Maybe we have them in Seattle, and I simply over-look them, but it’s nothing like what they have here. I say statues mind you, but that’s just the start of it. There are arcs and obelisks, friezes and facades, tombs and topiary, plaques and corner-stones. Even the smallest town usually has something or someone made of marble, bronze or granite standing watch over the town square.
Generally, there are words indicating the name of the person, or the event being commemorated. Generally, too, these words are in French, the names are un-familiar and the events are not addressed (or not addressed memorably) in US public school history curriculums.
Thus, these installations take on an air of mystery: someone thought enough of this guy to build a statue. And someone else thought enough of the statue to put it up on a huge pedestal. And to this day, someone thinks enough of the statue to clean in now and again, plant flowers around it, etc. But who is this guy?
Hence the game – Name the Memorial. It’s simple really – let’s play a multiple choice version of the game, but once you get the hang of it, go free-form and come up with your own answers.
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This figure is:
a. An angelic soccer player protesting a referee’s call of “off-sides” during a mythic match in biblical sports history.
b. An angelic representation of a French laborer, reacting to the proposal that France revert to a forty-hour work-week.
c. An angelic representative of the Lord, our God, urging French soldiers to take up arms and stab, shoot, kill, maim, maul, and pillage someone… anyone… just don’t surrender, okay?
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This figure is:
a. A French soldier, turning towards the on-rushing armies of Prussia and saying, “The French soldiers? They went THAT way! Go get ‘em!”
b. A French sailor, who after a long night at the café is telling his comrades, “No, no, I think we parked the boat over THERE… near the water.”
c. A French corsair, leading a raiding party onto enemy shores, crying, “C’mon lads, they store their best cheeses up THERE.”
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This figure is:
a. The inventor of the upholstered armchair
b. The inventor of the napping in an upholstered armchair.
c. The inventor of the “come sit on my knee and tell me what you want for Christmas” (who was shamelessly ripped-off by that German St. Nicholas).
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This figure is:
a. Indicating the dimensions of the perfect baguette: “This thick, and this long.”
b. Indicating the Napoleonic ideal of paternal discipline: “Grasp the child by the back of the neck, lift them aloft, and slap their behind.”
c. Indicating to his chambermaid: “Please do not discuss the details of my anatomy with my potential bride; but if you must, please do me a favor and exaggerate a bit.”
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This figure is:
a. The founder of a university in Paris. Students touch his foot for good luck on their exams!
b. The founder of a high-fashion shoe manufacturer in Paris. Designers touch his foot and pledge their commitment to his standards of craftsmanship!
c. The founder of a society in Paris dedicated to combining foot fetishism and pedophilia. Out of town parents pose their kids for pictures because they have no idea!
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This figure is:
a. A memorial to the brave under-sea divers who perished before science learned that making wet-suits from stone and steel cables was a bad idea.
b. A French rip-off of the DC Comics character “Thing”. In France he’s called “Le Thing”. Totally different.
c. A gambler, behind in his payments to the French mob, waiting to catch a one-way boat ride out of Monaco
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