Hasta La Ideas

The complete antithesis to the tragic events in Colorado last month when Enrique Chagoya‘s artwork was damaged by an angry crowbar wielder comes to us from another western state, New Mexico, and wow do we love it. As KOAT news tells it, local Albuquerque artist, Shane Shane, had his sculpture “The Last Pedophile” removed from the property of an arts fest there by the New Mexico State Police. We’ll let you take a breather after that last sentence. The story continues that Shane Shane is claiming this is an act of malicious free-speech encroachment by local officials who can’t handle his art. The police, on the other hand, say it’s just because the artist left the sculpture on the back of trailer that wasn’t parked in the right place and so they towed it. To get the whole, amazing picture of all of this, we highly recommend taking it all in on the news station’s site, from their image of the wonderfully bizarre sculpture, to their online survey “Is It Inappropriate to Call a Statue ‘The Last Pedophile’?” (to verdict to which is currently locked in a dead heat), to seeing Shane Shane’s sly grin about all of this, and the tears of laughter you’ll shed watching the video of the story, seeing the reporter repeatedly forcing himself to say “Shane Shane” again and again and again. We know we still have a little over a month left of 2010 and anything can happen, but as of right now, this is this writer’s story of the year.

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