Space aliens are coming to invade downtown Laguna Beach!
Well, invade a phone booth, anyway.
On Tuesday, the city council will vote to approve the installation of a Michael Graham aluminium sculpture depicting a genderless humanoid figure trying really, really hard to yank open the door of Laguna Beach's beloved red British telephone booth.
Graham's piece -- titled "I Need to Make a Phone Call" -- won a city-sponsored competition earlier this year to turn the booth into a small public art space. Once the council votes to approve it -- and it's expected they will, since it passed muster unanimously with the Arts Commission -- it will be installed and remain there on Forest Avenue for at least two years.
All we've seen so far of the sculpture is the rough sketch included in the council's agenda bill (which we're also running here to give you an idea of what's to come). But we couldn't help coming up with some questions. Like:
- Hasn't this human-like figure ever heard of a smart phone?
- Doesn't it seem a little too desperate to make a phone call? Seriously, that's usually how we look when faced with a locked men's room door...
- And why would a phone booth door be locked, anyway? Is Invisible Superman changing inside?
- What if some samaritan decides they want to "help" the figure get inside and winds up wrecking the whole thing -- sculpture and booth?
- E.T.? Is that you?
- Since there isn't an actual phone in the phone booth anymore ... what's the figure really trying to get at?
- How long will it take before some idiot decides to draw some genitalia?
- And how many people know what a phone booth even is anymore, anyway?
And a special note to Graham: If you really want to create a buzz about your piece, then re-brand the phone booth as a police box and make the figure look like Doctor Who.
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