Civic Responsibility at its Finest:
August 27, 2002 12:57 PM   Subscribe

Civic Responsibility at its Finest: If your city contained dozens of stylish and beautiful fiberglass statues of moose that were repeatedly being vandalized, what would you do?
posted by 314/ (23 comments total)
 
First thing I would do is wish I lived in a more original city. Isn't this fiberglass animal thing played out? In Chi-cow-go, we endured the fiberglass bovines three years ago (and I think we stole the idea from some European city).
posted by alou73 at 1:10 PM on August 27, 2002


1. Creepy. I clicked on the last link more or less at random and that picture was taken about fifty feet away from where I work.

2. This moose thing was over with a long time ago. A few bars have some old beat-up graffitied mosse still kicking around, but the official moose-time was last winter, I think. Almost everyone hated them. They were not original. The antlers kept getting ripped off, the police chief threatened to devote "all available resources" to catching the vandal of the police-station moose, and they were ugly.
Plus, Toronto is Hogtown, so they should have been pigs. You have to travel some distance before you are likely to see a moose in these parts.
posted by Fabulon7 at 1:24 PM on August 27, 2002


"meese".

Sigh.
posted by nickmark at 1:26 PM on August 27, 2002


geese, meese, jeese louisse!
posted by HTuttle at 2:03 PM on August 27, 2002


During the Summer of the Moose, I pitched an article to Toronto Life (a local upscale mag) wherein I would spend a week wandering the urban jungle while "hunting" the fiberglass moose with a paintball gun. They were sorta interested, until I told them I planned to use a chainsaw to remove the heads of my "kills" to keep as trophies.

They then promptly passed on it.
posted by Polo Mr. Polo at 2:03 PM on August 27, 2002


If I weren't planning on emigrating to Canada I would crack some cruel joke about meese...
posted by zekinskia at 2:33 PM on August 27, 2002


"What would you do?"

I'd like to believe I'd be one of the guys vandalizing them. Fiberglass antlers?? They're just screaming for a makeover!
posted by ZachsMind at 2:36 PM on August 27, 2002


My state is currently filled with fiberglass bison. Sadly, it appears to me the whole thing was an excuse to make bad puns.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:50 PM on August 27, 2002


it's interesting, because this whole idea of fibreglass animals isn't a new one. cowparade has been through quite a few cities including the eta targeted hotspot of bilbao, northern spain. as well as new york as london, but i really didn't hear about any bovine assaults.

and when it comes to artificial animals, berlin had it's bears and didn't new york have some kind of non cow/moose related parade of sorts.

so. i guess the problem comes down to one of animal design. in real life, mooses seem to do just fine. but those fake antlers seem so damned attractive, eh?
posted by triv at 2:51 PM on August 27, 2002


mr_crash_davis: My state is currently filled with fiberglass bison.

"The Stealth Buffulo is currently damaged beyond repair".

Priceless.
posted by srboisvert at 3:02 PM on August 27, 2002


srboisvert:

Wouldn't it be perfect if it was damaged by someone hitting it with a car, then claiming "I didn't see it"?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:30 PM on August 27, 2002


All right, I have the scoop on what happened to the stealth buffalo. I emailed one of the contacts on the buffalo pages, and the reply is as follows:

"During the Olympics while the Stealth was on display at the Gateway someone took the wings."

You may insert your own buffalo wings joke here.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:11 PM on August 27, 2002


alou73: In Chi-cow-go, we endured the fiberglass bovines three years ago (and I think we stole the idea from some European city).


Yup. Zurich.
posted by 23lemurs at 4:17 PM on August 27, 2002


Last summer Buffalo, NY did (shockingly) Buffalos, and we had the same problem with vandals.

I wasn't too happy about the vandals when they were spray painting and smashing the sculptures. It seemed a particularly lousy thing to do since, after a couple months, the plan was to auction them off with the proceeds going to benefit a local art museum and Roswell Park cancer hospital.

Regardless of the quality of the art, or even if it is art, defacing it for a laugh so that it can't be auctioned off just isn't right. I can't really think of any way to justify sabotaging a fundraising effort to help cancer patients and research.
posted by Kellydamnit at 4:25 PM on August 27, 2002


I'd probably be going to jail....
posted by jaded at 5:02 PM on August 27, 2002


The Flathead Valley in Montana (up by Glacier Nat'l Park) has fiberglass grizzlies. They're pretty horrible.

Still, anyone who writes "meese" that many times makes me happy. (And I'm a copyeditor.) Go meese!
posted by blissbat at 5:28 PM on August 27, 2002


Plus, Toronto is Hogtown, so they should have been pigs.--Fabulon7

Sorry, we got the hogs/pigs here in Iowa (Specifically, Des Moines and the Iowa State Fair.) a couple of years ago. This year we got eggs. No problems with vandalism...that I have heard, anyway.
posted by jaronson at 5:45 PM on August 27, 2002


Sydney recently had fiberglass cows wandering around the city as part of the "Moooving Art Exhibition". The cows are painted by well known Australian artists and didn't look all that bad (there was even one made especially for the second series of Australian Big Brother). My favorites were Ally McVeal, Moolin Rouge and Great Barrier Beef. Police are still looking for the wannabe rodeo clowns and evil cattle rustlers. As a result, each cow was assigned a personal security guard to watch over them during the night.
posted by Major at 6:20 PM on August 27, 2002


I'd probably be going to jail....

I'd probably see you there.
posted by dg at 6:52 PM on August 27, 2002


My hometown is currently awash in fiberglass flamingos.
posted by louie at 10:02 PM on August 27, 2002


Here in Raleigh, it was the Red Wolf Ramble, which was harmless enough. The stuff adds color to a city, raises money for more public art (or did here, anyway) and kids seem to love it. *shrugs* Seems like a win-win to me.
posted by mediareport at 11:01 PM on August 27, 2002


While there were many other moose that were prettier, this one was my favourite. It was extremely simple, but it matched the building. The eyes were done with rhinestones for that extra-classy touch, and if I remember correctly, there was a photo op done with some of the dancers riding it. (I can't find that, but maybe I made that up cuz I thought it would have been a good idea.)

Just in case you haven't had your fill of moose stuff yet here is Toronto's official Moose in the City page.
posted by melissa at 8:32 AM on August 28, 2002


These exhibitions are getting out of hand. Here in Kansas City, MO we jumped on the cow parade bandwagon in 2001. Now in 2002 we have nauseating teddy bears instead.

Both times the local chained-owned daily newspaper has wasted a ton of space on incredibly lame stories about the whole thing. Last year during the Assualt of the Cows, the local chain-owned daily newspaper used the vandalism as grist for many lame stories about "injured cows" and the "cow hospital" where they were patched up shipped back out. So far this year no one seems to care enough about the teddy bears to bother molesting them.
posted by erogers at 9:02 AM on August 28, 2002


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