Tikis in the Urban Jungle

Here's some nice found statuary. This gruesome visage temporarily haunted a yard on Garfield, between 32nd and 33rd. As I was taking this picture, the owner came out her door and told me I could have it! With deep regret, I had to turn her down - I live in a small apartment, and a royal fellow like this needs room to roam. The owner explained that she was having tiki wars with her neighbors, occasionally sneaking this eight foot giant closer to their door. The neighbor heard our conversation, however, and yelled a retort from his porch. The giant remained silent, in stoic nobility.

He's no longer in front of the house on Garfield. I like to think that the owner snuck him into someone else's yard in the dead of night.

Sidewalk Art

Hey, wet cement! Let's write something!


What do you think, wasted opportunity or brilliant social commentary?

I found this gem on the corner of Lyndale and 31st. You know, it isn't really all that often that we come across wet cement. Is it really a good use of a canvas? Maybe some off-hand juvenile sniggering is what the city really needs. The appeal of writing in cement is longevity - Ozymandias employed a stone pedastel for his famous warning to travellers, "Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!". Now it's just, "LICK NUTS".

A Fellow of Infinite Jest

"a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times... Where be your gibes now, your gambols? Your songs? Your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now to mock your own grinning?"

This is The Happy Chef, on the north side of Mankato, Minnesota, next to highway 169. When I lived nearby, about ten years ago, visitors could push a button on the base of the statue, and it would tell some really bad jokes. All I can remember now is something along the lines of "Why isn't there any ice left in your glass at the end of the meal? Because your water gets hungry and eats the ice!" The button doesn't work any more, which is too bad. There were quite a few Happy Chefs throughout the midwest at one time, but this is apparently the last Happy Chef restaurant to still have a statue. I believe the Mankato location was also the original one, also.