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Last updated on July 27th, 2017 at 01:10 pm
Which are closest to the actual captions supplied by ABC arts writer Emma Rogers to the images below? Test your captioning skillz:
a) Peter Adams eases out from underneath A Star Bangled Spanner after installing it on a cliff near Bondi Beach. Adams says his artwork represents the United States’ meddling in world affairs, causing unrest to continue, like a ‘spanner in the works’. Do Americans use that expression?
b) Phillip Adams is jammed beneath A Spannered Bangle Star after mistaking the artwork for a cake. Adams says the artwork clearly resembles a large, particularly delicious cake, such as he has delivered to his house whenever ‘I want cake’. Do Americans use that expression?
c) Grizzly Adams is trapped by a wheel-changing tool after attempting to replace a flat tyre on his enormous SUV. Soon bear cubs will eat him. Karma, imperialist bear-molesting dude! Do Americans use that expression?
a) A jogger does push ups on a rock in front of Refuge, by New Zealand-born Denise Hume, which, the photo notes tell me, is a response to the refugee situation in Australia.
b) A logger does push ups on a rock in front of an old-growth forest he’s just harvested, which, the photo notes tell me, is an arrogant denial of the greenhouse crisis in Australia.
c) A virgin attempts to prove he is sexually experienced lest primitive Sydney villagers burn him in a wicker man, under construction in the background.
a) Swiss-born artist Verena Truninger finalises her work, Messengers, which conveys her reverence to the mystery of spirit and nature.
b) Swiss-born artist Trerena Vuringer finalises her work, Couriers, which conveys her mystery at the reverence of spirit and nature.
c) Sydney-born artist Torana Verandah finalises her work, Staffers, which conveys her mysterious reverence of the ABC.
- Star Bangled Spanner… you know that joke was funnier when Arthur C. Clarke did it… almost 60 years ago.Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 11 02 at 11:33 AM • permalink
- And it’s usually a muscular monkey-wrench, that jams-up the machine. A spanner is something that spans…bridges? A dog? A cocker-spanner?Posted by -keith in mtn. view on 2005 11 02 at 12:08 PM • permalink
- 1) Patriotic Limbo Dusty busts a move to the Yankee Doodle Dandy, delighting all in attendance at the annual Daughters of the American Revolution Convention held here in Poughkeepsie.
2)After witnessing a thousand pointy sticks fall from the heavens, crushing his “partner”, Chip Hungwel falls prostrate praying to God to forgive his deviant behavior.
3) Street vendor, Conchita Gutierrez displays her selection of genuine replica Pancho Villa death-masks during last weeks “What in the Hell am I Doing in Chihuahua” Festival.
- 1. Peter Adams does limbo on Titanic just before the unpleasantries.
2. Mutant asparagus sneak up on Islamofascist looking for latest “volunteer.”
3. Verena Truninger realizes makeup smudged, seeks new look.Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2005 11 02 at 02:44 PM • permalink
- Richard wrote:
Star Bangled Spanner… you know that joke was funnier when Arthur C. Clarke did it… almost 60 years ago.
Star-mangled spanner, IIRC. Yeah, one of those really short stories he wrote. Do not go near neutron stars. It’s a Bad Thing. 😉
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 11 02 at 04:22 PM • permalink
- #1 The US comes to the aid of the world again with its can-do, fix-it attitude and a big spanner.
#2 The world’s largest ecologically-sustainable bed of nails
#3 A grim reminder of Pol Pot’s mountain of skulls. This artist has put faces on the ‘skulls’ to remind the world that real people died under the brutal communist dictator.
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 11 02 at 06:24 PM • permalink
- #1- Symbolising the stifling of dissent, a giant fascist Amerikkkan wrench crushes the nuts of a harmless peace artivist.
#2- Artist Tarquin Flambe’ desperately tries to prove that he has lead in his pencil. His partner, known only as “Wig”, derided this display, stating that Tarquin couldn’t blow out a candle.
#3- An ABC propsmaster puts the finishing touches to this week’s animatronic audience for “The Glass House”/“Vulture”/“Spics and Specs” etc. Coupled with an endless loop tape of nitrous oxide addicts, this ploy convinces Corporation directors that this shit actually pulls an audience and is not self-indulgent bollocks feeding the already over-inflated egos of unfunny hacks who haven’t had an original idea since they first kakked their Kimbies.
