In Dallas, people sometimes blame the chamber of commerce, the convention bureau, and other organizations for failing to shake the city’s stigma — being identified, first and foremost, with the JFK assassination.
But I don’t fault any of those groups. It’s an open wound that may stay open for a very long time. The most recent evidence:
On Wednesday, police closed Dealey Plaza to morning traffic “after a passer-by found a plywood rat maze scrawled with prophetic messages and attached to a kitchen timer, police said … The 4-foot-square maze contained a live mouse or rat in an exercise ball … Written on the maze were messages such as, ‘There’s never enough time,’ and ‘Open your eyes before it’s too late.’”
This comes almost exactly two years after a man killed himself on the “X” that is said to mark the spot where the president was shot.
Technorati tags: JFK, PR, Public Relations, Dealey Plaza
Tags: dallas, JFK, Journalism
(Puts cigatette holder in mouth). Dahling, it’s obviously a metaphor for the “rat race”. The messages are hardly prophetic.
some poor kid is not going to be able to complete their science fair project now
I for one welcome our neww Mice overlords
All your maze are belong to us.
Damn… another good idea already taken!!
Dallas is not “identified, first and foremost, with the JFK assassination”, except perhaps in the minds of the paranoid. I am far more likely to think of oil wealth than of JFK when I think of Dallas.
Oil? That’s Houston (except for J.R.)
I still say LBJ did it, and I should know……now where’s that bridge?
Damn idiots in the press. Prepare to be Embedded.
I’ve been in Europe for the past two months. Trust me, the first things people think of when they think of Dallas are:
1. Do you know President Bush?
2. Wow, that ‘Dallas’ show was great. Who killed J.R., huh?
3. So, how many cows do you have on your farm?
4. Why aren’t you wearing your cowboy hat?
I get asked at least one of those questions every time I meet someone new. Especially the Italians. Apparently they really like their ‘Dallas’.
I feel sorry for the poor rat that was left there. poor rat.
Actually, it didn’t have ANYTHING to do with JFK. Someone on Fark asked if “someone in Dallas could tell them” what the intent was, if it was a “topical statement”… and it was.
Our group left the thing as the first part of a six-part, nationwide… well, statement, as stupid or goofy as it may seem: it certainly got attention, didn’t it? The idea is to let people know that they really DON’T have a lot of time, and that they are all technically ‘rats in a maze’ — prisoner to the societal construct that defines how you look, act, work, play, and live… defines, in effect, who you are.
As I’ve been saying for years now… “If we can keep one more person from climbing into Daddy’s pickup with Daddy’s shotgun and bowing their heads off because what they are, and what they believe, doesn’t fit with what the world expects them to be, then we’ve done SOMEthing, anyway.” Mock away… but it’s a good concept, after all.
People ARE free to make changes in their OWN lives…. but only after they lose their fear of change. Fear of losing the status quo. Inside the maze was a folded piece of paper, with the time and date of the next part of the ‘project’, and the message, abridged, that is posted here: http://believenothingexpecteverything.iwarp.com.
As endearing as it is ‘being a nystery’, the point is lost if people aren’t made aware of it.
*blowing, rather.
Ahh, nothing like typos to ruin the point.
Thanks for the info. My guess is that it was left in Dealey Plaza for the added attention it would receive. And that certainly was the case.
Recently, I found the livejournal of the person claiming responsibility.
It is a crazy person who thinks they are ‘Neo’ from the Matrix films, and are here to save the world. You know, by leaving plywood rat mazes on landmarks.
Here is their site:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/he_dreams_awake
Poke around the rest of ‘Neo’s many pages – unintentional hilarity asplodes.
That’s right.
Except for the ‘saving the world’ part — that, they’ve gotta do themselves.
But you’ve already proven my point about obliviousness, ne?