ustxtxb_obs_1990_12_07_50_00023-00000_000.pdf

GAIL WOODS AFTERWORD Obscenity in Search of Art BY ANDREI CODRESCU IGOT THROWN OFF the Greyhound bus by a scab driver for pointing out that it’s illegal to have old people standing crammed in the aisles while you drive 10 miles over the speed limit. And not just old people, come to think of it, you can break all the bones of the young ones too if you have to brake suddenly. IT’S OBSCENE! I said, and the driver braked suddenly and shouted GET OFF MY BUS! I could hear bones cracking everywhere. So I got off the bus because I had called the situation OBSCENE, which is one word that will get you in trouble everywhere today. Televangelist Pat Robertson, whose faithful ride the Greyhound in droves, found an obscene puppet show in Atlanta. The puppets were allegedly having oral sex while being funded by the NEA. Now how do puppets have oral sex? Only your televangelist knows for sure: He’s pulled the string on more puppets than Greyhound breaks bones. At the Last Judgment Andrei Codrescu edits Exquisite Corpse: A Journal of Books and Ideas. His latest book, The Disappearance of the Outside, is by Addison-Wesley . Speaking of the Last Judgment, Michelangelo’s, it turned out that, upon restoration, the picture was “even dirtier than the ceiling,” according to the art critics. The nudity of Michelangelo’s figures shocked church officials and in 1564 Pope Pius IV ordered artist Daniele de Volterra under penalty of withdrawing his grant to paint over the offending private parts with veils and loincloths. The offending scene of course was “The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden,” the only authorized version of which is now in North Carolina. It’s called, “Expulsion from the Tobacco Garden,” and it shows two horny teenager being expelled by Senator Helms for eating figs instead of smoking Marlboros. They had a public survey in North Carolina where they asked people, people said “turtle,” which meant Senator Helms would be re-elected. These same voters also believe that the practices of the Greyhound company are not obscene, puppets have oral sex while on grants, and televangelistS should be tax-exempt. Verily, it’s a wondrous world out there. 0 published all these sex-puppets will be standing in the isles of Hell waiting to have their funding cut. Continued from page 15 THOSE CALLING the shots for the armed forces should be more concerned with protecting the lives of American soldiers than playing politics, but, according to a story in The New Republic, that’s not the case in the Persian Gulf. In the magazine’s December 10 issue, military affairs writer Arthur Hadley shows how the various services deploy some of their resources based not on military necessity, but “to suit their self-image and to impress Congress in future budget battles.” As a result, the Pentagon is employing weapons and strategies that don’t make sense under the circumstances. The article mentions a Texas angle in all this military manipulation: “The Army, to begin with, sent over a brigade from the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood, Texas, a division scheduled for deactivation. Its tanks, desperately needed in the Gulf, had been mothballed and run into the ground. Why didn’t they pull a brigade sooner from the 3rd Armored in Europe, whose tanks are battle-ready and would have had to travel a shorter distance? The likelihood is that it was to prove to the secretary of defense and Congress that the 2nd Armored \(George Patton’s own famed tive list.” THE TEXAS OBSERVER 23 tiOR-N. 4101,!* ,.>”! ,,, r