Stan Apps

Public Art of the New Deal

I

Community sanitation
Keeps flies away
In 1940
And today

Community sanitation planning
Begins with
Concrete floor and foundation,
A modern approved sanitary privy

Outwits the giant fly
Keeping him away
From deadly disease
That comes out of: You, Sir!

John Buczak is telling you
And simultaneously showing you
On behalf of the federal government:
Look here, man, woman, child of Illinois!

Look and see!
A giant fly
Looking to catch disease
And spread disease, on wings

It comes from you, man, woman, child!
It’s up to you, man, woman, child!

Community sanitation planning
Begins with
Concrete floor and foundation
In the consciousness of the community

A modern approved sanitary privy
In 1940
And today
Begins in the mind of: You!

Man, woman, child of Illinois!
Communities of Illinois!
John Buczak is warning you!
A giant fly’s after your shit!


II

Oh, the Gaieties of 1936
Are mostly girls,
Federally funded girls

At the Greek Open Air Theatre
Vermont Avenue at Griffith Park,
With orchestra and dancing girls

Federally funded dancing follies
Opens Sept 8
Nightly except Monday!

We are giving you this information,
Federally funded information,
Our society is advanced enough

To inform you
And provide you dancing girls
And provide the dancing girls

With a chance
To dance for you,
Courtesy Stage Show Division of the WPA

Skirts and hats, arms and legs
We’re putting America to work,
Mostly girls with elegant long legs

Oh, the federally funded follies!
For relief of anxiety and to promote good cheer
The Gaieties of 1936.


III

High above us, ghostly horses,
Buffalos and men in loincloths
Surge among the clouds

A woman with a baby in her arms
And a man dressed in the skin
Of a blown-away buffalo

In the lobby of the Dick Cheney Federal Building
They are traveling across the gun-shot prairies
Hoping against hope to arrive

And to build this Federal Post Office
And a society with sufficient archival resourcefulness
To correct the artist’s name:

It has been misprinted long enough!
Let it not be misprinted no more—she is a patriot!
Her correct name is Ms. Louise Harrington Emerson Ronnebeck

The title of her work is
The Fertile Land Remembers
In the lobby of the Dick Cheney Federal Building

There is (and there shall always be) a plaque
With her name correctly spelled.
This fertile state of Wyoming recollects her:

Ms. Louise Harrington Emerson Ronnebeck,
She put the men in loincloths among clouds,
She made them blow away in the gigantic prairie winds,

An infinite stampede of clouds
Containing horses, buffaloes and men
Containing everything that we have killed

In the lobby of the Dick Cheney Federal Building
At 100 East B Street, Casper, Wyoming
Officially redesignated by H. R. 3453 in May of 1998.

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