Meade takes protest signs down from the Civil War monument at the Wisconsin Capitol.

New Media Meade, the protector of war monuments, takes signs down from the statue of Hans Christian Heg, who died at Chickamauga. Do you think it's cool to have a sign that reads "I fought for the Union/You should too" tied to his foot? We didn't.

At the Lake Michigan Café...

(Enlarge.)

... you can be as sullen or sharp-edged as you like.

The sculptural museum-goer.

(Yesterday, in Milwaukee.)

At the Under-the-Table Café...

... come on! I dare you to say anything you think!

***

Photographs by Meade at the Milwaukee Art Museum today. The sculpture — called "Under the Table" — is by Robert Therrien.

"Am I the only person left in the world who worries about spilling his coffee on his laptop?"

2 years ago.

ADDED: I ran across that after reading the colloquy between AllenS and Meade in the comments to the post about Brett's fuzzy penis:

AllenS: Jenn Sterger (the woman) was hired because of some sexy pictures of her in Sports Illustrated mag, that Brent Musberger thought would be a good matchup for the male dominated football sports sceen. Jenn and Brent are just as much at fault here. I'm thinking of sending the woman a picture of my penis also. Could I borrow the fish bowl lens?...

Meade: It's a fish eye lens. Fish eye. It's for taking shots of massive objects or scenes which a normal lens can't take all in. A fish bowl lens would be for taking shots of tiny things. Like Brett Favre's... ability to make good judgments.

AllenS: Ok, ok. Can I borrow the lens that makes stuff look bigger?

But, in fact, the fisheye works really well to make something look large if you get the camera lens right up at it. Lots of other stuff is including in the picture, arrayed all around and looking comparatively small. Frankly — and this is not an offer to AllenS — it would be really interesting to take pictures of naked men and get the extreme closeup on the genitalia with a well-composed and interesting background. I went looking through my old posts with the "fisheye" tag to find some that prove my point.

The second picture here of the fisheye dog makes this point very well. Get right up to the nose. The scenery in the background isn't as interesting as I'd want for my proposed compositions, but you can see how tiny Meade looks in the background (when in fact he was quite close by). Here's another photograph that illustrates the point, albeit with the female body:



That's from the Khmer Dynasty room at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC. Here's the effect of the lens looking at the room from the other side:



Here's some male and female nudity, to be fair:



That's the Museum of Natural History — not Brett and Jenn. You may recognize that couple from the movie "Election" — which is a great cautionary tale about the inadvisability of cheating on... many things (including your spouse).

And then — searching through the fisheye pictures — I found something that was extremely important to me: the purple tree, which had this.

"Do you guys TRY to not get laid?"

A purportedly romantic idea: roasting lobster in the fireplace.

Ugh! And look at the picture! The same blogger — at The Atlantic website — who tells us it will be sexy to roast a big old lobster tail at the end of a stick the way you'd toast a marshmallow also attempts to artfully arrange a photographic still-life depicting said lobster-on-a-stick and includes — in the upper right-hand corner — a sculpted ass. An ass! This romantic snack is ass.

Is the blogger — a woman — suggesting this as something a man would try to get a woman excited about or is a woman supposed to cajole a man into this nonsense? Who is this for? It's quite disgusting. Lobster juice dripping into the ashes. What's that going to look and smell like the next day?

Now that I look at what I've written, maybe there is something sex-related about that last question. You meet someone. You're trying to decide what you're interested in doing. Maybe you ask yourself: What's that going to look and smell like the next day?

Lighthouse turned into an eerie ice sculpture of a lighthouse.

On Lake Erie.

A dubious theme: "Independents Turn on One of Their Own: Feingold."

This — by Katharine Q. Seelye of the NYT — seems a bit off:

The irony was lost on no one. Senator Russ Feingold, a liberal with a fierce streak of independence who crusaded against the influence of money in politics, was toppled Tuesday in a campaign awash in the kind of unregulated cash he had struggled to keep out of the system.

And in a poignant twist, the loss came, in part, because independents flocked to his opponent, despite Mr. Feingold’s record of one maverick vote after another.

