But lo! What to my wondering eyes does appear:
Since the Kennedy Administration, the light-blue and white jet carrying the president has been more than just transportation for American leadership. It has been a symbol of what that leadership was meant to represent. An internationally-minded, forward-thinking ethos steeped in Modernism and Internationalism. Now, though, the White House is more America First than American Century and Air Force One is getting a new look to match.It seems that Donald Trump is the Worst President Ever® because he is painting the new Air Force One differently than Marilyn Monroe's boyfriend. Oooooooh kaaaaaaay.
An Air Force procurement publication revealed yesterday as part of the Department of Defense’s 2021 budget has confirmed what we had been fearing for months. The next plane to serve as Air Force One, which the Department of Defense hopes to have in service by 2024, will have a new livery supposedly designed by President Trump himself to look “more American.” The new paint will mean the Air Force is doing away with the classic Modernist scheme we’ve known for decades. And frankly, I think the new one looks awful.
Because gear heads love them some Modernist Art Theory with their rides. Give me Modernist Art Theory, or give me death!
Filed under WTF because, well, you know. The post there is way longer than you'd imagine, and is actually worth a view for the complete "WTF" experience. Stuff like this:
The idea was to use the avant-garde as a way to demonstrate what American freedoms and values could offer on the world stage. A really excellent book called Cold War Modernists by historian Greg Barnhisel lays out the whole story: The State Department was working with world-famous Modernist architects to bring impressive, occasionally even challenging design to capital cities around the world. These embassies would hold reading rooms filled with books that critics adored as the best America had on offer but some Congressmen (Joe McCarthy among them) wanted to ban. The State Department brought modern dancer Martha Graham and jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong on tour to demonstrate that American tastes were as sophisticated as any, and they even surreptitiously published high-brow magazines for European audiences, asserting the legitimacy of American voices in left-leaning intellectual circles to tilt Western Europe away from the Iron Curtain. If America was going to face off against a comprehensive ideology like communism, it needed its own philosophical and aesthetic ethos to rally the West behind. It found one in Modernism.All this sound and fury over an airplane.
Jalopnik - come for the Big Block V8s and get the avant-guard Modernist theory aimed at effete European intellectuals. Riiiiiight.
Frankly, Air Force One should have been blaring the theme from Team America, World Police alternated with Wagner's Ride Of The Valkyries, from a dozen embedded 10KW loudspeakers pointed at the ground, every time it took off and landed since 9/11.
ReplyDeleteAnd I still want bomb and missile racks on the wings, loaded for bear with warshots, 24/7/365. If Democrat presidents want to flush strawberry-scented toilet paper out the lavatory evacuation ports during Dem administrations, that's fine too.
If some poncey gearhead wants to impress the Bernie camp, he should burn his car, get a bus pass, and slit his wrists, for all the use I have for him.
Do these people get upset over anything important, or is it misplaced outrage and manufactured crises all the way down?
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't dispute Aesop, I would like to see Air Force One reborn In C130 format and see Trump manning a howitzer over DC.
ReplyDeleteProvided Trump took care to avoid collateral damage. Evacuate all of the hookers, drug dealers and pimps out of town first.
I'd hate to see innocents harmed.
My thought was to scatter a handful of change into Pennsylvania Ave and shout, "Free campaign contributions/retirement bennies!!!" and bomb the crap out of the rats that show up.
Funny for a guy concerned about design, it lists his garage as: 1973 VW Beetle, 2006 Scion xB, 1990 Nissan Pao, 1991 Yugo GV Plus • Not-so-running: 1973 Reliant Scimitar, 1977 Dodge Tioga RV
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of ugliness for a man who claims to know style. Also, the original paint scheme was by the Avanti's designer. While the Avanti was quite something in its time, but it could also do with quite an update if it were sold today.
I went and looked at the new design. It's fine. If Pr. Obama had suggested the exact same design, everyone in the MSM would have been getting tingles over how great it was.
ReplyDeleteIf that is what happens, we'll get used to it; but hubby and I think if it's not broke, don't fix it.
ReplyDeleteRead somewhere that Trump wants all new federal buildings to fit within the...
ReplyDeleteWait for it...
Wait for it...
The Federalist style.
O... M... G!!!
You mean we aren't supposed to be trying to exceed Soviet-style ugliness in these 21st Century Times?
Seriously, if we could just go back in time and stop all the ugliness in federal buildings from the late '50s on.
As to the livery of the presidential fleet, yeah, pansy-arsed blue was never my favorite. So... 1960's. So... Kennedy-ish.
Proud of what the aircraft represent. Not so much the color scheme.
As to arming the presidential aircraft? No. Not just no, HECK NO!
Gone are the days when the diplomatic ship used it's diplomatic cannon for diplomatic purposes.
Defenses? Yes. Offenses? No.
"I went and looked at the new design."
ReplyDeleteHe even said so, himself. He's just butthurt because Trump changed it.
^Aesop: like the idea of a sound track for Air Force One. Maybe add the "Imperial March" from Star Wars.
ReplyDeleteIn my often biased opinion, I don't give a ratzazz if they paint it with giant Day-Glo polka dots in alternating green, orange and pink, (though I do think the current color scheme looks "classy.") What matters more is who is inside. I'd much rather have President Trump than, say an Obama or Clinton.
I was saving the Imperial March for Trump's re-inauguration parade.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm sentimental like that.
Much of what State promoted overseas and now promotes overseas is hardly the best of Western culture, especially modernism, which frankly looks like half baked Stalinist architecture and is featured in most government office buildings in DC. Featureless boxes that could be warehouses, hotels, schools, or bakeries, they can be found any where devoid of any distinguishing features. No one values them, no one will lament them when they are torn down.
ReplyDeleteAs for the music, jazz as an art form died some years ago devoid of those features which make music memorable.