had pigs some 10 or more years ago, Louisville had horses within the last 5, and Beaver Creek, OH, currently has, uh, beavers that look to be 4 or 5 feet tall. I don't really get the NYC/cow connection, but I suppose it might be considered demeaning to have people decorating statues of homeless people with decoupage.

Something inspiring

Yes, exactly. That is the point. I want to remember them, to honor them for their courage.

"Like those goddamned cows we had all over New York six or eight years ago. Don't ask. Oh wait, you didn't, but I'll tell you anyway. See, they were cows. They were painted all sorts of crazy ways by idiot artists."

In DC we had f'n pandas, Ace. I think the damn things are still around; I try to avoid noticing them.

Fucking pandas.

I myself like public art that makes you go "Oh! I know what that is." In Detroit there is a monument on which are four civil war military figures, (Navy, Infantry, Cavalry, Artillery) plaques of Lincoln, Sherman, Grant, and Farragut, four eagles, and Lady Liberty holding up shield and sword.
I said "Soldiers and sailors Monument." Turns out that's the name.

You know, obvious. so even a artistic dimwit like me can figure it out. Personally, I think another Lady Liberty with upraised sword and shield would be a perfect edition to the new age Flight 93 memorial But then again, I like public art to be obvious.

Ace is right in his other point, too. This crap is another example of the complete wussification of this country. The US has a proud martial history, yet monuments that celebrate such are "jingoistic" according to liberal talking heads. The men and women on Flight 93 were warriors in their own right; they took the battle to the terrorists instead of resigning themselves to their fates. The memorial should reflect that, not some gooey sense of tragic victimhood. We have come to a point where we fetishize grief in this country instead of celebrating courage. That worries the shit out of me.

Ace,

Good Rant.

The painted cows/bulls were big in Chicago. One can still see them in the homes of the rich. Not the uber-rich, but the newly rich, mostly.

I guess they like them.

Anyway, I don't often agree with USADawg, but in this, the Dawg is correct...

The memorial should reflect that, not some gooey sense of tragic victimhood. We have come to a point where we fetishize grief in this country instead of celebrating courage.

I find it interesting and telling that some of the best art to deal with 9/11 comes from what our betters would tell us is one of the lowest forms of art, comic books. People who make a living telling stories with (mostly) representational art.

I've always thought this illustration by Igor Kordey (who, surprisingly? tellingly?) isn't even American, but Croatian, from a Marvel Comics 9/11 collection, was the best memorial of the heroes of Flight 93 I've seen:

http://hartungpress.dk/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=34

(scroll down - no idea what the Danish text is saying, but it's the only place I could find a decent-sized copy of the picture.)

The cows were a direct rip-off of Chicago's cow-art-hoopla. Chicago used to be a big meat-packing city, (hence the Bulls) with abundant live cattle, so it was supposed to be referring to that. New York borrowed the idea and didn't bother to change it to something that made sense for NY (Like Rats).

One of Maine's more pretentious coastal towns, Belfast, did the 'painted animals' thing with bears a few years ago.

They were all ugly. Every damned one of them, and the worst part is that other pretentious coastal towns have jumped at the chance to follow suit.

Which is why, for the most part, I avoid the coast.

As Lilkes notes, no, we don't need a big statute of the Flight 93 passengers ramming a dinner-cart through a door. We don't need to be quite that literal.

I think that is exactly the kind of statue that we need. A huge Iwo Jima type statue of a group of passengers charging down the aisle behind an up-armored beverage cart, armed with nothing but wine bottles and a fire extinguisher; their expressions void of any fear. It needs to be grand, and loud, and boisterous. With flags, lots and lots of enormous flags. (nothing pisses off liberals more than flags).

Alaska has a very small, inadequate building serving as our legislature so there were some proposals floated out out for a new building. The winning design was some completely garish monstrosity by one of the country's leading architects; not Gehry but the second-most celebrated and winner of some important prize. But his buildings are similar to Gehry's in their bizarre forms.

A girl I knew from high school's an architect in NYC now was so appalled she made her own proposal with a building that looked a lot more like an 18th or 19th century French building. The newspaper article about her was funny because she was just tearing into modern architecture, basically saying the emperor has no clothes, nobody REALLY likes ridiculous post-modern designs like that, but it's a way for the top elite architects to put themselves above lay people, and what's wrong with architecture that most people find aesthetically pleasing? Her language was really blunt and plain-spoken especially compared to the airy-fairy statement the winning architect submitted for his design.

Seattle has a memorial in its Pionner Square downtown to four firefighters killed in a warehouse blaze set by an arsonist 10-15 years ago. It is simply four life-sized bronzes of the firefighters in full gear, poised as though they are about to rush into the burning building. It packs more emotional wallop than any other bit of public art in the city.

On a side note, Seattle did the decorated pigs thing, too, and to be honest, I loved it. Many of the pieces were ingenious in a whimsical and quirky way.

