Unclassified Dubya library designs
March 4, 2008 12:39 AM   Subscribe

 
Funny, I actually had my own vision for it. I just didn't know there was a competition or I'd have submitted it.

The George Bush Presidential Library: A square hole, fifty feet on a side and two hundred feet deep, simply gouged out of the bare dirt. At the center of each side, fifty feet below the surface, a rusting iron pipe four feet across. All four pipes disgorge a continuous trickle of raw sewage, cunningly metered so as to always maintain a depth of 100 feet in the pit. Sewage can be pumped out the bottom and recycled if necessary.

What makes it a library? Every year on Jan. 20th, a copy of the constitution is thrown in.
posted by Naberius at 12:58 AM on March 4, 2008 [39 favorites]


mmmm.....liberrys.
posted by Duke999R at 1:06 AM on March 4, 2008


What about the contents of the library? I'd say Jack Chick tracts, worn VHS copies of bad right-wing 80s action movies like Red Dawn and Iron Eagle, and My Pet Goat. Put the complete speeches of Goebbels in a special wing to commemorate his many Press Secretaries.

The drawings are great (I particularly like the one with the "Katrina Water Follies"). They remind me of the comically overcomplicated futuristic structures I used to draw to kill time in high school detention halls while stoned, down to the legend pointing out the various features.
posted by DecemberBoy at 1:08 AM on March 4, 2008


How coarse.

and obvious.
posted by dhammond at 1:09 AM on March 4, 2008


What about the contents of the library?

Several hundred copies of the president's daily intelligence briefing, each of which makes a satisfying new-book cracking sound when you open it.

Because they've never been read before. Amirite?
posted by hifiparasol at 1:12 AM on March 4, 2008


It will be the first U.S. library, presidential or otherwise, to hold community book burnings and Constitution shredding days.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:18 AM on March 4, 2008


His library should contain a single sheet of A4 paper with English written on it. The very document that several people worked on for weeks just after the start of the war. It is essentially a summary of the situation in Iraq at the time, and was the product of much effort.

It would be nice if the dumb motherfucker would read it.
posted by chuckdarwin at 1:41 AM on March 4, 2008 [1 favorite]


These designs are far too spacious for the decorative Readers Digest condensed books and several thousand bags of classified confetti that will make up Bush's legacy.
posted by bunnytricks at 2:03 AM on March 4, 2008


My design would be a massive modern library, staffed with hundreds of efficient librarians, quiet reading areas, shady courtyards and fountains, a coffee shop and lecture theatres, but just one book.

The Pet Goat
posted by mattoxic at 2:44 AM on March 4, 2008 [3 favorites]


Great post Gyan!

Naberlus,

perhaps they could use the Texas Rangers' stadium?
posted by clearly at 3:11 AM on March 4, 2008


I can see it now. "This document cannot be viewed because of the 5th amendment or executive privilege". Over and over again.
posted by srboisvert at 3:30 AM on March 4, 2008 [2 favorites]


I actually like the idea of the library shaped like a half-open book; it wouldn't be out of place really, there are actual buildings out there which look far worse than that.
posted by WalterMitty at 3:36 AM on March 4, 2008


Personally, I rather enjoyed the "W" design. Its bombastic, ugly, Texan and looks like a Mall. It would be perfect.

In all seriousness, does anybody actually know what GWB's Presidential library is going to contain? I mean, the chances of it actually showcasing, you know, actual Presidential documents is pretty close to nil, I would imagine.
posted by Avenger at 4:59 AM on March 4, 2008


For millennia, great and not-so-great leaders have celebrated themselves in monuments... (We leave it for you to decide which category the present example falls in; we certainly aren't saying anything one way or the other.)

Good post and good article.
posted by Wolfdog at 5:07 AM on March 4, 2008


Whatever it looks like, the Bush library will be overkill. How much space do you need to store one bible? I mean, that's the only book that would logically be in there. Perhaps it might also contain a massive ultrasecure safe enclosing such vitally important top-secret documents like his service records [to be opened only by the descendants of High Priest Cheney in a thousand years], but the only book on display will be the bible.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:33 AM on March 4, 2008


Just one bible?!
posted by Wolfdog at 5:42 AM on March 4, 2008


I really liked the one that rides on fountains, until I realized there was a column in the center.

There should be no column. And Halliburton should build it with a no-bid contract. Now, that's a metaphor.
posted by fungible at 5:46 AM on March 4, 2008 [1 favorite]


In the end, the goat becomes a hero when it butts a car robber into submission.

You must admit that W took its lessons to heart.

Does Dick Cheney get a library too?
posted by lukemeister at 6:07 AM on March 4, 2008



Naberius, I think you're on the right track, but I'd recommend that they meld this project with a similar one for WIPP [PDF 660kB].

I'd start with this.

