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This past weekend we took a short couples trip to an away game in Cincinnati with some good friends. The Tigers got trucked. Anyway, while wandering the downtown, we ran across a huge public fountain. There was an earnest white girl singing folk music in a corner of the plaza, and we took a few minutes in the shade to let the girls rest. I got looking at the fountain and realized it was a giant middle finger to the city it sat in. The most brilliant troll job I've seen in recent memory.
The fountain can be seen here. It was donated to the city by some robber-baron hardware magnate back in the day, and includes drinking fountains around the edge of the pool. An example of the smaller fountain sculpture can be seen better here. Four of these ring the pool of the fountain. Each depicts a nude young male in the Greek tradition, with an animal head hanging between his legs. In one, the young man rides a dolphin, in another, has a snake coiled around his thighs, etc. The head of the animal is the drinking part of the fountain itself. The water stream issues from the mouth.
Might be a history buff, but I had no idea who Henry Probasco was. Apparently he was a wildly wealthy purveyor of tools and traveled to Europe to find an artist to build the fountain he donated to the City of Cincinnati in honor of his deceased business partner, one Tyler Davidson, whose name graces the monument. I imagine it went something like this:
Probasco blames the city for his partner's untimely demise.
Probasco: “Goddammit Jenson, fuck this city! The whole place can suck my dick. Is there any way to make that happen?”
Jenson the faithful butler: “Perhaps figuratively sir, I could not say. Almost certainly not literally.”
Probasco: “Figuratively eh?”
TWO YEARS LATER
Jenson: “Sir, the city council is refusing to accept the design with actual dicks.”
Probasco: “Will their infernal complaining never end? I'm offering them free clean drinking water for all time in the middle of town, and these whiny cunts don't like my design?”
Jenson: “Perhaps they object to putting their mouths on a bronze penis to get water, sir. I've taken the liberty of speaking to the artist. He suggests something a bit more....metaphorical.”
Probasco:”Like what, man!”
Jenson: “Well sir, he suggests a series of animal motifs with........elongated necks.”
Probasco:”Be direct, Jenson! What are we talking about here? Are you saying I have to make it a real snake rather than a trouser snake?”
Jenson: “Essentially, yes sir. Among others, such as goose and a turtle.”
Probasco: “Well, it's not quite what I had in mind, but making the children of this city drink out of the head of a snake dangling between my statue's legs is probably as close as we're going to get eh?”
Jenson: “I fear so, sir.”
Fin