It's not the same kind of independence. Feingold's independence was to the left of the Democrats in Congress. The independents who determined the outcome were voters — including me — whose politics lie in between Republicans and Democrats. Feingold made no effort to get in that zone. 

He was the sole senator to oppose the Patriot Act after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. He also broke with President Obama on several occasions, opposing the expansion of the war in Afghanistan, the bailing out of financial institutions in 2008 and the regulation of Wall Street this year, saying the restrictions did not go far enough.

See? That's my point.

Most prominently, he battled his colleagues to overhaul the campaign finance system...

A few paragraphs separate that from this:

...Mr. Feingold raised and spent more money than Mr. Johnson...

Mr. Feingold had raised $18.2 million and spent $16.2 million by the middle of last month, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mr. Johnson raised $12.8 million, and spent $10.5 million, pumping in more than $8.2 million of his own money.

Feingold's campaign finance law wasn't a limit on a candidate spending his own money. In any case, Feingold spent much more money than Johnson.

It is not clear what he will do next. In a brief speech Tuesday night, he told the 300 supporters gathered in a hotel here in his hometown, “It’s on to the next fight, it’s on to the next battle, it’s on to 2012 and it is on to our next adventure, forward.”

He then raised his fist in the air and left the stage.

"Forward" is the state motto and the informal name of the 15-foot sculpture on top of the state Capitol building and the official name of another statue at the east entrance to the Capitol. I've watched the video of Feingold's concession speech, and his hand is a little off-screen at this point, but I bet that's not a fist but an outreaching hand meant to invoke the "Forward" statues.

ADDED: Here's a photo of the "Forward" gesture:



AND: Ron Johnson ran a pretty effective ad saying that Feingold is not the "maverick" he claims to be.

"Lawsuit exposes royal prince's bizarre sex statues — of HIMSELF."

That Daily News front-page teaser got me to click, and it was well worth it. The pictures of the statues are absolutely hilarious. (No nudity revealed in the cropped photos.)

Photographs of the pieces obtained by the Daily News show an endowed, muscular prince in a series of sexual positions with the woman, one of many at his beck and call. [Prince Jefri] Bolkiah has multiple wives and a harem of lovelies.

The prince is suing over the price his ex-advisers took for selling an estate — where he stored the statues. They only got $11 million for it. The prince's lawsuit and his efforts to exclude the statues as evidence at trial led to this complete exposure of the embarrassing statues.

People, think before you sue!

We had no thoughts at all about about Prince Bolkiah before he sued, and now his name is associated only with this one thing. And by "thing," I don't mean his cock. But he is well-endowed. In the statues!

"People touch and pose with Adam’s penis for many reasons."

"Because it’s unusual. Because it’s funny. Because it’s just the right combination of naughty and not-too-naughty. Because it’s not in a museum but in a shopping center, where the goods are meant to be handled."

Adam's penis is out there connecting with the people, spreading the love.

"[A]rchaeologists have unearthed the upper half of a double limestone statue of a powerful pharaoh who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago."

A news item that would be so much better with a photograph.

UPDATE: Pic.

The war monument.

This is the "War" side of the State Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Indianapolis. This closeup shows one soldier using a dead soldier to place to perch his gun...



... and pigeons, in turn, using that gun.

Boys and their water animals.

From the base of a fountain in downtown Cincinnati.

Was Art Nouveau "the clumsy process of trying to 'dress up' the inorganic forms of modern construction in the false clothing of the natural world"?

That's what Walter Benjamin thought.

If Benjamin was right about Art Nouveau in general, then Jean Carriès was a dissenter from the movement who refused to play along with the lie. Carriès did not carry the prettifying gene. He had an eye for the monstrous, for the contortions of nature and its abnormalities. If Carriès accepted the idea that the modern city is an extension of the natural world, he did so with the proviso that the extension was a malignant tumor.

The dissent from the lie looked like this:

7 new Supreme Court cases — including a win for Jeffrey Skilling.

Start reading!

Especially conspicuous:

In Skilling v. United States (08-1394), the Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded in a main opinion by Justice Ginsburg.  The vote is unanimous on the “honest services” question in this case, but three Justices would have ruled that the honest services statute is unconstitutional:  Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy.  There are an array of other concurrences in the case, including a partial dissent by Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Breyer and Stevens.

