Mess, with Texas
May 19, 2021 8:37 PM Subscribe
Is Phil Collins’s legendary Texana collection everything it’s cracked up to be? A Texas Monthly longread on the ructions and scheming around the renovation of the Alamo.
It was at this point I decided this article had ceased to be merely cool, and had become amazing. What a sentence:
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 8:46 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
That’s how Texas Monthly articles get you.
posted by padraigin at 8:55 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by padraigin at 8:55 PM on May 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Texas Monthly is the only thing I miss from my time in the state.
posted by NotLost at 9:04 PM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by NotLost at 9:04 PM on May 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
What a cluster.
posted by Miko at 9:08 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Miko at 9:08 PM on May 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
because I recently stumbled onto it, and it's the Phil Collins I once genuinely cared about ...
Phil Collins - Interview November 1974
we are treated to a 40 minute interview and drumming with Phil, never heard before now. Since Steve was a drummer, he talks with Phil about drumming techniques, gear, and drummers such as Steve Gadd, Bill Bruford, Carl Palmer, Billy Cobham, and others. There are also a lot of details about the new album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and tour.
posted by philip-random at 9:27 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Phil Collins - Interview November 1974
we are treated to a 40 minute interview and drumming with Phil, never heard before now. Since Steve was a drummer, he talks with Phil about drumming techniques, gear, and drummers such as Steve Gadd, Bill Bruford, Carl Palmer, Billy Cobham, and others. There are also a lot of details about the new album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and tour.
posted by philip-random at 9:27 PM on May 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
It strikes me that there's a way to square that circle of "it's Phil Collins' lifetime collection" and "but is it fakes". Make Phil Collins, and the act of collecting Texana itself, the focus of the museum.
If you think about it - it is strikingly weird, and kind of touching, that this is where Phil Collins spent most of his money instead of buying cars, cocaine, or prostitutes. This is a British guy who was fascinated with the story of the Alamo since he was a little boy, based on watching the movies and TV shows - he'd never even been to Texas when he was a kid, he was just some little kid in London playing cowboys in his back yard. Which in itself is pretty notable. But not unusual - there were probably scores of little kids who got captivated by the story of the Wild West, or with this particular story from it, and their fascination never died - the only difference between them and Collins is that he actually amassed enough money to go out looking for stuff to buy, and that he avoided blowing it on other more traditional "rock star" trappings.
Now that's already an intriguing story ("the story of The Alamo is so captivating that people in other countries are inspired by it, so much so that this rock star from the UK used his fortune to seek out and build a collection!"). But then you add on a second angle - acknowledge the fact that the demand for Alamo artifacts is so great that some forgeries are out there. Not that you outright accuse anything from Phil's collection of being a fake - you just have a room devoted to "fakes exist", where you talk about the methods some forgers have used to artificially age the metal, and the forensics and research people use to authenticate stuff. There have to be some other notorious Alamo artifact fakes out there - get a couple of those and use them as displays ("this sword was put up for sale in 1962 - but it's a fake. Here's how we know!"). And defend the collectors here ("Why would people be fooled by fakes? Well, some of the fakers are very clever, and some of the collectors just care so much about the Alamo they want to believe....")
You have displays like that, and then you get into Collins' collection, with each item displayed with just dry facts. Where you know something is authenticated, claim that it is what it is. Where the origin is more spurious, hedge your bets ("this is a knife similar to that used by Bowie...").
That's a museum that tells an honest and nuanced story about the cultural-legacy impact of The Alamo, and adds in some cool sciencey-stuff about archeology - and also casts Phil in a good light. And hell, I'd visit it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:16 AM on May 20, 2021 [29 favorites]
If you think about it - it is strikingly weird, and kind of touching, that this is where Phil Collins spent most of his money instead of buying cars, cocaine, or prostitutes. This is a British guy who was fascinated with the story of the Alamo since he was a little boy, based on watching the movies and TV shows - he'd never even been to Texas when he was a kid, he was just some little kid in London playing cowboys in his back yard. Which in itself is pretty notable. But not unusual - there were probably scores of little kids who got captivated by the story of the Wild West, or with this particular story from it, and their fascination never died - the only difference between them and Collins is that he actually amassed enough money to go out looking for stuff to buy, and that he avoided blowing it on other more traditional "rock star" trappings.
