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Driving down Burnside this week, I was shocked to see that every Portlander's favorite sculpture, the creepy devil's-scrotum-on-wheels across from Powell's, was missing its disconcertingly twitchy bouquet of steel rods. Is this the work of some metalworking mohel? —Ben Waterhouse
Am I the only person in Portland who doesn't think that Pete Beeman's sculpture looks like a nutsack? (Its official name is Pod, by the way; show some respect.)
I'm not calling you out as a perv, Ben—God knows you're not the only person to compare this work of public art to wedding tackle—but on my list of the "100 Things Pod Most Resembles," I'd put "a salty sack of ballpark peanuts" at about No. 79.
Yes, "Pod" has a bit that hangs down from the other bits. So? Are we really so obsessed that we think "balls" every time we see anything hanging off of anything? Good thing Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" wasn't written by one of you scrote-happy yarble-warblers. I can only imagine the psychosexual shock you all must have suffered upon first catching a glimpse of your own uvula.
Still, I suppose at some point I should answer the question instead of just googling slang terms for "testicles." (My favorite so far—even though I'm pretty sure it's a typo—is "Hanging Brian.")
According to the Regional Arts & Culture Council's Keith Lachowicz, Pod is undergoing routine cleaning and maintenance. I've taken the liberty of annotating his remarks for the benefit of all you juvenile nut-fanciers:
"We are expecting the rods [heh] above the counterweight to be down [ho ho] for about two weeks while the Pod's moving parts [snerk] are cleaned and serviced [guffaw]. The rods themselves will be cleaned and any worn connection hardware [wacka wacka] replaced." Unlike your balls, it should be good as new by today.
WWeek 2015