• Holding: (1) Pre-trial publicity and community prejudice did not prevent Skilling from having a fair trial. (2) the “honest services” statue covers only bribery and kickback schemes.  Part of the opinion vacates the Fifth Circuit’s ruling on Skilling’s conspiracy conviction.  In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor disagrees with the Court’s conclusion that Skilling had a fair trial before an impartial jury.

SCOTUSblog falls prey to the statue-for-statute typo. I picture a ghostly statuesque demon that swipes at the hands of anyone trying to write statute. We all know how to write statute, and lawyers and lawprofs have far more occasions to type the word statute, but something drags us to statue. Perhaps it isn't anything supernatural, but a desire to escape from the legal structure we've imposed on our lives and to experience the freedom and beauty of art. No, no, not another statute! I would prefer a statue!



But of the subject of imposed confining structures: Will Jeffrey Skilling, the Fiend of that Terrible Corporation Known as ENRON, break free of the iron grip of federal prison? From the opinion (linked above):

Whether potential reversal on the conspiracy count touches any of Skilling’s other convictions is also an open question. All of his convictions, Skilling contends, hinged on the conspiracy count and, like dominoes, must fall if it falls. The District Court, deciding Skilling’s motion for bail pending appeal, found this argument dubious, but the Fifth Circuit had no occasion to rule on it. That court may do so on remand.

Skilling was convicted 5 years ago, by the way. Isn't it disturbing that justice takes so long, even — especially? — for a very rich man?

I wonder what Obama and his cohort will make of this new opinion, which limits the ability of federal prosecutors to go after the nefarious men who run corporations.

"Barack spent so much time by himself that it was like he was raised by wolves."

Said Michelle Obama, as quoted by a friend, as quoted by Maureen Dowd, who is writing about how, when voting for Obama, we had the feeling that we were (finally) getting a President who's very normal. How does that work? Raised-by-wolfishness leads to (a semblance of) normality? Solitude fosters a deep longing to be with others and one overachieves in the appearance of normal department?

Maureen doesn't answer those questions. She merely murmurs "he seemed to have come through exceptionally well adjusted. " She quotes an Obama hagiographer's dubious quotation:

“His aides from the Senate, the presidential campaign, and the White House routinely described him with the same words: ‘psychologically healthy,’ ” writes Jonathan Alter in “The Promise”...

Isn't it funny that Alter put "psychologically healthy" in quotes when referring to the words of what appears to be a large crowd of individuals? If anything, that large crowd of individuals sounds a bit deranged, if they were really all mouthing the same mantra about their leader.

So it’s unnerving now to have yet another president elevating personal quirks into a management style.

We thought he was so normal that now we're unnerved — we're so unstable! — to find out that, like all those nutty other Presidents — Dowd cites Bush, Clinton, LBJ, and Nixon — Obama's got his quirks too.

Hey, Maureen, how about peering into the complexities of the appearance of normal? Whenever I hear the word "normal" used to gloss over things, I think of one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies, Kubrick's "Lolita." It's the one where Peter Sellers, as Clare Quilty, is pretending to be a cop and inquiring into what Professor Humbert is doing at a hotel with that "pretty, tall, lovely little girl":

I said to myself when I saw you... there's a guy with the most normal-looking face I ever saw in my life... It's great to see a normal face, 'cause I'm a normal guy. Be great for two normal guys to get together and talk about world events, in a normal way....

What was the matter with your wife?... She had an accident! That's terrible! Fancy a normal guy's wife having an accident like that! What happened to her?... I get sort of carried away, being so normal and all....

I could easily have a word with George Swine. He's a really normal, nice sort of guy and I've only got to have a normal word in his ear and you'd be surprised what things could happen.... It's his job to fix you up with something nice. He gets paid for doing that and when he sees a guy like you, all normal... I think you're really normal.... Before you go, I was wondering whether maybe in the morning, you know... me being lonely and normal....

I'm sorry. The word "normal" has had extra texture to me since I saw that movie about 40 years ago.

