Strange Question

[StoryTellerRose]

Ok, so. My husband and I were in Utah recently, and on the way home, on highway 80, I saw a weird structure; it was like a tower, very straight and simple, but it had gigantic balls all around the top of it. On the ground at the foot of this odd tower were two wooden shells, looking about like a giant had peeled an orange and just left the rinds lying on the ground. I didn't have the chance to stop and take pictures of this thing, but I've been wondering ever since......

What the heck is it?


and please, please, please no jokes about how phallic this sounds! I'm begging! More for Ms. Mod's sake than my own.

[mojomofo]

How funny that you know us so well. Well, me anyways- your spoiler was the first thing I thought of!

Maybe it is some kind of weather thing.

[Bev Vincent]

Is it the Tree of Utah?

[Charms7]

That is weird looking, Bev. Sure sounds like the same thing StoryTellerRose describes.

[mstay]

Is it the Tree of Utah?

Yes that's it. I don't know why it's there but it is really strange. But interesting.

I hope you enjoyed Utah, Storyteller!

[StoryTellerRose]

Is it the Tree of Utah?

YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[Todash]

I feel like such a Philistine when I look at certain works of art, like they should move me, like I should understand them, but it just doesn't happen.

[PatInTheHat]

I feel like such a Philistine when I look at certain works of art, like they should move me, like I should understand them, but it just doesn't happen.

This one might, move you somehow that is...I'm rather glad I didn't understand it, other than I understood what a pain in the butt it must have been to put it there...and that it was way groovy just being waaayy out there all by it's lonesome.

A picture just doesn't do it justice, not really as you come up on it when your (if I remember correctly) driving in the middle of the mud flats (where the Donner Party trudged...there's a cool museum in a town called Grantsville nearby..be sure to stop at the Dead Dog Saloon..if it's still there).

I've stopped for some snapshots myself, but my favorite pics are ones of all the rocks that folks have to pack all the way to there, then they write stuff with 'em, make homages, stacked rock art and all manner of what not out of them right on the mud flats...there was some very funny stuff, and some really interesting "pieces" out there.
Some last for years & years, that is if some of them that were dated were true...I imagine some the lousier expressions have their stones boosted from posterity, to help another less stoned artist...another artist with less stones...to help another artist express themselvs.

Anyway, it does impress you when you drive up on it in the middle of nowhere.
If you happen to be cruising on out that way, enjoy the drive, it's pretty grand, and check out the local history...ask a local, and you might just find yourself at an old pony express station that's amazingly intact, near a place you can hunt for some killer crystals (the purple ones are the grooviest)...check out the curvature of the earth at the Salt Flats...you can really see it from a few spots in Wendover Nevada.
It's great country!

[SusanNorton]

I feel like such a Philistine when I look at certain works of art, like they should move me, like I should understand them, but it just doesn't happen.

You know, Todash, I was an art major and felt the same way. A professor once asked who my favorite artist was, and when I said "It's a tie between Renoir and Van Gogh" he gave me the stink eye. Monochromatic canvases and buckets of urine don't do it for me.

[hipmamajen]

I feel like such a Philistine when I look at certain works of art, like they should move me, like I should understand them, but it just doesn't happen.

Sometimes, popular culture has ruined art for me, and it makes me feel like an idiot. For instance, I can't see "American Gothic" without hearing the theme song from "Green Acres" playing in the back of my mind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbk81X6WHA4

TV ruined me.