Oh yeah, previously.
posted by Herodios at 6:18 AM on March 4, 2008


'I gave the President my book. He raised an eyebrow. "Who wrote this for ya, Geldof?" he said without looking up from the cover. Very dry. "Who will you get to read it for you, Mr. President?" I replied.   No response.
posted by Webbster at 7:08 AM on March 4, 2008 [5 favorites]


...just one book. The Pet Goat --mattoxic

So I have a grad degree from SMU and happen to be living just down the street at the moment. Let's just say that I'm more than a little annoyed by the school's selection. Anyway, I think I've just decided on the first book to sneak onto that library's shelves after it's built. Thanks mattoxic!
posted by Bugg at 7:31 AM on March 4, 2008


Webbster, that certainly is an interesting article.
posted by chuckdarwin at 7:39 AM on March 4, 2008


There was a cartoon, I think it was in New Yorker, of a single magazine turnstile rack, with a couple of old comic books, and some flies buzzing around it. There was a sign affixed to the top, "George W. Bush Presidential Library". It was perfectly sublime.
posted by dbiedny at 7:45 AM on March 4, 2008


I was thinking a toilet and a magazine rack.
posted by tommyD at 7:45 AM on March 4, 2008 [1 favorite]


Webbster, that belonged in the replies post from yesterday.
posted by piratebowling at 8:11 AM on March 4, 2008


I imagine it as a beautiful, stately building, sleek and modern. It contains a majestic reading room, with a wide selection of the president's personal papers, along with in-depth historical analyses of his eight years in the Oval Office. It has seminar rooms and auditoriums of different sizes for lectures and meetings. There is a multimedia room, a number of rotating exhibits, a world-class cafe and inspiring outdoor spaces.

It is hidden from view with a 50-foot grey cinderblock fence. Only a handful of wealthy, powerful people, of Bush's own choosing, are ever allowed in.
posted by PlusDistance at 8:19 AM on March 4, 2008


Let's not bother with the building process. The contract will be awarded to KBR/Halliburton, corruption will run amok, and the project will cost trillions.

GWB's legacy should be housed in one of the symbols of his administration: a Katrina FEMA trailer, preferably of the toxic kind.

A Biblical legacy actually befits this guy.
posted by grounded at 9:24 AM on March 4, 2008


Do we really need another thread dedicated solely to Bush bashing?
posted by gyc at 10:03 AM on March 4, 2008


No, but we do need another thread dedicated to library bashing.
posted by Tullius at 10:29 AM on March 4, 2008


The half open book example is somewhat underwhelming. Here's a better version.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 11:17 AM on March 4, 2008


Being from Dallas originally, the prospect of going home to visit the folks and being anywhere in the vicinity of this structure (and the man himself) makes me sad/sick/angry.

They should build the damn thing in France.
posted by rosswald at 11:24 AM on March 4, 2008


"The George W. Bush presidential library"? "The George W. Bush presidential library"? Now, let me think...

No. There's nothing to add.

To elaborate on that concept is to overdo the joke.
posted by Anything at 11:40 AM on March 4, 2008 [1 favorite]


No, but we do need another thread dedicated to library bashing.

I think there is a Metafilter rule that states that every other post must be either a Bush-bashing post, or at least contain a certain number of off-topic comments that bash Bush.

If there's not a rule, then it's definitely a de facto standard.
posted by tadellin at 11:46 AM on March 4, 2008


Perhaps they could build it on top of him? AM I RITE!?!?!?!?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:47 AM on March 4, 2008


Bush: What's a liberry? And why do I want one?

Cheney: Nevermind, George, just sign where I showed you.

Bush: I'm still the President, right? I like presidentin'.

Cheney: Of course you are, George, of course you are.
posted by tommasz at 12:23 PM on March 4, 2008 [1 favorite]


Is anyone else asking how this could cost $500 million? That's a lot of donut burgers.
posted by A-Train at 6:03 PM on March 4, 2008


I work for the firm that will design the library. We console ourselves with the thought that it's being designed by a bunch of nyc liberals, but it's not much. They'll get a kick out of this link.
posted by DenOfSizer at 6:05 PM on March 4, 2008


Do we really need another thread dedicated solely to Bush bashing?

Insulting that dimwit fratboy shitstain isn't 'bashing', it's fucking therapy to try and exorcise the demons spawned of 8 years of involuntary psychic sodomy from him and his merry band of criminals.

Bring it on, I say. Bring it the hell on.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:29 PM on March 4, 2008


Does the therapy have to be so public?
posted by Lord Chancellor at 10:14 PM on March 4, 2008


It's much more fun that way.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:19 PM on March 4, 2008


Does the therapy have to be so public?

Um, yes (at least until we have get our press back).

But, really, calling it therapy is disingenuous and patronizing. It is an open call to ideological arms. It is a howl of frustration at the public and energetic rogering the Bush/Cheney 'Admin' has given to the people of the US who aren't in the miniscule .01% directly benefitting from their egregious larceny and mis-management.
- edit over-long (10,000 words approx) rant about (only a fraction of) the myriad ways the Bush/Cheney admin. has been exactly contradictory to the best interests of the Nation.

His Library should be a project that is never finished, or once finished, abandoned as wasteful and/or perhaps built with toxic materials (Haliburton asbestos).


The very ideal, of course, is a building that would collapse once he is inside. Burying him in a chaotic pile of toxic detritus that can never be remediated, necessitating the whole mess be encased in a block of concrete, like Chernobyl's reactor #4, and mourned annually.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:07 AM on March 5, 2008


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