{"id":101767,"date":"2016-05-10T01:50:37","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T01:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/10\/nonasuch-having-grown-up-in-dc-statues-of\/"},"modified":"2016-05-10T01:50:37","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T01:50:37","slug":"nonasuch-having-grown-up-in-dc-statues-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2016\/05\/10\/nonasuch-having-grown-up-in-dc-statues-of\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

nonasuch<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Having grown up in DC, statues of various dead guys on horses are basically background radiation, or they were before I became Hamilton trash and started noticing them again. Now it\u2019s like every time I turn around there\u2019s a Founding Father looking at me like I personally disappointed him, and it\u2019s getting a little unnerving.<\/p>\n

Although: as a result, I sort of want to write a magical realism thing where that can really happen. Where if you do something they would have disagreed with strongly enough, the statues climb down off their columns and lumber down Mass Ave to the Russell Building or the Capitol, where they stand on the sidewalk, arms crossed, glaring into the window of whoever\u2019s just introduced legislation that offended them. They don\u2019t speak, or attack anyone, or damage anything\u2013 well, they do tend to bump their heads on low-handing streetlights, sometimes, but that doesn\u2019t count. Mostly they just stand there, mournful, accusing, for everyone to see.<\/p>\n

Sometimes lawmakers can talk them around, convince them they\u2019re not actually betraying the political ideals of their predecessors. Politicians who are good at this tend to have much, much longer careers than the ones who aren\u2019t. Politicians who piss off the wrong statues seldom get reelected.<\/p>\n

George Washington rarely budges, and when he does it\u2019s front-page news, nationwide. Madison\u2019s always been easier to talk around than most. Hamilton spend more time off his plinth than on it, but he cools off fast. Jefferson holds grudges, to the point that hardly anyone worries too much about making him mad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just politicians, either, and they don\u2019t always come to life in anger. Joan of Arc\u2019s bronze horse will shiver to life in Malcolm X Park, sometimes, and carry her off to join protest marches, when she thinks their cause is just. Gandhi walked with Iraq War protestors. The Spirit of American Womanhood, outside Constitution Hall, danced on the day that Roe v. Wade was decided, and when Obergefell vs. Hodge went through, Eleanor Roosevelt taught a clumsy Lindy to Baron von Steuben.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lincoln has only risen from his seat once since he was put there in 1922, and that was to nod in solemn approval at LBJ from the White House lawn.<\/p>\n

Some cities rarely put up statues, and many have taken theirs down. Paris has a great many artists and writers memorialized, and curiously few politicians. In London, during the Blitz, Nelson shinned down his column to help dig people out of collapsed buildings, until he was broken to pieces himself; he stands atop the column again today, reassembled, but has never moved since. In the last moths of the Soviet Union, a desperate Communist Party had the statues of Moscow chained in place. These days, Monument Avenue in Richmond is punctuated with \u00a0a long series of empty plinths and bare columns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But DC keeps theirs, and keeps building more.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

nonasuch: Having grown up in DC, statues of various dead guys on horses are basically background radiation, or they were before I became Hamilton trash and started noticing them again. Now it\u2019s like every time I turn around there\u2019s a Founding Father looking at me like I personally disappointed him, and it\u2019s getting a little … <\/p>\n

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