Now that's already an intriguing story ("the story of The Alamo is so captivating that people in other countries are inspired by it, so much so that this rock star from the UK used his fortune to seek out and build a collection!"). But then you add on a second angle - acknowledge the fact that the demand for Alamo artifacts is so great that some forgeries are out there. Not that you outright accuse anything from Phil's collection of being a fake - you just have a room devoted to "fakes exist", where you talk about the methods some forgers have used to artificially age the metal, and the forensics and research people use to authenticate stuff. There have to be some other notorious Alamo artifact fakes out there - get a couple of those and use them as displays ("this sword was put up for sale in 1962 - but it's a fake. Here's how we know!"). And defend the collectors here ("Why would people be fooled by fakes? Well, some of the fakers are very clever, and some of the collectors just care so much about the Alamo they want to believe....")
You have displays like that, and then you get into Collins' collection, with each item displayed with just dry facts. Where you know something is authenticated, claim that it is what it is. Where the origin is more spurious, hedge your bets ("this is a knife similar to that used by Bowie...").
That's a museum that tells an honest and nuanced story about the cultural-legacy impact of The Alamo, and adds in some cool sciencey-stuff about archeology - and also casts Phil in a good light. And hell, I'd visit it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:16 AM on May 20, 2021 [29 favorites]
Why pick Texana when the eminently more to point Texarcana is sitting right there in plain second sight?
posted by y2karl at 6:18 AM on May 20, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 6:18 AM on May 20, 2021 [13 favorites]
Bee'sWing: "This is the most Texas Story ever."
Also the most Phil Collins story ever
( “A lot of us enjoyed the book just because of the silliness of it.”)
There's even a photograph of Phil digging himself into a hole!
posted by chavenet at 6:30 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Also the most Phil Collins story ever
( “A lot of us enjoyed the book just because of the silliness of it.”)
There's even a photograph of Phil digging himself into a hole!
posted by chavenet at 6:30 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I don’t think the provenance really matters. It certainly won’t matter to the people that visit. I lived in Texas for a long while, and they are more high on their own supply than anywhere else in this country. This is a place so relentlessly self-mythologizing that they sucked in a nice man from across the Atlantic Ocean!
My Mother In Law, in her own words, “escaped Texas,” being written out of her family for decades because she married a Jewish man. She has few fond memories of the place, but when she came to visit, and we took a ironic visit to the Alamo she started to cry in the film room. This story is central to the Texan Indoctrination program that every child in the state is put through.
Texas Monthly is fully aware of how accurate the state’s portrayal of itself really is. The Alamo is a reliquary; nobody is going to care if the fragments are real.
posted by q*ben at 6:42 AM on May 20, 2021 [10 favorites]
My Mother In Law, in her own words, “escaped Texas,” being written out of her family for decades because she married a Jewish man. She has few fond memories of the place, but when she came to visit, and we took a ironic visit to the Alamo she started to cry in the film room. This story is central to the Texan Indoctrination program that every child in the state is put through.
Texas Monthly is fully aware of how accurate the state’s portrayal of itself really is. The Alamo is a reliquary; nobody is going to care if the fragments are real.
posted by q*ben at 6:42 AM on May 20, 2021 [10 favorites]
The first part of the article reminds me of the wine forgeries that were widely reported on earlier this century (previously and previouslier), with Phil Collins playing the part of Malcolm Forbes. Then it turns into a well-written but predictable account of actual historians running head-on into lost-cause mythology.
posted by TedW at 6:54 AM on May 20, 2021
posted by TedW at 6:54 AM on May 20, 2021
q*ben: I lived in Texas for a long while, and they are more high on their own supply than anywhere else in this country.
