YOU NAME IT, YOU TAKE OWNERSHIP, RIGHT? RIGHT.
Photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash
(This article may or may not appear on my new Substack page, where I’ve started posting mildly political observations every Friday. You are invited to subscribe (for free) to The Optimistic Eye and join the fun.)
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From time to time I pause to visit my name, etched in brass on the entry wall of my favorite museum, San Francisco’s de Young — part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (which also include my second favorite, the Legion of Honor Museum.)
Actually, I have too many favorite museums to fit into one blog space: the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, New York’s Whitney, Atlanta’s High . . . but my name is on permanent display only at the de Young.
This is because, in the long years after salt air ate into the aging facade of a former building and the Loma Prieta earthquake of 1989 pretty much settled the issue, it became necessary to build an entirely new structure where several previous structures had held an ever-increasing collection of wonderful fine art. A lot of fund-raising went on.
And how better to raise the last chunk of necessary funds than a naming project? I don’t remember the exact amount — this was in the late 1990s during the long campaign to preserve and restructure and rebuild — but it was enough for mid-list donors to stop and think. Probably $5,000 or $10,000. My husband and I stopped and thought and opted in.
As you can see, there were several others.
I bring this up today, having had one more of such occasional photos taken on one of my frequent visits to the de Young, because of the sense of ownership one gets from naming rights. I mean, aside from the fact that I love its collections and its visiting exhibitions and its gift shop and the Andy Goldsworthy sculpture I was lucky enough to watch him create just before the opening of the new building in 2005 — I have a proprietary interest in the institution which I ferociously defend. You drop an orange peel within my sight at your peril, unless you immediately pick it up.
So.
Why don’t we find a stretch of space on the U.S. Capitol grounds for naming rights? For a $1 fee you simply sign a pledge to defend the three co-equal branches of government against all autocrats — and while you’re at it you might defend the free press against tyrants and bullies and spreaders of misinformation intent on desecrating this place you now own.
Think about that. I already regularly take selfies on Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington (which I will resist posting here) because, among other things, that indelibly named space declares a truth. Truth is getting to be iffy; a free press ferrets it out.
Think how many millions of Americans of all patriotic stripes would sign such a monument. Take selfies every time they visit our nation’s capitol, reflect on this imperfect union they now own and defend. I’ll bet I could find a few artists willing to donate their time and skills to etch names into something.
Meanwhile, we could pay off the national debt.
