Oliver Laric

A SHINTO SHRINE in the city of Ise in Japan is destroyed and rebuilt every twenty years. Hunter S. Thompson retypes The Great Gatsby to get the feeling of what writing a great novel is like. Marble from the Reichskanzlei supposedly decorates a Berlin subway station. Heraclitus steps into the same river twice. A statue of the Virgin is turned into a personification of Justice simply by removing the Christ child and replacing him with scales. The ship of Theseus returns to its port of destination after decades, having had all its parts exchanged over the course of continual repairs. A bust of Hitler is resculpted into a bust of Adenauer. George Washington’s ax has its handle replaced five times and head replaced four times. Louis Armstrong is introduced as Luigi Braccioforte and Benny Goodman as Benito Buonuomo. The Temptations replace members with such frequency that ex-Temps soon outnumber the original members of the group. Bernini repairs the Ludovisi Ares by adding a new sword, hand, and foot. Scaffolding is either a symbol of something being built or destroyed. Shih Huang Ti orders the construction of the nearly infinite Wall of China and likewise orders the burning of all books written before his reign.