Counterpoint: New York City.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:54 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Counterpoint: New York City.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:54 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
There's a deep, deep rabbithole you can go down if you want to look at actual Texas history. Let's take a look at (spins the big wheel.....click, click, click)....Jim Bowie, "hero of the Alamo". I'll cut to the chase and quote Wikipedia, which offers a fast anecdote:
Shortly before the senior Bowie died circa 1820, he gave ten slaves and horses and cattle to both James and Rezin. For the next seven years, the brothers worked together to develop several large estates in Lafourche Parish and Opelousas.[20] Louisiana's population was growing rapidly, and the brothers hoped to take advantage of its rising land prices through speculation. Without the capital required to buy large tracts,[25] they entered into a partnership with pirate Jean Lafitte in 1818 to raise money. By then, the United States had outlawed the importation of slaves from Africa. Most southern states gave incentives for informing on an illegal slave trader; informers could receive half of what the imported slaves would earn at auction as a reward.
Bowie made three trips to Lafitte's compound on Galveston Island. On each occasion, he bought smuggled slaves and took them directly to a customhouse to inform on his own actions. When the customs officers offered the slaves for auction, Bowie purchased them and received back half the price he had paid, as allowed by the state laws. He could legally transport the slaves and resell them at a greater market value in New Orleans or areas farther up the Mississippi River.[26][27] Using this scheme, the brothers collected $65,000 to use for their land speculation.[27][28]
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you one of your Founding Heroes of Texas.
posted by gimonca at 7:36 AM on May 20, 2021 [16 favorites]
Shortly before the senior Bowie died circa 1820, he gave ten slaves and horses and cattle to both James and Rezin. For the next seven years, the brothers worked together to develop several large estates in Lafourche Parish and Opelousas.[20] Louisiana's population was growing rapidly, and the brothers hoped to take advantage of its rising land prices through speculation. Without the capital required to buy large tracts,[25] they entered into a partnership with pirate Jean Lafitte in 1818 to raise money. By then, the United States had outlawed the importation of slaves from Africa. Most southern states gave incentives for informing on an illegal slave trader; informers could receive half of what the imported slaves would earn at auction as a reward.
Bowie made three trips to Lafitte's compound on Galveston Island. On each occasion, he bought smuggled slaves and took them directly to a customhouse to inform on his own actions. When the customs officers offered the slaves for auction, Bowie purchased them and received back half the price he had paid, as allowed by the state laws. He could legally transport the slaves and resell them at a greater market value in New Orleans or areas farther up the Mississippi River.[26][27] Using this scheme, the brothers collected $65,000 to use for their land speculation.[27][28]
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you one of your Founding Heroes of Texas.
posted by gimonca at 7:36 AM on May 20, 2021 [16 favorites]
Wow. Just wow. Couldn't make this kind of crazy up if you put Kafka and Burroughs into a blender.
Sususudio!
posted by riverlife at 7:43 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Sususudio!
posted by riverlife at 7:43 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Why pick Texana when the eminently more to point Texarcana is sitting right there in plain second sight?
Alas, this would probably generate some confusion.
posted by corbie at 7:50 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Alas, this would probably generate some confusion.
posted by corbie at 7:50 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
It was at this point I decided this article had ceased to be merely cool, and had become amazing. What a sentence:
Musso decided to take the knife to a psychic. But because, he says, he doesn’t really believe in the paranormal, he wanted the best
And that was before the knife counterfeiter Dickie Washer.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:03 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Musso decided to take the knife to a psychic. But because, he says, he doesn’t really believe in the paranormal, he wanted the best
And that was before the knife counterfeiter Dickie Washer.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:03 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
>>Why pick Texana when the eminently more to point Texarcana is sitting right there in plain second sight?
>Alas, this would probably generate some confusion.
Or some other confusion.
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 9:26 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
>Alas, this would probably generate some confusion.
Or some other confusion.
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 9:26 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Only, in either case, to the easily confused -- or so I would like to think. ...I think.
posted by y2karl at 10:12 AM on May 20, 2021
posted by y2karl at 10:12 AM on May 20, 2021
Also the most Phil Collins story ever
Things I was surprised to hear Phil Collins quoted as saying:
"‘I didn’t even think y’all would want it."
