Is there a competition for weirdest city that we weren’t told about?


Because Wellington, NZ has just surged into the lead. They had to snatch this statue from Christchurch to do it, though, so this battle might be getting fierce.

Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    I thought there might be a resemblance to the Invisible Hand of the Free Market Man of a popular liberal cartoon, but this is inverted compared to that. This one more closely resembled Kool-Aid Man.

  2. trevorn says

    Hey, don’t diss our hand sculpture!
    I think it’s holding the Wellington Art Gallery (formerly the central library) down to protect it from our notoriously strong winds.

  3. PaulBC says

    Reginald Selkirk@1

    Perhaps it is the all-too-visible hand of the rigged market. A much more appropriate symbol of our times.

  4. kestrel says

    Isn’t this a case of the pot calling the kettle black, person-who-lives-in-Minnesota? You Minnesotans are the ones with the giant Viking statue, the giant Paul Bunyan statue, the giant otter, the giant pelican etc. etc. I know all about mischievous Minnesotans trying to make that Viking statue, shall we say, anatomically correct. And frankly your giant lawn ornaments are quite hideous. A link to the giant Viking: https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/19491

    I’m not sure you can say the slightest thing about someone else’s hideous statue.

  5. PaulBC says

    The best thing we have around here is the new and improved Flintstone house, visible mostly by commuters on I-280 to San Francisco. https://sf.curbed.com/2019/4/22/18410684/hillsborough-flintstone-house-photos-interiors-inside-cartoon-sf

    A bunch of snobby Hillsborough residents have decided they don’t like it, even though you can barely see it except from the freeway. The structure itself has been there for a lot time, but not with the garish cultures and dinosaur park. Sheesh, I know we’re all very rich and smart and successful and have such good taste, but for crying out loud, can we have a little fun sometimes?

    And the same people have no problem with this sculpture https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/20795 that reimagines mission founder Junipero Serra as a potato-faced gnome pointing the way to the Pacific Ocean.

  6. Larry says

    that reimagines mission founder Junipero Serra as a potato-faced gnome pointing the way to the Pacific Ocean

    I also enjoyed seeing that statue during football season when Stanford-ites would place a big football under Sera’s finger, holding it for the P.A.T., usually putting a football helmet on the statue, as well.

  7. Patrick Phenow says

    I apologize if I’m being obtuse and stating the obvious, but that appears to be the “shocker” hand sign.

  8. cafebabe says

    I agree that this is weird, but it isn’t alone. Last time I flew back to my hometown, Wellington, there was a large gollum statue climbing over the room of the terminal building. A tribute to the then recent morphing of New Zealand into Middle Earth during the filming of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings epics.

  9. auntbenjy says

    Methinks you need to watch Wellington Paranormal (spinoff to What We Do in the Shadows). Then you’ll know it’s weird.