Poor Dr King (Stop Me Before I Vote Again)

Poor Dr King

By Michael J. Smith on Monday October 17, 2011 07:31 PM

Man, this is ugly. May even be the second ugliest thing in Washington -- which is saying something; that is one ugly town. (The very ugliest thing, of course, is and always will be the US Capitol, with its spindly colonnades pretending to support a dome that looks like the swollen cranium of a hydrocephalic stillborn.)

Is it something in the air, in Washington, that turns everything to shit? Martin Luther King, undoubtedly a great man, in a very American way, and a good-looking guy too, with deep eloquent eyes and gentle features and a characteristic expression of intelligent understanding; and we go off, at great expense and trouble, to find a Chinese sculptor and a massive block of Chinese granite -- just what's wrong with Vermont granite, I'd like to know? -- and create a typically Washingtonian bullying overbearing looming horror that makes the man look like a cross between Benito Mussolini and The Pissed Off Buddha.

Posted by Michael J. Smith on Monday October 17, 2011 07:31 PM | Permalink

Comments (12)

Drunk Pundit:

Ouch... yeah, that is one stern looking visage.

Yikes.

Posted by Drunk Pundit | October 17, 2011 10:50 PM

Posted on October 17, 2011 22:50

Drunk Pundit:

I dunno, looks awfully similar to this guy:

http://www.logoi.com/picture-movies/img/mao_zedong_09.jpg

Posted by Drunk Pundit | October 17, 2011 10:55 PM

Posted on October 17, 2011 22:55

antonello:

My name is Martin Luther King, your king:
Look on my turgid hugeness, and despair!
Nothing lovely remains. Round the decay
Of that pretentious burg, shamelessly there,
The rancid moneyed hacks stink far away.

Posted by antonello | October 17, 2011 11:45 PM

Posted on October 17, 2011 23:45

Jack Crow:

Monuments always kill. Memorials shame us into forgetting.

Posted by Jack Crow | October 17, 2011 11:49 PM

Posted on October 17, 2011 23:49

sk:

Reminds me of some of the one star reviews here e.g. 'Totalitarian mode of argument'. Also reminds me of representations of the Leader, something that's quite compatible with mainstream portrayal of MLK, or as Chomsky put it:

I'm sure [Martin Luther King] would have been the first to say that he was riding the wave of protest and activism that developed from the bottom, that began with—it goes way back—black kids insisting on going to schools...Finally, enough of a popular movement developed so that Martin Luther King was able to lead major marches, demonstrations and so on that developed support in the north as well, as long as it was focused in the south...with regard to bottom-up versus top-down, his role is a good example. There was a large scale popular movement created from the bottom up, which presented the circumstances in which he could be an effective leader.

Posted by sk | October 18, 2011 12:23 AM

Posted on October 18, 2011 00:23

Sean:

"Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

Is this Gary Coleman or MLK?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCrjLVSapII

Posted by Sean | October 18, 2011 3:08 AM

Posted on October 18, 2011 03:08

Op:

Mlk rendered into co opted
Calcified fossil finding
Cut to measure
For the one over size fits all
COP victim/hero

In this instance
Realized
By a member of the de facto dismembered self negated
Kim il sung greet leader wing of the stalinoid COP school of idolatry

Quite an ironic compression

Posted by Op | October 18, 2011 8:30 AM

Posted on October 18, 2011 08:30

Op:

The old left goat
Love affair swoon
Over the "found meme stack "ideological ideolectic confusions of the left jumbled up
troopings of our latest cohort of the raw multitude
Now encamped hard by wall street

Suggests to moi

A sudden Soupy mine -ed
swan dive into boneless blob hyper pluralism

Joyous
But Like the dawn hours of a protracted pub crawl

a silvery moment indeed

Still and all
Don'y the morning afters job tasks await
And
Unmoved and as demanding as ever?

Posted by Op | October 18, 2011 9:04 AM

Posted on October 18, 2011 09:04

Op:

Gary Coleman after a spiderman like accidental metagenesis

Mlk looked like an ibo
Much as famed second baseman Joe Morgan

Ibo's are beautiful crafty ....losers

Posted by Op | October 18, 2011 9:08 AM

Posted on October 18, 2011 09:08

Mike Flugennock:

Is it just me, or does King look as if he's been trapped attempting to escape through an interdimensional force barrier or something?

But, anyway, yeah... aside from having been outsourced to the Chinese... what a piece of typical overblown Washington triumphalist crap. Anybody here remember the recent brouhaha over the quote from a speech of his -- a snippet taken absurdly out of context about his being a "cheerleader"?

They should've gotten the sculptor who did the large statue of Einstein, seated, looking as if lost in thought, over near the Smithsonian. It's friendly and inviting; it's become famous for all the children who've climbed up to have their pictures taken sitting in Einstein's lap.

Or, perhaps they could've gotten the sculptor who did the oversized bronze of Gandhi up on Mass Ave, walking with a long staff, looking frail and vulnerable and humble, not made to look like some kind of super-being.

Posted by Mike Flugennock | October 18, 2011 10:17 AM

Posted on October 18, 2011 10:17

MJS:

That emerging-from-the-stone thing reads in reverse to my eye -- it's like he's lying down on a beach and some kids have just begun to cover him with sand.

Posted by MJS | October 18, 2011 11:25 AM

Posted on October 18, 2011 11:25

SKS:

This thing breaks my heart. It's huge and it'll be there forever, and it's all wrong.

Are there other, better statues of him somewhere?

But maybe he's looking that pissed off because he's been stuck in the middle of the official part of Washington and it's a worse mess than ever.

Posted by SKS | October 22, 2011 10:31 PM

Posted on October 22, 2011 22:31