"I feel like a dog with two tails."
posted by kirkaracha at 10:42 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
Things I was surprised to hear Phil Collins quoted as saying:
"‘I didn’t even think y’all would want it."
"I feel like a dog with two tails."
posted by kirkaracha at 10:42 AM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is a British guy who was fascinated with the story of the Alamo since he was a little boy, based on watching the movies and TV shows - he'd never even been to Texas when he was a kid, he was just some little kid in London playing cowboys in his back yard.
The Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts was known for his interest in, and collection concerning, the American Civil War. (Is it something with British drummers? What does Ringo collect?)
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:46 AM on May 20, 2021
The Rolling Stones' Charlie Watts was known for his interest in, and collection concerning, the American Civil War. (Is it something with British drummers? What does Ringo collect?)
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:46 AM on May 20, 2021
Why pick Texana when the eminently more to point Texarcana is sitting right there in plain second sight?
Plus there's beer in Texarkana.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:47 AM on May 20, 2021
Plus there's beer in Texarkana.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:47 AM on May 20, 2021
What does Ringo collect?
Classic rockers.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:51 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Classic rockers.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:51 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
"Is Phil Collins’s legendary Texana collection everything it’s cracked up to be?"
Ah, well, it's not like The Alamo is everything it's cracked up to be, either. Also from Texas Monthly, in October 2020: How Leaders of the Texas Revolution Fought to Preserve Slavery: Slavery was a much more pressing issue to Texian settlers than was religious freedom or the language barrier. Though only a quarter of the original three hundred settling families brought enslaved persons with them, the Texas economy was incredibly dependent on cotton, and cotton was only really profitable when picked by the enslaved. In 1829, when Vicente Guerrero, then president of the Republic of Mexico, issued a decree that all enslaved people were henceforth emancipated, Anglo settlers were aghast. [...]
The Republic of Texas, After Winning Independence From Mexico
The Texas constitution of 1836 stripped the Republic’s congress of the ability to pass any legislation affecting the slave trade, let alone emancipating anybody. No slave owner in the Republic of Texas could free his slaves without the consent of the Republic’s congress. Any free Black person living in Texas could continue living there only with the approval of the congress. The prospect of any free Black people in Texas was considered a threat to the institution of slavery, because it could embolden slaves to run away.
On preview: "What does Ringo collect?" Admirers.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:56 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Ah, well, it's not like The Alamo is everything it's cracked up to be, either. Also from Texas Monthly, in October 2020: How Leaders of the Texas Revolution Fought to Preserve Slavery: Slavery was a much more pressing issue to Texian settlers than was religious freedom or the language barrier. Though only a quarter of the original three hundred settling families brought enslaved persons with them, the Texas economy was incredibly dependent on cotton, and cotton was only really profitable when picked by the enslaved. In 1829, when Vicente Guerrero, then president of the Republic of Mexico, issued a decree that all enslaved people were henceforth emancipated, Anglo settlers were aghast. [...]
The Republic of Texas, After Winning Independence From Mexico
The Texas constitution of 1836 stripped the Republic’s congress of the ability to pass any legislation affecting the slave trade, let alone emancipating anybody. No slave owner in the Republic of Texas could free his slaves without the consent of the Republic’s congress. Any free Black person living in Texas could continue living there only with the approval of the congress. The prospect of any free Black people in Texas was considered a threat to the institution of slavery, because it could embolden slaves to run away.
On preview: "What does Ringo collect?" Admirers.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:56 AM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
What does Ringo collect?
No idea, but some people collect Ringo.
posted by carmicha at 12:24 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
No idea, but some people collect Ringo.
posted by carmicha at 12:24 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
In the past two years TM has had so many articles on Texas History and the Alamo that I can only imagine this article is the equivalent of eating popcorn with a wry expression.
