Saturday, January 2, 2010

Happy Happy

Los Angeles, CA: September 6, 2009

We came across this exhibit in the park surrounding the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA).




At first, I thought, maybe someone had set up an outdoor souvenir stand. Then, having lived on the Left Coast all my life, I was ready for this to be an informational exhibit about recycling or about the big permanent island of plastic garbage that lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.


Likely you’ve heard about this island of plastic. Mostly made up of tiny plastic particles that are virtually non-degradable, the island, colored black on the map, is double the size of the continental US. This problem is like the weather: everyone talks about it, but nobody ever does anything to fix it. 

Image Source






Back to the exhibit: from the sign posts in front of it, much to my surprise, this wasn’t an informational exhibit at all, but a work of art.


Well, can’t say I was wrong about the recycling angle.







Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, after all, L.A. is no stranger to celebrating plastic or recycled celebrities, for that matter.


Image Sources: Sylvester Stallone and Joan Rivers




The exhibit attracted many passers-by to come and take a closer look.




Looks pretty with the sunlight behind it, doesn’t it? What do you think about this exhibit?


In case you don’t get the comment about Left Coast. After the French Revolution, a new parliament was established with the conservatives sitting on the right of the speaker and the liberals to his left. From that time forward, right and left have been politically synonymous with conservative and liberal. Allan Fotheringham, a well-known Canadian newspaper columnist referred to British Columbia as the Left Coast, rather than West Coast, from our tendency to elect socialist or left leaning politicians into power. Northern California, especially San Francisco and Berkeley, has leftward leanings, politically, so the name seems apt here in the Bay Area as well. Fotheringham also refers the US as the Excited States. Maybe Canadians are the only ones who find that funny.



Copyright © 2009 David G. Kelly

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