About 150 onlookers watched as a grouping of large brushed bronze letters spelling out the name of our current POTUS, and authorized and installed at his direction, was literally picked out of the white Carrara marble facade (Note: Under court order) of Washington, DC’s Kennedy Center over the weekend.
Of course, no civilians literally saw the building without those letters.
For whatever reason (Note: Use your imagination) it all happened behind a very large scaffolding.
Thus denying the pleasure so many millions of Americans would have gotten at viewing the restoration of that very simple and eternally elegant phrase:
The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts
As it was designated by an official act of Congress.
Envisioned and designed by architect Edward Durrell Stone in the 1960s.
And subsequently experienced by hundreds of millions of people worldwide since its doors first opened well over half a century ago.
In actuality, a national arts center was first suggested by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt back in the 1930s, pushed through Congress and signed into law by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower in the late 1950s, and then led into fundraising existence by Pres. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy, who championed the arts and education all through his administration in the early 1960s.
But after Pres. Kennedy was assassinated this national cultural arts center was renamed as a “living memorial” to him by its bi-partisan board of directors.
And through bi-partisan acts of Congress and private donations, to the tune of $70 million, it was willed into existence.
Though the $1.5 million of Carrara marble was not part of the cost.
That was donated by the Italian government specifically to honor of our slain president.
I asked a close friend of mine who also happens to be a production designer on a lot of movies, what happens to the inevitable cracked marble and if it could be replaced or filled in. Because among thousands of even more important things being destroyed under 47’s rule, I worry about all this physical historical destruction and its lasting impact.
Especially since it’s easier for me to deal with the literal than with the metaphysical.
Though he couldn’t provide specific details he assured me, ‘yes’ it could be restored good as new, and that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, even if he and a tiny group of experts (Note: The latter my words, not his), could.
Well, at least that’s one thing off the list of our now 80-year-old contemporary Typhoid Mary’s gold leafed Era of Deconstruction.
Though it feels more like an Age of Anti-Reconstruction.
I’m not much for iconography or symbols but there was something about the defacement and debasement of the Kennedy Center that really got me.
Perhaps it’s because my earliest political memory was of my Dad lifting little mini-Me on his shoulders in the Bronx in 1960 to see Pres. Kennedy being driven through the boroughs of New York City on his presidential campaign to deafening cheering crowds.
The same type of crowds that assembled this week on the streets of the city outside Madison Square Garden to share in the joys of the NY Knicks’ playoff games against the San Antonio Spurs.
Whether you’re a basketball fan or not, the city became united and mesmerized by its hometown team regaining its past glories as it edged closer and closer to its first NBA title since right after the Kennedy Center first opened in the early 1970s.
Yet our current POTUS once again managed to earn the monicker of President Buzzkill by determining to fly back to his hometown, the same one that voted virulently against him in all three of his White House Runs, to attend the third playoff game.
This, in turn, required EVERYONE within the vicinity of the game who were literally jumping with joy on the streets at the prospect of sharing in the visceral excitement of being within the vicinity of the game, to be literally banned OFF the streets to make way for HIM.
And for his Secret Service and law enforcement liaisons to cavalierly treat the tens of thousands of celebratory New Yorkers as no more than a nuisance – i.e. sacrificial collateral – to ensure HIS personal viewing pleasure.
Which would be bad enough if he had managed to fully stay awake through the proceedings instead of catching 30, 40 or 50 winks with his ass planted into one of the few prime, and very in-demand, seats.
Not that any ordinary Joe or Jane could have afforded to be inside.
Only that it might’ve been nice to breathe in the second-hand fumes of victory from right outside.
That, of course, was not to be.
And, fittingly, that third playoff game, the one that the geriatric man whose name we shall not mention – okay, Sir Rip Van Wrinkle – was the ONLY one the NY Knicks managed to LOSE.
Fascinating that someone who sees himself as a perpetual winner seems to be generating so much loss, for so many, including himself.
And that the moment he leaves the WINNING begins once again.
Not only for the living legacy of an American arts institution but for the hometown crowd on the streets of NYC and a small group of elite athletes who resurrected a sports franchise and once again brought New Yorkers together.
Not only did the Knicks go on to win the following 4th game at MSG, the one our Commander and Creep did not attend.
But on Saturday night they emerged victorious in the 5th game in San Antonio, regaining the NBA championship crown for the first time in more than 50 years.
To state it in simpler terms, the only playoff game they lost when the one where….
Well, you do the math.
And consider what that might mean for our country’s winning and losing stream going forward.
notes from a chair 