Personally, I think they should just put the collection in the basement and call it a day.
posted by q*ben at 12:24 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
Personally, I think they should just put the collection in the basement and call it a day.
posted by q*ben at 12:24 PM on May 20, 2021 [4 favorites]
I remember visiting the Alamo as a teen, and it was sad. Just a few scruffy buildings were open and there were only a few interpretive signs. The most interesting part for me was the weird papaya trees growing in the garden. The last time I was there, I was in town for a family wedding. It was still scruffy, but they at least had a few artifacts on display and better signage. The papayas were still going strong.
Texas is bad at preserving history. The USS Texas, a WWI era, pre-Dreadnought battleship has been slowly rotting away in San Jacinto for as long as I can remember. No one seems to want to spend money on it. The Texas State Park system is quite nice though, a good thing in a state with very little public land.
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:02 PM on May 20, 2021
Texas is bad at preserving history. The USS Texas, a WWI era, pre-Dreadnought battleship has been slowly rotting away in San Jacinto for as long as I can remember. No one seems to want to spend money on it. The Texas State Park system is quite nice though, a good thing in a state with very little public land.
posted by Bee'sWing at 1:02 PM on May 20, 2021
Really, San Antonio is a pretty nice city overall. If you want to see history in the area, the Missions are a great start. (The Alamo itself is technically one of the "missions"--that was its original role before the siege and later mythologizing.)
posted by gimonca at 3:25 PM on May 20, 2021
posted by gimonca at 3:25 PM on May 20, 2021
Make Phil Collins, and the act of collecting Texana itself, the focus of the museum.
I confess I always love this kind of thought , and I’m a little bit too close to this kind of work in the first place to be neutral, but the whole meta-interpretive “teach the fascination” move doesn’t work so well in real physical museum sites .it works really well in documentary film and podcasts (and of course journalism). But physical pilgrimage works differently and “here’s a subversion of the whole trope you came here to see and now we are three layers deep talking about rich collectors and an old pop star you never heard of and global fantasies of the American west” does not actually fly too well with visitors.
As a historic site, the Alamo is hopeless, without a contemporary decolonizing approach that is never going to be allowed by its stakeholders to happen.
posted by Miko at 9:29 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
I confess I always love this kind of thought , and I’m a little bit too close to this kind of work in the first place to be neutral, but the whole meta-interpretive “teach the fascination” move doesn’t work so well in real physical museum sites .it works really well in documentary film and podcasts (and of course journalism). But physical pilgrimage works differently and “here’s a subversion of the whole trope you came here to see and now we are three layers deep talking about rich collectors and an old pop star you never heard of and global fantasies of the American west” does not actually fly too well with visitors.
As a historic site, the Alamo is hopeless, without a contemporary decolonizing approach that is never going to be allowed by its stakeholders to happen.
posted by Miko at 9:29 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]
now we are three layers deep talking about rich collectors and an old pop star you never heard of
I think it's a bit unlikely that people would not have heard of Phil Collins. Especially when all you gotta do is put on a loop of the last minute "In The Air Tonight" where it goes into the drum break in the background and even the most ignorant-of-Phil person will be all "Oh, wait, he's this guy? Cool!"
I also wasn't envisioning this as the "main" Alamo museum, more of a supplementary wing. All the contract requires is that there be a facility to display things at the Alamo, from the sound of things in the article - you could have the main building for the pilgrimage people, and then when they've spent ten minutes walking around and the glow has worn off and your spouse from Des Moines is asking what else there is to see there, then hey look, there's the Collins Collection Wing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:28 AM on May 21, 2021
I think it's a bit unlikely that people would not have heard of Phil Collins. Especially when all you gotta do is put on a loop of the last minute "In The Air Tonight" where it goes into the drum break in the background and even the most ignorant-of-Phil person will be all "Oh, wait, he's this guy? Cool!"
I also wasn't envisioning this as the "main" Alamo museum, more of a supplementary wing. All the contract requires is that there be a facility to display things at the Alamo, from the sound of things in the article - you could have the main building for the pilgrimage people, and then when they've spent ten minutes walking around and the glow has worn off and your spouse from Des Moines is asking what else there is to see there, then hey look, there's the Collins Collection Wing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 3:28 AM on May 21, 2021
I don’t think the provenance really matters. It certainly won’t matter to the people that visit.
