A Tall ‘Tail’ Tale of 3 Cities & 2 Centuries

Time's Up?

Believe Women

Finally...it's art

#TAG – you're it

Crime scene at the crime scene

The past is perpetually present in Sarasota in the debasing defacement of Greta Zimmer Friedman’s lifeless figure.  It is high past time to stop trying to whitewash history, and put the fairy tale of the tall, dark, and handsome “kissing sailor” to bed.  We CANNOT continue to intentionally perpetuate a Big Lie in order to preserve false memories and the myths we tell ourselves about ourselves.

For over a decade, Sarasota has been actively harming people who have suffered sexual violence in the present, and sending mixed messages about consent into the future, in order to avoid admitting all-to-human error, and salvage the tainted tribute which serves as a trophy of the class war waged on Sarasota’s art community.

The fake-nostalgia crowd has come up with endless ways to excuse the inexcusable, and elide the fact that a piece of interactive assault art was accidentally foisted on this city.  Despite the good intentions of those who secured it, the work is baked through with confusing and contradictory signals—from its cheerful color scheme, to its aggrandizing size, to its less-than-forthcoming signage.

To try and perpetuate this untenable state of denial, politicians engaging in cosplay issue commands to “stifle” so that they may continue to celebrate a mistaken symbol of what makes America great, in the person of a heroically-depicted, romantic, heterosexual White Christian male conquering all.

Greta forgave George...

So why should you care?

No Blast from a hose can tidy up truth

The Fuller History of Humankind is Rarely Shipshape

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

—Winston Churchill
1948 speech to the British Parliament

In 1945, this was the defining image that best showed all was right with America. In 2019, some now see this same image as showing all that is wrong with America.Wicked Local

Lilliputian LIFE

Living in the Shadow of a Brobdingnagian Blunder

The forcible kiss…the beautiful photograph of it…and Seward Johnson’s stolen statue are 3 different things, experienced by different people at different times.

Johnson WANTED to have people drawn into the fictionalized past. He believed the power of 3-D lies in putting people into the pictures they admire.

According to Johnson, Art has its own message for each viewer and it must be viscerally received to have it be powerful.

Here is how one local veteran “viscerally receives” Johnson’s misunderstood marauding monument and supersized sexual conquest cartoon…

I’m a veteran. Retired combat 100% disabled. I hate that statue with all of my being. Of course, as someone that was raped in the military, sexually harassed for 16 months by a superior and then attacked by him, I have plenty of reason to hate it. A lot of people have no idea that that sailor had never met that woman before and kissed her without warning. Her body language reveals her unwillingness to be kissed by a perfect stranger. The statue is vile and to me and others like me, signifies how men view women ... as objects, not a celebration of anything. Absolutely HATE IT. You should get the opinions of female veterans.

11 reasons for the clock to strike midnight

Times Up: for excusing assault

Dateline: August 20, 2023

Spanish soccer federation head forcibly kisses player. Hermoso has said that the kiss wasn't consensual and that I felt vulnerable and a victim of an impulse-driven, sexist, out-of-place act without any consent on my part.
#ContigoJenni

The Sarasota Herald Tribune suggested Spain consider erecting a giant tribute to Spanish soccer federation head Luis Rubiales after he forcibly kissed player Jenni Hermosa in "celebration" the team won the 2023 Women's World Cup. The kiss made headlines around the world when Hermoso said that she “did not enjoy” it.

76 trombones for him. Trauma for her.

Headline: A forced kiss is still a forced kiss