I can't wait to get a photograph of the Virgin of the Tilted Washing Machine! You shouldn't be upset. actually, she sounds rather charming. Is the
              washing machine her head? Or is it balanced on the head. 

         Actually, it is on her head. Possibly the weight affected her brain; perhaps the water draining out of it has some connection. I suspect that the Palo Alto  Chamber of Commerce was behind the deal, since the statue may attract tourists like the fountain of the "little man" in Brussels. But, as a humanist, I am not impressed by these attempts to epater le bourgeois (but no, I am not a bourgeois) 

         Ronald Hilton, 12-05-97 

         Plaza Art Baffles Key Benefactor. Palo Alto now has a goddess of washing 

         MARK SIMON 

         PALO ALTO 

         Sponsor art by a committee and you end up with a bronze Grecian goddess bearing a washing machine over her head. Layer on the self-important public process Palo Alto has raised to an art form and the sculpture's unveiling will attract 50 toga-clad, drum-beating performance absurdists who offer an   in-your-face commentary about art and then gobble up the free food. And in the backdrop you'll find the man who paid for it all -- getting a sculpture he didn't want and a spectacle he can't quite fathom. The occasion was the public showing Sunday of ``Body of Urban Myth,'' a sculpture ordered up by  the Public Arts Commission of Palo Alto to decorate a plaza on Sheridan Avenue, near the north county courthouse. What it became was a tableaux -- a tale of what a city can make wealthy developers do and what will be done in the name of art. The sculpture is the centerpiece of a plaza developed by attorney Harold C. Hohbach, who built the Courthouse Plaza office building in 1968, and just finished the Sheridan Plaza, a 30-unit luxury apartment complex. Between the two buildings, Hohbach envisioned a faux Greek plaza, complete with a fountain, a small cafe and Greek architectural flourishes.
         To fulfill the city's requirement that the plaza include art, Hohbach chose 10-foot replicas of two statues of Greek warriors discovered in southern Italy.  Sculptor Marco Cochrane made the statues for Hohbach, after viewing the originals in Rome. He added weapons, shields and a helmet to recreate their original look, he said. The city's Public Arts Commission told Holbach the warriors weren't good enough. The city then sponsored a competition for a   different piece of work, to be financed by Hohbach. The winner was Brian Goggin, a sculptor whose best known public work is ``Defenestration,'' in  which furniture and appliances appear to be crawling out of the windows of a four-story building at the corner of Sixth and Howard streets in San Francisco. Of the judges who selected Goggin's sculpture, Hohbach was the only one who voted no. And the project went ahead, leading to Sunday's official unveiling -- a soiree featuring a tuxedoed pianist fingering pop tunes on a baby grand and a handsome spread from the cafe, co-sponsored by the city and Hohbach. In attendance were more than 100 people, including members of the Public Arts Commission, Hohbach, Goggin and their respective friends and families. After some brief remarks, Goggin announced he'd be back in five minutes for the unveiling. 

         BACK WITH REINFORCEMENTS: He returned with 50 friends transported on a silver-painted school bus emblazoned with the word ``Cyberbuss.'' Alongside, people were pedaling the ``Vegomatic'' -- a 20-foot- long flame-shooting contraption. It was a mixture of Mad Max and the Merry Pranksters. Goggin had changed from bow tie and boater to a red and gold toga. Goggin's friends were dressed in togas and headdresses that contained societal debris -- bicycle helmets with whisk brooms, bits of bicycle reflectors, hair entwined with Christmas tree lights and other flotsam and jetsam from modern living. The group -- described by participants as veterans of the ``Burning Man'' desert gathering, the San Francisco Mime Troupe and Theater Artaud and members of the Cacophony Society -- beat drums, delivered pronouncements on public art, burned small branches of mesquite and marched and pranced in circles around the still- unveiled statue. Then, amid more drum-beating and rhythmic chants, the sculpture was unveiled -- a 10-foot-high work featuring a Greek goddess lightly holding a front-loading washing machine over her head. Amid more chants, water began pouring out of the mouth of the washing machine. Unveiling completed, the performers descended on the tables of food and wine. The gathering began to resemble a slightly surreal cocktail party. 

         IN RETREAT: As the street theatrics advanced, Hohbach moved steadily to the rear of the plaza until he stood in the shadow of one of his Greek       warriors. A smile fixed on his face, Hohbach regarded the statue he said had cost him $40,000. He looked at the toga-clad dancers. He said it was nice that Goggin could ``get all these people to be ludicrous for him.'' Goggin, seated on the marble bench that encircles his work, said the sculpture -- and the toga-clad friends -- were a statement about the anachronisms that exist in dreams and memory. The human tendency is to fill in the blanks in our  memories, resulting in inconsistencies, he said. Such anachronisms are apparent in Hohbach's plaza -- statues recreated to a personal preference rather  than a historical accuracy, the use of Roman marble in a purportedly Greek plaza, the whole notion of recreating a Greek plaza in a distinctly modern setting. As for the specific piece he created, Goggin said, ``She is a contemporary heroine rejecting the traditional roles of women.. . . She's lifting a heavy object over her head and literally tipping convention on its head.'' In the rear of the plaza, his arms crossed, stood Cochrane, whose warrior sculptures had been relegated to the background. ``I just don't get the piece,'' he said, watching as water poured out of the washing machine and down the front of the Grecian goddess. Looking at his own statues, and then back at Goggin's, Cochrane said, ``It's just not my style. I'm really more of a serious person.''