Dead on about Modern Art.

KC Trio and Skinbad informed me about the 'Kitsch' movement a while ago and that was so refreshing.

Art that appeals to human beings, who'd a thunk it.

The communist goals were entered into the Congressional record by Albert Herlong, Jr.
(a Floridian who served in Congress from 1949-69
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35; January 10, 1963
From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen ).

Goal # 22)

Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all form of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings," substitute shapeless, awkward, and meaningless forms.

Rest of Goals at:
http://www.communistgoals.com/goals.htm

Megan,

Do NOT diss the pandas! The people at Pandagon will have their usual hissy fit.

Anyway, I thought we had those elephant and donkey sculptures. Those are gone and the ones not destroyed by weather or hoodlums have been auctioned off.

Cthulhu, Cthulhu, Cthulhu!

In my state we had Mr. Potato Head statues everywhere as a nod to a large local toy company. Kind of silly and all that. Alas, a hawk eyed citizen detected sinister racism in the statues and things got ugly.

For me, should I ever discern an uncanny resemblance between myself and a fucking Mr. Potato Head statue, I'm keeping my mouth shut.

David C,

Wow. Thanks for that link.

O/T: Circle Jerk.

Plain old jerk

Crap. Last post was me.

For me, should I ever discern an uncanny resemblance between myself and a fucking Mr. Potato Head statue, I'm keeping my mouth shut.

What kind of racial statement did this critic see?

Speaking of artistic follies:

Two words: The Gates.

Also, that stupid f**king "artist" who simply wraps everything in pink tarps. I don't even care enough about him to Google his name.

Flim-Flam artist.

Just thinking aloud here, but when judging art...shouldn't consideration be given to the amount of skill required to produce such art? Any human being can wrap a building in pink plastic. However, given until the end of my days I still could not reproduce the Sistine Chapel.

An American flag, benches for visitors, a simple
stone monument with a short paragraph like, "At this place on 9-11-01, an unknown number of Americans gave their lives for their country."
No good, not nearly pretensious enough, don't you think?

I liked the cows. They were whimsical and temporary. If they had been permanent I'd probably feel differently.
There was a pretty good article about public art in the final issue of The Public Interest, if anyone is interested.
Public art has started to improve again, there were a lot of really disastrous ugly monster abstract pieces...you don't see so many anymore. The bland architectural stuff might not be great, but its an improvement.

Assuming that our betters are just trying to placate us by announcing a change to the Crescent of Embrace design, and really won't, I have one small suggestion.

One, rather large cannon placed so that it's barrel points along the axis line pointed east.

The "this is not a muslim symbol" crowd should have no objections since the memorial is not about Islam, so cannot be pointing to Mecca.

I just happen to like the use of cannons in memorials.

I liked the cows.

The 2 most stirring pieces of memorial art I have seen are the Marines on Mout Suribachi (Iwo Jima) and the Commonwealth memorial at St. Julienne's Wood in France. Vimy is also good, but it's a little too big and busy.

The statue in question was of a darker hue which apparently caused the normal Mr. Potato Head eyes, ears, and nose features to become blatent racist stereotypes.

Or maybe the rotundness of the potatoe form insulted the circumferencly challenged.

Hmmm....

I do remember some 'tard (head kind of looked like a potatoe and I do believe his name was Bobby) whining about it on TV and thinking, "man, if I looked like a Mr. PotatoHead, I stay off camera".

Which I do anyway because I am an ugly old prole... who really loves new potatoes.

but if it had been me, would that I had the courage of those men and women to face the evil that showed itself that day...

Russ,

The left has spent the last 60 years trying to drive that kind of warrior spirit out of the public in too many ways to definitively list, some overt(schools/universities/media/judges), others subtle (rewriting textbooks, oppressive condo bylaws, zoning laws, etc. all designed to condition people into being compliant sheep).

They're not going to celebrate that which they've been trying to extinguish for over half a century.

Flt 93 was a real disapointment to them - it proved they've got a lot more work to do before they condition the whole population. OTOH, that 3 flights didn't resist probably encouraged the left to redouble their efforts.

Does anyone recall the brouhaha over the Enola Gay Smithsonian exhibit in 1994? Here is a quote from their page. See if it sounds similar to Crescent of Embrace.

Contrasting with this exhibition is "World War II: Sharing Memories." This is a collection of everyday objects used by people at war and on the home front, such as a Jeep, posters, books and a host of other ordinary objects. The staff of the museum even shared typical, everyday items from their own personal collections. Popular music from the era plays in the background. There are paintings of military scenes commissioned by the Armed Forces during the war and books of photo-graphs of contemporary scenes. The objective is to stimulate memories through objects and images that connect viewers with their own remembrances of the times.

