Attack of the Phallus Things
and also over at Shakesville (back up an running! yay 'Liss!)
There has been a rash of, shall we say, intensly phallic architecture lately. Although I am of the mind that even the most perverse christopathic builders cannot hold a candle to the wonders of nature.
In this spirit I offer a couple of wonders from my own beloved Arizona.
From Monument Valley we have the appropriately named Organ Rock. Which is visible from the highway to Lake Powell.
But, from my very own, nearby Superstition Mountains we have:
Weaver's Needle (taken from a point on the Peralta Trail called "low saddle pass")
Which, along with being a prime navigational point for hikers and pilots is, by traditional lore, the main landmark to finding the "Lost Dutchman" gold mine.
Hard to beat phallic symbolism and the promise of gold for the taking when it comes to republican dreams.
All I got to say is Keep 'Em Coming Larry Flynt!
crossposted at 3B's
posted by The Minstrel Boy at 8:49 PM
12 Comments:
Hard to beat phallic symbolism and the promise of gold for the taking when it comes to republican dreams.
YEAH, baby!
That photo and those words make for >postcard material.
MB,
The Lost Dutchman mine is in New Mexico, beneath one of the mountains on White Sands Missile Range.
At least, that's what I was told. It's probably the real location where the government took the aliens that landed in Roswell.
wikipedia
although there are many, many stories, this is the one that is accepted at the, if you will, gold standard of legend. hell, stephen, the state park is called "lost dutchman park."
Given that the "Dutchman" (actually, German) supposedly died in Phoenix with a trunk of gold under his bed, a mine in New Mexico doesn't seem to be feasible for the source of said gold, Stephen. Nowdays the scholars think that he must have been sneaking gold out of the local real gold mine then claiming he got it in the Superstitions, because it turns out that the Superstitions are the remnant of a giant volcanic caldera that is unlikely to contain any gold, but there is also the legend of a Mexican gold caravan that took a wrong turn into the Superstitions, got ambushed and killed by the Apache, and left to rot except gold doesn't rot and thus littered the mesa top where they were ambushed with gold. Maybe this lost German found some of that gold and brought it back. Anyhow, there's a whole literature to the whole "Lost Dutchman Mine" deal because before modern science ruled out a gold mine in the Superstitions, many a con artist "miner" managed to scam money out of investors to look for said mine, generally embellishing the tale even more in the process.
Talking about phallic symbols, I was standing next to one such phallic symbol recently (the Coit Tower in San Francisco), looked out towards Russian Hill, and noticed an interesting looking building. It looks exactly like a clenched fist with one finger standing upright. You guess which finger :-).
- Badtux the Former Arizona Penguin
when I was a teen ager in Ft Worth the local newspaper (Star-Telegram)had a writer that went to the Mountains and sent a set of stories back. It was my first exposure to the Superstition Mountains.
I agree with the Badtux statement of the Dutchman is really German.
yo soy Horsedooty!
for some reason on the american western frontier (including missouri and kansas) the standard nickname and description of most german folks was "dutchy."
jacod waltz (or walz, or wirz, or. . .) was mostly likely german, may or may not have found any gold at all, but he certainly was one of our much talked about and much loved "desert rats" who would show up at a ranch or a trading post with a burro in tow, tell some great yarns, grab up some supplies and disappear into the sand and thorns for another period of magnificent isolation out in the desert.
Don't tell me that Mother Nature doesn't have a sense of humor.
Here's to everyone and every creature at your place having a grand weekend.
People, people, they just want you to believe it's in the Superstitions. I'm telling you, the mine is in New Mexico, and the government got all the gold out of it years ago. Now they use it to store the Roswell aliens, Jimmy Hoffa's body and the last shreds of American dignity.
i knew there was a scientific conspiritorial explanation for all of that stuff.
thank you.
for some reason on the american western frontier (including missouri and kansas) the standard nickname and description of most german folks was "dutchy."
I have a speculation which explains this extremely easily:
In English, we call Netherlanders "Dutch".
In German, the Germans refer to themselves as "Deutsch" (pronounced - using English pronunciation rules - "doych")
Now since "doych" is an altogether alien sound to an American, but "Dutch" is very similar, it takes absolutely no stretch of imagination to see why German Amish & Mennonites settling in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania would come to be known as "the Pennsylvania Dutch", and likewise no imagination to see how in the American West any German might come to be called "Dutchy".
- oddjob
I love the Western landscape. LOVE it.
And the thing about the Western landscape is that if you do not like it where you are, just go a few dozen miles and it will be entirely different.
If you are ever in Arizona, go up the Apache Trail from Apache Junction to the Roosevelt Reservoir. A word of warning -- the last part of it is gravel, and the grade down to Fish Creek is very narrow and tends to be traveled by folks hauling 30 foot boats behind massive SUV's who for some reason think this one-lane road (with turnouts) hacked into the side of a cliff is the place for them to be. But it is one of the most scenic drives you will ever undertake. And if you continue on around the reservoir to Young and beyond on 288, you can see a yet different slice of Arizona, as you rise to the Mongollon Rim and its vast forests. (Warning: The road beyond Young is *not* maintained in winter and is usually closed by snow, and I seem to recall more than a little gravel too).
Of course, the best way to see the scenery is the old fashioned way -- on foot or horseback, hauling all you need on your back (or a pack horse's back). But you'll have to find out for yourself what is to be seen that way, because due to vandalism (sigh!), folks tend to be protective of their "special places", which they do not want to see trashed by young hooligans with no respect and no morals.
-BT
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