- Habib, you funny bugger.
To me the spanner is a positive metaphorical tool thingy. It connotes fixing things and stuff. America, f**k yeah, coming again to be the handyman of the world yeah.
Cripes, Sydney is full of arty crap. None of that down here in Melbourne.
Posted by Major Anya on 2005 11 02 at 10:51 PM • permalink
- #3 Margo makes masks for all the men who said they wouldn’t touch her without one.Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2005 11 03 at 12:50 AM • permalink
- #2- A participant in next year’s Vlad the Impaler marathon trains in anticipation for the event, a highlight of Oxford St’s multicutural extravaganza celebrating exotic cultures, this one the Slavic practice of shoving sharpened sticks up the bottoms of Ottoman Turks. A veteran of last years described the event as gruelling- “frankly, it was a pain in the arse; I wound up with a rectum like a wizard’s sleeve.”
- #1 Plumber determined not to show his crack while picking up dropped novelty spanner.
#2 Man makes love to rock. Other pricks wait their turn.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2005 11 03 at 02:05 AM • permalink
- #1- Struck-off medical mirth-maker Patch Adams shows the smallest tool of any kind he is allowed near following his disastrous malpractice hearing, where he was found to have left a squeeze-horn, a propellor beanie and a novelty oversize surgical slipper inside a patient. While this is far from unusual in surgical procedures (especially those performed in public hospitals by winos), the patient in question was having their ears syringed at the time.
- #2- A recruit trains in front of the site of the first of many anti-terrorist bastions being erected by the progressive Waverley Council in Sydney, Australia. The council intends to circle it’s entire area with a ring of sharpened poles to ward off terrorists, especially bogans from Mt Druitt and the US Marine Corps. A spokes-being for the local authority said this- “we only wanted to use organic materials, no multi-national steel or concrete, so we swiped some Douglas Firs that were only going to be used to promote an archaic Christian festival which has been tacked on to an authentic pagan one. We got the idea from a Burt Lancaster movie- these things did such a good job of keeping the Vikings and Fresians out of Saxon villages”.
- #3- Former Fairfax staffer and now street person Margo Kingston is seen rearranging her collection of “talk people” outside her rubbish-lined cave overlooking Tallow Beach at Byron Bay. Margo is one of the attractions of the bustling seaside resort as she weaves around town on her tyreless bicycle, loudly berating one or more of her discarded mardi-gras masks over the Howard government’s responsibility for the death of General Gordon, and that Dick Cheney is stalking her and stealing her milk money.
- Right. An American doesn’t “bung a spanner in the works”; he “throws a wrench in the machine”.
No, Paco, an American “throws a wrench in the works.”
A spanner? Seriously? What an odd word.
Posted by PatrickPrescott on 2005 11 03 at 03:19 AM • permalink
- Gimme a stilson anyday, baby!
#29. Habib, I love it. Although I didn’t know that US Marines were bogans. I thought they were jarheads.
Posted by Nilknarf Arbed on 2005 11 03 at 03:35 AM • permalink
A spanner? Seriously? What an odd word.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2005 11 03 at 04:13 AM • permalink
- maybe you could explain why a woman’s handbag becomes a ‘pocket book’ in American.
In my experience that is largely an east coast thing.
Posted by PatrickPrescott on 2005 11 03 at 06:30 PM • permalink
- I assume I paid for this shiite with my taxes?? Ho Humm.
In reference to some comments here: Melbourne people STILL really DO buy into that ancient, puerile slanging match, “Melbourne vs Sydney”. I know, …. business has forced me to live in Vic these last 28 interminable months. I have never encountered such myopia, paranoia, self-indulgence and over-compensation since visiting France in the 80’s. Small dick syndrome gone mad.
“Melbourne – the most liveable city in the world”. Yeah….right! The true home of the hair-brained. It’s like Canberra – circa 1967.
It is fitting that the classic Aussie joke uses Melbourne as the punch-line.
“What’s the best view in Australia?”
Melbourne,… in your rear-view mirror.Posted by Gravelrash on 2005 11 04 at 07:03 PM • permalink