Some of the review team's recommended changes have been made, but the original script betrays the ideology and intention of the curators. It said of the Pacific War endgame, for example, that "for most Americans... it was a war of vengeance. For most Japanese, it was a war to defend their unique culture against Western imperialism." The quote was later cleaned up, but you can imagine the prejudices of those who would write such a thing and the kind of exhibit they would put on.

The left has spent the last 60 years trying to drive that kind of warrior spirit out of the public in too many ways to definitively list, some overt(schools/universities/media/judges), others subtle (rewriting textbooks, oppressive condo bylaws, zoning laws, etc. all designed to condition people into being compliant sheep).

I think we saw a fine example of that in New Orleans, unfortunately. People stood around waiting for the government to do something. As far as I can tell, only one kid took the initiative to rescue people on his own.

Ahhhh... but such a tribute would "provoke" and "challenge" the wrong people-- the tastemaking elites who presume to rule us.

And the ovelap between that group and the group who said, "Let's roll!" and then rolled is null.

As far as I can tell, only one kid took the initiative to rescue people on his own.

Indeed - now we hear the PATHETIC excuse "there was nobody to drive the buses".

How about the people who were going to be in them?

How about the tourists hunkered down in the quarter?

Some of those warm bodies could manage to drive a bus - probably a significant percentage of them. Die or learn quick? Tough choice for MayRay apparently.

1) take one bus
2) round up 50 volunteers.
3) now you got 50 buses online.
4) repeat 1-3 as necessary

This isn't frigging rocket science.

There are plenty of good memorials in DC, too bad the last of the really good small ones dates to the end of WWI (the 2nd Division Memorial on Independence Avenue). I like the Einstein Memorial over by the National Academy of Sciences building, but since then it seems if it's going to be done right it's got to be done big. The Navy Memorial and the WWII Memorial are spectacular. The Wall is in a class by itself. I just miss the simplicity of the Civil War monuments. Sherman's statue on Grand Army Plaza in New York City is perfect.

Our local garden cemetery has a great memorial to honor Civil War veterans. Right near the turret, there are the graves of men who fought in the Civil War. My wife and I often take walks through this cemetery (it really is a beautiful place) and I've noticed a number of good memorials for those who fought and died in war.

There is also a very good memorial honoring Korean veterans, but it's not nearly as good as the national korean war memorial. Something about those statues is haunting.

Parting Shot: Art turned bad when the emphasis turned from craft to "concept."

Man, there's truth in that. I think the question remains though, why? Why concept? (sorry, going long here)

Again, it comes back to elites v. the masses. There was a time when art strove for grandeur, appealed to an innate sense of beauty and awe in every man. That's what the masses liked and rewarded. Then something changed. The common man is now the fool, the people that matter are the art elites and the tools that matter to advancement in that crowd are a prescient sense of coming fashion and art world politics.

Something like this happened in writing. Around the beginning of the last century the 'great' writers were still the writers the masses enjoyed. Hemingway and Fitzgerald enjoyed rockstar status and best seller sales.

I think what changed 'writing' was TV and movies. Men, the sex, no longer picked up books for excitement, adventure. And with their absence, plot's importnace withered. More and more, writing became about solipsistic emotional navel gazing and 'pretty sentences.' In a vicious circle, more people were driven away. Soon, 'great' writing became a matter of 'technique' and a stagnant backwater of MFA's trying to impress other MFA's.

In don't know as much about art, but I woder if somehting similar didn't happen. The was a time when the only way you knew what something far away (Your king or London) looked like was if you saw a painted image of it. Artists were rockstars. Then photography came along. Many in the masses no longer looked to 'painting' for that simple visual representational aspect. Artist began to turn to 'shock' and trying to impress an 'art elite' - who, being an elite, will define themselves in opposition to the tastes of the masses. Beauty, because the common man prefers it, is to be derided. That attempt to speak to man's common sense of awe became outmoded.

Look at architecture too, what the top architects try to foist on us as the height of their profession.

In short, I wonder if the decline of any art form commences when the masses begin to turn away, leave the field to elites?

"Men, the sex, no longer picked up books for excitement, adventure"

Or, wait a minute...don't.

So, Ace, how many of those painted cows do you have stashed in your apartment?

Dr. Symes,

Read the articles in The Free Word section.

Personally, I prefer Nth dimensional-fractal clay art of Nyarlthotep.

It turns people mad the moment they look at it, but hey, art's supposed to make you think, right?

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Man, there's truth in that. I think the question remains though, why? Why concept?

The answer to this is obvious - any no-talent hack can do "concept" (ex. Jackson Pollock).

Doing "concept" relieves you of of the risk of being judged negatively. The left hates to be "judgmental" (unless of course they're judging people who don't agree with them).

Everyone can be an "artist" when you remove competent execution from the equation.

I would argue that concept is nothing, craftsman like execution is everything. The world is literally chock full of viable concepts. They surround us from birth to death.

No matter how "novel" the "concept" of a turd in lucite is, its still just a no-talent turd in lucite no matter how much "passion" goes into it.