Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Prepare To Believe

Earlier today, I was minding my own business (in my field - making the daily rounds through the mograph community), when lo 'n behold, I practically tripped over this reference to our great city:


TV spot for Creation Museum [2007] . 

Direction, design & animation by Todd Hemker & Soyeon Kim at Yellow Shed.

To be honest, I'm posting this because of my ambivalence toward the video's renewed prominence out there in the world. Specifically, I was surprised to see this showcased on No Fat Clips - not because it's an inferior piece (Hemker & Kim really have a nice aesthetic goin' on) but because I think the subject matter really ruled the decision for the posting.

And honestly, nothing wrong with that either... but, you know, it seems that a lot of things holding the kindling for fiery debate seem to hibernate in/near Cincinnati, and for better or worse, national attention propels this subjectivity (usually negative) in outsiders minds. [Without linking directly to the negativity] Politics, sports, crime, infrastructure, art, religion, etc., all seem to have been touched in one way or another by the hand of the region's Bible Belt conservatism.

King of Kings Statue (Solid Rock Church), Monroe, Ohio. 
A can't-miss structure on the north side of Cincinnati (I-75). 

Anyway, because I value my own soul, I'll remain neutral here (except, I'm sure you've already deduced my lack of empathy towards 'creationism' - add this and this to the debate). As the saying goes: "Don't talk religion or politics at the dinner table."

O-H-I-O... we've got spirit, how 'bout you?
Found this on my search for a photo of Solid Rock's giant Jesus...
Why not a chuckle or two on the way to inner earth.


• In all fairness, here and here are a couple of views on the Museum (with posts of the same title). Might be worth the $20 to check out...

2 comments:

Beach said...

I was living in Germany when the museum opened and it made the news there. It wasn't portrayed in the best possible light. There were statements about silly Americans. Interestingly they described it as 'north of Lexington, KY' and not Cincinnati.

Matt said...

Wow - I remember when the riots made national/world news, which resulted in foreign countries trying to dissuade their citizens from traveling to Cincinnati (because of the crime), but I really didn't think the Museum would... though, I suppose it did make big headlines as well (as short-lived as it was).

If you put yourself in outsiders' shoes, it's not hard to understand the "silly Americans" perspective. When I was in school, I had a friend from Singapore who wanted to hit the hot spots in the US quickly before she went back - guess where she went: NYC, Las Vegas, and DisneyWorld.

Silly Americans? Yes. Especially when we have churches showcasing 'the man' like he's Big Boy outside of Frisch's.