Archives for March 8th, 2005

This oversized ice phallus puts the "man" in "snowman."

Today (March is International Women’s Day. On this day last year, some Slovenes in the town of Šmarca celebrated by: (I’m guessing) getting drunk, and then (I’m guessing) getting high, and then (I’m guessing) getting bored, and then (I’m no longer guessing) building a titanic penis out of snow. (Notice howI wrote that they were building it instead of erecting it — I’m way above those kind of cheap jokes.)

The red letters you see on the roof say: "Za 8. Marc," which means what you think it means: "For the 8th of March."

I suppose there are a couple of ways to react to a thing like this, depending on your politics. It could be a harmless juevenille prank, an offensive piece of misogyny, or just a sculpture built by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It’s worth noting that two thousand years ago, in ancient Pompeii, an ice sculpture like the one above would have fit in perfectly with the local décor. Back then a phallus was considered a force for good, and the perfect idea for home decorating. The Romans had phallic wind chimes, phallic lamps, phallic bird baths, and big brick phalluses just for the hell of it. (Here’s a small sample of some of the erotic art of Pompeii, if you’re curious.) Nowadays, of course, even a partially topless statue in Rome’s heir is too scary to consider. So much for progress.

Happy international women’s day!