‘DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE INTERNET’ ~Abe Lincoln
In this edition of the Reader, your faithful correspondent writes about the model for the Statue of Liberty, Jabba the Trump, and the hazards of driving in Tilbury East, Ontario.
This week: a 4-minute read, plus a brief video
WAS LADY LIBERTY A SINGER?
Did you know the widow of the creator of the Singer sewing machines lent her face to the Statue of Liberty? Neither did I. That’s because she didn’t.
Let me explain.
Isabella Boyer was born in Paris to an African pastry chef father and an English mother. She was, in a word, gorgeous, which might go a long way to explaining why she married at age 20, to sewing-machine maker Isaac Singer, who was 50. This is a clear violation of the “half-your-age-plus-seven-years rule” for May-December matchups, but hey, it was the 19th Century. After Isaac kicked off, Isabella became the richest woman in all of France.
Now this is where it gets interesting because according to the story, she was then chosen as the model for the Statue of Liberty, presumably because she was the living embodiment of the American dream.
By this point Isabella had married Dutch violinist Victor Robstett and became a celebrity, which was how she came to meet the famous French sculptor Frederick Bartoldi. He was the guy commissioned to create the Statue of Liberty as France’s birthday gift to the U.S. for its 100th birthday. Legend has it Bartoldi was so impressed by Isabella’s face that he decided to use it as a model for his sculpture.
Great story, right? It’s also the product of someone’s vivid imagination. Yes, there was an Isabella Boyer-Singer. And to be sure, there is a Statue of Liberty, but the two are unrelated. The photo of Isabella depicted here certainly looks like the woman in the statue, but it is not Isabella. The photo is a product of artificial intelligence, created by Dutch artist Bas Uterwijk using several portraits of both real people and painted images. “The portrait,” said Uterwijk, “is synthetic.”
Sometimes you just want the made-up stuff to be true. Then again, there is Donald Trump.
NO BARGAIN FOR YOUNG JEDIS
Speaking of Trump, alert reader Lorne Eedy from St. Marys, Ontario, writes to follow up on an item in our newsletter about Trump (‘Ear ya go!’, Aug.
4).
He said the painting shown here was made available by a Cincinnati artist on May the Fourth Be With You Day. Lorne says no American buyer wanted it because those who like Trump hated it, and those who hate Trump didn’t want a reminder of him in their home. So he bought it. The painting now hangs in Lorne’s collection room.
BOGIE WOULD APPROVE
Raymond Chandler’s fictional detective Philip Marlowe pre-delivered the verdict on Trump: “You talk too damn much and too damn much of it is about you.”
Pundit (and Prince Edward County, Ontario, resident) David Frum on Twitter, or whatever it’s called now
WHY WE HAVE GRANDKIDS
Sticking with the Star Wars theme, our daughter Lauren writes that as she marks 40 trips around the sun, she is beginning to lose her sense of days and dates.
On one particularly absent-minded morning, she recalls our granddaughter Sadie turning to her sister Millie and noting: “Whoa. The dementia is strong in this one today.”
DESTINY’S DOOR
Vigilant reader Bill McAuslan from Clinton, Ontario, (by the way, the pastor who married Vicki and me back in the day) was inspired by recent items about the roads in Sweden and British Columbia to recount his own experiences in strange, exotic places—such as Tilbury East township.
For the geographically challenged, Tilbury East was once one of four Tilburys in the wilds of southwestern Ontario. The townships of Tilbury North and Tilbury West, and the town of Tilbury were the others. That was before regional government flushed them all away.
Anyway, Bill writes: “When I was interviewed for the job at Tilbury-Quinn (the pastoral charge of which Bill became the vicar), Judge Bob Eaton and Ron Cox drove me out to visit a couple of folks in Tilbury East. After an hour or so Bob gave me the keys and asked, ‘Can you get us back to Tilbury?’ When I pulled up in front of the church about 15 minutes later, he said, ‘I guess you’ll do. We’ve lost more potential ministers in Tilbury East.’”
That’s because of the road system in the township, which according to Bill was the result of three separate land surveys when the roads were first mapped out: one influenced by the Detroit River, one by Lake Erie, and the other by the Thames River and Lake St Clair. They all met up in Tilbury East, and the result looks like the Southern California freeway system as described by Johnny Carson’s alter ego, Art Fern, on the old Tonight Show.
MORE FROM THE MAILBAG
Re subscribing to My Sunday Reader. I’m enjoying your newsletter, Terry. Looking forward to more of the same. Jerry Jergensen, Black Forest, Colorado
Re the link to last week’s shameless plug for the audiobook of Lethbridge which is here. Instantly engaging. Well done! Liliane Pilot, High Rolls, New Mexico
AND FINALLY …
There will be no shameless plug this week. (That said, we have extra big news next week.) In its place we offer this video. I made it with the help of our daughter Carson back in 2015 when we lived in southern California. It was shot at the Palm Springs Municipal Cemetery to commemorate my brother Mike’s 65th birthday. It's three-and-a-half minutes of willful silliness.
