Obama and his Library-to-Be

Obama and his Library-to-Be

Marion DS Dreyfus

Following in the footsteps and traditions of all recent U.S. presidents, Barack Hussein Obama, our embattled #44, is busily planning his legacy archives, to be domiciled in a place of his Obama Foundation's choosing. 

Off-the-griddle scuttlebutt is that the site chosen is in fact Chicago, home of the man before he ascended to Messianic (in-)fallibility. Chicago, City of Broad Shoulders, a darling poetic inspiration of Carl Sandburg, second city in population after NYC (and hence the source of the comedic troupe and nightspot that has lent so many fantastic comics and hard-pitch terrific actors to SNL: Second City) -- and now, the most corrupt burg in the country. Home of dozens of weekend murders. Home of the deplorably wretched mayor Rahm ("dead fish") Emanuel, the least achieved of the otherwise stellar three Emanuel boys. 

It saddens one. But what speculation fleeted through the whorls and crevices of the brain before this selection was apparently pinned down for Illinoisers to visit, once they've hit the superior Observatory, green Chicago River on St. Pat's Day, legendary art museums and Millionaire's Mile? 

Hottest bets for the precise venue of said library vied among Pyongyang, North Korea (DPRK), Tehran, Iran, or Havana, Cuba, owing to the sweet spot he holds for each of these loci, cherished by the golfing-est President. 

Acolytes of the chief executive smile in recollection at each of the life-points wherein Mr. Obama showered his favors on these venues. 

The world has long been struck mute by the courtesy and consideration lavished on Kim Jong Un, North Korea's unquestioned bad-hair-day Dear Leader mini-Il. 

Nor can anyone easily forget the endless considerations, gifts and dropped sanctions gifted to Supreme Leader and runners-up in Tehran, Iran, recipients of emollient bribes to kind of, sort of not complete the 99%-finished nuclearization of that loving mideast madcap state, which laughingly and incessantly kids around with the world, post-receipt of all Mr. Obama's gifts, in the face of congressional clucking and tsk-tsks, with jubilant cries of "Death to America! Death to Israel!" 

All listeners agree those avowals are just working boilerplate, candies handed out to the little people in the town squares, where thousands mass to view entertaining gallows hijinks of suspended homosexual citizens, or ever-amusing stonings of adulterous ladies once considered just average missuses trying to get along under trying circumstances. Or forced marriages. 

Not last nor least among the library choices was Havana, Cuba, where the brothers Castro, jolly, bearded community disorganizers both, and noted deniers of civil or human rights for a rollicking week of decades, disingenuously accepted emoluments distributed by Mr. Obama for absolutely no reason at all, given the intransigent postures of the brothers, and their noted astonishment at the goodies offered them by Big Bro to the north. They needn't even yield up their longtime political prisoners, given safekeeping refuge away from eternal incarceration in the States, should they be released back to the care of the Washington folk. Governor Cuomo of NY made swift moves to approach the Red brothers for NY State business: Quick work that might well net his suffering Empire State much-needed monies (in view of the governor's having nixed that deplorable source of hundreds of thousands of jobs in the most needy of upstate counties, for oil exploration and fracking). 

"Let them eat grapes! Or apples," suggests the photogenic-challenged Gov, referring to the only industries that supply any jobs or GDP to the nether regions beyond the five boroughs of New York City. 

The delighted, blighted residents of Havana will be celebrating the infusion of much-needed modernity, construction and/or books and CDs to their sagging metropolis of ancient cars, stolen goods, dilapidated building inventory and endless pricy cheroots. The festive open-air jail country that is partially taken by the U.S.'s Guantanamo, Gitmo in local parlance, is ready for partying with the fun-loving greyhead Barry Soetoro. They'll eagerly push aside the in-flocking Lincoln Center film society tours to get this bounden edifice off the proverbial ground. 

There remains one last, half-decided site that expressed rapture anticipating the proposed biblioteque. To house the J-Zee rap-music-and Beyoncé -collection of the skinny Minnie ex- of Chicago's crime-laced Southern regions (where the son of atheist porn-star Stanley Ann once plied his "organizing" charlatanry in the style best exemplified by the Rev. Al Charlatan in porcine race-hustling successes and huckster fun, extracting untaxed baksheesh from corporate entities committed to quiet functioning without strikes and work stoppages), the BHO Foundation is thinking: Probably not Jerusalem, given all the tsimmis of the past seven years. 

Hey: Maybe Nairobi?

The once-and-not-future White House king, after all, looks great in a turban and dashiki -- as seen in reclaimed photos -- among his multitudinous half-sisters, half-brothers, sometime-cousins, semi-aunts and demi-uncles, and his black grandparent. He may not look like any of them, but they once loved him and were proud of his achievement, even if his star has faded badly since he visited bucketloads of nothing upon them since his second coming advent. 

So there you have it. The hard-fought battle would have hinged, no doubt, on the funds raised for said folio repository, as well as cultural elements like where will the most money haul from. Chicago, at least the elite, has its masses of movers and shakers and money makers.

Whatever the eventual building in the Windy City looks like, a separate wing annex will probably be dedicated to wife Michelle, marked by sculptural replicas of inedible garden vegs and "healthy" foods rejected by schoolchildren across the land. Kenyan audiences might be happier downing the foods, of course, not tossing them, it being a poor-ish state. But in the interests of longevity of display and curatorial peace of mind, all lifelike vegetables and Paleo-foods ordained by the Amazonian missus introduced by the Rev. ("God damn-America") Wright will be permanently polystyrened for perpetuity. 

Like as not, the next year and a half will reveal his ultimate choice of architectural diadem for his shelving resting place. His Frank Lloyd Wright for his Falling Mortars. His Frank Gehry for solidity and endurance. 

Meanwhile, expect the adulation-addled New York Times architecture critic to expend sinkloads on the wonders of its internals, higlights, sighlights and skylights: A blend of closely held, intransparent materials and nay-say congressional flack, two materials that have stood the soon-to-be-ex POTUS in excellent stead over a meteoric career marked by accomplishment of -- like his useful initial Initial, and the iconic temperature gradient -- absolute zero.