The Inflatable Head of Columbus

From Miguel Luciano

The Inflatable Head of Columbus (2006) parodies a failed Christopher Columbus monument in Puerto Rico. The statue, designed by Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli, was rejected by several U.S. cities before arriving in Cataño, Puerto Rico, costing the towns millions of dollars in shipping alone. However, finances collapsed, the Mayor of Cataño (Edwin “el Amolao” Sierra) resigned for psychological reasons and the controversial project was never erected.

Today, Columbus lies fragmented in thousands of pieces of bronze, deteriorating in an outdoor lot next to the Bacardi Factory in Cataño… perhaps the only justice in the story.

The only recognizable feature of the statue had been the giant Head.

To commemorate the 500-year anniversary of the Death of Christopher Columbus (May 20, 2006), I installed an inflatable replica in the Plaza Colón (Columbus Plaza) of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The spoonerism for "blog hits" is "hog blitz"

Greetings, everyone interested in Marianne Moore and the Edsel!

Was there an article somewhere?

If this were only real..

Dave Perillo asks the question - If, in the mid seventies, Hanna-Barbera had put out Saturday morning cartoons starring punk rock acts of the day, what would the title cards look like?

And then he answers:

 

H. G. Wells tells it how he sees it

 

via Isn't Life Terrible

Welcome to my blog! Twitter freely and of your own will!

I was delighted to see that someone is publishing the original novel of Dracula as a blog in "real time"  (Dracula is an epistolary novel - comprised of a collection of letters and journal entries, so each chapter is dated and sometimes even timed.)

Even more astonishingly there is another real-time Dracula project on Twitter, where the letters and Journal entries are being recast as tweets.

JHarkerEsq: Finally met the Count. Really frail looking guy--deathly pale and cold. Definitely needs some sun. Doubt he'll survive the trip to England 1:05 AM May 5th

JHarkerEsq: Wolves encircled carriage, scary coachman returned and waved the beasts away like some freaky Wolf Whisperer. Think I'm going to pass ou-- 12:30 AM May 5th

JHarkerEsq: What in blazes? Coachman has disappeared and left me alone in the carriage. (must speak to the Count about him) I think I hear wolves...9:04 PM May 4th

JHarkerEsq: Terrified landlady forced her gaudy old cruficix round my neck. Still waiting for the damn carriage. So now I'm late AND tacky.5:30 PM May 4th

JHarkerEsq: First Walpurgis Nacht and now St. George's Eve. Damn bad trip planning on Dracula's part. 5:03 PM May 4th

JHarkerEsq: @MinaHarker2be In Bistritz. Should be done with business in a week and on my way home. Hope you're having fun with @LucyHolmwood2b 12:35 AM May 4th

LucyHolmwood2b: @MinaHarker2be OMG u totally have 2 keep a diary. They r *SO* cute. Whens Jonathan coming back? (Also kinda cute. ^o^) 12:34 AM May 4th

JHarkerEsq: Carpathians are a whirlpool of superstition, cultures, languages. Peasants all fear for my life. Also have excellent chicken paprikash here. 3:00 PM May 3rd

If you would like to get in on the action, you have a chance to be an extra:

On May 28, Jonathan Harker  will be seeking the aid of the men working around Dracula's Castle. I thought this might be a good opportunity to extend this story-telling exercise to include a few new "characters" and to get a little bit more exposure for this project.

Here's how it works:

1. Send a (publicly viewable) tweet mentioning Szgany, Dracula, or anything relevant to realtimedracula or JHarkerEsq between now and 5/25.

2. I will select between 5 and 10 people (you don't need to be Following me, but it would be nice) to feature as Szgany.

3. On May 28 Jonathan Harker will tweet back, begging your aid in freeing him from the castle. Feel free to mock his plight as mercilessly as you wish.

  I really hope that this project can keep the momentum going for the entire novel and that the whole thing can be collected somewhere.

Straddling the border between useless and cool

Image via Wikipedia

Dickens URL is a service that will not only give you a short link to your site, but assigns it with a quote from Dickens.

Thus this blog can now be reached at:

http://dickensurl.com/8ab6

which unfurls to:

http://dickensurl.com/8ab6/There_is_a_wisdom_of_the_Head_and__there_is_a_wisdom_of_the_Heart

Because the site has somehow decided that this quote :

There is a wisdom of the Head, and ... there is a wisdom of the Heart.

From Hard Times

is the most appropriate for this blog.

++++

In other news, this post is being created using Zemanta, which is a plug-in designed to help streamline blogging by selecting contextual clues and using them to generate links and find images for your posts. Thus the picture of Dickens and the link to go purchase Hard Times.


Perhaps if I am in an obnoxious mood, I will start enabling all the links that it suggests.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Zemanta - The Lowdown (toolsforjournalists.blogspot.com)
• 5 Very Weird URL Shorteners (mashable.com)
• Former CBC radio host Russ Germain dies at 62 (thestar.com)