Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Popeye Character Trail

Today we visited the Popeye Festival Chester, Illinois which is the birthplace of Popeye.  They have a cute shop called Spinach Can Collectibles.  The town also features numerous statues of characters; Popeye is in bronze and the others in stone.  These are exceptional examples of municipal art; it's very difficult to render cartoon characters as good statues, but they are gorgeous.  The town also has a wonderful sense of history, with many of its old stone or brick buildings intact; along with several nice public spaces such as the gazebo park where Wimpy's statue stands flanked by murals on the neighboring buildings.  The parking lot for the courthouse also has a monument made of stone and brick from a historic hotel, a clever example of recycling older materials to keep a bit of the history.

It's like a little slice of Terramagne.  Over there, most towns have some kind of claim to fame and they'll do a festival for it. They show off local color, historic buildings, and the like.  Collecting is a very popular hobby -- as you can see from my character sheets -- so there are a lot of little oddball shops that specialize in different knicknacks.  The parks often have a statue or other feature for which they are named, and municipal art is very popular.  In several cases, people have made monuments from things smashed during a major cape fight or leftover bits of gizmology; Bluehill has some of these.
Tags: community, holiday, illinois, personal
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  • 2 comments
siliconshaman

siliconshaman

September 11 2016, 10:30:49 UTC 4 years ago

Making a mental note of this for inclusion in subsequent stories. After all, people in Terrmagne generally have a better work/leisure balance, and thus time to indulge hobbies. Ergo, they will have hobbies!

Although, making civic statues out of left-over gizmology strikes me as a bit unsafe... and probably gives SPAZMAT anxiety attacks from time to time.
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

September 11 2016, 21:05:44 UTC 4 years ago

>> Making a mental note of this for inclusion in subsequent stories. <<

I'm glad I could help.

>> After all, people in Terrmagne generally have a better work/leisure balance, and thus time to indulge hobbies. Ergo, they will have hobbies! <<

This is true. The average is one hobby per person, which is what most folks have. Some don't have any, or else have made their passion into a profession instead of a hobby. Others have more than one. The expectation is that people will have a hobby, because it's good for relaxation, personal development, and connecting with other folks who share your interests.

Another fun example is, literally, local color. Places with a color in the name often use that as a civic theme. It encourages residents to collect things of that color. So for example, Bluehill has a shop called The Blue Place which sells things like cobalt glass, china, spackleware, blue clothes, and the like.

>> Although, making civic statues out of left-over gizmology strikes me as a bit unsafe... and probably gives SPAZMAT anxiety attacks from time to time. <<

It is a bad idea. See the movie The Incredibles for an example of why. But Terramagne has perennial challenges around this because people just like souvenirs. It's mostly the wild young things who will grab chunks of scrap during a street fight, but it can put everyone at risk. Superheroes are prone to keeping a trophy room, too.