Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The Moai Jesus?

Found myself in an antique mall recently. There I was--WAY overpriced!

Among the curiosities was this wood carving of a bearded man's head, slightly larger than a loaf of, say, Wonderbread.


The elongated face; the protruding forehead overhanging deep-set eyes and a long triangular nose: It's a moai! You know what a moai is, right? That's one of those giant stone heads on Easter Island, popularized recently by the one in the Night At The Museum films with the chewing gum obsession.


While the carving I found nowhere claimed to be Jesus, it certainly made me think of him, because, remember kids, without Easter, there can be no Easter Island!

And if you can give me an explanation of what that's supposed to mean, you win the gold star (sticker).

7 comments:

PaperSmyth said...

Too funny!

One would have thought it impossible to top the weirdness that was your brilliant Kon(tra)-Tiki post. (My apologies to Thor Heyerdahl.)

Thanks for the laugh!

Allen's Brain said...

Glad you enjoyed it! It certainly made me laugh when I saw it.
Just read Kon-Tiki this summer. An entertaining read, even if it is dubious anthropologically-speaking. I'm not sure if the credit should go to Heyerdahl as a great author, or if it belongs to his English translator, but what fun!

PaperSmyth said...

I'm not sure either. Though I do speak a smattering of Danish, I don't know that one could even get a copy of it in Norwegian! I'm an adventure junkie, so I read it quite awhile ago. I do remember thinking that his sailing staff for the trip was amazing and a bit under-praised. Sadly, (or perhaps not? :D) I haven't read any of his other books. Peruvian culture happens to be an interest of mine to the point where one of my children razzes me about it.

Allen's Brain said...

Then you'd probably appreciate one of my favorite recurring jokes. When I'm in a store or restaurant or something, and the host/ess introduces themselves, and says something to the effect of, "If you have any other questions, just ask," my knee-jerk reaction is to ask them, "What's the capital of Peru?"

PaperSmyth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PaperSmyth said...

If I was your server, I would only worry if you asked me what the capital of Bolivia was. *_*

(Those of you who don't get that, ask Wikipedia.)

Allen's Brain said...

The capital of Bolivia is "B."