Human Drift
I found some bright red spheres, approximately 4-ft. in circumference. I will need a truck, I thought. What could these giant, fiberglass-lollipop-looking things possibly be? Gaudy mall decor discarded from the Pru after the Xmas season? A hollow aluminum cylinderpunctures part of the surface like a planetary axis displacing the crust, recalling the shape of an ornament, only much more colossal.
The first Colossus was based upon the X-men; this one is from Rhodes. Artists’ renderings articulate a giant straddling the harbor, permitting boats to pass underneath his muscular stature. I thought this would be a strain for even a giant. You can see the veins bulging from his thighs, his foot about to slip. Framed by his opening are various important buildings from all over, a makeshift Utopia in place of Rhodes.
King C. Gillette believed in a Utopia he called "Metropolis", a mega city that could be built to replace Buffalo, New York. He fancifully claimed that the raw, untapped energy of Niagara Falls could be harnessed to provide hydro-electric power for his mega-utopia. Needless to say, Metropolis was never built; Gillette eventually would move onto the disposable razor.
Opening scene of the first Nightmare on Elm street: witness a heavily breathing Freddy Kruger as fabricator-psycho, soldering and grinding his trademark weapon of torment.
What the hell is on the other side of a Fontana painting anyway?
The Colossus of Rhodes serves as a predecessor to the St. Louis Arch. New York City, also indebted to this ancient monument for Helios, would become the Rhodes of today. Situated near Ellis Island, our own Lady Liberty literally carries on the torch, beckoning visitors into the harbor. The Statue of Liberty bears a marker beneath her pedestal engraved with words that declare:
The Borg is an alien race of Cyborgs that embrace technology as a means to expand upon their collective.
They have become a mainstay as the most revered villain since their arrival in Star Trek: the Next Generation.
Their objective is to “assimilate” all sentient beings in order to equip themselves with new technology. An individual’sknowledge and identity is absorbed upon assimilation into the collective.
With references to the order that exists within the insect world (particularly the industrious nature of honeybees), there is a queen who commands the hive that is occupied and maintained by drones.
The Borg are exclusive and elitist, yet relentless in their quest to expand the collective with new drones.
When the queen appears in First Contact, she bears a crown connected by cables that gradually lower her into a body, a classical bust floating by wire and disembodied like an ancient statue now broken.
Despite an inability to relate to human instincts, there is sexual tension between the queen and Data, the android from Enterprise. Naturally, my queen is connected to the king-sized headboard I found abandoned near my studio. I wonder what kind of lovemaking went on underneath such a fiberglass behemoth complete with mirrors. A pink fluorescent lights up at the flick of a switch, it’s whiteness a baroque splooge.
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
-Emma Lazarus, 1883