Years ago it was his head that went missing, and the statue stood there headless long enough for it to be normalized. Once, while walking past a group of tourists, I heard one of them say, in French, "Well, Venus de Milo doesn't have arms, but we know who she is, right?
The toppling of the Gassy Jack statue came very close to hitting someone who was doing her best to protect those from having the same happen to them. Why she had her back turned on a falling statue is worrisome and tells me that maybe nearby Artspeak should consider hosting a workshop on toppling.
Once down, the statue -- and a number of bricks around it -- were painted a red close to the colour of blood. Certainly close enough that some Women's Memorial Marchers were triggered by it.
I feel for everyone involved in this statue and the life that "inspired" it. Let the removal of the Gassy Jack statue allow for the renaming of the "town" that bears his name.
As for the means by which this statue came down, I used to think there was nothing worse than random violence. But now, after seeing the way this statue fell and was de-tended to, I have added the priests and priestesses of ritual violence to my prayers.
The frustration and rage that motivated the downing of the Jack statue (a statue that the Squamish decedents of Jack's ex-wife Xáliya and the City of Vancouver had been meeting on, towards a more educational form of retirement), differs little from those leaning on their horns outside the homes of Ottawa seniors or desecrating the bodies of U.S. "contractors" in Fallujah. It is no longer about the subject of that frustration and rage, but the condition we find ourselves in today -- tired, sick and helpless.
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