Elephant Arouses UN Delegates' Concern

It's a dreary day in New York, but Joyce Wadler cheers things up with As a Sculptor of Nature, the Man Thinks Big in today's New York Times. The Man is a sculptor know as Mihail who had a big idea: casting an elephant.

Mihail sedated and cast a bull elephant in Kenya in 1980, then took 18 years to complete his sculpture. He proudly presented the finished work to the United Nations this week only to learn that "a number of United Nations delegates were offended by the size of the genitalia on his three-and-a-half-ton elephant, and, after considering surgery, were planning to surround the sculpture with tall shrubs."

There were no revealing pictures, though.

I go hoofing north with my camera in search of this fabled beast somewhere on the Promenade of the United Nations. There amongst flapping flags of all the world's countries, across the street from Swords Turned into Plowshares, I find the pachyderm hiding in a small stand of trees, barricaded yet. However, a small opening right by a path leads into the jungle. Amazing how a few trees can create a jungle right in the middle of New York City. Obviously if one is not supposed to go on that path, the barricades would be closed, and they were ajar. So I went, saw, and took a couple of pictures.

As the New York Times explains it, "Mihail's elephant looks as if it has an appointment with a lady elephant, and she's just around the corner, with Sinatra on the boom box and a bucket of martinis." According to Hans Janitschek, who heads the fund that raised the money, when the elephant was sedated "he had a sweet dream" while the sculptor known as Mihail did the body cast.

I head south again ...