It would have mattered to me, as a kid visiting. Most people visiting a historic site aren't going in having done tons of research, so whether or not their minds are made up is completely up for grabs. People form strong associations to the framework of facts they learn early on, so school trips are more formative to our conceptions of history and the world than we might think.
It's also weird to give up on an internationally recognizable historical attraction as a vehicle for real historical education just because some of the loudest people who live nearby, or who loudly fetishize the site, don't care.
The Alamo does not exist merely for Texans. And even if it were, Texans are not merely the most annoying people you happened to meet in Texas.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:44 AM on May 21, 2021
It would have mattered to me, as a kid visiting. Most people visiting a historic site aren't going in having done tons of research, so whether or not their minds are made up is completely up for grabs. People form strong associations to the framework of facts they learn early on, so school trips are more formative to our conceptions of history and the world than we might think.
It's also weird to give up on an internationally recognizable historical attraction as a vehicle for real historical education just because some of the loudest people who live nearby, or who loudly fetishize the site, don't care.
The Alamo does not exist merely for Texans. And even if it were, Texans are not merely the most annoying people you happened to meet in Texas.
posted by pykrete jungle at 6:44 AM on May 21, 2021
I admit to being a bit too glib in my comment. But in this case the site was and is recognizable mainly because of propaganda, even during the Texas Revolution. It's symbolic by nature and I don't believe that there ever has been or will be a lot of energy behind a nuanced understanding of the site. Without the bluster and myth it becomes just another 19th century battle site - interesting for some but not able to attract the kind of investment and excitement that builds a museum. In this case, I don't think the people who will put their time and money into this kind of project will want or welcome dissent in the ranks.
posted by q*ben at 4:18 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by q*ben at 4:18 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
think it's a bit unlikely that people would not have heard of Phil Collins
Run that question by someone under 30.
Q*ben has it. There's simply not enough there there to the interpretive narrative of the Alamo. As a battle site, it's colonialism all the way down; and if you're not going to tell that story (and they're totally not; this is a fact) the global mythos of the Old West makes no sense anyhow. It just becomes another white rich guy collector, driven by fantasy, just 20th century style this time.
posted by Miko at 8:15 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
Run that question by someone under 30.
Q*ben has it. There's simply not enough there there to the interpretive narrative of the Alamo. As a battle site, it's colonialism all the way down; and if you're not going to tell that story (and they're totally not; this is a fact) the global mythos of the Old West makes no sense anyhow. It just becomes another white rich guy collector, driven by fantasy, just 20th century style this time.
posted by Miko at 8:15 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's also weird to give up on an internationally recognizable historical attraction as a vehicle for real historical education just because some of the loudest people who live nearby, or who loudly fetishize the site, don't care.
And yet, that's exactly what a lot of our national historic sites of mythos are. Scholars have already given upon them. You don't invest you work where it won't gain traction, and the Alamo is not a place where scholarly understandings are going to get traction. Phil Collin's BS collection would not improve that situation.
posted by Miko at 8:18 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
And yet, that's exactly what a lot of our national historic sites of mythos are. Scholars have already given upon them. You don't invest you work where it won't gain traction, and the Alamo is not a place where scholarly understandings are going to get traction. Phil Collin's BS collection would not improve that situation.
posted by Miko at 8:18 PM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
Think about it, though—a paranormal exhibition of Alamo relics, with psychics, and divination? Who wouldn't want to go to that parahistorical cultural place
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:44 AM on May 22, 2021
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:44 AM on May 22, 2021
I'm sure people would, but going to that extent would probably mean the Alamo losing its tax status and accreditation and access to grant funds.
So maybe Phil C. should just buy the whole thing and do whatever he wants with it, and give up the whole "legitimate historic site" bit.
posted by Miko at 5:47 PM on May 22, 2021
So maybe Phil C. should just buy the whole thing and do whatever he wants with it, and give up the whole "legitimate historic site" bit.
posted by Miko at 5:47 PM on May 22, 2021
« Older What we spent in a month | Fansubbing BookStory Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments