I about blew a gasket when I learned some morons painted over a mural by artist Blue Sky on a building in downtown Columbia, SC. It was a cat mural. My daughter loves cats. During her one of her visits, we made the block, parked illegally, and ticked off our driver (my husband) just so we could stop and take a picture of it. And now I'm glad we did.
Now, these weren't your garden-variety morons (teenage vandals armed with spray paint). Nope, the mural was painted over on purpose by the actual owners of the building. That is a whole 'nother level of moron. I can't help but wonder (in very colorful language NSFW) what they were thinking. The building is nothing special. In fact, the mural was the best thing about it. I'm glad I didn't happen by while they were painting - I likely would've wrecked the car. Small chance of that happening, anyway. They probably did it in the wee hours when most unsavory and objectionable activities occur, the better to go undetected. Unless this is some type of weird performance art and they are planning to have Blue Sky re-paint the entire thing as part of a documentary, this whimsical mural is likely lost forever.
This got me thinking about other stomach-churning stupidities resulting in lost art, like the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001 by the erudite aesthetes otherwise known as the Afghanistan Taliban. The two statues were hundreds of feet tall, carved in the 6th century AD into the native sandstone cliffs 140 miles
northwest of Kabul. The Taliban had their reasons, of course - don't they always? - but couldn't they come up with a more relevant activity to advance their cause? The Taliban destroying ancient art to make a political point makes about as much sense as the teenager who punches a hole in the sheetrock because his driving privileges have been suspended. He feels better at first (until the swelling kicks in) but the hole mocks him every time he passes by, and he ends up spending a lot more time and money making it right PLUS doubles the driving suspension, so. . . . how's that workin' for ya?
All that sandstone puts me in mind of another brain trust: (now former) members
of the Boy Scouts of America who topped a 200-million-year-old rock formation in Goblin Valley State Park in Utah. And of course video'd themselves doing it. I can just imagine one of them saying, 'hey - watch this!' before the big moment.
Sadly, I could go on and on. Just Google art, monuments, vandalism, deliberate destruction - gah. Very distressed regarding the number of hits on these searches
. What is wrong with people? Imagine how much great publicity (and possibly even broad-based pop culture support) they could garner by destroying something ugly or meaningless, like early model Yugos or the CNN news archives? Until they figure this out, I'm speeding up the bucket list process. Already too late to visit the old Yankees Stadium (RIP 1923-2010) and Peachtree Rock (RIP 150,000BC-2013). Attention, morons: steer clear of the Taj Mahal and the pyramids until I can get there with my Instagram app.
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