But Dowd says "normal" and moves on. She describes the emergent quirkiness of the man whose normality supposedly impressed us so much we made him President. (Here's another Peter Sellers movie you need to see, by the way, if you want to fully experience the political chatter around Barack Obama.) Dowd, then:

How can a man who was a dazzling enough politician to become the first black president at age 47 suddenly become so obdurately self-destructive about politics?

President Obama’s bloodless quality about people and events, the emotional detachment that his aides said allowed him to see things more clearly, has instead obscured his vision. 

Oh, but isn't it so much more likely that we were the ones whose vision was obscured? We need to take responsibility. In the end the story of Barack Obama will make perfect sense. It will all fit together. The lonely man — raised by wolves — swept up into our American psychosis.

“Even though I’m president of the United States, my power is not limitless,” Obama, who has forced himself to ingest a load of gulf crab cakes, shrimp and crawfish tails, whinged to Grand Isle, La., residents on Friday. “So I can’t dive down there and plug the hole. I can’t suck it up with a straw.”

We need to suck it up. We need to see what we've done. We've elected a man, and we need to cast aside our silly illusions and see what we've done. He's not the essence of magical "normal." He's a particular man with skills and limitations, and he is our President for the next few years. Now, shape up, see clearly, and deal with it.

ADDED:

Lightning hit a 62-foot-high Jesus Christ at the Solid Rock Church in Ohio and burned it down.

Pics of "Touchdown Jesus" and video of the fire at the link."

As fire gorged the iconic statue, several motorists along I-75 pulled over to photograph the sight....

The sculpture stretches 40 feet wide at the base. It was made of plastic form and fiberglass over a steel frame.

Plastic foam and fiberglass... at the Solid Rock Church.

A pond surrounding the statue that used to be full of fish is now filled with remnants of the structure, made of fiber glass and foam. All the fish are either dead or dying....

No miracle for these fish. I was going to Google some relevant stuff about the miracle of the fish, but Google being what it is, a search for "miracle of the fish" turned up things like:

How Miracle Whip, Plenty of Fish Tap Lady Gaga's 'Telephone ...
Mar 13, 2010 ... At least nine different brands make appearances in Lady Gaga's nine-minute music video, "Telephone," from HP Envy to Miracle Whip and Wonder ...

adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=142794 - Cached

Ah! The world is strange, but perhaps God is trying to tell us something.

"The subject of pain is the business I am in. To give meaning and shape to frustration and suffering."

"The existence of pain cannot be denied. I propose no remedies or excuses."

Said the grand sculptor Louise Bourgeois, who, at 98, has arrived at last at that remedy for pain which no one ever needed to propose.

At the age of 20, she studied math: "I got peace of mind... only through the study of rules nobody could change."

She moved on to art:

"I have a religious temperament," Ms. Bourgeois, a professed atheist, said about the emotional and spiritual energy that she poured into her work. "I have not been educated to use it. I’m afraid of power. It makes me nervous. In real life, I identify with the victim. That’s why I went into art."

Memorial Day.

(Enlarge.)

"Meetings between great men don't always result in elevated colloquies; sometimes they tend towards the crudely basic."

For example:

When Ernest Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald met in Paris, at Le Dingo Bar on the rue Delambre in April 1925, Hemingway was disconcerted to be asked: "Did you have sex with your wife before you were married, Ernest?" They became friends, however. Their most intimate conversation (as reported by Hemingway) was also about wives. One evening, Scott Fitzgerald confessed to his friend that his wife, Zelda, had told him his penis was unusually small, and that he could never satisfy any woman. Hemingway said it was just typical of Zelda's undermining ways, but Scott wasn't reassured. So Hemingway asked him to come to the lavatory, where he inspected his friend's lance of manhood. Back in the bar, he explained:

"You're perfectly fine," I said. "You're okay. There's nothing wrong with you. You look at yourself from above and you look foreshortened. Go over to the Louvre and look at the people in the statues and then go home and look at yourself in the mirror in profile." Now there was an act of friendship between creative giants, if not an especially artistic conversation.

Oh, I think it's artistic as hell.