I had screen capped an article about Seattle's French community singing La Marseillaise on Saturday whilst the French flag was raised atop the Space Needle.
The 25 by 35 foot flag was made via a rush job by a Tukwila flag maker, then rushed to Seattle for hoisting atop the Space Needle at 4 pm Saturday.
So, while hoisting a French flag atop a well known Fort Worth landmark is something one would not see in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, due to the fact that Fort Worth has no well known landmarks, I decided it would be tacky and tasteless, on this occasion, to point out that fact.
Oops, I guess I just did.
And does Fort Worth have a French community? I sort of doubt it.
Below is the Sydney Opera House lit up in the French flag tri-colors. The French flag is like the American, Canadian, British, Japanese and a few other flags, in that it is readily recognizable, what with its red, white and blue simplicity.
A month or so ago we heard the sort of shocking news that the skyline of Dallas is the best in the world. Not New York City, not Paris, not any other well known city skyline, it is Dallas with the best, or maybe most well known, skyline in the world. The Dallas skyline has been lit up with the French tri-color flag via the Omni Hotel next to the Reunion Tower.
Note that Dallas is following the French flag's color protocol, broad stripes, with blue on the left, white in the middle, red on the right.
And then we have Fort Worth's contribution to the world-wide symbolic support for France.
I saw the above and totally did not get it. We are looking down on downtown Fort Worth's Sundance Square Plaza. Is the fact that there is blue, white and red lighting supposed to be easily noted as representing France? On ground level did this look like anything even remotely memorable?
Maybe all the other cities in the world were being totally literal, while Fort Worth opted to go for an abstract rendering of the French flag.
Yes, I realize in the bigger scheme of things this particular Fort Worth oddity amounts to nothing, but still, it is just goofy.
I found this photo on Facebook. A selection of a few of the comments were, well, sort of equally embarrassing....
Debbie McGee: So beautiful! Brian captured the support for our neighbors across the sea!
Judy Schell: So proud of Fort Worth, Texas
Jean Wright Potts: Lovely to be so proud of our cities in mourning with France.
Judy Gans: Beautiful.
Nikki Frazier Sonderegger: Very well displayed.
Mary Zimmerman: awesome way to show we care.
So proud? Beautiful? Well displayed? Awesome way to show we care?
The Brian to which the first commenter refers to is Brian Luenser, he being a local photographer who uses filters and digital manipulation to create extremely distorted photos of Fort Worth, which legions of locals gush over like clueless sheep. Mr. Luenser's photo of Sundance Square in its tri-color glory appears to be more photo-realistic than most of his photos.
In this blogging I had intended to mention how badly some Republican neo-con nincompoops have embarrassed themselves, and America, with the French, and other thinking people, world-wide, with some of their idiotic statements about the horrific mass murder in Paris. But, I have already run long and it is time for lunch....
2 comments:
This is funny, Durango. I too was awe struck by Sundance Square's tryst at an abstraction of the French flag.
Tryst? I'm thinking Amazed in FW meant to leave off the s and the t and simply type try.....
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