Effigies!

I wasn't close enough to be sure. It was dark, one lone streetlight on the corner. A small art gallery. A gathering of people. Music playing, Guns N Roses' "Paradise City," blasting out at maximum volume, laughter ringing out in the night. The crowd out in front of the gallery, standing in a circle beneath a large tree.

A man armed with a large stick was beating an effigy of our current President. The effigy was hanging from a branch of the tree. A large, over-stuffed, clownish figure; orangey, hideous. The crowd was cheering on the man doing the beating. Laughing, delighted at every whack of the stick. It was an echo of a much more grave and horrible scene.

This was a charade, a spectacle, an entertainment. Cathartic, joyful. A medieval performance art.

I must say, I understood the idea behind the spectacle. The man in the White House is an obscenity, an abomination, a plague, a cancer, a horrible joke. Effigies, voodoo dolls; yes, ritualistic, symbolic acting out. I get it.